...will be resumed after I finish Nanowrimo; so far I'm on scedule (day 18, 30101 words and counting) and as usual the plot has dived off the rails, the characters have lost the run of themselves and I'm having a laugh.
Highly recommended :)
nanowrimo.org - it's probably too late now but go for it next year - or read around and if you enjoy reading peoples novels donate to the very worthy Nanowrimo Cause!!
I'm doing Nanowrimo again this year.
Nanowrimo is an excellent event, a mad manic "write a novel in a month" event. It literally is a chance to write a novel in one month, 50000 words is the goal. The point is to fling words at a page and enjoy the esperience of writing, rather than editing and rewriting and obsessing over what you write, though some participants manage to achieve both quantity and quality.
I am a weak novelist :) poetry is definitely my genre. But I have to say I enjoy Nanowrimo immensely. I always go for the humour and it amuses me if nothing else !
If you participate it's also nice to donate (from $10, not much a months entertainment) It keeps the site going, and then additionally raises money for teachers and mentors and books and writing programs for areas that otherwise would recieve no such help.
My nanowrimo
Come have a read, and if you're participating please friend me!
Mary bakes bread by the fire, stout hands kneading fleshy fingers tightening and rolling amid folds of white dough. The flames flicker higher on her forearms match the red sweat of her face, fan the flicker of hate in her eyes. Mary is not pretty; Mary is not slender; Mary is not elegant; Mary bakes sweet dainties for sweet dainty ladies who are everything Mary is not.
Fire rises, fire warms, fire destroys, fire consumes. Mary is the light reflected in polished copper, bronze fireplace ornaments, pokers and tongs. Hammers and Tongs, she goes at it, the dirty wench. Mary blinks thoughts from her mind that she wishes were not there; but there they lurk, constant. Mary is not happy to be - Mary.
Fat Mary, Big Mary, Slow Mary. Hail Mary. Priest would not approve, Preacher would disavow. Wise woman says, make bread by the fire.
Mary bakes bread by the fire, sweltering in heat, heart rate raised, flushed and warm and moist, smelling her own body with each movement, enjoying now the sway of buttocks, the roll of fat, the swell and ebb of the heavy mix.
Mary is not alone, eyes watch transfixed, eyes follow buttock, hip and arm, eyes and mouth and nose concur, hands open door, feet cross floor.
Wise woman warns Mary. You don’t know what may happen. Mary doesn’t care. Mary is strong; Mary is brave; Mary is capable; Mary bakes bread for women whoa re everything Mary is not. She is tired of being only the names they choose to call her. She wants new names. Mother, Lover, Woman. The fire is still rising, she will not bank it down.
Someone moves closer, someone who should know better, old enough to know better, better educated, better born. Someone called better than Mary, bends over her, whispers to her, sweet words, soft words.
Fingers intertwined, breath mingling, hearts beating, arms still kneading, twisting, hands exploring soft, yielding - flesh or dough? Mary no longer knows. All she can think is yes, all she can reason is that this is hers, for her, about her. She is the one, the dancer in the centre of the hall, the masked lady performing for the court, she is the centre and the cause. Still the fire rises, eyes meet finally, surprise and intrigue leap between. Mary wonders, but she does not pause. Some things you wait for too long.
Priest would cluck, Goodwives sniff, Wise Woman merely smiled and winked – lascivious old woman enjoying the faint heat from another, faraway Hearth. Wise Woman gave oils, to be rubbed into the folds at the bosom, at the belly, in the soft crevices where leg meets sex, on the pulse; unguents that unfurl in the heat of the fire, mingled with the smell of baking, working their way into the sweat and tears and kisses. Wise Woman did not turn away, did not preach abstinence, did not despise the woman who yearned. Wise Woman merely smiled and winked.
Mary returns to herself, to the moment, to the heat. Spent and panting, bemused and wondering. Strong arms surround her, throaty chuckles into her neck, affection on a face that she thought had never noticed her. Strange words in her ear, words that caress and tease. She is not despised nor discarded. She has been noticed and wanted. She is not invisible in this place, perhaps never has been – dark eyes are troubled by her silence. Dark eyes smile into hers and ask questions men ask only of women whose hearts are not overlooked. Mary is warmed by more than fire. Heat rises from more than flame and coal. Mary feels cool flagstone tile under bare skin, and is suddenly afraid.
to be continued.......
Recent events (getting engaged) and a chat with a fellow poet and soon to be bother-in-law reminded me of another short story - well, very short story, rather more like a fragment - that I wrote. This was last year, and like many stories came to me more or less complete leaving me only the task of trying to get it out and into words before it simply vanished. Usually I lose the race; occasionally I manage to keep up and very rarely I win. I'll leave it to ye to decide which where this particular story is concerned....I am reasonably happy with it myself.
The Bridegroom
His name is heavy in her mouth, not yet bitter but a little sour with unfamiliar syllables. She listens as her elders speak, turning the name over and over until it makes some sort of rhythm in her head. She pulls at the grass under hand, squating on the edge of the circle, head on one side. She keeps as silent as she can, in case they see her and send her away. It is her future they are deciding, she reasons, it is not fair to exclude her.
If her voice cannot be heard, then she could at least make use of her ears. However she knows that if her mother's eye alights on her that argument will hold no water and she'll be sent away to sit with her cousins and be silent.His name is thrown from mouth to mouth, now lightly and now with weight; sometimes attached to a "yes" and sometimes to a "no".
Her heart beats faster with each opinion advanced: she likes the way her grandfather shakes his head. He thinks she is over young and that a match made so early may be repented. Events can change, he says sagely. Everyone nods at this. She shudders at her Aunt, who is forceful and has a name for persausion. Her Aunt talks about family ties and property, about good matches and cows, linking marriage and livestock in the same breadth. His name is bartered against the future, a hostage to the winds of time and change - will there be years of good crops and regular rains? will they still need his people as friends and allies?
Old eyes peer into the possiblities: old hands try to feel the shape of things to come. Her own name flutters here and there, but almost apologetically, as if her role in it all was faintly embarrassing. As if security and prosperity should not be purchased with such a little thing as she.His name is said at last with finality. At the beginning other names had been mentioned, peppering the discussion as counterpoints to the main theme.
Now only his name, a recitative, the motif of the day, sounds from every lip in turn. Her skin prickles and she feels cold. His name is now linked to hers. A name she can barely pronounce. Her own name, once so light and airy, prettier than her sisters' names, a joyful name - now has an anchor tying it to earth. Her name used to soar like a small bird, or flutter inevery passing breeze like a ribband. Now his name catches it, holds it down, lends feet of clay to her happiness.
She creeps away, to sit alone.
Behind me the lights of the city: (story)
Behind me the lights of the city: before me the brooding blue-grey shape of the Little Sugarloaf. In a way I was trapped.
Once out of the sprawling metropolis, away from the outlying industrial estates and brutal housing schemes, the mega-malls and cinema-complexes, as the road begins to wind and climb, a spiral path of enchantment into forests older than the oldest cobble on the Trinity quad – there am I in my innocence, climbing into the hills; clawing my way from the grey and the concrete, my own county fading behind me to a carpet of fallen stars. And before me in my mind a soft verdant country lush in it’s welcoming. But how to get to this soft green heart: untrammelled by the grey ribbon, the thread of mundanity binding me to the daylight.
Hurry! Dusk is falling, twilight dying, night approaching. What do I do, where do I go? If I stay on this road I hit Stepaside next, out of the county and on to Enniskerry. Next stop Sally’s Gap. Sally’s Gap is a wilderness too far for me tonight. The endless rolling hills and the far-reaching vista across the great plain of Ireland holds no charms when coupled with a dark night and a road barely wide enough for one car.
No, I want to stop: I want to get off this damn road. I want to walk in a forest at dusk smelling the wild garlic and Star-of-David. I want to listen to the last flight of the rooks, towards their nests, that evening transgression warning the innocent and the pure to retreat before the wild and free. I turn in a daze only half realizing the sign “ Coille” – forest. The car crunches over gravel, tires making a satisfying and definite bite into the earth. The deserted car park, all woodchip and faux rustic fence complete with stile fashioned from barbed wire, a wound in still green wood that oozes as it bears your weight, was too still, too much part of the world of man. I park in haste, and before common sense and memories of serial killer warnings could rear their ugly head.
I climb the ugly stile acutely aware of my ungainly lack of agility, feeling the earthen pull of my body, a lack of grace adding to every other woe. The path is woodchip with undertones of mud, but there is a smell of wild garlic. The air is cool and damp but the day has been just warm enough for it to have the true freshness of summer. Some to my left the rooks set off their harsh song immeasurably comforting in the near complete gloom. The midges are biting just a little and the pine trees – the whole face of Wicklow is bearded with pine forests – sway and rustle. I become acutely aware of the undergrowth. Majestic swirls of fern studded with heather: and plants so wild they cannot be flowers any more, they have to be herbs. The foxglove, hand in hand with ground ivy- and all of it home to the small defenceless creatures the rest of the animal world call lunch. All of it alive and stirring and growing and living and dying, with or without my attention.
On impulse I plunge off the track, like a diver parting dark waters with my arms. It is a mistake, I think frantically, after a very few minutes. Tree trunk on elbow, thorn on bare skin, insect in nostril, eyes blurring with tears, but still I push. Push frantically as midwife to my own progress. Anger rises as I struggle, tears of frustration now, hands stinging from a thousand tiny daggers; every plant in the forest having a dig.
My arms ache now, really ache. I begin to feel suffocated, that little voice of sanity in my head screaming “why are you here? This is insane!” My suffering soul makes a mental note to track down that voice and strangle it. There seems no end to this tangle of tree and bracken, and no way even of telling where I was going. I would have to turn around fight my way back. There was no point continuing, it was a failure. I had plunged, hoping that something would happen. I had closed my eyes, opened my mouth and waited to see what the gods would send me. A mouthful of midges it seemed. I would go back. I’d be better off in front of the telly with a large vodka than this.
What did you expect, the little voice of sanity chided. You’re in the middle of nowhere, plunging through undergrowth fighting with a forest. If your car isn’t on bricks in the car park by the time you get back you can count yourself lucky.
I stop and steady myself against a rough trunk, my face sweating and my breath ragged. My hair had long before escaped and made the most of its contact with nature. Shards of pine palm and baby conifers added unwonted volume while steady backcombing against a succession of branches had created a Byzantine intricacy of form. My clothes are stuck to me, stained and an odour of sweat and endeavour punctured the mask of deodorant and anti-perspirant I wear like a second skin. Being smelly ahs always been a fear of mine, body odours reviled like hairy armpits or stubby nails.
The tree trunk was strong and broad and I lay against it my legs shaking with tiredness. The darkness was almost complete now especially this far into the forest away from the track. The smells rise from the forest floor. I close my eyes but my eyelids feel like gossamer curtains: I can still see through them, see the dark greenness the shifting branches. I hear the very turning of a blade of grass. I am reaching out of my self, I feel the darkest softest caress, the world is spinning and I am laying giddy watching infinity and space whirl past. There is no sense of claustrophobia now, the warm press of the forest, the sense of being burrowed into the heart of a nest is comforting, encompassing. I realize just how far deep in I have wormed, like a child trying to return to womb. This reminds me of my grief but it is a detached thought, it is a question, it is a whisper and it is answered.
I come back to myself, blinking in surprise. Have I fallen asleep? Every knot on the rough bark is digging a separate hole in my back, I feel wring out, flattened, but not unpleasantly so: I feel the way I felt as a child after a day of adventure and play, tired to the bone but satisfied. I find my way out of the dense forest growth, not the way I came in incidentally – the forest has already closed around the traces of my battling progress inwards. It opens itself easily to me now I want to leave, and I push through to the path with relative ease.
The car is still on four wheels, the engine turns over, there is no sign of the serial killer urban legend warns haunts these mountains. I drive around for a while stopping when I see the lights of more than one house and turning away from the lights. In the end this pattern brings me to the motorway and I find myself speeding back towards the lights, down into the carpet of stars.
The gods of weather are fighting it out above the city today: the contest sparked by a row over the glorious spring weather, sponsored in a fit of generosity by Dagda the great father whose special interest in crops seems to have prompted him to provide the nearest thing to a summer we've seen in five years. Albeit in April.
But on the other side we have Manannán, undisputed king of the sea, ruler of the western wave and traditional ruler of Dublin, ably assisted by Anna Livia Herself, the great Liffey lover of Manannán.
"Oh, Anna, " He sighs in the wind, the seagulls driven inwards to the city to act as a chorus to His love poems; "Oh Anna, 'tis too dry, too still, too quiet"
Anna Livia, basking in the unaccustomed warmth and sunshine, rouses Herself with a guilty start, and tries to look as busy as possible. Manannan calls again sadly "O! Anna, sweet Livia, Where are the wild winds of April, the showers of sweet rain, the rainbows the ark like a virgins promise from land to heaven? Where are the last great storms of winter, my last crashing waves against the shore?"
Anna caresses the land as She passes, not wishing to reply, not wishing to fight, wishing only to surrender Herself to the waiting arms of Her lover. But She knows enough to know He'll sulk if She doesn't say something, so She murmurs her sympathy and watches the sunlight through the trees as She croons.
The Dagda smiles down and with a flick of a lazy wrist adjusts the clouds, little wispy summer clouds, hard to conjure out of nowhere in April, soft clouds that adorn the pale blue sky. "Come now, Manannán ," His voice is like laughter on the wind, like ice-cream in a pink bowl. "It's been almost ten years since they had a good summer!"
"Who?" Manannan is puzzled. The gods? the Sheep? the fish? The ants?
"The children," Dagda says casting an indulgent eye over Grafton Street, his favourite street although He knows he should really have chosen Kildare street, for the Politics or one of the Gracious Georgian Squares for a bit of class. What can He say? He likes Brown Thomas' and Monsoon. He likes the young women in flighty minis and the boys in trousers that remind Him vaguely of harem pants He saw once on holiday.
He quite likes the buskers except the ones who play Van Morrison. He wishes He'd never thought to give "Van the Man" an interest in music - He'd thought maybe the boy would take up the fiddle or even be a music journalist. He really hadn't meant Van Morrison. But the ones playing Allison Moyet were pretty good. He liked the little colourful stalls and he really liked the smell of coffee from Bewleys, and the little winding streets off Grafton street, they were pretty damn fine if He said so Himself.
He frowns momentarily: that cheeky Viking upstart taking credit for His winding streets...but no, He smiles again and the sun reappears, the sudden cool shadow cast over the city lifting like gossamer in a summer breeze. He'd proven his point, and now all was well with the world: and the spring having gone down so well with the kids, He had big plans for the summer, long hazy days, hot afternoons, impossibly blue skies. It had been ages, ages, since He'd pulled out all the stops. Manannan growled softly."I've told you before, it shouldn't matter what they think" He spread His arms and the waves rose against the shore beating against the rocks in ceaseless rebellion.
He tossed His head and the rain spat against the cobbles and assaulted the window panes in venomous sprays."Don't be so hard!" Dagda chides. Anna Livia stirs Herself, jealous for Her lovers sake, quick to take offence on His behalf, "Don't you speak to Him like that!" she hisses, undulating in her bed like a lustful snake. And as Manannán stirs the air She raises herself to meet him, baring Her beautiful shoulders and breasts and swelling above the tight marble lines of Her city clothes. "Look" Manannán says proudly. "look. I am the Sea, I am life to these little men. I am the last refuge of the first creatures. I am the loins from which they crawled mewling and gasping, amphibious monsters noone else would tolerate. I fed them, I bore them, but what am I if I listen to them! I am the Sea. I am the Ocean. I am Implacable, Unbridled, Unpredictable. I must roar out the last of my winter blues, I must stretch myself against two continents. I miss the wind, where is my wind"
At this the four winds hear the call of their master and in their haste to reach His side, alarmed by the rising note of anger and frustration in His voice, collide in mid air and the clouds swirl in confusion, Anna Livia eddies and flows in a whirlpool of movement and the Great Dagda himself is momentarily thrown off balance, a thing He hates. He glares at Manannán and with a click of His fingers restores the clear sky and the sun, the city looking skyward in surprise at the sudden spate of rain and wind, and the as-sudden restoration of glorious unseasonable heat.
"Don't you dare" Dagda snarls. "It's taken me three months to plan this spring."Manannán gives a mocking little mince. "ooooooh, three whole months! I've only been at this game a few hundred thousand years, myself. I suppose you think they'll be grateful do you? think they'll be planning a feast like the old days? oooh, dear Dagda, thank you for the decent weather and could you keep it dry for the bank holiday? At least I still get the occasional offering, Old Boy and do you know why? because I don't pander to them, me. They respect me."
Dagda turns his dark eyes upon the defiant Manannán, the indomitable Sea-lord, who stares into those dark stars without a trace of fear or awe. Anna Livia thrills with excitement....a storm, a storm...perhaps even some lightening. Already the rain begins to fall softly at first then in great teardrops splashing dark against the pastels and tans of the fashion conscious. It takes all of the Father's concentration to hold the spring together: the rain and cold howling in the outer darkness, banished but resentful, probing for a weak moment so they can roar back into town, take over once more, play with the citizens as they were used to do. Hold off, threaten, hold off, threaten, wait for it, wait for it, she's got a new hairdo, he's not wearing a jacket, wait for it, NOW! rain at will!
Dagda swears in annoyance and throws a small blast of anger at the Sea-Lord. "Now look what you made me do, " he grumbles, "it'll take all afternoon to round them up again. You've ruined today."Manannán roars in pure anger, dwarfing the Daghda's kindly grumbling or the bitter spite of the rain and cold, summoning up the memories of great storms, hurricanes, tidal waves, continental shift, shark-fins at night, icebergs scraping against iron, lifeboats floating forlornly. "I am Manannán Mac Lir, King of the Sea. I will not cease to roar so that they may have a picnic on my beaches!"
The winds regroup and spin in harmony around His head, a halo of wiry sprites, cheeks puffing and huffing with the desire to blow and wail. The fish settle nervously on the sea bottom, the sharks of the Atlantic take a sharp left away from the west coast, the three headed mutant fish colony of the Irish sea dance their mad dance of glee, too stupid and too crazed to know when to hide. The sky grows dark. The winds rise. The city holds its breath, staring at the sky anxiously, willing the weather to stay good, just few more days, o don't break now, don't let us down!and the sweet sound of the Mother Danaan soothes the air, her voice like honey pouring from a silver spoon.
"Be quiet" she sighs, and raises her head from its slumbers. Her hair spread like red-gold across the Dublin Mountains, her profile raised to the stars, noble in its matronly beauty. She smiles and the sun forces its way through the gathering storm, shinning its rainbow across her brow, His love for Her in every hue. She winks at Him, her oldest friend and admirer and then looks reproachfully at the quarrelling Gods."I was having a nap" Dagda looks sheepishly at His feet and Manannán almost bites off his own tongue in His haste to excuse Himself. His wife Fand smiles up at Danaan, enjoying Her husband's moment of embarrassment. "hush, now" She says, languid and redolent.
"Dagda, I agree with you. The children deserve a little good weather. but Manannán must do as He pleases at sea. He has always ruled the sea."Her voice caresses the city like the smell of chips at dusk, when you're hungry and tired from the play of long summer day, like the memory of childhood, like the feel of warm sand between your toes. The rain dies down, fades in the face of Her wish, and the Sun makes His triumphant return to the loud applause of the citizens.
"I hear, " She smiles at the Sealord, "I hear there is room for a storm out in the Atlantic. I did enjoy that storm you did there last November. I always think they look so much better out there, out in the open. I can really appreciate the subtleties of your craft when I can see the whole storm on the big screen, you know?"Manannán brightens perceptibly. "we-ell," He says diffidently "I might as well get a bit of practice in, I suppose" He turns his chariot and raises His whip but pauses to ask somewhat suspiciously "you will be watching now, won't you" Danaan smiles their special secret smile...."Of course I will" and Manannán races happily across the waves. "Humpph" Dagda settles himself again, to look at the city. "I suppose I had better try to get this sorted....a whole day ruined though. Pity." Danaan leans gently across His shoulder and looks at the little city, now slightly bedraggled, the puddles gleaming like jewels in the smug rays of the reinstated afternoon Sun."No, I think it looks nice. You should do another sunset, last night's was beautiful"
The Dagda grinned involuntarily. "I wondered if you'd noticed!" He exclaims. "It was quite some job getting that orange-red shade at this time of year, I can tell you. And the Shaded Violets and Indigoes took hours to perfect!"
"lovely" Danaan says hastily, "well, one just like it then!""Oh, yes, okay," She looks at the great shoulders of Her kindly husband, His earnest good nature showing in every line as He poured over the city streets, trying to catch at the perfect shade of afternoon to suit its mood. His beloved Dublin, his Crossing at the Ford, His Baile Atha Cliath. She smiled at Him, the helpless affection of ten thousand years. "Here" she says plucking it from her perfect brow and handing to Him. "You can have my rainbow"
