A Sorceress Spurned

**This is my entry for the Sparknotes Musical Fiction Contest. Try to guess what song it's based on:)

Honey honey, the bees sing to me. One by one, they land on my cheek as I rock back and forth in my chemise hammock  The softness of their legs and fluttering of their wings wakes me from my reverie. I move my hand and slowly crush the bees between my fingers.

They are not who I wanted to wake up to.

I let my hand fall to the ground and the breeze whisks their dead bodies into the pool of wine beside me. I want the bees to float over the white sand into the sea and follow his boat onto the horizons, so that when he looks into the choppy waters, he might stop and think of what he did to me.

Pah! Odysseus knows full well what he did to me. I gave that man a choice and he rejected me-the sentimental fool.

I hear a squeal and snort behind me. I look over my shoulder to see two of my potbellies sniffing the gardenias and jasmine flowers lining the cave walls. I get up to wave them away. They love destroying my beautiful work no matter how much I yell. I swear they are determined to taunt my only pleasurable past time.
 
Normally, I would have drowned the exasperating creatures, but I have learned to control my temperament somewhat. I would never change myself for any one, especially not a man, but Odysseus had been different. I learned carefully what pleased his soul, made his mind wander or heart beat faster. I also learned he did not share my amusement in turning men into swine.

The pigs squeal again and trot to the mouth of the cave. The sky is dark and I feel the blue rush over my tired body. The clouds opens and a sheet of rain begins to fall. A show is beginning,a grand performance of lightning, thunder and howling wind. My pitiful companions watch in adoration as I sit down on a plush chair behind them and began eating from a vine of white grapes.

How silly of me to sit here pining away when I am safe on this island and he is out battling the wayward ocean storm at the mercy of Poseidon.
      
Why did I promise Odysseus a safe return? I could have lied when I advised him on taking the most cautious path home for spite, but what good would my deals be if no one trusted me? I would never receive any more visitors of mortal or godly status and become even more hated, even though I don’t wish to be around another soul as long as I live-which is unfortunately a damned eternity.

Well look where that goodness got me. Now I am alone in my home, which is nothing but a hollow land of enchantments, trinkets and memories of our time together. I still wear the necklace of shells and pearls he strung together for me in a drunken stupor one night. I bubbled with glee in thinking that he was finally giving up what he had-his past, his home, his wife and son.

But I was stupid to think Odysseus would forget everything. When he overpowered my spells, I should have known he’d bring me trouble. For once, I had met my match, a feeling most unnerving and enthralling. I realized I would not have to pursue him the way I had imagined, not like with his dimwitted seamen and those who came before them.

Thunder crackles through the darkness awakening the same raw anger inside me so fast my back stiffens. How could I have lost to ghost of an old wife? Was I not flesh and blood beating, bursting right in front of his eyes? We shared embraces that were far from boredom or desperation. Didn’t I show him how I would care for him in every way yet never nag or bore him? The nerve of that man to grow tired of my companionship!

If only I had laced him with more sweet affection and crafted a stronger, more perfect love. But after Odysseus, I feel my identity as a sorceress weaken. All my jars and bottles have been sitting uselessly, cast aside in dusty chests. Somewhere along the way, I became a simple woman and came to the infuriating realization that he couldn’t be captured like an element or herb in one of my potions. I can only imagine how lesser, homely women react in his presence. Hopefully, I haven’t debased myself too greatly.

No, there wasn’t a single thing I did wrong but even so, my island and I will soon be but a waypoint on his journey. I will be a tale Odysseus will spin into a dangerous encounter with a sly, bewitching woman on a lonely island and they will laugh and sigh, then retreat to their chambers after a lavish feast on golden platters.

I set down my half-eaten vine with a sudden desire to walk out into the rain. The pigs grunt and roll over on their sides as I move past them. Raising my hands up and closing my eyes, I relish the droplets of sustenance that is falling on our skin at the same time-me on dry land, he on the sea.

Perhaps Odysseus is thinking of me now, wishing he had abandoned his fruitless quest. Perhaps he is holding back the impulse to stop and order his crew to turn the ship around. I hope the cold wind bites his watery soul and make him yearn for my arms.

It isn’t worth risking your life to glory, but they never learn.

I feel a light kick inside and touch my stomach gently under my soaked gown. I turn back into the cave to dry off, knowing even if he wanted to, he wouldn't come back.


** Based on the song "Honey, Honey" by Feist. It's on my playlist on the blog, so check it out and have another read while you listen to it. Hopefully it fits well:)

creative lollygagging

"It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

 -Mark Twain

It's spring break and my mind is happily at ease sleeping (yay for snoozing), eating (a real kitchen!), writing (hello neglected journal) and reading(Prep is really good!) Unfortunately, I also have homework yuck. With only one week, I find it very unfair to have to divide time between socializing, homework and personal time.

 If it weren't for my homework, I would be writing full speed ahead on my Sparknotes Fiction Contest entry which I really want to finish before going back to school. I'm stuck between 3 different songs now, so it's even more frustrating.

I'm also pushing through my NaNo novel. I laugh now that that I thought I would finish it by the end of December. That was a horrible miscalculation. I remember reading somewhere that the first draft is like the rough sketching of a picture before it's painted, so that's how I'm trying to approach my novel. I have no idea where it's going at times as I try to connect each point and each scene. Sometimes it feels too rushed or that I'm ignoring certain characters or not attending to certain story lines, but I shouldn't really expect all of it to make sense at this point, right?

For now I'm soaking up good music, weird art, current movies and amazing photography to hopefully allow all those creative geniuses soak into me and allow something to click. After all, it's break, this is when my imagination should be it's best.

musical fiction story

So this is Sparknotes 2nd fiction contest. You should enter it too! I had a great response from my last entry, which sparked my other blog Zac Serves It Right otherwise known as Lunch is Served. I love contests like this because they're short and sweet and focused, which makes me more motivated and encouraged to enter and actually FINISH lol.

RULES

Entry period: March 1 — March 31

Story length: 2,000 words max

What to send:
1) Your username
2) Your story, pasted into the body of an email
3) The title of your story
4) The name of the song on which your story is based

Where to send your entry: missmarm@sparknotes.com

bitter love story

"Remember writing doesn't love you. It doesn't care. Nevertheless, it can behave with remarkable generosity. Speak well of it, encourage others, pass it on."

Dear Journal,


I hope you enjoy your travels with me on the lightrail. That means you mean enough to me that I don't leave you behind in exchange for a novel, because that would be so much easier for me to deal with. You're tough, stubborn and don't listen, but when things go well, I'm incredibly happy and thankful you're there with me. 


Sorry for the yogurt or tea stains on you. I eat breakfast on the go.


Love,


Your dutiful attending writer

The Genius Stops By

It's been a looong time since I've posted. Why? I haven't felt inspired...haven't had time...felt lazy-- a whole number of reasons. Since NaNo, my creative fuel has altogether vanished, but once listening to the amazing Elizabeth Gilbert speak at the TED conference, I realized that I was approaching my writing process the entirely wrong way. It's not exactly my fault if I'm not writing brilliance, but it's my fault if I don't " show up to work" ready to be assisted by my writing genius. Check out her speech to see what I'm mean.



I'm off to sit my butt in a chair, grab my journal and pen and begin writing, whether I like it or not.  I might add some dancing around every few minutes with some chants of Allah and Ole:)
I'm going to finish this first draft before school ends, I swear.

Writing Advice from Junot Diaz

So Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, wrote about the difficulties of writing on oprah.com, and I thought it was fitting to read his thoughts, since I'm in the horrible third week of NaNo and I'm really really behind in my story. Here are two parts of his article that I really liked.


"It wasn't that I couldn't write. I wrote every day. I actually worked really hard at writing. At my desk by 7 A.M., would work a full eight and more. Scribbled at the dinner table, in bed, on the toilet, on the No. 6 train, at Shea Stadium. I did everything I could. But none of it worked. My novel, which I had started with such hope shortly after publishing my first book of stories, wouldn't budge past the 75-page mark. Nothing I wrote past page 75 made any kind of sense. Nothing. Which would have been fine if the first 75 pages hadn't been pretty damn cool. But they were cool, showed a lot of promise. Would also have been fine if I could have just jumped to something else. But I couldn't. All the other novels I tried sucked worse than the stalled one, and even more disturbing, I seemed to have lost the ability to write short stories. It was like I had somehow slipped into a No-Writing Twilight Zone and I couldn't find an exit. Like I'd been chained to the sinking ship of those 75 pages and there was no key and no patching the hole in the hull. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, but nothing I produced was worth a damn."


"Because, in truth, I didn't become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or my second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn't until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am. "

More Snicket! More NaNo!

So I'm taking a break from writing to pass on a great piece of news from the New York Times. Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) is writing more books!

Lemony Snicket, the notorious pseudonym of Daniel Handler and the author of the bestselling “Series of Unfortunate Events” sequence, has agreed to sell the North American rights to publish a new four-part series to Little, Brown &Co., moving from HarperCollins. The first volume in the new series is scheduled to be published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in 2012. In a press release, Megan Tingley, publisher of Little, Brown’s Children’s division, said the new books would be a series of “highly inventive and entertaining works that will enthrall Lemony Snicket’s legions of fans.”Mr. Handler has also signed a deal with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers to publish his first young adult novel. The book, as yet untitled, will be illustrated by Maira Kalman, who composes an occasional visual blog for the New York Times Op-Ed page. That novel will be published in 2011.As part of the deal, Mr. Handler’s longtime editor, Susan Rich, will join Little, Brown as an editor-at-large in the Young Readers group.The “Series of Unfortunate Events” books, which have sold 60 million copies worldwide and apparently ended in 2006, were published in North America by HarperCollins Children’s Books.

I love the "apparently" added. It did not "apparently" end. It did. The last book was called "The End," in fact. Lol.

As for NaNo, I'm at 12,094 words right now, which is horribly behind what I should be at, roughly 18,000, but I'm aiming for 15k by the end of the night. I've been writing each day, but the problem is I'm not writing enough to keep up sadly. But the story is moving along now, so it should get easier, I hope.

Until later!