This is a poem but artistic license is used heavily as it follows no rules of poetry. Understand as well that this is a piece of my reality. It says what I need it to say. I've moved passed this point in my life, but it was a point that needs to be expressed. She came home again at three in the morning, sneaking into the house as silent as can be. I laid awake until then, heart heavy, chest tight, sleep just out of reach. She can't even look me in the eye. Money is spent like water, alcohol flows freely. I hold onto mine, kept separate and safe. Lacking a winter coat, wearing sneakers in snow, unable to buy for fear of not enough food. A new bottle appears on the fridge, red wine, anger follows at the question of cost. Took off my wedding ring for the first time, more then a decade since it was put on. Told her that the ring had no meaning. How could it when she wouldn't put me first? Her response was to take hers off. She doesn't want to be alone. She needs her friends. Friends keep her occupied four nights a week, passed midnight those nights, when she sneaks. A night turns into day before she comes home. I visit a sick father. She goes out again when I return. I remember a notch in the rafters in the basement. A hole wide enough to slip a rope through. I dream about kicking a chair out from under me. My heart is heavy, and my chest is tight. I dream about dangling. It makes no mess.
The question of critiquing, and offering opinions on another person's writing, and how much stock we place in those opinions is essential to our writing. Do we rely too much on what another person is saying about what our writing is saying to them? I have, in the past, taken too much of what was said about my writing and incorporated it into my work. The result? Something that does not sound like my work at all. I was dissatisfied with my last draft of a poem I wrote about a year ago. Why? I listened too much to opinions, and the result was that the poem didn't say what I wanted it to. I removed the emotional content, or too much of it. When we write, listen to opinions, read your work, and think long and hard. Sometimes, tightening the words, reworking the wording is enough. Other times, complete removal of entire sentences, in order to fix the picture we were painting, is necessary. Most of all, don't write with another person's voice. It is your voice that you're developing. This site is not for another writer to fix your writing, but it is for help to see what we may have missed. Last but not least, don't forget, we offer opinions only. If you disagree with that opinion, don't fret. Not everyone will enjoy your writing, but there will be those who do. Respect another person's opinion, their work, their writing voice, and definitely expect that respect back. If the respect is not shown, ignore that opinion.
A bit of poetry I wrote about a year ago. The tears that silence brings. Silence, something that says you aren't saying anything. Who knew that such silence could cause such suffering? Keeping your words to yourself, Keep anger inside, rage inside, sadness inside, so the other can survive and keep going. When there are no words to speak, no tides to turn aside, only your thoughts to keep you company, there is still only silence. Years of keeping a family together, for the sake of the children, the silence can be overwhelming. In spite of all the yelling, but not saying what you need to say, what tears at your heart, what clogs your throat, there is still only silence. Being strong in the face of the problems that would crumble a weaker person, bring them to their knees. Your legs are still stiff and strong, your shoulders wide but burdened worries piled there, there is still only silence. After years have gone by, the words still won't come, stuck behind a dam strong and high feels like it will never break, there is still only silence. After a loved one has passed on, the inner strength that has kept you going flows away from you. Words you needed to speak had not been spoken in time, there is still only silence. At the end of the silence, there are the tears that silence brings.
I found myself publishing a very objectionable statement in my writing, and when I say publish, I really mean post. I had the idea for the event in my head, but with no frame of reference, and very little thought on my part (obviously), I wrote something without actually thinking about what it was I wrote. After a couple of opinions were in, I had to read my piece again and again, not to see their points, but to find a way to write the idea without losing the flavor of what I wanted to convey. In the end, I ended up changing the idea to point to another outcome, or desired outcome. It wasn't that the event itself would be objectionable, but how the character felt about it. The problem I really had, and still have in many other sentences, events, ideas, and scenes, is that because I wrote it, to change the words would erase the idea. Maybe the idea wasn't good enough in the first place? Maybe I shouldn't have wrote it? I think that I become too personally involved in my writing that I take offense to solid and unbiased opinions with excellent points that I should take the time to consider. The major thing I think that I will take from this site's lessons is the knowledge that I have to step away from the writing and be willing to take criticism, especially my own. Without that criticism, I will only write base stories that will never be ready for publication. If all I want to do is get the idea out of my head, then I'm on the right trail. If I want them published, I have to keep on learning, and try to understand that this isn't personal. It's necessary.
Here I am, minding my own business, trying to sleep, and a blooming dream comes in and interrupts that wonderful sleep with an amazing idea for a new book! DAMN! I've already one that is in revision mode, another sitting in the old noggin waiting for time to be put down on paper, another sitting in a file waiting for time to be written properly, and finally another idea that screams at me to get writing. Too many ideas, too little time, and my job is getting in the way! Wahh! Oh well, that's what I love about writing. Unpredictable, full of inspiration on one day, and dry as the desert the next. Ohh, and I forgot that other dream I wrote down last week, and the one I haven't yet put on paper. A whole lot of ideas.... Too bad I still have to sleep.
This is the prologue for my novel titled The Ostyragor, or The Wild Lands. Its is a 2700 word count by the WP program, but opinions on the story itself, or even the writing is welcomed. I am posting it for opinions, so please be gentle, but honest. The Hunter Furlon lay within his sleeping furs, clung to his sleep, and stubbornly refused to give up the image of his wife within his mind. Her golden skin kissed a light cinnamon color by the sun, her dark hair twined about his fingers while her eyes shimmered with tears that she begged him to taste. The wind had kissed the snow outside his tent, and carried with it the chill that caused him to shiver. The chill pried him from his sleep and from his dream. He was not happy to wake and find himself back in his tent, near to the border. “Its been barely a week and I miss her already!” he cried. “No deer, no wild pigs, very few rabbits, but nothing worthwhile. How can this trip get any worse?!” Furlon muttered to himself. When he left the village on this trip just over a week ago, his pride had been wounded. He accidentally found the cache of leather belts, greaves, bracers, and weapons sheathes in his friend Ta'rak's home. Deep furrows of worry marred his forehead, and Furlon wondered just how he would cope now that he knew of his friend's treachery. His thick and wavy brown hair was dotted with gray, as was his beard, but his dark brown eyes would stand out even more as he matured. He didn't consider himself ruggedly handsome, but Akeena saw something in his eyes, and she had bound herself to him for the last seven years of his life. Unfortunately, this trip was not what he hoped for, and the extra risk he took when he had come this near to the border of the Jaktagor had not paid off. All he wanted to do now was to swallow his pride, and go home. The chill in the air pried his eyes open to the sight of snow within the confines of his tent. This startled him, brought him awake like a splash of cold water in the face. “Snow?! But its still Heiketa! The Kalsean snows are still a couple of months away!” Furlon crawled out of his furs on stood on his knees within his leather tent. Heiketa were the autumn months of decline leading up to the snows and the months of Kalsea. When he poked his head out from his tent, the forest was white, a fresh blanket of snow covered everything from the trees and bushes, down to the ferns and flowers still in bloom. The animals of the forest would have to dig through this carpet of snow to get to the tender shoots of the vegetation underneath. He smiled. Good conditions for a hunter. “Finally! A blessing from the Ancient at last!” he cried. He emptied the snow that had found his shoes, andpulled the cold leather over his feet. He crawled out of the tent on his hands and knees, and stirred his fire back to life. His fire had died down overnight, and the hot coals had been buried beneath the snow. With a little encouragement, he nursed the buried coals into a flame that warmed his body and spirit once more. After the fire had warmed him, he ate a simple meal of rabbit with some dried fruit, and took another opportunity to examine his surroundings. He had come to this region with Ta'rak for the last twenty years, and he had become quite familiar with the area. It consisted of a mix of hardwoods and evergreens, birch, maple, spruce and pine. The leaves were already in the process of color change, which made the bright and pale colors of the evergreens stand out vividly. The rockier terrain this far north made it harder to grow through the soil so they grew further apart then they did in the south, but because there were no lumber mills this close to the border, the trees grew taller and thicker. The snow presented a wonderful opportunity to any skilled hunter. It would allow him to track the animals more easily, shorten the trip, and keep his pride intact. After he finished his meal, Furlon put the quiver of arrows on his back, his dagger in his boot, and picked up his bow. He worked his way north, kept the wind on his face and stayed downwind from any potential target. It wasn’t long before he picked up the trail. The snow was kind to him as it highlighted the tracks of a deer, and pointed out the telltale signs of an animal that had foraged for food. For the better part of an hour, he stalked his prey, found a pile of dung in the tracks that still steamed as it melted the snow underneath. He was close. Another couple of hundred yards away, he came upon a clearing, and in the center of it stood the most beautiful sight he's seen in a long while; an enormous white tailed deer, almost too large to be real. Its fur had already started to thicken up for the winter months, and it sported an incredibly large rack of antlers. How he found it so easily this morning only snagged the briefest of his consideration. Furlon tried to control how he breathed, to calm himself before his excitement got the better of him and alerted the deer. He edged closer, with the knowledge that even though the bow was almost soundless, the twang from the bowstring could produce enough sound to startle the deer. With such a sound, the deer might twist when as it tried to turn away. That would turn a sweet spot kill into a flesh wound or make him miss altogether. He tried to edge closer, grimaced as his feet crunched the new fallen snow, readied an arrow, but when the deer's head came up, cocked its ears to listen, he froze instantly. What happened? Did he make a noise that spooked it? The deer dug in its hooves, sprang forward, and galloped like a mad horse, straight for the hunter. Branches scratched at its toughened hide, but did not slow its mad dash. At top speed, it flew through the underbrush, and that rack of antlers would prove deadly. “Ancient, please,” he silently prayed. Furlon readied the arrow, and loosed. It flew towards its target, hammered into its chest, and startled the beast in its headlong run. The deer lowered its head and the antlers caught in the brush. The forward momentum, together with the weight of its hindquarters, did the work the arrow couldn't. It broke the deer's neck and killed it instantly. A wide smile split his face. The world finally looked much brighter for him and his wife. The hide he could use for his trade, and the meat would see them through the lean times. His pride still ached, and in spite of the incredible kill, Furlon's thoughts turned to his friend, and those last few moments when he accused Ta'rak of giving him charity. The look in his eyes was enough to cause him to step back, and momentarily fear a man he considered close enough to be his brother. He cleared his mind, and smiled as he approached the deer. “This thing is bloody huge! I hope it’s not from across the river.” The reminder of his location sobered Furlon up quickly, and his mind began to plan the trip home. His horse was strong, but this deer was monstrous in its size, at least twice the size of the normal three hundred pound white tail in their woods. He would need to build a sled from his tent and move it that way. It would take around three days or more to get home, but he couldn't leave it here to get help. It was too valuable to his family to leave behind. Furlon paused and considered something his excited mind had missed. “Why did it run? It's full light, warm, and no else is anywhere near.” He was downwind, so the deer couldn't smell him. There wasn't any other animal around and yet the deer ran towards him. He slung the bow over his shoulder to make it easier to get back to his horse, but he noticed something off in the distance. It was a patch of gray, and looked like a wolf standing beside a tree. If it was a wolf he’d have to lie in wait to kill it before he retrieved his horse. It was over a mile away, but a second look told him it was on the move. Furlon readied his bow and patted his boot to be sure of the presence of his dagger. He was ready for this predator. The only time a wolf was predictable was when it came to their stomach. A free meal was hard for them to ignore. He felt a shiver go up and down his spine as the animal covered dozens of yards in only a few seconds. “Holy, look at it go,” was all he could say as it loped closer and closer. Some features were discernible as it closed on the deer; thick gray fur matted from frequent fights, long sinewy body, and something he couldn’t quite understand. Its back looked white, not with fur, but with bone. As it entered a shallow depression, it disappeared from sight momentarily. When it emerged from the gully, he wished it had disappeared completely. Thank the Ancient it was still a few hundred yards away. It had a feline head within which were its razor sharp fangs. “Oh no! By the Fallen, no!” A riivaaja, Kirosi Cat, cursed and twisted, a distorted version of a bobcat, straight from the Jaktagor. It was a brutal and malicious killer, a nightmare version of nature distorted by an unknown power. No wonder the deer chose to charge him. He would have been easier to get by than this monster. Furlon slid around a tree, backed away from the deer, and tried to get out of sight. “Damn, damn, damn!” he muttered. He wished he had brought a sword and not his hunting dagger. This cat was about two hundred and fifty pounds of cruelty and murderous intent. Its claws could shred his armor, and the set of bony plates that lined its spine protected it from downward slashes. His bow is a good long range weapon, but both the bow and the dagger would prove highly ineffective against this beast. The animal's claws scrabbled on the stones at its feet, knife-like, they found purchase in the soil. The beast's spine curved, contracted and extended as it ran onward. The bony extrusions of its spine clicked against each other as it closed half...
While I am new to writing forums, I am not new to the written word, or the desire to put my thoughts on paper. I have been writing on and off for over ten years, and with multiple projects to choose, I have written my first novel in the fantasy genre. At current, it is under intense scrutiny and severe rewrites with ambitions to eventually see it submitted to a professional editor, and eventually a publisher. The only real step I took to make the first part of my goal, finishing the book, was to sit down and make time for it. If I can play a video game, I have time to write. The only thing holding me back from starting my second novel is the revisions of the first, and another project that's been on the back burner for several years, an erotic horror novel set in the bronze age, long before gunpowder. When its time, and I have the options to do so, I will post the links to my first three chapters of my fantasy novel and see what the general consensus is. I need critiques, and I need genuine opinions of the people who read this type of book. Hopefully, I've found the site that will offer that.