How do you feel about...?

How do you guys feel about posting old writing? Does it make you nervous? Feel shy or embarrassed? I'm thinking of doing it even though the pieces most likely won't be as 'good' or as polished as my more current writing. But then I think,'So what?' Every written piece has its place in our lives, and even if its not 'perfect' it still has something to say, right?  

Any thoughts?

Anyway, maybe, just maybe I'll delve into my vast trunk of Works of Writings Past and post a few selections...

Maybe.

:)

Why I Write

Why do I write? Because I have to. From that moment in the first grade, when my mother suggested I use different words in a sentence to say the same thing (I can still hear her saying, ‘You know, instead of using walk five times, why don’t you try another word?’), I was struck by an amazing truth: words were beautiful and also mysterious. Intriguing. Seductive. They could be used, handled, manipulated. Their meanings could even be turned upside down or bent, if used right. You could move people, bring them to tears or to joy, stir up passion or shock them cold. All by the way words were strung together. Best of all, no two people use them in exactly the same way. I could have my very own voice! Imagine! Certainly at the age of 6 I didn’t realize all of this, but somewhere deep down, even then I think I suspected the magic and the power of the written word. And I wanted them. I knew then that what I wanted to do more than anything else on this earth, was write.

Years later, I still have the same fascination with words. I’m by no means an expert, and don’t ask me what the higher rules of grammar are. I can still recall sitting in my high school English class trying to decipher the Chinese that was grammar, or the months barely passing my university English lit course. I laugh about it now. It’s that, or cry. I regard it a miracle that I can string words together at all, especially after such a terrible educational foundation. But I thank God for the piles and piles of books I’ve digested since I started reading, apparently, at the age of 4. I carry them with me and use them as a guide and for inspiration. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been stuck not knowing how to write a scene or how to interpret a concept into words when the right book would fall into my hands. Then poof! Synergy. Magic.

Salvation.

A creative crisis saved by a book.

My life, my hopes, my fears translated into my books, my stories. My art.

Me on the page. My heart revealed in black and white.

That is why I write.

I'm so silly

Ok so I'm a doofus! I didn't realize I had to add Follow in Email in order for people to follow my blog. So it's been rectified! If you like what you see and want to follow my posts or just want to say "Hi!" Please Press the Button. C'mon! I know you wanna! Lol

A major thank you to...well everybody :)

I just wanted to take a sec to thank everyone who has been ReSharing my blog page and Plussing my stories and tidbits. I wish I could thank you all individually, as I appreciate the time you gave to read my work and, just as importantly, to let me know about it. The extra little pat on the back is also very much appreciated. (Yes there are days when I crave the approbation of others. Don't deny it! I know you have those days too! lol) But since, for some reason, I can't see more than the first two Plussers on Blogger, I've decided to send out a mass THANK YOU in the hopes of reaching you all and to invite you to stop by again and say hi. :)

Best,
Dyane

For those who liked Chapter 6 of The Dragon's Egg, here's Chapter 8. Just finished it.

Chapter 8-Dragon

“Quit it!” Doret’s stomach hadn’t ceased gurgling all morning. Every time it did, Slevyn’s own stomach would join in, ruining the gentle, beautiful sounds of morning with a nasty symphony born of too much over-active stomach juice. It was beginning to drive her crazy.

“How d’ya mean? Ain’t ‘ad nuthin’ ta eat in ages. Tha stomach’s only doing what a very ‘ungry one’s supposed ta,” Doret countered. “Ya know, it’d be real nice if ya ’ad some vitals or sumthin’ tasty hidin’ in yer pack.” He looked over at her little bundle. Slevyn could have sworn she saw saliva glistening on his lips.

She shook her head in disbelief. What? Share with him? Even if she did have some crumbs laying at the bottom of her pack, she’d rather share them with anyone or anything else--even a cursed cave troll--than with Doret. It was because of his constant meddling and tattling that she’d suffered all those beatings at her father’s hands. He was the one who always made her feel stupid for wanting to get away from the tired, dreary life in the village to look for adventure and fun in the outer world by pointing out the flaws in each and every one of her elaborate escape plans. So what if she didn’t know how to hunt or make traps? So what if she didn’t have clothing warm enough to stave off the bitter cold of the Mountains of Perth. They were her plans! And she hated that he followed her wherever she went. Hated it more that he had followed her and Shasta the one time she had set out to leave the village for real. And for good.

How dare he ask her for anything? Except for a slap in the face?

Slevyn eased open her palm.

Then Shasta coughed, which sounded more like a muted rasp, and she remembered their little ‘talk’ the night before. Reluctantly, she closed her palm and shrugged. Doret was an idiot, and she had no doubt her anxious appendage would soon be satisfied, one way or another. Though Shasta was a brat, she would do anything for him. Even sort of admit that Doret had raised a good point.

Swallowing the ball in the throat, Slevyn gritted her teeth and almost hissed, “You’re right. We can only go no like this for so long. We need some real food.” She pointed at the rolled up bundle of woollen blanket and the tuft of dark, curly hair sprouting out the top. “He’s getting weaker and weaker. He needs some real food, and soon.”

“Why’nt yer uncle take ’im back wit’ ’im, then?”

Slevyn sighed while placing a gentle hand on Shasta’s arm. “The only way you could ask that is because you don’t know Shasta. He’s small and skinny, looks all frail and everything, but once he gets an idea in his head…you’re better off just letting him do it.”

Doret raised his eyebrows. “Yer poor parents. What’d they do tha gods at get stuck wit’ two of yous?”

Slevyn whipped around to glare at him but then saw his eyes were crinkled at the corners as well as the goofy smile bending his lips. How the boy played with fire and didn‘t even know it! He really was dumb! “Fine,” she said, thinking again of Shasta’s happy eyes last night when she’d agreed to give Doret a break, “I’ll give you that one. Only because you’re right.”

Shasta finally stirred. After stretching like a kitten and rubbing the sore spots on his body from sleeping on the ground all night, he glanced quickly between Slevyn and Doret, his mouth open in a questioning O.

“Everything’s alright,” Slevyn assured him. “Doret and I played nice. He’s still alive, isn’t he? See? Doesn’t have a scratch on him.”

“Why d’ya always assume tha’ if we got inta a fight, ya’d win?” Doret demanded.

“Because I always do, or have your arms and face forgotten their spankings?”

A rash of red splashed across the older boy’s face. Blushing was something Slevyn knew he hated, as being of lighter complexion than most of the villagers, everyone knew when he felt afraid, shy or embarrassed. Slevyn squealed in pain at a sharp pinch on her arm and looked down to see Shasta twisting the skin there. Having gained her attention, he frowned, the expression contrasting with his sympathetic blue eyes. He jabbed a thumb at Doret.

Ooooh, the little terror! How could such a meddling, mute little brother influence her like this! Just because last night had allowed her to see Doret in a slightly different light, that didn’t mean she wanted to go as far as to actually--she swallowed, hard--apologize to him. Shasta squeezed her skin harder. Slevyn remembered her conversation with Doret by the fire, when he spoke so openly of being a stranger to the village, of his loneliness and alienation, and of how he constantly felt different from everyone else. His farmland accent was something he hadn‘t yet learned to temper.

The things he complained of were all things she could relate to.

Pouting a little, Slevyn glanced over at Doret. The blush remained. He sat waiting for her to respond, looking at the ground instead of at her. She imagined herself in his place, thought of how he must be feeling at the moment, and was struck by something she had never before imaged she could feel for Doret: empathy.

“Um, Doret…I’m--”

A roar cut her off. The children immediately jumped to their feet, scrambling around in a panic, looking at the sky, the tress, the surrounding boulders, anywhere and everywhere for its source.

“What is that?”

“Look!” Doret pointed upwards.

At first, Slevyn couldn’t see anything amiss. Two large birds circled above, probably eagles or falcons. But then something familiar about them dawned on her, bringing her back to that day in the meadows when she thought she had seen---

A dragon.

These birds were big, too big to be eagles. They broke off their circular pattern and were now descending, again too quickly to be regular birds, towards the ground. Towards them. As she watched, the small dots grew increasingly in size until within seconds, she could make out the beginnings of ,assive, jointed wings, and long snouted head and horns.

These were definitely--

“Dragons!” The word expelled itself from her lips before she ever knew she had spoken.

“What? That’s impossible!” Doret cried, scared so deeply that for a split second his accent disappeared.

Before he’d finished speaking, Slevyn had broken into a run, heading for the denser trees to their right. She grabbed Shasta by the arm as she went. Doret was quick to follow, and she heard him tramping through the underbrush behind her. Twigs popped and splintered under his feet.

“We have to hide!“ Slevyn threw back at him over her shoulder. “Those things can see in the dark. It’ll be no trouble for them to spot us in such a sparse wood. We need to find a cave, or a burrow. Anything but this open space!”

“Yer tha one ’ho wanted ta sleep under tha stars, you know,” Doret reminded her between breaths.

“Like I knew we were going to be hunted down by dragons!” Shasta stripped over a tree root but she managed to right him quickly and get them moving again. The boy looked miserable. His nose was red and running, and his face looked all pinched up from congestion. Slevyn gripped his hand harder while focussing on finding anything that resembled a suitable shelter.

“What ‘appened ta all yer talk of friendly dragons, an’ of wanting ta go off wit one ta its home in tha mountains?”

Was he serious? They were about to become breakfast for a pair of dragons  and he was making jokes at her expense?

She stopped cold. Shasta slammed into her but she ignored the hard jolt to her body. “Look. You said you wanted to come along to ‘keep us safe’ since you’re older than us and are more experienced in the woods. You call yourself a man since you came of age last month! Well prove it! We’re tired and hungry. We’ve got dragons flying around overhead! Do something!”

The teasing smile Doret had been wearing vanished, siphoned away by her outburst. The rash of red flared up again into his neck and face, making the dark brown freckles all but disappear. He looked from her to the sky, saw the beasts bearing down on them, heard their roars echoing through the woods, but his mouth could only open and close wordlessly.

Shasta coughed and pulled at his sister’s arm.

“I know,” she answered distractedly as she was still focused on putting Doret in his place. “I’ve been the one to look after Shasta all this time! You want to say that this is all my fault, but I can take care of my own business just fine. Without your help. So why don’t you--”

A giant black cloud suddenly fell over the area. Winds like a tornado batted the children about so viciously, they could not see. Desperate to latch onto something to avoid being swept away, they stumbled around blindly, resembling the drunken village men at the tavern.

Then suddenly, the wind began to slake and the swirling leaves and pebbles it had stirred up fell to the ground. The pebbles landed like drops of solid rain. Slevyn’s arm suffered a terrible jerk, forcing a startled cry of pain from her.

In disbelief, she opened her empty palm. Shasta was gone.

Eyes full of grit, Slevyn could only see the shadow of the great black beast as it flapped it’s horned, leather-like wings before launching itself in to the air. Shasta’s limp form lay in its closed, black talons.

Then giving one last wrenching flap of its wings, the dragon shot higher into the sky until it vanished into the gleaming blue expanse.

Lost Girl-Part 1 (A short story: an oldie but a goodie)

Lost Girl

Part 1

The sun filters in through the chinks between the dusty curtain panels, landing square on my face. I squint, grimace, then pull the covers over my head. As a final insult to the blast of sunlight, I turn my back on its offensive attempt to wake me.

Why do mornings always seem to arrive too soon?

Not long after, I hear the usual tentative stirrings coming from the little-boy-themed rooms down the hall. Mason’s is decorated like a dinosaur shrine, complete with murals of T-Rexes and triceratops painted on the walls, while a myriad of statuettes and similar toys could be found littering every horizontal surface. Discarded clothing and other boy-related junk have also made his sty---room--their final resting place and now lie strewn about and dormant. Brian’s wasn’t any better. There are mornings when I go to wake him and can barely find the scrawny body underneath all the blankets, toys and stuffed animals crammed into the bed with him. How does he sleep like that? I always wonder. And when he does awaken, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepy looking, I conclude, Obviously, not very well. But he refuses to abandon his treasures, and so he goes through his day like a cranky, bleary-eyed sleep-walker.

I continue to listen to the morning sounds, zooming in on the blaring roar of the shower as Mark prepares for his day. At least he gets to escape this zoo, I think before I’m distracted by the high pitched moans and groans of the boys as they realize they have to get up.

I finally open my eyes and scan the room. Dust particles float through the air, wafting in and out of the shafts of yellow sunlight. Our room is tidy but sparsely furnished. Since the boys were born, we haven’t spent much time in here. Dusky shadows fall across me like a favourite blanket. I welcome them. Shadows don’t burn the eyes like the sun does; they are comforting, welcoming. I can hide in them while, like a dusky veil, the truth of my miserable life is hidden from me.

At last I accept that I must get out of bed. If the kids miss the bus, I’ll have to drive them to school which is a feat involving a whole other set of problematic logistics I don’t want to face. So I throw on my robe, stick my feet in my old, tattered slippers and race downstairs to begin the familiar, mind-numbing morning routine I have done every day for the last number of years. Routine. Some say it is essential to keep a household running smoothly.

I say it’s essential to driving a person crazy.

On the way to the kitchen, I stop to look at myself in the hall mirror. Dishevelled slightly greying hair, eyes still caked with sleep, and skin creased with sleep lines reflect back at me; a demented parody of the hottie I used to be.

Crazy. I smile crookedly at the circus freak staring back at me in the mirror, then slink into the kitchen.

************

"Hey, Meg," I say into the phone two hours later. "They’re finally gone." I sit at the kitchen table, my coffee patiently waiting for me while one hand slowly unclenches my tousled dyed-brown hair as the quiet of the house finally signals to my mind that I am alone.

Finally.

The house is a mess. It’s always a mess. No matter how many times I pick up the clothes, organize the mail or clean the dishes, there is always more to be done. This morning, spilled milk sits in white puddles all over the kitchen table, while Cheerios are scattered in clusters on the counter and on the floor. Dirty dishes smile wickedly at me from their pile in the sink, while the remains of last night’s homework project lie unfinished on the kids’ work table.

"Mason'll will get a D because you weren’t able to help him finish last night," it hisses at me.

"Shut up, damn you!" I almost shout back but remember I’m on the phone and squash the reaction.

"How you doin’?" Meg is an old friend. We’d met while in the hospital after delivering our oldest boys. She is a stay at home mom like me, and since we both experience the same kind of stresses, out of desperation we have become even closer, sort of latching on to each other like two drowning people, each using the other as leverage to escape the fatal tides of our lives.

I sigh. "I have no idea. I’m so tired, Meg. Tired of staring at these bloody walls, at picking up the same crap day after day. I…sometimes I wonder how much longer I can take it." A hint of my secret impulse starts to raise its head, but I firmly repress it.

She doesn’t answer right away. I’m not sure if it’s because she feels the same way or if it’s because my words have panicked her. Suddenly feeling exposed, I hastily add, "No, I don’t mean that, really. Things are kinda tough right now. Mason’s having trouble at school; he’s being assessed by the psychologist tomorrow. And Brian…well, you know."

We’d just found out that Brian has been bullying some kids at school. When we ask him why he did it, he remains tight lipped. No one could make him talk, not even Mark who, through outings to the batting cages and trips to Dairy Queen, could usually could get him to open up. Now, every time he enters the room, I watch him with a growing sense of hollowness in the pit of my stomach as I realize that the child I had carried inside my own body, who I had tended to and raised for all these years, was now a total stranger to me. He's only 8.

Unnoticed, my hand had resumed its hair-clutching, and I jerk it away when pain jolts through my scalp. Better cut that crap out or I’ll be bald by next Tuesday. I drop my hand and grip the coffee mug instead.

"I’m getting worried about you," Meg’s voice suddenly whined at me through the phone. "Maybe you should talk to someone."

I laugh. "After all this time, after all the stuff I’ve shared with you, you’re only worried about me now?" Then I sober. Should I talk to someone? But the thought of lowering myself to ask for help irks me. I’ve never had to before and I certainly wouldn’t start that nonsense now.

"Hey," I answer, forcing a lightness into my voice. "I said I was joking. Seriously, I’ll be fine. I think I’ll go take a walk. That should help."

Yes, and maybe I’ll keep walking and never come back. There it is. The secret desire, suddenly revealed before I could beat it back down into submission. The compulsion triggers an image of me walking outside in the open air, free, unburdened, alone, which ignites a sense of giddy delight. But also of crushing guilt. I couldn’t do that. They’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive myself.

…I couldn’t really do it…

Could I?  

D. Forde (October 2011)

Author Submission Service: legit help?

Just wondering if anyone had an opinion about these kinds of services. I got this sent to me in an email and I looked them up. There are a few of them around. Was wondering if anyone had used a service like this and if it's worth trying or not...?

http://www.writersrelief.com/help-for-writers-submitting-for-publication/