welcome one and all to this sunny, summery affair! this post is to hereby invite writers to a not-so-little game commencing June 1st - rules to follow - till the end of Summer, August 31st - i know, this challenge is going to be a LOT and a long one, but i for one absolutely cannot wait!
now you may be asking, what is this game and what are the rules? well, dear writer, the purpose of the game is simple - for writecamp, all you have to do is pick a prompt from a given list and compose something with it, prompts could be a word, a trope, a place, a feeling, anything at all, it all depends on the day (if you took part in writemas, you'll be fairly familiar with how it all works :) ) and as for the rules, well, this author sincerely hopes they are as equally simple to follow: if you accept the challenge, be sure to share your responses, share the game with friends, family, anybody you'd like, and that's it, utilise the prompt from the challenge, share your work, and tag me in your responses!
and now for the important part: how is the game going to work?
each day of summer, starting June 1st, i will post the writecamp daily challenge - containing all sorts or prompts to stir the imagination pot
the game is open to all, and if you join late, no problem! just embrace the writery spirit of summer and play along! (you don't have to complete every day's challenge, but whatever you do, always be proud of yourself!)
bonus part (completely optional, but lovely if you choose to do it) - alongside your challenge entries, make sure to find a blog on writeblr, a writer you admire or one you've only just found, and pay them a compliment! (something so small but so, so important <3)
and since this post is an invitation to everyone out there on writeblr, in order to participate and be notified of the challenge posts when they go live, all you have to do is interact with this post and you're on the tag list!
yahooo! itās another challenge from @agirlandherquill , similar to Writemas from last year :3
hereās the entry post!
the prompt I chose was āthe weariness of timeā, and I decided to make another journal entry! take a guess at whoās writingā¦ if you dareā¦ (donāt look at the tags and cheat k)
Time is a heavy thing. It weighs on my shoulders, dragging me down with memories of what once was.
It tugs on my face, drawing my mouth downward into a perpetual frown. Maybe I always was one to grumble at every turn, but I blame Time for making it harder to smile. Maybe thatās stupid. I donāt care.
Truth be told, I am weary, and it is only Time I can blame for it.
ā¦Perhaps I am the problem. Time only has so much power, after allāmy time is for me and me alone to use. I spend it mulling over what has already happened instead of pushing forward and shrugging that burden off of me.
ā¦ I think thatās enough journalling for today.
Prompts - "Dawn is on its way. The least we can do is live long enough to meet it." (dialogue); A walk at twilight (setting); The weariness of time (feeling).
For the first day i wrote a (canon compliant but not technically in canon) scene between Rowan and Phoenix from my wip What it Takes To Take A Life!!!!
tw - talk of death and loss
Word count - 698!
Waves crashed against the cliff side, the full moon casting a silvery-blue glow over the surface of ocean waves occasionally broken by a winged silhouette flying past. Rowan stood on the small balcony of the library he called home, hands gripping the railing. The stone underneath his fingertips was rough, cold from the wind.
The quiet of the night was nearly torturous, the absence of sound leaving room for the more negative thoughts to drift in.
Rowan loved what he did, truly. he loved the freedom that came with immortality, he loved being able to travel and study magic to his heartās content.
He just wished it wasnāt at the expense of watching everything else crumble.
His youngest brotherās granddaughter had died the day before. No children, never married. He hadnāt even gotten to meet her, overhearing it mentioned in the market of the nearest town.
His other siblings, cousins, and family had slowly met their ends before this. He was officially the last of his bloodline, the last member of the De Rullo family left breathing.
He missed his mother.
Gods above, he just wanted his mom.
āRowan.ā
The mage nearly jumped out of his skināsince when was he so jumpy?āand spun on his heel to face the voice.
He knew who she was before he looked, of course. He really should be used to the goddessā surprise visits by now.
He had to crane his neck to meet the womanās eyes, because for some reason she insisted on presenting as eight feet tall. A single strand of her short, flame colored hair fell against tanned skin. She wore a brown tunic typical of a commoner.
āHello.ā He said, suddenly feeling leagues smaller then he was. Even if heād been around for a hundred years, being in Phoenixās presence always seemed to make him feel like a boy.
āHey.ā The goddess of life watched him quizzically for a few moments. Even though she had a tendency to present more human then other gods, her gaze still held this sense of other-worldliness that would have been unsettling if he didnāt know her. He couldnāt quite place the emotion in her gaze. Judgment? Pity?
āWalk with me?ā She was turning as soon as the words left her lips, not waiting for a reply.
Rowan had to jog down the spiral staircase to catch up with her.
They fell in stride with each other, walking down the narrow stone bath that led from the building down to the sea.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the water, watching the moonās reflection shimmer.
Phoenix broke the silence first, with such a simple, yet complicated question.
āDo you wish, sometimes, that I hadnāt made you immortal?ā
Rowan swallowed, suddenly very focused on the way the waves crashed against the rocks. āNo.ā
She gave him a knowing smirk. āYou canāt lie to a god.ā
He exhaled. Damn it. āYeah, I guess. Sometimes.ā
āThought so. Tell me about it, little mage.ā
Despite himself, his lips twitched up at the familiar nickname.
āIām tired.ā He said, finally. āWeary, I guess. Time is beginning too get to me.ā
The goddess exhaled, her breath visible in the air. āTime is often our greatest gift, as well as our most painful curse.ā
āDo you ever wish you were human?ā The words rushed out before he could think.
At this, Phoenix looked genuinely startled, as if that was the last question sheād been expecting. A younger him would have cheered at being able to catch her off guard.
She swallowed hard, expression turning thoughtful. āNo, I donāt think so.ā She answered after a moment. āIf I were human, I wouldnāt have my wife.ā Her eyebrows furrowed. āI wouldnāt have you.ā
Oh.
āIām glad weāre friends.ā He said. Calling a god his friend had stopped being weird after the first few years or so. āIām glad Iām here.ā
āAs am I.ā
The goddess of life turned her head to the sky. The pale blue of the fading moonlight cast across her face. āDawn is approaching,ā she said, flashing the boy a smile, āthe least we can do is live long enough to meet it.ā
~~~~~
That's it for today!! I'm always open to constructive criticism on my writing, or questions on the story or characters! Please tell me your thoughts, this was a lot of fun!!
(also pls tell me if this doesnt make sense i wrote in like an hour lmao)
Thank you @agirlandherquill for creating and hosting this writing challenge/tag game!
Day One Kickoff is here and rules and enrollment is here. All are welcome to join!
For the Day 1 prompt I chose "The weariness of time." I used this prompt to write a new passage for my main WIP, The Blood Cleaners, a YA Dystopia.
His eyes met with a grandfather clock on the other side of the room. Nearly an hour had passed since he took the bus. Late afternoon was slipping away to evening. He took comfort knowing it wasnāt bedtime yet. He would have trouble sleeping knowing that each day that went by, Joselyn would be on her on her own. The burden was all on her. He missed her. He knew she missed him. He missed Elena and Miriam. Each day, each hour, each minute had to be torture. It was his fault. He cursed himself. He was stupid. Of course heād have to be in Arthur longer than a week to have any hope of success. He knew Joselyn well enough to believe she would keep waiting even after a week passed. Yet she could only keep the secret for so long before someone ratted them all out. He almost regretted listening to John. He was no longer blissfully unaware of just how much this revolution risked. If they failed, Corpaā¦would be gone. And it would be his fault.
woo! writemas was a lot of fun, so i can't wait to see what happens over this month :) thanks to @agirlandherquill for running this again!
if you want to join in you can find the rules and today's prompts here
for the first day I picked two prompts:
A sunbathed meadow
The weariness of time
slight warning for grief/pet loss, i guess?
Itās so safe here. Peaceful. Quiet. The sun always shines, but gently, like a warm blanket that covers us all. Flowers of all colours sway in a soft breeze, ones that are fun to chase and safe to nibble.
It could almost be a home, exceptā¦ weāre waiting for someone. Each of us waits for a different person, but the wait is the same.
Sometimes we play together while we wait. Iāve found so many new friends here.
Iāve been waiting for so long.Ā
One by one, my new friends leave with their person, and Iām still waiting.
Is thatā¦
Thatās her!
My person!
Sheās finally here!
I get up, run as fast as I can, nearly faster than my paws can carry me, longing to jump into her arms again.
Thereās someone else running beside me?
No!
My person, mine!
Butā¦ I shouldnāt be jealous.
She was so young when I had to go.
She had so much love in her heart.
Of course she would have shared it with others, too.
I can share her now, canāt I?
We run together, through the sunlight and the flowers, towards our person.
Once near, I see I am wrong.
She is not my person.
I stop, let the other run to her.
They have their happy reunion, and cross the rainbow together, as I have watched so many do before me.
I lie down again, sad and alone.
Iām so tired of waiting.
Maybe she isnāt coming.
Maybe she forgot me.
Maybe she replaced me after I went.
More people arrive, and I donāt even look.
None of them will be her.
Iāll be here forever.
Itās been so long.
Someone sits beside me.
Thereās a soft, gentle hand in my fur.
I look, and I hiss, darting away.
Itās some old lady. Why is she bothering me?
Just leave me alone.
Forgotten.
Iām sorry I took so long, Millie. Iām here now.
I look again, sniff her outstretched hand carefully.
It is her!
My person, at last!
Sheās so old now. She was so young when I left.
Itās been so long.
She still remembers me.
She still loves me.
I climb onto her shoulders as I always used to, purring in her ear.
She laughs, and scratches behind my ears.
I hope you donāt mind a couple of others joining us?
I look down.
There are some others, but itās fine.
Weāre together again, and thatās all that matters.
She stands slowly, walks with a shuffle and a stoop now, but we know how to wait. She can take all the time in the world, as long as weāre together.
Finally, we all cross the rainbow, as one big, loving family.
~~~
some pics of Millie below cut for anyone who wants to see
Setting prompt: Moonlit Bridge
Feeling prompt: The nearness of Death
Thanks @agirlandherquill for the event. Even though I rarely participated (mostly due to not getting tagged and therefore forgetting :/).
Hades breathes death. That's what others claim. In the Godly division, she's one of two who can fight battles alone. Even with that, her kill count is estimated to be much higher than Zeus'āthe other member of the Godly Division who could fight battles alone. It isn't that she's absurdly strong. That isn't the main reason why her kill count is so high, anyway. Absurd strength or not.
The river roars, loud enough for her to hear it long before she'll reach it. The path is lit, as most forest paths are, by mushrooms low on the ground and vines hanging high from branches. Her footsteps are silent, even when leaves should crunch and sticks should crack. The roar of the river drowns out all other sound. The trees press in on her, but she isn't worried. After growing up in a forest much like this one, being surrounded by giant trees is calming. Even if they could conceal enemies.
The bridge is long, spanning across a rushing river that has carved a crack in the earth. Wooden slats are held up by two ropes that stretch across the gap. The ropes are pulled taut, looking rather secure and pristine for a bridge in a rarely traveled forest. The wood is clean, untouched by dirt, gleaming in the moonlight.
Hades wasn't told of this bridge by anyone. She'd justā¦ felt something off, even from a distance, and it guided her here. Death reeks here, writhing and screaming in her bones. Something is off with this bridge. Many deaths have happened here, to a seemingly regular bridge.
The ropes that span the distance to act as handrails? Dirty and old, as though they haven't been replaced in years. Frayed and rough against her hand when she drags it against the rope. This rope will provide no safety for any crossing.
This bridge, that has been here for so long, isn't normal. The walking path is too clean, too shiny, too new to match the dirt and wear of the ropes that act as hand rails. This bridge makes no sense here. Too nice a walking path for how rare activity is in this area. The walking path's shiny, clean appearance is too attractive for how old it feels like the bridge is.
And perhaps that's the trap. Hades' eyes scan the rushing river below as she steps off the bridge, looking at the banks more than she does the water. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of skeletons. Poor souls that had no one there when they screamed when they fell. No one to pray over their souls. She'd felt it before. Dead souls aching to be prayed over, aching to be guaranteed a journey to the Underworld.
If she crosses the bridge, she'd join those poor souls. She can feel it. No amount of going slow, no amount of crawling, no amount of being careful would save her. So she makes her way down the sides of the gorge carved in the earth, so slowly, so carefully, holding her breath as though the gorge is going to snap shut. She reaches the thousands of skeletons. She's careful not to step on any, looking over the scene.
A larger skeleton is curled around a smallerāa parent trying to save their child.
Two skeletons with their mouths pressed togetherālovers.
Skeletons that look like the upper halves of humans and the bodies of horses melded togetherācentaurs, potentially whole herds.
Taller skeletonsāFae.
Shorter, wider skeletonsāwerewolves or werefelines.
Wolf skeletonsāwerewolves in their shifted forms.
Feline skeletonsāwerefelines in their shifted forms.
Skeletons with plain rings gleaming on their ring fingers, hands laced together like a final goodbyeāpairs of mates.
Hades is used to the feeling of death. She breathes it, after all. But this is not just a few deaths. This isn't the level of death that happens in daily lives. This is the level of death she'd expect from a battle. This level of death staggered her when she first felt it, weighing on her shoulders, almost manifesting in its pressure because of how she hadn't expected it. She was supposed to be hunting for a thief. Instead, she found this.
"Lord Hades, please grant the gathered dead passage through the Underworld to their afterlives. Let them find peace after dying unfairly," her words are swallowed by the roaring river. The words she spoke are the words of a prayer she rarely needs to use. Not with how rare it is to stumble upon a graveyard where the dead haven't been prayed over. The relief she feels when the feeling of death fades is immediate, and she swears she hears the river's roar whisper a 'thank you' in her ear. Now to hunt the cause of these deaths. Her head tilts back. Not in thought, but to allow her eyes to fall on the bridge. The wooden underside grins at her. Not because of a dip.
It's a monster, and has been for years.
Ah, I love writing things where something seemingly normal isn't so normal. Heck if I know if this scene will be canon or not, but I do enjoy the hint of personality I can she Hades having here.
Prompts-
Setting: A Ring of fire
Feeling: The Sting of Frozen Water
Tws: Mentions of murder
Word Count: 536
ā
A Ring of fire gleaming on the horizon, the marker of a dying sun marking its rest, lighting the whole sky a blazing shade of dying embers. Wind and small droplets of unfallen rain whistling through hair and feathers, burning clouds, water on fire. A Beautiful Paradox signing the appearance of the stars and the eye of the moon beginning to open in her silence. Wings tucked tight against his ribs and Hair brushing away from his eyes at the breath of dusk, Raavas' feathers rippled against the sky, the snap spiraling him into a gentle updraft, before he alighted on the shore of a river, blades of grass peeking their small heads over the melting snow. Gravel shifted between his claws, steps crunching like the first voice to speak in a silent room.
No birds sang, no creatures skittered, only the race of frigid water against rock, and his own shuddering breaths swirling into the icy air and freezing on his lips in tiny crystals that melted again on his next breath. Xeoulis' reassurance ran their course in his mind again and again as he knelt upon the rocks, river roaring for his attention over the voice in his head.
"Of course it's not your fault, Raavas. They're rebels and they're leading others astray. You're saving people, who minds a little blood?"
Raavas shook his head, eyes lingering on his bloodstained stone hand before he closed them and thrust it under the freezing water, an icy sting racing through his skin as it ran past, unbothered to the creature washing away its crimes on the bank. In the reflections, icy water running red, He stared at it. The wide eyes of a dying woman. He closed his eyes, but only saw the blood dripping from his hands. He opened them again, plunging his talons into the water, the cold shock racing through him, a sharp pain. The ache of winter like needles digging into him, paralyzing his muscles and encasing his bones in ice.
Echoes of laughter burn behind his eyes, the halo of rapidly sinking fire in the sky like the one to dissapear in the caves and the same embers alighting the sky as his mentor, his teacher, the man who had almost been his father left him to die. Raavas growled, splashing the stinging water over his head and shivering as it trickled down his neck to his back, soaking his shirt as he fell back to sit on a rock, relishing the pain keeping him in the moment, muttering as he picked bits of flesh out of his teeth, "Sour old man. Kill himā¦ kill himā¦ I'll kill BOTH of themā¦"
The Water ran over his legs, numbing them as he'd done to the hollow beat in his chest, Tearing away any warmth left in it and tossing it to the ocean a thousand fathoms down. A Little boy made creature in one Betrayal. Thoughtless. Dreamless. Loveless.
A Prisoner in his own frigid, numbed skin. He whirled back toward the mountains, repeating the words to himself. "Who minds a little blood?" Launching himself into the air, and flew into the ring of fire, leaving his mind behind him.
