Posts Tagged ‘writers’

Short post today. I spent my day outside with a distressed and very lonely horse after his two buddies went to their new home, so I’m worn out emotionally, and I don’t have much brain for anything at this point.

I wanted to pose a question to all of you out there in blog land about beta readers. I’ve heard about people waiting until their WIP is finished before sending it to beta, but I’ve also heard of plenty of people sending it chapter by chapter. I can see the merits of both: if you wait until it’s complete, the story won’t be too terribly influenced by the preferences of the beta readers; if you go chapter by chapter, there may be less fussing to be done later if the beta readers catch mistakes, inconsistencies, or unbelievable bits as you go. Thing is, I can’t decide which of these approaches is right for me.

So! Poll time! What’s your vote? I’d love to hear your reasoning in the comments.

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The prompt this week was, “A covert trip into an attic reveals something unexpected.” Here is what came out. It’s not really an attic, but the equivalent in a castle, I suppose:

He hadn’t been to this part of the castle before. It was quiet and, judging by the thick layer of dust adorning the old chairs and tables along the length of the hall, no one had ventured there in years. Every step raised a puff of dust from the carpet and left a dim footprint behind in the plush fibers. The hallway seemed to go on forever, and several times he almost turned back. But he had no meetings or obligations that day, and he was desperate for some time alone.

The rooms along the way were all open. The furniture inside lay silent and unused, draped in white linen to protect it from the dusty, gritty air. The hulking shapes looked monstrous in the dim light of pre-dawn, their shadows taking on lives of their own when an errant breeze puffed through the crack in the window and ruffled the thin cotton curtains.

He passed several sitting rooms and an empty library before he reached the end of the hall, where he found a single closed door. He tried the latch, but years of disuse had left it full of sand, and it wouldn’t budge. He pushed against the door with his shoulder, but the latch held. It only took a few seconds of internal debate before he stepped back and delivered a hard kick to the door, successfully snapping the latch and granting him access. It was his castle, after all. He could have it replaced.

Pushing open the door, he stepped inside. Here, the furniture hadn’t been covered, and it looked like the belongings had been hastily packed: clothes were strewn across the bed, and dresses hung abandoned in the wardrobe beside the window. The only thing in the room that so much as hinted at who the former occupant had been was a small, hand-stitched journal placed neatly in the center of the desk.

He lifted the cover and ran his fingers reverently over the name written there in a now-familiar script: “Heletha, queen of Udoma.” The first page felt like stone as he turned it, heavy and oppressive. Part of him didn’t want to read his mother’s words, read about how she’d abandoned him and his father, or how she married another man and built another life for herself. But still, part of him longed to find a way to feel close to her, to connect with the mother he’d never met, and the one who had made him king of this desolate wasteland. He wanted to find an explanation for her choice that wasn’t simply about bitterness towards Leehab. He needed confirmation that he hadn’t just been a last resort and that just maybe, his mother had known what she was doing.

The first entry was only seven words long: “Private. By royal decree, do not read.” She’d been dead for almost a year. Somehow, he imagined that no one was going to care if he read it now.

When he turned the page, his heart fell. It was blank. Four more pages of the same, and he hurled the book at the wall. All he wanted was answers, but even that seemed too much to ask in this god-forsaken desert. He took a couple of deep breaths, hands fisted in his hair. Once he’d calmed himself, he rose and retrieved the journal. But when he went to smooth some crumpled pages near the middle, he froze, eyes running over the tightly packed words that spilled across the page.

He flipped frantically back to the beginning, paging through the blank sheaves until he came upon the first real entry almost a quarter of the way through the book. Whatever his mother had to say, she had really wanted it to stay a secret.

“For the first time in my life, I feel as if I’m an alien in my own homeland. For my people and my country, I have left the man I love and my child to marry another to rule beside me. Many a night I have lain awake and dreamed of stealing away to be with them, to be happy. But my first obligation must be to my people. They have been too long beneath the dark shadow of my father, and have been too long hungry. They need me.”

Theo rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read any more, but when he turned the page, he found a folded sheet of stationary, and when he opened it, he was surprised to find his own name printed neatly at the top.

“My dear Theonis:

“You are a month old today. I wish I could be there to see how you have grown and changed since your birth, but I cannot risk the travel.

“Eso says that I must never allow my intended to discover your existence. But how can I possibly endeavor to adequately conceal the way I ache for you? I long to have you feeding at my breast, to touch your soft hair, to kiss your tiny fingers, and to play with your tiny toes. I am loathe to think of any other woman being mother to you when it is all I ever wanted.

“I fear that I will never see you again.”

Eso had been right; he was more like his mother than even he had realized. She had sacrificed her family for her country and her people when they needed her most; he had sacrificed his search for love when they had needed food and trade more than they had needed a happy king.

Enjoy!

This is my first piece for Write Anything’s [Fiction] Friday. Writing it was a blast! I actually wrote this on Tuesday, but who cares. That doesn’t matter.

I thought, as a fun change of pace and in the spirit of FF’s celebration of the first draft, I’d scan my handwritten pages for this and post those as a reading option along with my typed version. So, here they are in order. Click the thumbnails for the full-sized images:

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I also thought it would be fun to record this piece on Audioboo, for those who might want to just listen. (There are a few skips in the recording, but it doesn’t seem to have skipped out anything important.)

Here’s the typed version:

———— Start time: 5:20p

Kalane Manor was small by noble standards: the stables housed only five horses, the serving staff numbered under ten, the windows were small and plain, and the drapes were crudely dyed coarse linen. Though the grounds were less expansive than those of the royal family and other more well-to-do dukes and duchesses, none could compare to the beauty of the hamlet the Duke and Duchess of Kalane oversaw.

The gardens of the manor itself boasted fruit trees and a variety of vegetables, as well as a plethora of perfectly pruned flowers and shrubs. Outside the manor gates, each small cottage had a similar garden that ran the length of the old, rutted dirt road.

One of Theo’s first memories was of wandering through the manor’s garden while his father spoke to the Duke. He was perfectly content to be alone, humming tunelessly to himself and pulling dried leaves off of the shrubs as he passed them. It was the first time he’d been there during the summer, and the air was cool and hung heavy with the scent of ginger flowers.

He picked his way along the cobbled path to the bench he knew was tucked away beneath the tallest evergreen. But where he expected to find his usual quiet solitude, he found instead a small girl, dress scrunched up at the knees and white stockings smeared with dirt, sprawled beneath the bench seat with a book. He knew the Duke of Kalane had a daughter, but he’d never met her. She and her mother spent the bitter winters farther north with the Duke’s sister, and he hadn’t even thought that, on this unexpected summer visit, she might be home.

When she lifted slate gray eyes, he felt like an ant in the shadow of a foot. Her eyebrows drew together and she closed her book, lips pursed.

“Who are you?”

Theo glanced around, sure that the question in such a cold, vicious tone couldn’t possibly be meant for him. One glance back at the girl assured him that, yes, she was talking to him.

“Theonis,” he said. “Son of the Archer. Are you the Duke’s daughter?”

She pulled herself out from under the bench and smoothed her skirt down over her knees. When she dropped into a sloppy curtsey, he could see that her red pigtail braids were two different lengths. “Emia. I’ll be a duchess someday.”

Theo tried to picture this short, dirty, freckled little girl in the elaborate dress of a noblewoman, but all it did was make him snort a laugh. The glare she shot him was cold enough to freeze molten earth, and he shut his mouth immediately.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “You’ll be a good duchess, I’m sure.”

“What about you? Are you supposed to be the next Archer?” She dropped her book and seized one of his arms, examining his musculature. “You look awful weak to be any good.”

Theo yanked his arm away and scowled. “I always hit my target,” he grumbled. “My father says I’ll be great. I bet I’ll be a better Archer than you’ll be a duchess.”

She was strong for her deceptively small size. Before he even registered that she’d pushed him, Theonis found himself looking up at her from flat on his back. For a moment, he couldn’t catch his breath, and he tried to blink away tears. He swiped bitterly at one that ran down his cheek.

The second she saw that tear, she dropped to her knees beside him and helped him to sit up.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.” She brushed the dirt from his back while he took a couple of deep, rattling breaths. “Are you okay?”

Theo nodded and sniffed, fighting the urge to push her back. “I’m fine.”

Emia sat back on her heels. “Do you want to sit with me? I could read to you and make you feel better.”

“I can read,” Theo snapped.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. But I only have one book, and we can’t read it at the same time.” She hopped to her feet and offered him a hand.

Theo pushed the hand away and hauled himself to his feet, dropping heavily onto the bench as far from her as he could get.

“I really am sorry,” she said, opening her book to the first page.

Theo, humiliated, simply sat and said nothing.

———— End time: 7p

Total word count: 733.
Total time: 1h40m (with lots and lots of interruptions)