Blueberry Fiction

She/her. All works are original unless credited otherwise. 18+ pieces are marked as such.

[blueberry-fiction]

For Nobody

Was it fate or chance when I found myself in you,

In your quiet and your chaos too?

When the secrets I kept were the songs you knew

Reflected matching shades of blue

[blueberry-fiction]

You showed me what it meant to have an equal, what I deserved in the years in between. I’ll be forever grateful for the lessons you taught me, but never comfortable with how we left things.

If this invisible string that ties me to you has finally snapped, I’ll search for pieces of you in the people I meet for the rest of my life.

[blueberry-fiction]

For Nobody

Was it fate or chance when I found myself in you,

In your quiet and your chaos too?

When the secrets I kept were the songs you knew

Reflected matching shades of blue

[blueberry-fiction]

You, like a flower left planted until first frost

So the soil may hold purpose

And the home feel more inviting

For the landscape should seem less beautiful

Without you

You, like a flower left planted until first frost

Weighed down by Winter’s burden

Bend quietly toward the Earth

Who reaches out

To hold you

[blueberry-fiction]

All the boys who like me

Need to be in therapy

[blueberry-fiction]

Over a year later and still accurate at least I’m consistent!!

[blueberry-fiction]

I could sleep away the next six months if that’s what it takes to bridge the gap

From this aching pit inside my chest to where my future self is at

[blueberry-fiction]

My only goal for two years, to keep my head above the ground

Till you took me to the ocean to teach me how to drown

Now my lungs are full of water while the riptide takes me down

When you said we’d be in this together but you’re nowhere to be found

[blueberry-fiction]

All the boys who like me

Need to be in therapy

[harpeion]

Why should I follow the thief in the night,

Who took all I owned, who stole my heart,

When I could be safe in my house of memories?

[liberaljane]

Support Your Local Library!

Here’s 3 easy ways to get started: 1.) Get a library card (it’s free and usually just requires proof of residency!) 2.) Attend your local library’s events and programming. 3.) Advocate for increased support and funding. 

Keep reading

[blueberry-fiction]

Hi folks, I’m still here and reading your writing I’ve just been too depressed to write more of my own at the moment!

[surreality51]

[mayakern]

yeah when people ask me how i plan my stories… this is honestly a lot of it. but it’s this even in my outline before i start writing any prose

[htvpgenny]

I already knew from the beginning that you wouldn’t choose me but that didn’t stop me from loving you genuinely because deep down in my heart I silently hoped that in between those late-night talks, those ‘I love you’ and my constant validation of your emotions, you’d finally see me and feel at home. It was nothing but an almost.

[blueberry-fiction]

[books-of-the-great-leviathan]

Chapter 1- The Nameless Girl

***

Val paused, her broom stilling on the black flagstones, and listened to the faint boom of approaching wings.

Aiatar, she thought, drawing a slow breath. Aiatar crossing the sea border. The skies of Rashavir were ever alive with the churn of vast wings, but rarely were there so many at once, displacing the air and sending a spike of pressure through her head with each immense beat.

Down here, deep in the warrens of kitchens and sewers, passageways and slave-quarters, most couldn’t hear the goings-on of the Aiatar high overhead. Val could. She always could, ever since she was a child. She was thirteen now, or thereabouts, and it had only become worse the older she grew. When storms were on their way her head ached, a deep pulse in the backs of her teeth. When the queen was conducting rituals she felt that too, and it wasn’t pain then, but a place beyond it, a rushing, thrumming surety.

If there was a flight of Aiatar returning, in those numbers, with that much haste, it meant Val was going to feel that rush again, and soon.

It meant the queen was back in Rashavir.

Keep reading

[blueberry-fiction]

Daddy’s Little Girl

Tw: addiction, abuse

I was so young the first time I asked you to quit

Please choose daddy’s little girl over your cigarette

And six years old was way too young to understand

But I understood you weren’t an honest man

“Anything for you”, you’d promised, fingers crossed

And I smiled so big and wide, no innocence lost

But then the cigarettes ran out and you became an angry man

And six years old was still too young to understand

Daddy’s little girl didn’t know how hard life was

And the cigarettes were all gone but you still needed that buzz

The bottle came next, and with it came chew

And by that time daddy’s little girl couldn’t recognize you

She’s only six years old, about to turn seven

But you hit her when she cried and she internalized that lesson

She was daddy’s little girl and she tried to understand

Why her daddy couldn’t be a more honest man

X

[holywyrm]

On Editing -- a thing to keep in mind

Okay, I've been sitting on this one for literal years. But I think I finally have the language to take a stab at explaining it.

Not all edits makes sense for all narrative voices.

What the hell do I mean by this?

Take Tolkien, for an extreme example. The narrative voice in LotR, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion etc. is generally very formal and poetic. It intends to mimic the speech patterns of Old English epics like Beowulf. So sentences like **flips to a random page in Fellowship**

With that he jumped out of his chair, and with a bound took a candle from the chimney-shelf and lit it in the flame that Goldberry held; then he danced about the table.

This does many things that are often considered writing faux-pas. And yet, it works (unless your the kind of person that doesn't like Tolkien's prose, which is valid.) Most writers would write this sequence more like:

He jumped out of his chair. He grabbed a candle from the chimney-shelf and lit it with the flame Goldberry held out to him. Then, he danced around the table.

Or they might omit a few details:

He jumped up to light a candle with Goldberry's flame. Then, he danced around the table.

Tolkien's prose contains a filler words that most people would be advised to cut out, such as "with that". It uses several words where one will do, such as "with a bound" instead of "bounding". It uses archaic wording such as, "lit it in the flame," instead of "lit it with the flame," "took a candle from," instead of "grabbed a candle off," and "danced about," instead of "danced around." And it uses much longer sentences with multiple ideas strung together.

But it's not bad writing. It is giving off a certain effect, the effect of reading a epic 1000 year old poem.

I've started to become more careful about how I edit because each of the three examples given gives a very different effect and all of them are enjoyable to read. When editing, I've started asking myself

What is the effect the writer is going for? Does this add to it?

How casual or formal is their prose, overall?

A writer going for a more modern or casual feel will probably write like the second example, using modern word choice, cutting out filler words, and using strong verbs.

A writer going for a quick, snappy feel will probably write like the third example, focusing only on the most important actions and details.

Another example is "she stated firmly before exiting the room" versus "she said firmly, then left the room." Both of these are technically correct, but one might feel more awkward than the other. If the prose is really casual elsewhere, words like "stated" and "exiting" are going to draw unwanted attention. If the prose is more formal, "stated" and "exiting" may pack more of a punch than "said" and "left".

Grammar conventions can sometimes be ignored as well if it suits the voice. "He was hungry again," is technically more correct than, "he was again hungry," because adverbs should follow the verb. But more formal prose, or prose going for an archaic or Tolkienesque feel, might prefer the second option. The first might feel too casual.

So yeah, pay attention when editing that you are helping to bring the narrative voice out, rather than cutting it out just because writing advice says not to use long sentences, filler words, archaic language, too many words, formal language, slang, a particular word order etc.