Just a Connection [Eshatoh's Scrapbook]

[Eshatoh]

Connections Here I'll post scraps of stories, songs I'm listening to, and general musings about life. A couple rules: Please stay on topic in at least part of your post. I don't mind if you say "First!" As long as included is something like, "Awe, Esh I miss you." or "You are simply put, the best." I like flattery. Oh, yes, I like good books, too, so if you post, you must also post a book suggestion. Who needs rules? Other than that, post away. I've got a story I'm working on that I should have up within a week.

[Malia]

Hey, nice to see you around! I miss you ... really. And Malia misses Esh, although she doesn't know that yet, hehe.

I'd be glad to read your story, whether it's a short story or a thread or something else.

[Eshatoh]

. All right, well that story I mentioned in my first post... Ya... It's a complete bust. The characters ended up being almost completely flat. I realized that the setting was nothing but a gimmick. And don't even get me started on the plot... *shivers* Instead, what I have for you today is a couple of sketches for characters in a completely unrelated short story currently in the development phase. I would love it if you would comment and critique style/grammar/anything, but I'd really like you to pay close attention to whether these characters seem real-- whether they're believable. Thanks This will probably be my last time posting on here for a while, so see ya later. .

. Sketch #1 Artez never saw it coming. The hard right hook took him right in the side of the forehead, and he was instantly unconscious. Things like this weren’t an unusual occurrence on the streets of Cyphad. Anytime one had food, he had to watch out for those who didn’t. The juggler had just been too distracting for Artez to keep his head up. No, a curious boy, called puff-headed by the priests, like Artez had food stolen from him all the time. Nevertheless, this particular incident would change Artez’s life. *** The scent of simmering beef and onions gently dragged Artez from a state of blissful sleep into agonizing wakefulness. An entirely involuntary groan squeezed past his lips, courtesy of a splitting headache. And then fingers were gently prying the sweaty blanket from his grasp. When those hands started to push Artez upright, he began to fight. In the end, he lost. Turns out half-awake young boys can’t win against sturdy priests with bulging bellies. By the time he was able to digest this fact, Artez didn’t really care. He was much more interested in the pot over the fire—the one the priest was even now ladling a bowl from. It seemed as if within a minute of that bowl being placed before him, it was gone, only to be replaced with another bowl-full, filled even higher now and devoured just as quickly as the first one. Kindly the priest—it was a priest; that much was obvious from the robe and ornamental sash—replaced the bowl yet again. This time, as Artez ate, he took some time to absorb where he was. The room he was in had white marble walls. They were completely undecorated save for a single cutout window and an engraving of The Mother reaching out to touch the pinnacle of The Temple. The room appeared to be a dwelling place. It was furnished simply with a low wooden table with a bench, where Artez now sat, a desk and basic chair against the wall under the window, and a straw pallet in a corner. In the opposite corner, the fire smoldered in its bowl-shaped depression, sending waves of smoke up through the simple chimney above it. “Don’t gawk. It makes you look simple.” Artez whipped his head around to look at the priest. A scowl disfigured what might otherwise have been a fine looking face. The priest had sat down at the table next Artez. “I’m serious, boy” the priest said, his scowl lessening only slightly. I’ve decided to take you on—Mother knows why—but I won’t be able to make anything of you if you stare at everything like a country peasant.” With that, the priest seemed to completely lose interest in his new charge. He stood up abruptly, almost tipping the bench from underneath Artez, an walked over to his desk. Immediately, he began shuffling through papers. A few minutes passed while Artez sat in bemused silence. The quiet was punctuated only by the scratching of the priest’s pen and occasional exasperated growls. What was going on here? Sure, the priests had fed him in the past. They fed any street-kid who asked. Yes, some of the priests had commented on the adept manner in which he had memorized the lessons the priests forced upon those who they fed, but in the same breath each priest who had noticed had also said, “Shame he didn’t have rich parents.” You had to have money to get into the priesthood. Everyone knew that. So why had this priest chosen to adopt him? What exactly was he being taken on for? Artez had never heard of something like this happening, and he was sure he would have heard about it if it had. The scandal would be tremendous. Finally, he ventured to speak. “Sir, what is your name?” It came out in a timid squeak. The priest turned to look at the boy. His eyes narrowed, and his perpetual frown twitched. “My name is William Tellson. In public, you will call me ‘Your Worthiness’, but in private, ‘sir’ will be sufficient for you.” With that, he turned back to his work. He didn’t ask what Artez was named. . Sketch #2 Battered and Bruised, Artez scurried back into his master’s apartment. He bowed his head. “Sir, I was mugged, again.” He took a deep breath. “They stole the turnips.” Silence. A bowl whistled through the air and took Artez in the top of the head. He dropped to the floor on his back with a muffled grunt. Dazed, he pushed himself up on his elbows and came face to face with his master’s red face of wrath. With an open-mouthed roar, William grabbed Artez’s dirty golden hair and yanked him to his feet. Instinctively, Artez cringed. It only infuriated his master more. Still holding the boy’s hair with one hand, with the other, William pummeled Artez with open-handed smacks. He punctuated each strike with a word. “Don’t.” Smack. “Let this happen.” Smack. “Ever.” Smack. “You bring dishonor to the priesthood.” Smack. “The Mother.” Smack. “And The Forgotten One.” Smack. “Who we serve.” Smack. “I can’t…” Finally, it was too much. Bleary eyed, Artez broke his master’s hold and stumbled to the other side of the table to cower. He held off the tears for about five seconds and then began bawling. Between sobs, he pleaded with his master, “Sir, they were bigger than I was. They had knives. Don’t hit me. Don’t be angry. I didn’t have a chance. They jumped me. Just don’t be angry.” Finally, the tears ran out and he turned toward his master. William had frozen in a posture of halted retribution. His arm was still raised. He still hunched forward towards a boy who wasn’t there any longer. But instead of anger, his face now held a look of apathetic sadness. Artez’s green eyes pleaded with his master, begged silently for forgiveness, apologized with more eloquence than any verbal expression could ever convey. It seemed to work. With a shuddering sigh, William dropped his arm and stood upright again. Gruffly, he said, “Come here, boy.” Without hesitation, Artez stood and walked to his master. This was what he wanted. This was what he had always desired. This was what he needed. A huge smile lit his face despite the tears still on his cheeks. As he got closer, one of his master’s arms stretched out towards him as if to enfold him in an embrace. As he got closer still, the fingers of the hand slowly curled into a fist. The punch took Artez in the chin. Once again, he experienced the sensation of the world coming unfocused. And then there was night. When he awoke, no light streamed through the window, and all was quiet save for the sobbing of one priest kneeling by the side of his bed. “Boy…” The priest moaned. “Boy… Why won’t you fight back? Why can’t you take a stand?” Artez fell asleep to the sensation of William’s fingers running softly through his hair. .

[Eshatoh]

Not the Same Sometimes when one returns to a beloved pastime of years gone by, it’s merely for the sake of memories. I did this recently, in fact. When I was younger, I was a rather obsessive video game player. I stopped when I discovered the wonders of books, which have plots that don’t always involve finding seven of something or the other and binding the dark lord. ( Although if you read the Terry Brooks’ Shannara books… ) My little brother just got this Zelda game for his DS; I was a Zelda fanatic. How could I pass up the opportunity to relive childhood memories? To make a long story short the game stunk. I played for about 20 minutes and then got bored and went to read Crime and Punishment (Which for some reason is punishment to me.) It’s not like that when I return to writing though, or at least not with this kind of writing. I just thought of coming back to this site yesterday morning and already I have a couple 2-page character sketches and some fairly detailed possible plotlines floating around. It’s not as if this is some huge return for me: I force myself to write at least five pages beyond my required schoolwork each week. But somehow it’s not the same… It frustrates me to no end. I can literally drown myself in ideas when I’m writing collaboratively, but the well runs dry far too quickly when it’s just my own projects. I don’t want to produce work that you have to go to a message board to read. When I tell people that writing is one of my hobbies, I want to be able to hand them a big old typed out manuscript, instead of embarrassedly mumbling something about a website. Anyways, this post is just to say hey to the few who knew me and are still around. I’m back now. To you, and all the people I don't know, please shoot me a pm. Chances are I'd love to rp with you. Maybe I’ll do Nano this year… That might break me out of this dependency funk.

[Eshatoh]

Happy Stuff . Some mornings I just wake up in that “blah” mood. You know the feeling-- nothing seems interesting; nothing is important; people are just annoying. But of course, I can’t let myself stay in that mood. Why would I want to? I’ve actually developed a bit of a routine for breaking the grip of that feeling. First of all, I’m homeschooled-- or at least I was homeschooled-- so that gives me more latitude in choosing how I start my day. The whole experience really has been quite a blessing. I’m in for a rude awakening at college next year. Anyways, on those “blah” days, I always make sure to begin my day in the Bible. Sometimes this is enough to break me out of the funk all by itself. I’ve found the Psalms to be especially helpful on these days. If I’m still feeling irrationally angry at the world, I move onto the second part of my routine: I pop the O.C. Supertones into my boombox and whip out Calvin and Hobbes*. We have a boxed set with every single Calvin and Hobbes comic ever created in it. This usually sets me to uncontrollable giggling. It’s nearly impossible not to smile when listening to the O.C. Supertones, and the antics of the kid and his stuffed tiger only add to the happiness. If the funk is still holding on, well then I usually have no choice but to go eat chocolate. That cures it for sure. My mom calls this my “happy stuff”. So do any of you have a similar routine? What’s your happy stuff? *Note that the following webcomics can be substituted for Calvin and Hobbes: Precocious or Sandra and Woo

[Eshatoh]

. Lately it's felt like everything I'm writing is total crap. I don't know why. I'm not going to write any more here lest this start looking like crap to me, too. /rant .

[Alice]

But... I want to write with you. No matter if it's crap what I get. It's still you. So I want to write with you. Okay? <3

We need to get together soon, or we can simply start a dream thread and do something silly so your muse comes back.

[Eshatoh]

Thanks for the encouragement. I've always found that muses can't be charmed back; you have to force them back. It's never fun. I just wish I knew for sure that inspiration was the issue.

How exactly would a dream thread work?

[Alice]

It's a thread that takes place in the Dreamscapes and is something your PC dreams (read the Dreamwalking wiki for details). Because it's a dream, anything can happen and you can meet anyone (even yourself). I imagine it must be awesome for getting your muse back because you can write whatever you like in such a thread.

[Eshatoh]

Today, I decided I was going to write something despite not feeling a post for my character, so I sat down with a blank document expecting to fill it with a story of some sort that I might be able to adapt later. Of course, it never works quite like that. Instead of a story I ended up with a kind of essay. Here it is-- complete and unedited.

. There is nothing more beautiful to me than a well-written story. Well, nothing other than perhaps a well-executed scene. Writing a story well requires much more work, it's true, but writing a scene correctly requires near perfection. A story as a whole is allowed to have its rough points; it can have pacing issues at times and superfluous materials, but as long as the story rings true, the writing is crisp, and the characters are sympathetic, the story can still be considered well-written. A single scene, though, has to have flow. It has to be filled absolutely with meaning. There can be no extra material and no mistakes. The best written story doesn't move you by itself. It moves you by putting the full weight of itself behind a single critical scene. There is nothing more beautiful to me than that scene. Well, nothing other than perhaps a perfectly balanced paragraph. The scene is of course more powerful, but the paragraph has a special allure for me. Finding that balance between saying too much and too little is really quite difficult. Keeping a logical flow requires another layer of attention to detail. And then, once you've done all that, you still have to modify the paragraph to fit with the others its juxtaposed with. But when all of this is done properly, the result is breathtaking-- to me, at least. There have been paragraphs that I've had to go back and read two or three times in a row just to absorb all of the meaning. When I go to a bookstore, one of my favorite activities is picking up a random book from the shelf and reading random paragraphs. You can usually tell the quality of the author by the quality of his paragraphs. There is nothing more beautiful than the paragraphs he pens. Well, there is one thing that might surpass the paragraph's beauty. The well-turned sentence rich with meaning is a lost art in modern literature. To me, the thing that sets apart the good authors from the great is their sentence-writing ability. To communicate a big idea with lots of words is easy, but communicating the same idea with just a few carefully chosen words is something much more difficult. Poetry understand this. Poetry is all about layering meaning upon meaning into each phrase, but this layering and conciseness isn't just for poetry. This is something I struggle with and that's why the well-turned sentence is most beautiful to me. Then again, the single word rich with meaning is beautiful, too. .