This story was originally written as part of NaNoWriMo 2015. To read the complete story, go to the MISCELLANY section of this website.
The Heron said nothing, and Jack had a wicked feeling that the stories weren’t true. This bird wasn’t anything special, just a strange creature that lived alone in an old forest. But then the Heron croaked and it was a terrible broken sound. It rolled its yellow eyes back into its head.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.” He looked really concerned, like he knew me and cared.
“It doesn’t really hurt.” I wasn’t interested in letting him see me all bloodied and bruised. I wasn’t interested in letting him see me at all. What happened to just being able to forget about him? I had no escape.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’m sorry I crashed into you.” What else could I say? I was on the verge of a total word explosion, ready to start asking him all kinds of questions, inviting him over to go swimming, inviting him over to play or watch a movie or have my grandma make us lunch. Thankfully, I realized the oncoming avalanche before it wastoo late. Before I could start rambling, incoherent and desperate, I hopped back onto my bike.
I made it to 32,154 words. Not bad, not great. I was able to write with more speed this year, but I wasn’t able to carve out enough time to hit 50k winner status. My goal going forward is to schedule my time better and find more time to write (while also not neglecting my family in the process).
I was a bit of a rebel this year — working on short stories that aren’t connected in any way — and doing things the rebellious way was hugely freeing. It helped me increase my words-per-minute speed, and it helped me keep ideas flowing. Whenever I got stuck or wasn’t “feeling it,” I’d switch to the story that had me most excited.
I think I will continue to have a couple of projects going at a time. It feels like a productive strategy. That means, right now I’m finishing up my collection of short stories and also completing my second draft of Thirteen Treasures. Doing both at the same time means I can always open Scrivener and find something to work on; I’m not chained to one particular story.
I didn’t complete my goal of blogging ALL of my short stories during NaNo. I got through a few parts of “Lightning in the Black Bottle,” a part of “Avalon Summer,” and a part of “Treasures Three,” but I didn’t come close to finishing any of those stories or even starting on my other two. That means, in order to make good on my promise of showing you my rough drafts as they are written, I will continue to blog the drafts as I go until all five of them are finished. I hope to have them all wrapped up by the end of December. So if you’re enjoying any of these messy and unbridled creations, stay tuned to the blog.
This story was originally written as part of NaNoWriMo 2015. To read the complete story, go to the STORIES section of this website for a link to buy the book, or subscribe to my newsletter for a free copy. The new title of the story is “A Heart Made for Bargaining.”
Before long, he heard the soft gurgle of a stream. Running along through the trees was a creek, muddy and shallow. Sitting on the edge of it was a raggedy woman, her hair stringy as ivy vines, her clothes the same color as the brown water. Her back was to Jack. She sat dangling her barefoot feet above the flowing water, humming softly a dark tune. Jack had a good ear for music, and he could hear a minor key as quick as a bird. He tried to step away from the creek and the woman, but twigs snapped and ground betrayed him. She whirled her head in an instant, and cut off her last note like an axe falling on a prisoner’s neck.
We stayed with my grandparents in the summer of 1992 because Dad had just died and Mom needed some time to “figure things out.” Why she couldn’t figure things out with me and Jay there, I don’t know. But I was kinda glad to be at Grandma and Grandpa’s. They lived in a woods and had a house with ten rooms. And their garage had an upstairs. We didn’t even have a garage in Barstow.
It took a week to drive there, with mom in the front seat crying most of the time. I just read books. Jay had his headphones on the whole time. But we saw the country, I guess. I didn’t care. I just wanted to swim in my grandparents’ pool and see the creek that ran down in the valley behind their house. It was only our second time in Michigan; the first time, I had only been seven. But I remembered it as if it were a movie I’d watched two dozen times. The images from that first trip unspooled in my brain for weeks at a time. It was the best trip I’d ever had. Michigan was so green. It smelled like fresh rain water all the time, even on the sunniest days — the kind of rain smell that meant, “Things are growing here. There is life here.” I loved it.
So after Dad died, when Mom said we were going to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for the summer, I smiled. It was the first smile I’d had in a long time.
Sometimes it starts with the cover of a book. The colors, the creatures, the young hero swinging a sword. There’s a promise of adventure, of something strange, of hidden worlds that await just behind a tree trunk or a closet door or a looking-glass. There’s a promise that our mundane, everyday world is not the only one out there, that there are worlds upon worlds waiting to be discovered. These places might not be anything more than an illustrated cover or words on a page — but they are as real as any world we inhabit.
Sometimes it starts with a title. The lyrical, whimsical, powerful, magical. Things both earthy and ancient. Things that are imagined and things that are dreamed. Cauldrons and dragons and kings and gardens and cities and seas. Sometimes the titles are enough; we don’t even need to read the book to experience the fantasy. Example: The Last Unicorn. This is a world and a story and a feeling already contained in a title. It is its own fantasy, one that I imagined even before I read the one inside the covers. The Black Cauldron — there is an entire myth contained in that one phrase. A darkness and an oldness. The story which goes with it is partly of my own imagination; I wrote the story in my head long before I read the story on the page.
Sometimes it’s the experience of searching the shelves — the bookstore, the library, my own bookshelves — and seeing the spines glimmer like jewels in a dwarf hoard, and knowing that each is a key that will unlock another door to distant worlds. It’s also the warmness, the giddiness which comes with knowing that I’m not alone. That others have wanted the same adventures and the same escapes from ordinary reality. That there are people out there who also love to imagine and create and tell stories about monsters and heroes and faeries and gods.
I can’t quite explain the effect a fantasy story has on me. The mediocre ones satisfy my need for swords and magic. They scratch the itch I have for high adventure and monsters. But the great ones make the world — our own world — something brighter, something more alive than it was before. And they make me want to live more fully. They infuse the real world with some of the magic of their imagined worlds. I think Tolkien wrote about this in his essay “On Fairy Stories.” That the talking trees of Faerie somehow make our real trees more beautiful. And the really great stories — the ones that I think about for days after, the ones that transform my imagination — they feel like they’ve come straight from the Realm of Story itself, the origin of all great tales, so that when I read them, I am connected in some way to that larger place. And it is this connection that makes me want to write my own fantasy stories. I want to tie my own tales into this Realm of Story, to join my fantasies with these eternal ones.
I guess this all sounds ridiculous to those who don’t love fantasy literature. Maybe it is. But to those of us who love the realm of fantastical fiction, to those of us who yearn for an escape to Faerie, I bet this doesn’t sound strange at all. It starts with a sword or a monster or a piece of magic. A book cover. A title. It starts when we open that jewel-covered book for the first time. And if we’re open to it, if we’re lucky, if we’re ready for the adventure, the journey through the fantastical changes us. Like magic.
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