In a race towards the finish line I have abandoned my characters. I drive them on, blind to their own personality as they check off each plot point, lost to the succession of events.
When did they become hollow? Floating along down whatever current I place them in?
Let’s go back to the beginning. Let’s fill them with ideas, opinions and strengths. Let’s give them a mind of their own and take the blinders off. Let’s give them agency and autonomy.
Let’s let them drive the story forward. Let’s go back to the beginning, and see where they take us.
Hello everyone! I’ve been on Tumblr for a little while now and I figured that after a long break I should finally do an author introduction.
My name is Hannah (she/her) and while I have been on tumblr for many many years I have only recently joined the writeblr scene.
I’ve lived all over North America and plan to continue finding new places to live.
My main genres are fantasy and contemporary fiction, but recently I have been enjoying dabbling in a little horror which is kinda funny as I am a baby when it comes to horror in general. I’m enjoying writing short stories while I work on my longer WIP’s which I’ll introduce below.
I also really love to draw, it serves as a great excuse to not write... but really, it’s so much fun to have a visualization of my characters and what they look like. I’ll post more art soon hopefully, I have a bunch of drawing in my sketchbook that I just haven’t uploaded yet.
My favorite author has to be Shannon Hale, more specifically her Books of Bayern series.
Merrow
This is a WIP I have mentioned before. This is my main WIP at the current moment and I’ve gotten half way through a re-write that I am suddenly not all that happy with as I keep noticing more and more issues with it as I get further and further so I think I’m going to start from scratch... again.
If you want to find out more about this particular WIP and the characters you can check out my previous posts on it.
Working first sentence: “It was one hundred and sixty three years later, and Nerissa found herself still very much alone, and still very much alive.”
Memory Vessel
This is another WIP that I have started planning but not writing. It takes place in the same universe as Merrow but with completely different characters.
It follows the main protagonist Ryann as she navigates the afterlife as she slowly loses her memories that she is trying so desperately to cling to. Throw in some monsters, sword fights and a little murder and you have Memory Vessel.
Working first sentence: “My mother had always told me not to dwell on the ‘what if’s’. There’s no point lingering on something you can no longer change. But in that moment all I could ask myself was: ‘what if?’”
Child of the Gods (working title):
So, this is a story that I want to write but I really haven’t given it enough time to know what it’s really about so I’ll just give you a working first line I wrote up a little while ago. This story also takes place in the same universe as Merrow but with different characters.
Working first line: “She looked at me, her eyes expectant as I drew the final card. I flipped it over on the table in front of her so she could see it clearly, not that she knew what any of it meant. I glanced over the spread and looked her dead in the eye. ‘Soooo... the cards say you’re f*****.’”
I hope this introduction finds you in good spirits and that you have a good rest of your day. Till next time!
This was my third and final entry for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2020. It didn’t get me into the fourth round but it got me an honorable mention and I am more than happy with that. The prompts were: Historical Fiction, Newsstand and a parking meter.
Read it here:
My Website
Wattpad
Or read it below:
Marcel adjusted the iron bar resting over the magazines laid out across the counter. Their unsecured corners rustled in the chilled morning breeze which promised to give way to a perfect day. He flipped through Le Journal de Montréal reading about the new Métro lines opening soon as he waited for the morning rush.
One of his regulars strode up to the stand, picking up his usual copy of Le Devoir and flipping through the first couple of pages before tossing a coin Marcel’s way. Marcel placed it in the lockbox and leaned out the window.
“Bonjour Albert, running behind today?” he asked. Albert chuckled.
“Oui, you would not believe how hard it is to find decent parking anymore.” Albert folded and pocketed the newspaper before turning to Marcel.
“Then shouldn’t you be going?”
“I have time. Besides, I wanted to know if you’ve seen this?” Albert put a copy of The Gazette onto the counter.
“And why were you reading an English paper?” Marcel looked at the date, July 26th, 1966. “This was last Friday?”
“Page three,” Albert said simply. Marcel chuckled a little as he turned the pages, his face slowly twisting inwards in a rather unpleasant way as his eyes travelled down the page. He threw the paper down on the counter.
“Drapeau has some balls calling the place I make my livelihood ugly and in a condemnable condition. I’ve been working here decades longer than he’s been mayor! I know he doesn’t like things cluttering up his streets but that’s too far!” Marcel ranted.
“I agree.”
“And to have to read about it in some English paper! Makes my skin crawl.”
They halted their conversation as a man ran up to the stand.
“Excusez-moi, is it possible to make change? I need a dime for the parking meter,” his voice was breathy.
“Do I look like a bank?”
“Please!”
“You have to buy something,” Marcel relented. The man threw a copy of La Presse on the counter with a dollar, and his feet didn’t stop moving once as Marcel spitefully and slowly made his change and dropped it into his outstretched hand. The man quickly retreated in the direction he had come from, barely beating a patrolling Parking Enforcement Officer to the meter.
“Bah! I was hoping he’d get a ticket.” Marcel groaned turning back to Albert. “Anyway, if Drapeau’s so worried about cleaning up the sidewalks then he should really get rid of those eyesores. He thinks my stand is ugly. Ha!”
“Honestly, I had to park six blocks over today to find a free parking spot. They used to be everywhere,” Albert sighed.
“What purpose do they even serve? Pinching money from people’s pockets for space owned by the community. Am I not providing an essential service? Or the international newsstand over on Peel Street? Or any other newsstand out there that supplies people with the knowledge of day to day happenin-” Albert cut him off.
“Merde, sorry Marcel I have to get going. I will stop by after work. À plus tard!” Albert ran off without another word. Marcel continued grumbling to himself, reading the words written on the paper over and over again until his eyes drifted upwards towards the long row of parking meters laid out before him like soldiers, their red flags raised in anticipation of the coming battle. They truly were an eyesore.
The morning rush came, the turnover of cars in front of him quick and unending like the customers of his newsstand. Coins thrown into the meter. Coins thrown across his counter. The red flags disappearing. Newspapers snatched from the racks. The red flag slashing upwards in silent alarm. Pages lost to the wind. A Parking Enforcement Officer writing tickets. A customer writing a note on the corner of a paper. Some cars were lucky to escape before the alarm was sounded, others not.
At the end of it all Marcel sat on his stool, eyes fixated on the timer winding down in an empty parking space. There could only be a few minutes left as a car pulled into the spot. A young man stepped out and checked the time left before coming over to Marcel’s stand. He picked out La Presse and put it on the counter before pulling out a coin.
“George! Salut!” A group of similarly aged men greeted him. They hugged and chatted a little as Marcel waited for him to buy the paper.
“Come get drinks with us!” they asked. George hesitated.
“I only have money for a paper, and my car…”
“Pay the meter and we’ll cover your drinks,” one of the men said. George turned to Marcel and gave him a sheepish look before putting the paper back and turning towards his car. The flag popped up, and Marcel saw red.
“Wait! I’ll take care of the meter,” he said exiting his stall as he grabbed the iron bar laying across the magazines. He didn’t see the men back away as he walked towards it, nor the police officer down the road as he arched his bar up over his head and brought it down on the clear display screen that stood between himself and the red flag. He didn’t stop after the clear display screen was broken – he brought his bar down again, again, again, all the while screaming:
“Useless! Inutile! Thief! Voleur! Ugly! Vilain! ”
The internal mechanism was exposed, the red flag broken off, the skeleton of the meter severely dented and the pole it stood on slightly bent. Marcel went to take another swing when he was stopped by a police officer grabbing his arm. He looked around and realized that his magazines were scattered across the street… and that he had amassed quite a gathering. He let the officer take the bar from his hand and cuff him before saying to the crowd:
“N'inquietez pas! Just cleaning up the streets like Drapeau wanted. You can buy the paper with the story from my newsstand tomorrow!”
An unedited short story I wrote about vampires and adoptions. It was posted first to my website and wattpad.
Website
Wattpad
Over the years it had become apparent how easy it is for Vampires to turn humans and other species within Elocia. There has always been some form of restrictions placed on Vampires to limit how many people they turn, however it wasn’t until 1818 that the Bureau for Vampiric Adoption (BVA) was founded which set in motion the need for specific paperwork to be filled out and approved before a vampire could “adopt” or turn another creature into a vampire.
***
River held the stack of papers close to her chest. A manila folder that held the key to her and her brother Braden’s future. He walked in step with her, a smile on his face and three helium balloons in his hand as they traversed the nearly empty streets. They had snuck out in the early hours of morning, shortly after the sun had risen and their father, Reuben, had gone to bed. Sleep tugged at their eyes, it was later than they normally stayed up but it had been worth it.
They had managed to reach the Bureau of Vampiric Adoptions right before they closed for the day to secure the proper documentation. The documentation they had been trying to get since Braden turned eighteen. It was no longer as easy to convert to vampirism as it once was, and the species was highly regulated in order to prevent an overpopulation issue. Over the past ten years the siblings had begun to pick up more and more on the sideways glances their father would send them as they aged. The hardest day had been when River had turned twenty nine a few years back, equaling the age their father was turned. They knew he tried to hide it, but it was no use. The siblings were just another set of lives that he would have to let into his life and let go in the blink of an eye.
The documents in the manila folder would change all that. Both were prepared. Braden looked to the sky. The sun had risen past the tops of the buildings and somewhere off in the distance the clock tower began to toll. River absentmindedly counted the number of rings.
Arriving back at the apartment they shrugged off their jackets and hung them on the coat rack. Reuben had bought a first story apartment with a basement space that he had completely redone. Elves, afterall needed sunlight like any other creature of the day. The light streamed in through the open windows, a dangerous place for any vampire.
River placed the manila folder on the coffee table and began to close the blinds. She paused at the last one, looking out at the brightly lit street as cars sped through and a few of the day creatures began their trip to whatever their destination was. Her and her brother had always existed in the world of the night, seeing daylight only when it had become apparent that they had been cooped up too long.
“Do you think you’ll miss it? The sun?” She asked distractedly.
“I don’t know… dad always talks about how he misses its warmth. What about you?”
“Yeah. I don’t think so… it hurts to look at it.”
“That’s because you’re not supposed to look at it.”
“I know I know. It’s just… weird to think I won’t be able to look at it again.”
“Again, you’re not supposed to look at it in the first place.”
River made a face at her brother before closing the blinds. The room was plunged into darkness that took her eyes a second to get used to.
“Come on, we need to make sure we get up before him tonight. I’ll go get the gift box we bought while you make a copy of the first page and then we can go to bed. Braden went downstairs and pulled out the large cardboard box they had bought earlier that week. Pulling off the lid he grabbed the envelope from inside and closed it up again before going back upstairs, careful not to make too much noise.
River was in the living room, a copy of the first page in her hand and the family’s wax seal in the other. A candle was lit on the table with some melting wax. She turned as she saw Braden enter.
“Always one for dramatic flair,” he said, sitting down on the sofa. It creaked under his weight, the century old springs looking to give out any day now.
“I thought it would be a nice touch.” She shrugged, handing him the paper. He folded it and placed it in the envelope, licking it shut before handing it back to River. She poured the wax onto the point of the flap and pressed the seal into the wax. She let it sit there for a while, they stared at it, their eyes heavy and thoughts wandering towards the sweet nothingness of sleep before they snapped out of it.
River pulled the seal out of the hardened wax and handed the letter to Braden who tied the strings to the three helium balloons to the letter and shoved everything inside the box. They crept into the kitchen and placed the box on the table. Then without another word they went to bed.
***
Night fell and River stirred in her bed. The faint ringing of her alarm pulling her further and further from the realm of sleep. Rolling over she stretched, feeling her knuckles brush up against the hard wood of her headboard. There was a soft knocking on her door before she mumbled an enter. Braden walked in, an excited smile on his face masking the bags under his eyes.
“Are you ready?” He asked. River nodded her head and rolled out of bed. Turning on the lights to the kitchen she saw the box still sat where they had left it. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat down at the table, Braden joining her. There was a wall of the kitchen lined with photographs. All included a smiling Reuben standing beside an equally happy group of people ranging from one to five. He had a story for each one. All were told at the pinnacle of the kids lives though most didn’t look like kids in the photographs. There were a couple of portraits included as well. River and Braden weren’t up there yet.
It wasn’t long until Reuben came out, his hair tousled but looking the same as he had since they were kids. He smiled at them as he noticed the box sitting on the table.
“Oh, is this why we all had to take work off today?” He asked, pulling out a chair and turning the box to the left and right as he inspected it.
“I suppose you could say so,” Braden said. He was trying to act nonchalant but a smile pulled at the corners of his lips.
“Nothing to be afraid of? You’re not trying to mask some horrible truth behind colorfully wrapped paper?”
“How did you know?! Better open it quick before it distracts you too much,” River joked. Reuben let out a small laugh and tore the lid off the box. He had done it so fast that the helium balloons inside took a second to rise up and out of the box. It was almost slow. Reuben watched the balloons go with a perplexed look on his face until he saw the letter tangled in the strings.
Pulling it out he flipped it back and forth. He was one of the slowest present openers that River and Braden had ever seen. He liked to tease them by carefully inspecting the wrapping before zapping it open in a blink.
“Now what do we have here?” he said, noticing the seal. “And where did you find this?”
“You really need a better security system for you desk. It was child’s play to get in.” River shrugged. He laughed some more and then tore open the top of the envelope, not even bothering with the wax seal. He slowly pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. The siblings both leaned in as his eyes locked on to the first word. The room was silent as they held their breath and Reuben didn’t breath as usual.
The longer Reuben sat there reading the letter the more his hand began to shake, his free hand lifting up to hover just in front of his mouth before he looked between the two of them. Braden was quick to jump in.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to! We just both realized that we are already accustomed to the lifestyle and would love the opportunity to keep you company.”
“There’s so much we could do if we had more time, so much more time we could spend with you. Everything is in place, all you have to do is say yes.” River added. She took Braden’s hand in hers as they awaited their father’s response. Reuben put the letter down and reached across the table to take both of their hands, the biggest smile stretching across his face.
***
The next month, Braden and River’s picture made it up on the wall, the full color photo of three smiling faces standing next to one another occupied a corner next to a framed picture of the letter stating their proposal to be adopted into vampiricy was accepted. In the coming years, Reuben would welcome a new child into his life who was visited often by their unaging aunt and uncle.
The Divine Madness is the ship where most of Merrow takes place on. These are just some brain storming doodles I did to try and get a better idea of what it looks like.
It’ll change as I get a better idea of how boats works but for the time being this gives me a good mental image to work with and situate where certain scenes happen.
This boat is based off of the mark vi patrol boat as it is big, sits high in the water and can go fast.
This writing blog just turned 1 year old yesterday and I just wanted to say thank you to anyone who has supported me here on Tumblr despite how little I have posted.
