Tag: <span>fantasy</span>

Tag: fantasy

Here’s one of the last parts of Stars Fall Out that I wrote in November. I didn’t finish my ending, as I had hoped, but I did complete 25 scenes, which was my other goal. This deals with the mechanics of a magic vial that’s one of the most important magical advances in hundreds of years and that the main character steals and essentially uses as an addictive escape from her own life.

This time, as it fizzed and hissed and transformed the water, I focused. Just as I brought my mind back under this bridge when I needed to come home, so did I send it out. I flung my thoughts out to the farthest reaches of the empire, to farther places than that, even. I thought of mountains too tall to exist here, plants too exotic, bridges too magnificent. I thought of maps unrolled before me, not Pinuar’s maps of the city, but maps that stopped for no road and went on and on.

I took my sip of water, and I imagined it pulling me to all those places.

Then I waded in, and wished one last time for the water to whisk me out of my trap.

When I came up again, a miniature wooden statue of She-the-Sailor stared me down from on top of a nearby dock piled with weathered rope. Once, I had come across a She-the-Sailor statue in a far-off place. Nothing about this tightly-packed clutter of ramshackle seaside cottages hinted at far-off places. Nothing about the chill or the salt tang in the air hinted of far-off places either.

I’d been breathing them in all day. All week. All month.

My entire life.

aside Fiction | Microblog | Uncategorized

I tend to go for funnier bits when I post excerpts, but here’s a more emotional snippet from Stars Fall Out. I should probably post more like this, since digging in and writing more emotional scenes has been one of the hallmarks of my writing experience with this book.

I attempted to smooth out the note and prop it on my nightstand.

Tyatavar, it began. Not Dearest Tyatavar, or Dear Tyatavar, as some of our dramatic early correspondences had gone. But the extra greeting was entirely superfluous; he had written it into the letters themselves, in the care he had taken with every stem, loop, and curl in my name.

The note had been written by someone who loved me.

I had crumpled it, and thrown it at the wall in the bakery.

aside Fiction | Microblog

The connection between chocolate and depression in real life:

“I’ve had mild, pervasive depression for two weeks, but since science says this 85% dark chocolate bar can raise my serotonin, I’m waiting for a barely perceptible lightening of my mood.”

The connection between chocolate and depression in Harry Potter:

“A dementor gave me depression so hard my soul almost ripped out of my body, but I ate a chocolate bar that’s been sitting in this guy’s jacket, and now I’m a thousand times better.”

aside Microblog

A recipe for goblin candy

The idea of goblin candy came from a quick bit of dialogue in Pumpkin Goblins that gave me a vivid image of what goblin candy is like: dark and fruity chocolate, gooey in texture, with a hint of spices. For authenticity, it should include bugs, but I left them out of the recipe.

Food | Full Posts