fiction theory

I declare it personal WIP amnesty day/weekend/indefinite time period

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:46:26 GMT

Title: Something Worse Than Dragons
Rating: PG-13 (for fantasy action violence described somewhat graphically)
Prompt: Mutation/Physical Transformation
Words: 6500
Summary: Sadie is very different from the other shapechangers around her, and not in a good way. It makes her something of a freak among the freaks, but she's dealing with it mostly. Then, one night, something wicked her way comes.
Author's Notes: This is the first story in the Shapechangers 'verse I've created because I got sucked into origfic_bingo and never finished my bingo. The prompt for this was "mutation/physical transformation". I only got four out of the five you need for one and so I'm posting the four stories that I have as a WIP. You don't need to know or have read anything prior to this. You can start here. Other stories to come in this same 'verse.

“Hey, thanks,” Kellan says. He smiles, deposits his clothes into Sadie’s arms and walks off, naked as he was born. She shakes them out and folds them, placing them on the bench with everyone else’s clothing. He joins the others, also naked, in the backyard. They could transform in their clothing if they wanted, but it takes extra energy. Friday night free-for-alls are just for fun. One night a week, they lay aside the masks of their human faces to race and roar without uncomprehending, ignorant eyes to observe and betray them.

Kellan bounds gleefully into the open backyard, towards the black shapes of the trees that mark the transition from his yard to the woods. He pauses at the edge of the light cast by the flood lamps, around which gnats and moths flutter. Sadie can just barely make out his body changing. His skin thickens into hide, he sprouts pale white hair all over his body. His body becomes a liquid thing. Arms stretch into four legs, hands into hooves. His spine takes a swaybacked curve, concave where before it was a flat plane of muscle and bone and tendon. His neck, thickens, puffs, the snout comes in. The last to rise are the antlers. They grow so quickly they look like roots reaching up to drink from the sky.

Sadie has watched this many times. It always moves her. Sometimes she tingles, sometimes it brings a lump to her throat that takes the whole night to swallow down, sometimes it frightens her. They tell her it doesn’t hurt after the first time, but still wonders if she could handle the sight of her body becoming another thing. Could she stay sane and watch her hand turn into a paw or the tip of a wing? Maybe that’s her problem, she’s too attached to this body, too afraid of occupying another.

By the time she’s glanced again, Kellan is done and galloping toward the trees. Watching a shapechange is like watching food in the microwave. It fucks with her sense of time. In reality, the whole thing takes less than thirty seconds. Less time than popcorn or instant coffee. Sadie’s actually timed it from the porch, counting under her breath as she watched their transformation into the wild and wondrous menagerie they are.

Millions of years for human beings to evolve and rise above all the other animals and in less time than a standard TV commercial, the process goes backwards. Sadie wonders about the first shapechanger. Were neanderthal shapechangers or Homo Erectus shapechangers back in the day? Were there once monkeys that became other animals?

Maybe that’s really how people got fire. Someone like Kellan, who had the power to control it, brought it to them. Out in the yard, he tips his head back and breathes out a puff of breath and then white smoke. He’s building a good flame, she can smell the heat and ash from the porch. He bellows fire into the night air, bright gold flame blossoming in the darkness with the sound of a high, reedy wail. His hair and hide are unburned though the flames now wreathe his face, throat, blown back at him by the wind. He doesn’t just control fire, he’s immune to it. You could throw him into a furnace and he’d emerge none the worse.

Sadie does not let herself think about how that’s a very accurate kind of metaphor and also something that pisses her the hell off about Kellan Rodriguez. The guy just never gets burned. Ever.

++++++

The wide, raised stone area around the fireplace was prime real estate after the pack clambered inside, hopping barefoot through the four inches of snow to the warm refuge of the house. Sadie had mugs and hot chocolate and various snacks waiting for them in the kitchen. It gave her an excuse to give up watching them reveling in the snowfall, kicking up white dust storms and shaking it off their coats, out of their feathers.

Tonight’s stab in the heart was Ryder, looking like a coal-black dream with snow clinging to his fur. She begrudged him his speed and breathtaking grace as he raced across the blue-white carpet of undisturbed snow, leaving a wide swath of paw prints in his wake. It was stupid, but watching him made her jealous. He made it look like the most glorious thing. It felt like a little extra “fuck you” from the universe that not only could she not join in, but that she had to watch while freezing her ass off.

So she left, got things ready, fixed herself some cocoa and waited in the stifling silence for the others. The fireplace felt damn good, and so did being ignored by the others while they got their snacks. The weekly looks of pity and guilt had grown old. Sadie was glad they were preoccupied with their cocoa (or tea for Kat Ashley and Wilson, both badly allergic to it, and to milk). Soon she could make her excuse to leave. Most of the pack stayed over Friday nights. Kellan’s house was more than big enough, and five of them already lived there. Sadie never did. It was enough she came at all. If not for the gentle cajoling on the part of Kellan and Tisha and Anna - and some prodding from Ryder - she wouldn’t have. Mostly she did it to spare them the effort. Refusing made her feel difficult, stubborn and attention-seeking when she tried to beg off, saying everything but the truth: ‘I’m not really one of you, I don’t belong’.

Kellan sat down between her and the hot metal grate around the fire. Gut instinct told her to worry that if he leaned back, he’d touch that hot metal and burn himself, but fire never seemed to worry him.

“Thanks for the hot cocoa,” he said, raising his mug like maybe they were going to toast. She raised hers, but didn’t make contact.

“I just put out the stuff, that’s all.”

“Will you be safe to drive home tonight?” he asked. Not subtle at all, but he never really had been. From the moment she first met him wearing his human face, he had been a very direct person. How could he be otherwise with those piercing dark brown eyes? Even when they were just sitting, drinking hot chocolate, talking about nothing important, he was looking right through her and she felt it sharply.

“It’s just a few inches. I’ve driven through worse.”

“You sure? I’m sure Tish won’t mind sharing her room. She doesn’t even snore.”

“I didn’t bring my PJ’s or my toothbrush. My morning breath might take somebody out.”

He grinned. “I could lend you both.”

“It’s all right. Snow’s going to let up soon. They said we weren’t supposed to get more than six inches.”

He left it there, thank goodness. Kellan had a way of making the simple act of saying “no” very, very difficult. Sadie had never quite figured out why. She wasn’t the only one. The others said the same. Kellan got his way a lot. He didn’t force or threaten. He just made disagreement seem impossible.

Sadie did not want to spend the night. That ritual was for the real pack. And she wasn’t really one of them.

Kellan was silent, looking over periodically. She wasn’t sure if he wanted to say something or wanted her to say something, but she’d learned to deal with awkward silences by having questions and conversation starters prepped in head. Anything to keep the other person talking. Because then you weren’t an awkward loser, you were a good listener. She’d ask things the others in the pack were into. With Tish it was her job and music, with Bannerjee it was sports, with Kat Ashley, her family.

She didn’t have that starter for Kellan. He managed to remain mysterious, even to the others who had known him for years. Sadie knew precious little, not even what kind of music he liked or his favorite food or even where he was from.

So she fell back on the one thing she actually knew and she asked, “Do you ever get burned by fire?”

He didn’t answer in words. Calm as he pleased, he put down his mug, swiveled around, pushed away the grate and stuck his hand straight into the heart of the fire, just above the logs. Grimm and Veronica looked over from the couch, curious but unconcerned. Sadie raised an eyebrow and watched him, turning his hand over, wiggling his fingers in the flames with a grin on his face. That answered that question. No fire could burn him. He could have just said that though. Sticking his hand into flame was a bit melodramatic, she thought.

“I see,” she said. He pulled his hand out, then he grabbed her arm, quick as a snake striking. Sadie sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth. His flesh was so hot it nearly hurt. Her heart pounded like the rhythm of running hoofbeats on the ground - thud, thud, thud. He squeezed her with restrained strength that scared the shit out of some primal, animal part of her that recognized a more dangerous creature when she encountered one. If he wanted to break her arm, there was nothing she could do.

Sadie looked up to his eyes, swallowing against a suddenly dry throat. His smile faltered, like something had suddenly saddened him. She pulled her arm in close to her body.

She felt the remnant of that touch the rest of the night, all the way home. As she drove through the snow, the phantom of a fever-hot hand was wrapped around her arm, tugging her back.

++++++

Sadie leans her head against the hand rail. She’s tired, and hasn’t slept well lately. It’s amazing how the little banalities of life get to her even here. She’s watching human beings transform into incredible creatures, still contemplating the annoying owl outside her bedroom window. The damn thing has hooted so loudly it’s disrupted her sleep for two weeks running. It’s starting to give her nightmares. If the stupid bird would go away, she’d stop waking up at 3am, sweating and panting, terrified. She never remembers the nightmares, just the “oh god I’m going to die and so is everyone else” panic she can’t get rid of until morning.

Ryder bounds into the the flood light’s glow, tongue lolling out of his mouth. He drops and rolls in the grass, looking ridiculous and happy. She gives him a smile and he flips onto all four paws, trots towards her. He gives her an eager look, jumps, tosses his head. It’s the lupine version of “come and play!”. He even play bows to her, rump in the air and chin nearly resting on his paws. She turns her gaze. Then it’s like he remembers. He gives her an apologetic, wide-eyed look. His dark shape slinks off into the shadows.

She sighs, drinks tea, does her best to think of anything else: the owl, going in early to work next week, her rent getting hiked. Anything but the one thing she can’t have. The one thing she should have.

The old werewolf legends got one thing right. It takes merely a scratch, a bite. Trade blood with a shapechanger in their animal form and you’ll become one, too. It takes a mere drop to set the creature free that’s been waiting there all along, dormant. Nobody knows what creature a person will become when the blood mingles. Some say it comes from a person’s personality, some say it’s like a personal animal spirit, some say it’s random, some say there’s a pattern.

Sadie wouldn’t know. She won’t get the chance to find out, because she is the shapechanger who didn’t change.

Sadie is the shapechanger who does not change. She should have. Her blood and Kellan’s mingled. Too much flowed from both of them that night not to, even if Kellan hadn’t been doing it on purpose. Not like he had a choice. Making her was the only way to get enough power and energy to heal himself, to save himself and the pack.

He rammed her through the chest, five antler points pierced her body, pinning her against a brick wall. The blood from his mouth and open wounds across his face flowed down his antlers and into her heart. Sadie stared, literally breathless, into endless black eyes. She hurt more than she had ever hurt in her life, so much that the fear and betrayal - she'd tried to help this creature - all melted away. All she could think of was the pain.

The turn takes twenty-eight days from the mingling of blood to the first shape change. That’s where the old stories about full moons and werewolves come from. Twenty-eight days is a lunar cycle, and the full moon’s light allows for a lot more outdoor shenanigans than a new moon.

Sadie’s twenty-eight days have come and gone. It’s been a year and change. She smells like a shapechanger to other shapechangers, she senses the rest of her pack, especially Kellan. He certainly got the power boost from turning her. The fire he breathed that night melted glass and concrete and metal. But twenty-eight days later, she had no other shape, no powers. Tisha can control electricity, Bannerjee reads minds, Wilson and Anna can both remote view and Bear can freeze anything he touches when he wants to.

All Sadie has is the taunting presence of the pack in her mind. If she closes her eyes and lets herself, she can taste the blood of the mouse that Bear just killed, feel his sharp, foxy teeth crunching delicate little bones. She can smell the various tracks and scent marks left in the forest the way Grimm does. She can feel what it’s like to run swifter head tossing, hooves pounding the ground in a rhythm like the heartbeat of a person falling in love for the first time, paced and unpaced all at once. She can watch, but never become.

She can’t even join in. It isn’t safe for her to play amongst these creatuers. Even if they were cautious of her, one swipe of Tisha’s great, tawny paw or an errant wild kick of Veronica’s hooves and she could be ended. It would defeat the purpose of their freedom if they spent all night being careful of her. They spend enough time doing that already.

So she sits on the porch, she watches, and she aches to join them. Tisha and Anna chase after each other’s tails, feline forms sliding through the dark so smoothly it defies physics. Wilson and Bannerjee circle and dart across the starry sky, going so high it gives Sadie a vertiginous shiver. She smiles up at them and turns to look at the moon. Across the face of the thin crescent, a third form appears. This one is far away, yet still larger than either the hawk or the raven. She squints, standing up on the porch steps.

It is not a bird, she realizes when she sees the long, whiplash tail trailing behind it. She doesn’t know what the hell it is, except coming in fast. When it swoops to descend, Sadie’s heart falls with it. Her very soul knows the ill omen in this sight, and so do the others. Shapechangers who come in peace give fair warning and come in human form. This is not normal. This is not good.

Bannerjee screeches a warning that sears across the frosty night air. Wilson caws along, they form a chorus of alarm. Tisha and Anna pause in their wrestling, both looking up at the sky. Tisha raises her head, opens her mouth and roars in the way only a lion can. Then Ryder howls, and suddenly a great cacophany has gone up.

The woods come alive with rustling leaves and breaking twigs. The others are coming in, fast. From the porch, it looks as if some terrible force is shaking the very woods themselves. Sadie makes no noise at all, she just stands waiting, trying to discern what the dark, sharp winged shape in the sky is. It comes closer, making a rumbling sound like stone against stone, soaring through the glow of the flood lamps. Sadie catches a glimpse of talons, and smooth, nearly-shiny black scales.

It’s a dragon.

Its wings pump fiercely, creating wind like jet engines. The blades of grass in the yard bend, leaves stir violently in the trees. The thing is at least three times the size of a standard one-car garage.

The pack stays changed, watching, waiting. Kat Ashley slithers up Grimm’s body, wraps loosely around his furry throat, both for the warmth to fight and because giving Grimm an extra, snapping head can’t hurt. Kellan trots to the front, snorting out warning plumes of fire. The dragon arcs its neck down and roars, breathing out rolling blackness with a sound like metal girders twisting. The darkness is not smoke, it is too solid and opaque. It is as if the dragon breathes night itself over the pack.

Kellan shoots out a wave of flame that instantly disappears. Roaring, Grimm raises up on his hinds legs. As he falls to all fours, he stops. They all stop, frozen where they stand. Sadie hears their growls and groans, but no one’s mouth is moving. She realizes with horror that they are being held in place by the dragon. They realize it, too. In her skull, their panicked mental cries sound like clanging pots and pans. Can’t move! Stuck! Paralyzed! What’s holding me? Can’t move!.

The dragon touches down, thick black claws gouging the ground. Realizing that her pack is helpless, Sadie turns, tripping up the porch steps, seeking Ryder’s clothes. He always keeps a knife on his belt, in an old leather sheathe. Clumsy, shaking hands throw clothes everywhere, and when she finds it, she’s barely able to unbutton the snap. In the yard, the dragon lifts up to its hind legs, like a scaled imitation of Grimm, still stuck in mid-fall. She races off the porch, screaming senselessly for the dragon to let them go.

The dragon bends, its taloned paw swoops, going straight for Ryder. It’s going to knock him over like a child playing destructively with figurines. With a wordless scream, she throws herself between the talons and Ryder, covering his body. The sharp tips of the claws rake over her back and throw her several feet. By some miracle she lands on her back and the knife is still in her hand.

Rolling to her feet, she screams and races toward the dragon. She does not know how hard those scales are, but she has to try something. Perhaps with a small knife and some luck, she’ll find a spot between them. Maybe she can get it to lower its head. Its eyes are not covered. Blinding it might even force the thing to let go of the pack.

She strikes at a space between the scales on the dragon’s lower abdomen. The blow is so hard it hurts her hand, but is useless. It doesn’t even leave a scratch. The dragon’s swan-like neck bends down, long ivory teeth bared to bite her. Optionless, she throws her body over the dragon’s neck and holds on as tightly as she can, fingers of her free hand latching onto a protruding scale that looks like a shark’s fin. He dragon raises up, lifting her from the ground. The motion helps her swing her legs up and over. Now she’s riding the damn thing like a rodeo bull, thighs clamping as hard as they can. Knife in hand, she stabs wildly, desperately, scooting up toward the head while the dragon thrashes. She just has to stab one eye.

To hold fast, Sadie sacrifices her only weapon, letting the knife go so she can hold on. She wraps both hands around the neck, too, some grotesque kind of hug, the ground comes close and goes away in nauseating waves. She won’t be able to hold on much longer. When the dragon lowers its head enough, she’ll let go, she decides. Maybe if the dragon chases her, it will lose its hold over the pack. That’s all she’s got to do. Get the pack free. Distract the dragon. She’s been around the pack long enough to know using their powers requires concentration or it goes haywire.

She screams, the dragon roars, their voices making weird, resonant harmony in the night. She kicks, but she might as well be kicking a brick wall. Her only advantages is that the dragon’s neck is far longer than it’s arms. Its reach isn’t good. It has to bend down to get at her. Bending down gets her closer to the ground, but also closer to its talons.

The dragon’s neck swans downward, a talon scrapes her leg, opening up a fresh, gushing wound before it tosses its head up again, then down violently. The motion bumps Sadie’s head against the scales. It’s like being hit with a bat. It makes her dizzy and nauseous instantly, but she does not let go. The scales are smooth and her sweaty hands ache, the dragon raises up completely and she slides down the length of its neck on the underside, barely surviving the ground shaking landing. The dragon throws itself side to side while Sadie grasps for purchase. Her hand clutches the first place it touches, but instead of a scale there’s a cold metallic bump the size of a soup bowl. Every instinct in her brain and body tells her to yank it out - anything to injure this horrific monster. She finds the edge of the thing, gets an inch of leverage and holds. She knows in a moment it’s a bad move. The dragon’s paw grabs her, its taloned fingers wrap all the way around her body and pull her. She holds on, and takes the metal thing with her and part of a scale, too when he pulls her free. The paw squeezes tight. Bones pop and snap all over her body. Her left shoulder comes out of its socket entirely. She blacks out completely for a few seconds and wakes when she is hurled bodily away from the dragon.

Time moves in agonizing slowness. Sadie sees the ground all the way down. Landing is an explosion through her entire body. It knocks her very heart into not beating for a single, excruciating moment. She desperately tries to roll over, tries to breathe and the world lights up with agony. A thousand knives stab her over and over again.

The dragon growling behind her, Sadie reaches for a small rock just between Anna and Tisha’s paws. She looks up into the eyes of her friends. Tisha makes a miserable keening growl, still frozen. Sadie wheezes, taking blood-filled breaths. Extending her arm is torture. Motion comes by fraction of inches from her trembling, battered body. She pushes against the ground with her left leg. A bolt of pain makes that an impossible motion to repeat. She looks up again tries to speak, to mouth, “Tish - Tish -” but she coughs redness instead and her breath whistles wetly.

Grass rustles behind her. Sadie turns her head, lays her cheek down. In the place of the dragon is a man wearing a strange kind of white linen suit. He is sharp faced, handsome though wicked looking. He has terrifying pale blue eyes, chopped off red hair and thick ginger stubble. His approaching steps are slow. Sadie whines in pain and panic. God, how can a rock within reach of her fingertips be so, so far away? She stretches, gasps as much as her pained chest will allow.

“We have done with our battle now. Now you will listen to me,” the dragon says, calmly. He speaks English laced with an accent she can’t identify straight off. Not that it matters. She knows she will die here, and prays it will happen quick. Perhaps he has a gun. She hopes.

“Look at me, Sadie. Look. Get up.”

The dragon shaping her name in his mouth sends fresh, icy horror racing through her. He knows her. The implications are terrifying and the terror makes processing his words harder. She stares down into the shiny pool of her own blood. Through the haze and blackness spreading across her vision, she understands. To get to her knees is a fight she barely wins at all. She trembles fiercely and lolls her head back to look up at him, blinking hard as the blood runs into her left eye. It stings.

“Listen closely to me, I will not repeat this. You will meet me again. There is a place in the city, the museum. You will meet me there in three days, alone, as soon as it is open. Bring no one. I will wait for you by the painting of the three Graces. Be there immediately. Very bad things will happen if I come here again for you. Do you understand me?”

Sadie cannot speak and even her small nod makes her gag on her own blood. The blossom of pain in her chest tips her forward. She can see only the dragon’s shiny black shoes between the blades of grass. Far above, his voice booms. “She does not lack for courage, does she?”

The dragon’s smile is in his voice. Through the pain, Sadie shivers with the knowledge that he is standing over her, grinning. What kind of creature could look down at a person that they have so badly hurt and smirk?

“My compliments to your sire. Ah, it’s you, the white hart. I can sense she’s your first. What an exquisite first. I regret that this became necessary, that it caused her pain. One day, I will have to ask how you found such a creature for your own.”

Bereft of even the rock as a weapon, Sadie plunges her fingers into the grass and deeper, into dirt. Hitting him in the face might distract him, make him let go. Tisha and Anna would leap if given the freedom, and maybe Ryder can bring down a bolt of lightning to hit the man. Kellan’s mind is all fury and flame inside her own. If he were free, he would burn this man to the purest, finest ash.

Sadie curls her hand around the clod. A foot lightly presses down on her hand, enough to stop her. She casts her eyes up.

“No,” he says. “Do not let your pride get in the way. I honor you. I mean no insult. I would not have told you to come to me if I did not intend to leave you alive and able to do so.”

She doesn’t know what to say, she just wants to scream “fuck you” as she feels the darkness settling over her. The dragon removes his foot and crouches by her. He reaches down, strokes her hair. “We will not fight anymore, Sadie. Good woman, brave woman. You did very well. Very brave, very brave.” She realizes that the bastard is petting her.

His hand stays as she lays her cheek down on the grass. It is all she can do now to focus on breathing. He lifts his hand and it is like a thousand pounds have been taken off her. His feet retreat into the dark and become paws so quickly it takes place in the fluttering of her eyelids, faster than she’s ever seen. The air booms, whooshes and the dragon is aloft and then gone.

A second after she loses sight of him, Grimm’s paws finally hit the earth with a dull thud that she feels more than hears. Hooves pound, feathers rustle. Bones and joints pop, as animal bodies resume their human shape. She sees bare, brown feet coming towards her. In the distance, there’s screaming.

“Hold him back!” Tisha orders, in a voice that is only shaking a little. Being a nurse, she knows what she’s doing, though Sadie hopes it won’t involve anyone touching her chest. Ever. “I need to work here. Anna, go get the first aid kit inside. It’s under the kitchen sink. Bannerjee, my stethoscope, it’s out in my car. My keys are on the key rack, go!”

“Should we call 911?” Wilson asks.

“And tell ‘em what? Our girl just got beat up by a damn dragon?” Ryder retorts.

“We’ll tell them she fell!” Grimm replies, shrill and sharp.

“From what?” he argues again.

Tisha’s face appears above her. “Sadie, honey, stay with us. Where does it hurt? Can you tell me that?”

Sadie can’t talk. Each breath is like being run through by Kellan all over again. She wants very much to die, to be allowed to die quickly. She can only lift one trembling hand and grab Tisha’s naked arm, realizing she feels nothing below her ribcage. She tries to move her lips but the words don’t come.

“Hurts everywhere, huh?”

Sadie nods with one eye closed so the blood doesn’t get in. Bannerjee comes running back into the yard. It’s weird to see them still naked, as though they don’t realize they haven’t put clothes back on. She takes a breath that doesn’t come easy, but hurts less. Tisha goes in and out of focus.

“No, no, Sadie. I need you to stay awake. Ryder’s gonna hold your hand, just squeeze his hand, stay with us,” she orders, in a harder, faster voice. Ryder’s enormous hands enfold hers, cold and dry and calloused but she can’t grip in return.

A hand slaps her face lightly, but it doesn’t work. It only buys a few more seconds of looking at the brown, blurry shape crowned by the crescent moon.

She sees fire in the sky, hears her name screamed in a pained way. She knows that this what she will take with her into the dark - the fire and the screams and the memory of the dragon’s smile.

+++++

The worst pain, by far, Sadie ever felt was on the night she got Made. Or at least the night when Kellan bled into the open wounds in her chest to take the power of her Making into himself, to draw from the permanent bond that now linked them forever.

Lucky for her, she didn't stay conscious very long. Just long enough to hurt and then pass out.

She woke up anticipating that same pain. She gasped into consciousness and touched her chest without thinking. She expected blood and agony but got neither. Nothing hurt. She looked down. She wore a gray top, the kind from hospital scrubs, and all her wounds were gone. No blood came away when she checked her fingertips. Under the collar of the shirt were only scars, flattened and so whitish-blue they stood out against her skin.

“You healed quickly. It’s supposed to happen that way. Just take a deep breath,” said the very beautiful Black woman with the puffy reddish-colored afro.

This woman knew why Sadie looked at the scars and why she was afraid. She was part of it, that much Sadie deduced right off the bat. She must have been a friend of the white deer man. Sadie’s breathed a little harder and sat up, taking a quick scan around.

She was on a couch in a nice house, though a but cluttered and eclectic - (who put a Buddha statute on one side of a table and Catholic saint candles on the other?). It smelled like candles and citrus-y household cleaner and hamburgers and french fries. Sharply so, actually. Sadie was amazed she identify what she was smelling and the small sounds she heard (talking in another room, water dripping from a faucet, Tisha breathing, wind outside, cars on the distant highway).

“The men with guns?” she asked, getting off the couch. Dizzy, she tipped forward, catching herself on the wooden coffee table. She noted the copies of Muscle Car Review and Essence and Popular Mechanics and National Geographic and thought, absently, Jesus, lady, you’ve got some really divergent interests. As she stood, she heard a car getting close, crunching rocks slowly beneath tires. She thought of the men with guns who'd been there, who'd gotten a shot off right into the white deer's side. Don’t bring them here, get out, lead them away she thought.

“It’s not them. It’s all right, Sadie, sit down.”

“What?” Sadie stumbled back until she tripped and she fell. This woman knew her name. That was bad. She put her back to the wall, steeling herself.

“It’s all right. We found your I.D., that’s all.”

“We?”

“Well, Grimm and Anna. They went back, got your things. Your car’s even in the driveway. So you can leave any time you want, okay?” Tisha asked and she nodded, so Sadie nodded in return and picked herself up against the wall. “But if you stay, I'll explain what’s happening. I know this has got to be a lot and you’ve probably seen things you don’t understand.”

She trembled, pressing her palms to the wall to support herself. The terrified tremors in her chest sucked out all the air and left none for speaking. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did he hurt me?”

Tisha had the softest, gentlest frown in all the world. “To save his life. To save our lives.”

“But I was trying to help him.”

“I know.” Tisha dared to close the distance between them. Her presence did not feel threatening, even though the idea of having anyone near flooded Sadie’s with so much adrenaline it physically ached. “You saved our lives tonight. You didn’t know you were doing it, but we’re here in this house and we’re safe because of what you did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, sweetie, I know. Listen, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to put your purse on the coffee table, your car keys are in it. Any time you want, you can take those keys and run away and nobody will come after you. You can leave whenever. Door’s right there. This is my house, and it’s nobody’s prison. But if you stay, you can ask me whatever you want. Okay?”

Tisha backed away and put Sadie’s purse on the table. Then she sat down, hands on her knees, calm as anything. Sadie thought she looked like she was trying not to spook an already spooked animal. Later she’d realize that she herself was exactly that, a spooked animal who needed to be retaught to trust human hands and human words.

Sadie reluctantly took a seat on the edge of the couch. “The deer, he was a man, too." wasn’t he?”

Looking as placid and merciful the figures in the shrines to either side of her, Tisha nodded and then began to explain. She explained shapechangers and their powers, about packs and how they were now part of the same pack and what it meant to be connected by blood the way they were, about hunters, and what would happen in twenty-eight days. She even quickly showed Sadie what a shapechange looked like.

When she finished, Sadie asked, “The men with guns, the Hunters?” she asked. Tisha confirmed with a nod. “Will they come after me?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully not. But if anything happens, you won’t be alone, and you’ll know what you’re facing and you’ll have a way to deal with it. I promise.”

“What do you mean?”

“Next time, you’ll have power. Next time, you’ll be different. Everything will be different.”

++++

All the faces looking at her are anxious, wondering. As Tisha leads her to the table, Sadie is aware of everyone watching to see how well she is, what she’ll say, how she’ll react. They’re unnerved by her silence, which she’s kept since they took her to the healer in Washington County. Tisha had to tell her about that, she doesn’t remember much after passing out.

Tisha said her injuries were so bad that even the healer, Big Boss Stanton, couldn’t fix her completely. All Sadie recalls is the smell of antiseptics and heated metal. Stanton gave her some really good, really illegal painkillers and healed what he could. Nearly every bone in her body was broken, her internal organs damaged, the gash on her leg had severed a tendon, her spine crushed. Big Boss took all night putting her back together, and couldn’t finish everything. Her mangled arm and shoulder are only half-healed, the rest she’ll have to do herself. She’ll need a cane and Tisha’s help with rehab for her leg.

Most mysteriously, Stanton could not heal the scars. Usually, Tisha said he could make any cut or burn disappear. But where the dragon’s claws touched her, he could do nothing.

Now the pack waits for what she’ll say. Wilson puts a plate of food in front of her. She stares down at it like she isn’t sure what it is, even though it’s just pancakes and bacon. She thinks about it for a minute, then looks at the fork and knife that there are there on the table. Sadie just stares, then sighs gently and very slowly. Her chest can tolerate shallow breathing and careful movement, no more than that. The ribs are tenuously healed and the bruising is all still there.

She looks up, finds herself staring straight into Bannerjee’s dark, inquisitive eyes. It flashes her back to seeing him run naked across the lawn with car keys in his hand. Tisha sits down beside her. “Try to eat a little if you can,” she coaches.

They’re all staring, so she might as well talk. “We have to do what the dragon says,” she announces, voice airy and rough even to her own ears. There’s a communal breath, all of them inhaling sharply in shared reluctance.

“That may not be the best idea,” Bannerjee says, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“I’m with him. I think we all are,” Anna says. Her girlfriend, Veronica, is holding her hand. “We cannot risk that dude killing you.”

Kellan gently taps Grimm on the shoulder and he surrenders the seat to Sadie’s right. Kellan sits down, leans close. Sadie realizes this is how he convinces people. He crowds everything out, pushes the world back so all you see and feel is him. She turns her eyes away, looking down at the tablecloth, at the bruises up and down her hands, her arms. He can’t overshadow those. She feels them as deeply as she feels him.

“Sadie, it’s okay. You don’t have to go. We’ll protect you. He can’t get you now, he’ll never hurt you again. I swear.”

She looks up into his eyes. They’re so dark as to nearly be black, the way they are when he’s changed. “We were dead, Kellan, we were all dead. We lived because he let us live.”

“It’ll be different next time. We’ll be ready for him, we’ll have guns. He won’t hurt you again.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t get it. The dragon asked to see me alone, in a public place.”

“And?” he asks.

“He had us all where he wanted us. We couldn’t touch him. So why does he care if I come alone, in public? People only ask to meet that way when they want to be safe. What could he possibly need to be safe from?”

In the silence, Kellan’s tries to say words but they just come out as stilted breaths, arguments that die before they start. She’s finally persuaded him of something.

“Sadie,” he says. Her name is a plea, an apology, a resignation, but not a disagreement.

“I think the dragon was warning us.”

“About what?”

“That there’s something worse than dragons out there,” she replies.

- END -

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/243605.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/243605.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Captain Kirk, you failed on your mission. The Oscars still got ruined.

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:25:30 GMT

If you don't get what happened surrounding Quvenzhané Wallis you need to go read this post about the matter from author NK Jemisin. If you don't get why it was so bad and why so many people are (rightfully) angry about it - you need to read it twice. Maybe three times.

Just keep reading until you get why it's wrong to be sexualizing a nine-year-old girl in front of a crowd of celebrities (and I cannot imagine how embarrassed or shamed or uncomfortable the poor girl must have felt when that joke got pointed at her, but for MacFarlane it's like she wasn't really a real person and wasn't RIGHT THERE in the audience being at the receiving end of his unfunniest line of the night). Keep reading until you get that this isn't a new thing that us white people have been doing, going after young Black girls and treating them as though they have no right to be considered children and protected as children.

Let's also keep in mind the fact that while no one stood up to defend Quvenzhané Wallis when an unacceptable remark was made about her, one that ought to have had people booing and jeering and telling MacFarlane that he wasn't fucking funny at all, about three guys raced out their chairs to help a white woman up when she stumbled up the stairs on the way to get her Academy Award.

So the message is that a grown up white woman who can damn well pick herself up is deserving of instant aid and support from grown men around her, but a nine-year-old Black girl who just got sexualized and put at the butt of a terrible unjoke deserves none. Got it. Capable white women: totally human and worth it. Black girls: totally not human. (That last bit is sarcasm, which I hope comes across).

And protip to my fellow white women: as someone else said on Tumblr said, now is not the time to have discussions about whether the word "cunt" is okay and how you as a grown and very privileged white woman feel about its usage. Because it's one thing for a grown woman, especially a white woman, to decide that she can be at peace with that word or even like it and reclaim it. It's another and infinitely more heinous thing to hurl it at a nine-year-old child who is in a totally different situation.

Actually, protip to all my fellow white people: be aware of discussions going on that are Not For Us and don't be a big Count Buttinsky with your White Opinion about the matter. Read them if you want, but unless someone specifically invites you to the table, stay out. Be aware and prudent of how you use your voice and what the effect will be. Hell, do this always, every day.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/243310.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/243310.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

More writing exercises!

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:04:35 GMT

As always, I love when people play along in comments and come up with their own answers to these exercises

From 642 Things to Write About

Tell a story that begins with a ransom note

Turn in your wings or the Devil dies at midnight, forever this time. The note, written in scrawling Sharpie still smelled of the marker. She folded it up and handed the piece of paper to Asariel. His wings shimmered into existence for just a moment, enough to let her know how upset he was. Usually he kept them off the real plane with effortless ease.

"This is going to be painful," Asariel sighed.

"What? You're actually considering this? Come on, why are we so bent on saving the devil. He's the Prince of Darkness and all that. Why not 'let there be light', yanno?" she asked, breaking a smile.

"Because, the Devil doesn't deserve to die and if she does, the world may unravel at the seams. You know so little of the truth about her. You don't even gender her correctly, dammit."

"So she's the good guy here?" She raised both eyebrows and then shook her head. "You're telling me that Satan is just misunderstood?"

"I loathe that name," he commented, offhandedly. "Lucifer is as good as anyone is, angel or demon. Better, maybe. Think of it, if she has all the evil powers that you people attribute to her then why hasn't she used them to take over the world and enslave everyone in a pit of pure torment?"

"God won't let her?" Ellie hazarded to guess with a shrug and a head shake.

"Remember what I said. Your idea of God is a dangerous concept, be careful what you base on it."

"Okay, all right. I got it. All the gods are real and they're not real at the same time. Like you said. Still doesn't make sense, but I got it. What's our plan for saving the wronged heroine here, because I got nothing."

"No, but I do."

Asariel's wings shimmered and solidified into full being and Ellie frowned so deeply her lip quivered.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/243060.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/243060.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Writing Exercises.

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:56:07 GMT

Taken from 642 Things to Write About. Feel free to play along in comments! I'd love to see what other people do with these!

What can happen in a second?

A heartbeat, a breath, a spoken word, a sung note, a number changing on a microwave. Put them all together and they add. 60 and you've got a minute, 180 and you have the length of the average song and the time it takes to make popcorn.

A houseplant is dying. Tell it why it needs to live

Don't go! You bring color to this drab place where there's so little life. You're beautiful and leafy and green, a real kind of green. What would this place be without you? We'll take better care of you from now on. We'll water you and I'll buy plant food full of nitrogen and potassium. Wouldn't that be yummy? We'll even enjoy you more, show you to our friends when they come over. I'll get you a bigger pot. If you die, I can't get you back. Please stay.

Write Facebook status updates for the year 2017

1. Happy 2017 everyone!

2. Watching the state of the union address. Well done, Madame President.

3. I love my job but I still love weekends more. Now for some wine to kick off the weekend with!

4. My thirties are so much kinder to me than my twenties were. I'd never go back to them.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242725.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242725.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

It was a big deal for me

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 01:45:20 GMT

Well, I got 2152 words out today. Technically, I did most of that Friday in my paper notebook and then I typed it in and added some stuff today. But that's still a big damn deal for me right now.

For Christmas my sister-in-law got me 642 Things to Write About, and in it there's a question: "What does writer's block feel like?"

For me, it feels like I'm a house and someone just took a sledgehammer to a load bearing wall. I can feel myself crumbling without my creativity. So being able to write these words, even if they're the sequel to a novel that will never see the light of day is a big damn deal for me.

As I told my therapist, not being able to write in the way I've been unable to write lately (and all the other things) feels like a bomb went off in my brain and now I'm left with unstable wreckage that's creaking and groaning and I'm running around not sure how to clean up the mess or if the roof will cave in or what.

This is why I get mad when people want to insult writers and be cruel about writing, even really bad writing. Now, this doesn't mean I get mad at real and earnest critiques intended to say something meaningful, especially when that bad writing is hurtful and oppressive.

But it is why I don't approve of blatant cruelty and laughing while finger pointing. Because writing is hard, because being able to tap out 10,000 words is an accomplishment, being about to tap out 50,000 words into even a somewhat cohesive whole of a story is really fucking hard.

Right now, I'm barely able to draft a letter to a pretend client for my paralegal class that I'm taking. Right now, it's all I can do to write a letter that will probably come to 500 words and for which I have a preset format and formal rules to follow.

Writing creatively? Writing without formats and formal rules to follow? That's something big. So even if someone does it clumsily and in a way that goes down the same well worn path that others have taken, even if they do it tritely and without subtlety, it's still something.

It's still more than I can do right now. Which hurts to admit, in a way where I wince so hard because taking stock of what I've lost - at least for now - is painful. But you can't rebuild the house without knowing the full extent of the damage.

And this is part of mine.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242653.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242653.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

A poem just to say that I'm still here

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:39:07 GMT

I've had little if anything to write (creatively) since the beginning of January because I've been taking a course to get a paralegal certification that has basically sucked up whatever excess energy I might have had. And given that low energy is something I've been suffering from for a long time, that means writing has gone on the back, back burner. So has non-class related reading.

I wonder if this contributes to me resenting this class already and hating it. It's entirely too left brained for me and I know that now. I wish I'd realized it then.

But enough of that. I'm just posting to say that I am alive and I even have a poem that got workshopped by the writing group I'm in.

I like to think of this writing group as the writer's equivalent of gentle yoga. Except far less cultural appropriation that comes with yoga in the U.S. But that's a whole other topic. Anyway, it's a very gentle group that meets once a month in the community room of the local library. So far I like it because right now what I need is something that's positive and encourages me to just write rather than harsher critiques and higher level polishing. Which is just what I need at the moment. I may know on an object level that my writing is a little more sophisticated than some others in the group, but they're at least writing at all. I'm not, which means they've got a leg and a half up on me.

Anyway, suffice to say the levels vary and so do the genres, but this poem seems to have impressed them and I got some nice compliments on them.

I expanded the poem at their request and am presenting it now to you.

"No One Comforts a Troll"

I think of myself as
both ugly and delicate
Like a field of porcelain weeds
If an army of boots
came marching quickstep across me
what would remain?
and who would care?

What if the troll sobs itself to sleep
every single night, emotionally fragile
and broken and
what if the troll under the bridge is
dying of it
No one comforts a troll
So how does it go on
and does it matter?

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242425.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242425.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Happy 2013

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 14:01:45 GMT

May your new year bring you happiness, peace, love, prosperity, and joy!

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242033.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/242033.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

A brief thank you

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:54:54 GMT

Thank you to everyone who came to talk to me in comments about writer's block. I'm getting around to answering your comments, but right now is kind of not a good time for me mentally and with some life stuff going on.

But I wanted to say thank you, because the comments have come as a big comfort to me that I will write again, that writer's block isn't permanent and that I can crawl out of this hole I've found myself in.

So thank you. Thank you for sharing, and thank you for talking about it with me. I really am comforted and your replies made a lot of sense to me.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/241906.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/241906.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Two things make a post because I damn well say so

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:38:37 GMT

1. DW/LJ-verse, let me pick your brains about long term writer's block and what it is and if anyone ever gets over it. Because right now, I'm in a bit of a panic that I will never write again. It's been weeks, maybe months, since I sat down and worked on a project. It's like the mere act of typing has gotten harder for me to do. The words don't flow from me anymore. Heck, they don't really even come when I try to grind them out word by word onto a page or a screen.

I'm blocked up. Well and truly and I don't know how to get out of it. Anyone else ever gone through this? How did you get out of it?

Because right now I really am afraid that I've lost the one ability that I've always valued in myself and that's scary.

2. Dog bless sara and the very first fontmas in which she explains how to use Google Web Fonts really easily in your DW layouts simply by pasting a url into a box. IT'S LIKE MAGIC, Y'ALL. Which solves my problem of finding a layout that I liked a lot but didn't care for Impact as a font. I really wish that they'd get a new default font for new layouts because the Summertime layouts are pretty. And the one I'm using actually has a nice color combo. But damn, Impact is one ugly damn font to use. It's like using popsicle sticks to frame the work of a great artist. It just sort of ruins the whole thing. But that's my opinion and I'm not a pro or even an amateur when it comes to designing things. I just play around on colourlovers a lot and pretend I know things.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/241566.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/241566.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Eeeee! So happy!

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:28:26 GMT

I just looked and someone put money into my tip jar. Thank you so much, person. ILU. <3. Thank you. That really made my week. No, actually, my month.

Person, you are a living rock star and I wish I could give you a big hug (if that's okay).

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/241388.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/241388.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Wishlist Post

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:11:53 GMT

There's a wishlist post being run by marina, and I think it's awesome. I'm going to post this list here. I also got inspired by amadi's wish list.

First off, I don't expect anything. I'm not posting this and then glaring at everyone who doesn't fulfill my wishes as being a big, mean, nasty meanie-headed meanie or anything. I get it. Money is tight for a lot of people. It's just that it's kind of a meme going around and sometimes it's interesting just to see what other people wish for.

Second off, don't feel obligated.

Third off, feel free to post your own wish lists in comments if you want to!

1. Money in the tipjar. Even a dollar or five bucks or whatever would really come in handy right now what with medical bills and everything and me still being unemployed.

2. Really honest feedback on cityofthehand (my novel that I put up on the web for free) and what people liked and didn't like about it, what they really thought of it, if they'd ever want to see a sequel. I'd love for more people to at least read it even if they never give me a dime for it, but I guess that's every author's wish.

2b. Art of any of the characters or settings or anything from my book. I can't draw worth a damn, but I've always wanted to be able to show the world a visual representation of what they look like.

3. Anything from my wishlist on Amazon.com. Again, don't feel like you need to get me anything from this list. It's just a list. Of stuff. That I found to be shiny or whatever.

4. Any feedback on my poetry that I've written. It's in this tag

5. The following books: Redemption in Indigo - Karen Lord; Fire Logic - Laurie Marks; Steampowered and Steampowered 2: Lesbian Steampunk - by JoSelle Vanderhooft (wanted the last one for a long time now in a paper copy!)

6. Book recommendations for really good books, especially in the SF/F genres. I'm open to other genres, especially if they're really good, feature women, queer folks, fat folks, disabled folks, and PoC (even better if all of the above!).

7. Coloring books. They're kind of therapy for me. Adult or pattern themed coloring books are the best for me. But any are good.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240903.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240903.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

The Tipjar Post

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:28:38 GMT

I'm posting the tipjar here so I can come back and refer to this URL when/if needed.

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This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240884.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240884.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Congrats

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:54:21 GMT

Congrats to all those on my f-list who participated in and/or won NaNoWriMo. You worked hard, so treat yourself to a beverage or food of choice and enjoy it!

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240441.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240441.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

I'm starting a meme, join in!

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 23:15:12 GMT

So, today I went to the library and found a really interesting book called Thanks, But This isn't For Us: A (Sort Of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing is Being Rejected.

I haven't read all of it, but I did find an interesting exercise that I'd love to see other people on my f-list try. Which is:

Come up with five opening lines for books you never intend to write. Use different techniques and try out different genres than you usually would. Just make them as interesting and compelling in one line as you can.

So my five were:

1. "Why won't you let me drive?" Allie asked on the way to their next murder.

"Because you're the only person under seventy I've ever seen leave their blinker on for five exits." (murder mystery)

2. When Sierra was ten she got her first job, kissed her first girl, and got in her first fight all in the space of three hours on the first day of school. (Romance)

3. His queen would be dead by noon if he didn't find a new, less worn out horse. (Historical romance)

4. The President's eyes seemed bright but rheumy that day as he leaned on the podium in the sweltering August heat of Washington. (Political thriller)

5. Hades laid his head down in the gloom and let the dead babble around him, then he raised his eyes to the black vaulted ceiling of the cave and suddenly, the dead went silent. (Mythological fantasy)

--

So, hopefully others will choose to play along. It's an interesting exercise in how to sculpt a first line and it actually got me thinking of new ideas. Let me know what you thought of my first five lines and feel free to leave your own first five (or try just one!) lines in comments if you want.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240211.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240211.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

In which I do not believe in the constructive nature of "Ha-ha!"

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:51:47 GMT

So, best of nanowrimo is a thing on Tumblr, and yanno what? It makes me more than a little queasy to have people's posts taken and reposted (probably without their knowledge or consent) just so that others can have laughs at their expense.

I'm not of the Nelson Muntz school of how to look at other people's failures. Especially when it comes to writing.

Writing is fucking hard, folks, and you have to write about a bajillion words of crap until you get good at it. Some people can write fifty bajillion words of crap and still not get there. People develop as writers at different speeds and in different ways. A lot of these people are probably only on their first or second novels. For them, NaNoWriMo is probably a much bigger deal.

More than that, these writers are people. Human beings. With feelings.

I'm not saying that all of these writers who have been lampooned for daring not to be perfect (or even daring to have a failure or two) where others could see them are good writers. I'm not saying you have to like it or think the prose they're writing is good. You don't. Bad is bad. Sometimes a piece of writing is just lousy. It happens. Sometimes it even gets published.

But save that the writer is putting something out there that is actively hurtful (that is - racist or sexist or trans hating or anti-GLBQ or what not), I don't get why making an entire Tumblr blog dedicated to laughing at them, Nelson Muntz style without feedback, without anything to help them, is really going to accomplish. Besides making a lot of people who probably have never tried NaNoWriMo, who aren't even writers feel very superior and good about themselves because they never wrote anything that bad and of course they could write so much better. They just don't write because they don't want to.

Like I said. Writing is fucking hard. You try it. No, really. You try to write a novel in a month. Try to write a novel in two months. Three. Hell, I'll even give you a calendar year. Take a year and write a novel and we'll see how brilliant and flawless your first draft comes out. We'll see how many of your favorite lines or ideas are just original wonders of literature. Because chances are that even if you're really talented it's gonna come out with mistakes and typos and prose that gets excessive and all sorts of goodies that you'll have to go back and trim, delete, correct, or otherwise rewrite. You might even end up having to rewrite the entire damn thing because your first product turns out to be a great big blob of plotless wonderment.

Maybe I'm excessively tenderhearted, but at least a couple of those entries struck me as being from writers who are very young (maybe not even 18 or at least right at 18) and many struck me as being from writers who are very new to this writing thing. And such writers seem to me as being NOT the ones who deserve to have people basically rolling down the window and throwing soda cans at them from their car and chuckling as they speed by in an internet sense of doing such a thing.

Not when there are piles about fifty miles deep of bad books that have been published which could be discussed, critiqued, and talked about. At least pick on someone who got paid for what they did, who had editors and copyeditors working with them.

After all, what does this kind of thing accomplish? Does it give these writers a way to understand WHAT isn't working about their writing? No. Does it somehow start a conversation about how they can improve? No.

Constructive criticism can come in a lot of forms. Some of them can seem rather harsh, but it doesn't mean that they aren't constructive. I point you to a review such as this one here (h/t to Requires Hate). It isn't sweetness and light. It doesn't spare any feelings, but it also isn't nothing but someone laughing and pointing. Why? Because there's something for the author to actually listen to and think about.

Constructive criticism can often come from a place of anger. Letting someone know that something is not okay because it's offends and further marginalizes entire swaths of human beings is in and of itself a constructive act. Letting someone know that their writing hurt you because it made fun of or furthered harmful tropes about people like you - even if you do so with many curse words and don't give a fuck about whether you're "educating" - is also constructive criticism in it's way. Because you're still giving the writer a reason. Racism is a reason. Sexism is a reason. Ciscentrism and heterosexism are very valid reasons why a piece of writing is wrong and bad.

But the difference is that at least stating "this is racist" is giving the writer something to go on. It may mean they have to do research for themselves (hell, they should do research for themselves)

So what is that this tumblr blog is giving anyone to think about? Okay, maybe it's saying, "Your writing is bad". Well, that's not helpful. More than that, it's doing it in a rather mean kind of way.

What it does is have complete strangers take bits and pieces of someone else's work, repost it without knowledge or consent (and if you don't know me, I am a stickler for consent and wanting to know that consent was given for pictures taken or reposts of this nature) and make sure that actual human beings get lampooned with no chance to have anything to listen to except the howling cackle of other human beings who want to feel superior and better-than-thou without having to try and risk any failure themselves?

In short: either give constructive criticism that helps a writer get better or move the fuck on without being rude and rather creepy about it.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240033.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/240033.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Just to note

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:49:42 GMT

For those reading on the livejournal mirror of this blog, comments have been restricted to friends only because I'm getting inundated with spam for the moment and LJ doesn't seem to be doing much about it. For the moment I don't have time to keep deleting and reporting each of the many spam comments that comes in.

So, if you need to make a comment on something and you can't, drop me a message and I'll add you so you can comment. I always like having new friends anyway!

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/239616.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/239616.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Day 30: The End of the Road

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:50:23 GMT

Day 30: Write a poem employing extended metaphor to illustrate the experience of the last 30 days as you were participating in the challenge.

Yet Another Prose Poem.

The last thirty days of my life have been like a very narrow road with pillows and marshmallows on each side and the simple rules that you don't know what the end will be like and you can only take one step each day. Which at first seems a terrible speed limit and you're on this road and you're screaming at the slowness of your pace and stamping your foot and going, "Come on, come on, come on" to some invisible force in front of you in the line, but then somewhere around the first or second turn it becomes "oh thank god, I only have to take one step at a time" because the marshmallows and pillows look awfully tempting and you know the fall wouldn't hurt anything but your ego, but you take that step and then the next and let tomorrow be tomorrow's problem and then it becomes second nature and then it ends and you miss it like you'd miss an old friend who's just left after an extended visit because while you adjusted around them, you think it'll be nice to adjust back to the way things were. It's a good road, but I wouldn't want to live there.

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Day 29: Posted late for reasons of feeling like crap yesterday

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:49:06 GMT

Day 29: Briefly research a poetic form of your choice and write a poem according to the rules of that particular form. It can be a received form or a nonce form.

A Sonnet to Writer's Block

To be a writer who cannot write
To have flesh strain, mind so weak
To be a flower that can't find light
To face a page so empty and bleak

To to have desire and not the skill
To make something of beauty and art
To have the willing but not the will
To have hands that work, but not a heart

Like a falling wall you have to build
By piling crumbling brick upon brick
You put one on one with each stone you wield
But it falls away, for the mortar won't stick

Still, I say push on and push through
For that's how this poem came to you

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Day 28: An object

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 20:57:27 GMT

Day 28: Visit a virtual museum gallery and take a look around until you find an object that intrigues you. Write a poem inspired by the artwork.

The Venus of Willendorf

I sometimes feel that I was born too early
or far too late in time
because I see the image of myself
called a Venus, and cut from stone and
in the shape of a body like mine, a
body wide and exuberant in it's space taking, a
body that strides the x and y axis
with joy, that spills flesh over all
the supposedly more pleasing
lines that other artists have drawn around my body
until they've shaved my "supposed to"
into a whittled stick

I see this object that must have taken
so long to make roundness
out of the hard and square stones
and I think, still a goddess is a goddess
Whether anyone continues to worship her
or not. Venus remains Venus
even if the temple is gone and the fires gone out.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238865.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238865.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Day 26: Right on time this time!

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:46:12 GMT

Day 26: Gather some magazines/catalogs you don’t mind cutting up and spend 10 minutes flipping through the magazines/catalogs looking for words/sentences that spark your interest. Cut out the words as you go. When the 10 minutes are up, arrange the words to piece together a cut-up poem.

Light work for
the long stretch
only one could occupy the site in your mind
the design is executed for today's
flush work, it was built with
a line of striped banners
through an open window of wood
scorned as timber, beloved of the sky
spiraling upward to view
yet didactic wall panels are more insightful to us

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238660.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238660.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Day 25: A day late, but hopefully not any dollar amount short!

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:45:31 GMT

Day 25: Write a poem that includes all of the following words: pistachio, ink, pebble, weather, varnish.

The summer I met my stepfather I:

was just turned twenty

ate every pistachio in the house out of the
huge bags he bought from the commissary
like a foraging bear

became a pebble in everyone's shoe that
spilled ink and called it a life aspiration

was a slow hurricane that stripped the very varnish
off the furniture, by laying around, destroying everything

was a hell of a thing to weather

would be a bridesmaid in just two years

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238548.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238548.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Day 24: A short prose poem

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:49:17 GMT

Day 24: Write a poem that’s different in some way from anything you’ve ever written. Take a chance! Be wild!

A short prose poem.

The neighbor boy across the way threw his sister's barbie dolls onto the roof of their laundry shed. They're still there, naked and rotting in the sun day by day. I think there is a raccoon who comes to play with them at night before it gets into the garbage and scatters food bits in the yard. Because sometimes the barbies - they've moved, suddenly face up as if tanning their plastic bodies in the sun, sometimes face down as if they're misshapen, pale blondies baking in the sun. Even if someone did get a ladder and with a sigh, climb up and get the barbies, they're ruined, both of them. They'd be hideous and tangled and weathered. I think they might have even grown crows feet and flabby stomachs and unibrows and sagging melty butts while they were up there. They'll never be pristine, box-condition beautiful ever again. Frankly, I think the boy did his sister an unwitting favor.

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238264.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/238264.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Day 23

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:30:40 GMT

Day 23: Write a seven line poem that begins with “it’s true that fresh air is good for the body” (from Frank O’Hara’s poem “Ave Maria”) and ends with “this is our body” (from Gary Snyder’s “The Bath”).

1 It's true that fresh air is good for the body
2 Even better is self-supremacy over it
3 With no other person gaining right of way
4 To live in one's own vessel, owning it as a greedy god
5 Or like a monarch, to look all others in the eye
6 And say, with all auto-regality:
7 "This is our body"

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/237894.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/237894.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.

Day 22: A kind of sad poem about a car. Yes, I can make a car poem sad. Behold my powers!

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:48:00 GMT

Day 22: What is the first car you bought/drove/remember? Write a poem about it.

I thanked you twice, you orange, boxy thing
You were the color of the 80's
Twenty-years out of fashion if you were ever in
You had a tricky spark plug
You turned less sleekly than most 18-wheelers

I thanked you when I got you, (I thanked everyone that Christmas)
For what opportunities you opened for me
A job, independence, friends

You took me everywhere and I was so cavalier
I was so fucking expert I could drive you
one handed, other on the radio dial
I could drive you so fast the gravel spun up
under your tires
I went everywhere around town with you
And sometimes even talked shit about you
because others had better things
One girl in class got a new car. A brand new car.
From that year.
(I hated her because she complained about the color,
thankless brat).

But then on a Sunday morning
I thanked you when I woke up
Amongst the shattered, scattered glass
With the jaws of life prying your frame apart
the steering wheel touched the ceiling
I laid slumped to the side
and a big fireman's face said, "Don't move, stay calm"
I thanked you then
Because after a 70 mile an hour crash
from a car bigger and bluer than you
you were totaled but I was not

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Day 21: The Remix

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:07:19 GMT

Day 21: Select one of the poems you’ve already written as part of this challenge and revise it by choosing all new verbs.

It was truly hard not to donate a fuck
I had attempted it just this week
And did not really have the best of luck
at discovering the indifference I looked for

The first problem was consequence
You could malinger around all day for a while
And hitch the dog out to the fence
But soon the dish and dishes begin to stack up

Then you can scream that bad words roll off your back
And that you were hardly there, not paying attention
But stinging still stings like a sledge hammer whack
And anger still taunts like a diamond's shining

This entry was originally posted at http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/237492.html, you can comment at: http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/237492.html?mode=reply or here, comments will be read and responded to at both sites.