Sarah Kate Ishii's Blog, page 6

Embracing Mistakes: The Path to Unleashing Your Inner Writer

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve watched the late Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” (which you can watch at https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?subtitle=en). There’s always a new message that hits me each time.

This time, when I watched it, it was the phrase “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” that stood out to me.

It matches up very well with another concept I’ve been working on, from Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, a topic I’d like to write another article about later this week, about embracing being an amateur.

How often do you get the opportunity to show up as you are and learn by doing and making mistakes, the best learning opportunity, than when you’re an amateur.

That’s why this quote by Ken Robinson was so great and so timely.

At the core of this message is the idea that embracing mistakes is essential for growth and nurturing originality, which for writers particularly (along with other creatives of course), I think this is particularly key.

The fear of being wrong

Throughout our lives, many of us are conditioned to fear making mistakes. Even as kids. We get bad grades, we have to stay behind to fix things in front of a disappointed teacher, our parents are disappointed or angry, they might punish us. Society often prioritises perfection and correctness over creativity and exploration.

As a result, we learn to hesitate when taking risks or trying new things, blocked by fear of potential failure and judgement. What will people think of us if we’re wrong, or bad, and will we be ostracised for it?

But that’s the space we thrive in and grow in.

Ken Robinson, too, thinks this fear of being wrong can have detrimental effects on our creativity. He suggests it stifles us and the natural creativity that exists in all of us thanks to the human condition and how we developed (see my earlier articles on storytelling and creativity in humans over time).

But we all knew this.

We all know how it feels when we feel stifled creatively, feeling unable to produce or demotivated by what we do produce.

That’s why we have to embrace the possibility of being wrong.

There’s space for amazing, original things to happen there, where others fear to step.

To become truly innovative writers, that’s where we need to go. To the places we could be wrong.

Because we might not be.

Why embracing mistakes matters in writing

We should embrace making and learning from mistakes in exploration and creativity more often, but particularly in the case of writing.

If you’re a writer, I imagine you want to do things right the first time.

You’ll read something online or in a book that someone has spent hours or years on and compare yourself, as you are now, at your baseline, to that level. To their top level. But you won’t know how much practice and experimentation they’ve put into their work.

They’ve found their voice, they know how they want to share it.

To reach the level of the writers you admire, you’ll need to put that time in too.

But putting in the time in writing basically means sitting there and doing it, and pretty much starting from the bottom. Likely starting wrong. Or at least very clumsily.

But here’s why you have to start clumsy, and embrace that.

1. Learning and growth: Every mistake in your writing is an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s through these errors that you refine your skills and develop a unique voice.

2. Resilience: Writing is a journey filled with rejection and setbacks. Sometimes people just won’t read or like your work. It happens. It’s subjective. But keep going. Embracing mistakes helps you build the resilience needed to persist and achieve your writing goals.

3. Originality: Innovation in writing often arises from challenging conventions and taking creative risks. By being open to mistakes, you open doors to fresh perspectives and groundbreaking ideas. And like in point one, here you’ll find your voice. That unique ‘thing’ that all writers are seeking but don’t know how to find. It’s in doing and writing that you’ll find it.

These are the three things I think every writer needs to discover for themselves.

You can’t be given it. You have to go out and earn it yourself. The hard way.

By just writing.

How can you apply this principle to your writing?

This one’s easy. As I mentioned above, you just need to sit and write. Practice. Find your voice.

But I understand it can be nerving.

Here’s a few ways you can start getting into embracing mistakes in your writing and just showing up. Writing. Starting where you are now.

1. Write daily: Make writing a daily habit, even if it’s just a few paragraphs. Understand that not everything you write will be perfect, but every word contributes to your growth. Some days you’ll write more. Other days you’ll find it so hard to write. But that’s fine. The more you write, the more you’ll get used to writing, and the more you’ll be able to write each day. That’s the stage you want to get to. And write about anything.

2. Encourage curiosity: Foster a sense of curiosity. Ask questions, research, explore new subjects, topics, genres, connect ideas you never thought would work, experiment with writing prompts, attend writing workshops and converse with other writers for different views. Don’t be afraid to venture into unfamiliar territory. Just do anything that could spark new ideas or thoughts or mindsets. That’s where the writing material comes in. And you might surprise yourself. You might find your strength in a completely unexpected place.

3. Seek feedback: Don’t be afraid to share your work with others, whether through writing groups, workshops, or beta readers. Constructive feedback can be a treasure trove of learning experiences. Is there someone you know you can safely share your first pieces with to see how you can develop before you publish it or share it online?

4. Find a safe environment: In life, you need to create an environment where mistakes are accepted and seen as opportunities for growth rather than failures. This is physically and in mindset. You need to let yourself see mistakes as a tool for growth. And in the writing world, the environment is where you share your work. Where can you share your work for others to check it out, but in a way you feel no pressure for. For me, that’s writing articles on Medium and sharing short fantasy stories on AO3. I want to get my work out there for people to read and to grow my bank of work, and these are no pressure options for me.

5. Experiment and explore: Venture beyond your comfort zone. Try different genres, styles, or narrative techniques. Mistakes made in experimentation can lead to innovative breakthroughs. This sounds silly, but I always thought I was a strictly 3rd person POV fantasy writer, but I’m currently writing a 1st person POV fantasy YA and loving the process. Again, like with curiosity, experimentation and exploration might teach you something really unexpected about yourself.

6. Accept imperfection: You’re not going to get it right first time. Or likely any time. But that’s fine. You can’t sit and try to make a piece of work absolutely perfect, because then you’re limiting yourself, the time you have to write, and chasing an impossible dream. Everyone will interpret your work differently anyway, and people all have different expectations. So do your best in that moment, accept that’s your best as you are now, and then watch as your work grows over the years instead. Give yourself room to feel free.

There’s so much to learn about yourself in exploring, being free, and letting yourself just write without the fear of making mistakes.

If you stop fearing people judging you, there is so much you can benefit from in writing. All lead to growth and finding your writing voice.

Go embrace mistakes and be original

In your quest to write daily articles, or short stories, or novels of any kind — whatever it is you want to write — remember that embracing mistakes isn’t just acceptable, it’s essential for you to grow as a writer and be the best you can be.

Think of it as your commitment to writing. To being a writer.

When you put words to paper, they might not quite meet your expectations. You know, that grand concept we have in our heads when we create something, but then it comes out more like pixel art. But that’s fine. It’s a stepping stone towards becoming more original, more you, finding your voice, and becoming that accomplished writer you envision yourself as in the future.

‘Practice makes perfect, as they say.’

And they say practice, not ‘Perfect makes perfect’. You don’t have to produce your best each time.

You just need to show up and produce. Because you learn through mistakes.

Let go of the fear of imperfection and have fun with your writing.

The Snack Thief: A Fantasy Short Story

It started with a snack.

I’m sure I didn’t finish it all. Only a bite or two, but now it’s gone.

Perhaps I ate it without realising. I’ve been distracted, working, after all.

And then again the next day, when I reached down to get the last cracker, it had gone. But there was still plenty of dip. I’m sure I balanced it better than that.

Perhaps not.

Again, I must’ve been distracted and eaten the last cracker without thinking.

But on the third day, and the day after, it started to seem odd.

I’m not that distracted, am I?

I love food too much to be that distracted with my food.

I stared at the empty Tupperware with a frown, trying to recall when I had eaten my snack. Nothing could help me recall when I had, but I did see a little trail of cracker crumbs across my desk.

Okay, I’m not distracted and messy.

The next day, I made sure to watch.

Opened the Tupperware, had some cracker and dip and then looked at my screen.

Or at least pretended to.

A small flicker at the corner of my eye, and a strange little fuzzy creature zipping across my desk faster than I could process.

My heart stalled.

A mouse?

No, mice weren’t that tiny, or quick, or purple.

It had gone before I could properly look, but the cracker was missing and the trail of crumbs was there again.

Missed it.

Tried again the next day. Brought more crackers this time. Got too hungry to let a little purple fuzzball eat all my snacks. Ate some, pretended to watch my screen again. This time I missed seeing the little creature scurry over my desk at high speed, but I heard a rustling as the cracker scraped the side of the Tupperware and another fell over as it was displaced.

Looked back, and the creature had gone again. At least I had a spare cracker.

I grabbed the last cracker and swivelled around in my chair, leaning back and nibbling as I followed the trail of crumbs across my desk, down onto the carpeted office floor, and along to the wall. Couldn’t see anywhere it could disappear to, and no sign of a little purple creature carrying a cracker that was probably too big for it.

Looked up and glanced at my coworkers. No one stirred. Didn’t seem to have noticed anything. Except one noticed when I looked their way, and we shared a quick acknowledging smile.

I turned back to my desk and plugged my earphones back in, wondering how I could have better chance seeing the creature tomorrow. I looked back at my Tupperware and thought of an idea.

Extra snacks again. That next day, I left the lid slightly on to offer some form of resistance when the creature tried to take it out.

A flash of purple, rattle of cracker on plastic lid.

Saw it.

My eyes met tiny yellow ones as the creature wrestled to get the cracker out, glancing my eye in a nervous hurry.

I blinked. It really was purple, and round and fuzzy and tiny, and it had a long mouse-like tail with a tiny little fuzz ball on the end.

It seemed to be vibrating, but that might’ve just been shaking with nerves.

I reached over slowly and slid the Tupperware lid off the rest of the way to let the cracker free, and the creature vibrated more visible. Definitely nerves.

It took the cracker and zipped off again.

Too fast for me to even see where. It almost just disappeared.

But the trail of crumbs was there.

Work got a little more interesting from there. Each day, I brought extra snacks. And not just crackers. Next week was blueberries and little cubes of cheese. Turns out the little purple fuzz ball likes those too.

Yellow eyes widened as thin little arms reached into the Tupperware and grabbed one of each, hugging them to its body like valuable stolen jewels before zipping off to its hiding place again.

I think it floats. I can’t see legs, and it reaches my desk far too easily to be running and jumping.

Still haven’t seen a mouth either. It only ever steals food. I’ve never seen it actually eat it.

Hopefully it’s not just storing it all in some hole in the wall for us to one day smell a foul rotten stench in the height of Australian summer.

I wrinkled my lip at the thought and turned back to my desk, wondering what its mouth looked like, smirking as I thought of several options, some terrifying.

From then on, I made it my mission to see it eat on my desk, to see if I could interact with it more. I wanted to know so much.

What sounds did it make? Could it communicate? Could you train it like a little puppy? Where did it live? Did it sleep? Did it curl up like a cat, the fuzzball on the end of the tail blending into the fuzzball body? Could I try feeding it?

I tried to ramp up the interactions. Rather than leaving the blueberries and cubes of cheese in the Tupperware for it, I left one of each on a little piece of paper on the desk and then watched.

It ran past the two I’d left out, looked back at them briefly, then floated up onto the rim of the Tupperware and reached in, grabbing its own.

Okay, so the creature prefers its own food.

Fair, probably might worry it’s been bated if left out. Like a mouse trap.

Poor thing. It’s probably experienced a few of those before.

The next day I miss the creature. A colleague is talking to me as I eat my snack, and I’m silently wishing they’d leave so the creature can return. But they don’t for a while, and I look down at the last blueberry and last cube of cheese in my Tupperware, wondering if the creature will eat it if I leave it, though it seemed to prefer its own yesterday.

‘Not going to eat that?’ My colleague says.

I shrug and distract them, and put the Tupperware on my desk, lid off.

By the time the conversation is over, I turn back, and the last of the snacks is gone.

Disappointed at not seeing it this time, I sit back down at my desk and put the lid on the Tupperware, and then put it back in my bag, wondering what other foods it might like that might make it hang around more.

There’s a little peep, and I look up from my bag to see the little purple fuzzball sitting on my keyboard with the chunk of cheese in its little hands.

Large yellow eyes look up at me, and then the fuzz splits in two to reveal a large mouth with sharp needle-like teeth.

It shoves the cheese in whole before closing up into a little fuzzball again.

I won’t lie. It was a little creepy. More Tim Burton horror vibes than the cute hamster vibes I had been expecting. But it’s looking up with cute little yellow eyes again and waving the little tail, the tiny fuzzball on the end swinging like a happy little hypnotism pendulum.

It’s hard to be angry at a creature like that. Though maybe that’s the intention.

I quickly wonder whether I might be grooming a tiny little predator before smiling at the series of ‘jhjjhjjjjhhhhhhjjjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh’ on my screen where the creature’s been sitting on the keys.

I let out a snort, and it zips off with a little peep that I’m sure means back tomorrow.

I’ll bring food.

The Sandman’s Awakening: An Urban Fantasy

I can see people’s dreams and nightmares.

Dancing lights and shadows playing above their heads in 3D, like a movie without a TV.

I first noticed back when I shared a room with my older brother. I was so excited for Santa to visit, I couldn’t sleep. My heart was in my throat and energy zipped through my veins as I tried to listen out for the sounds of hooves on my roof and footsteps as Santa stomped towards the window — because we all know he comes through windows now, not chimneys.

Though my brother says that’s just as creepy.

But to a kid, none of that mattered. I wanted to see Santa for myself.

Except, that night, all I saw were my brother’s dreams. Not that I knew that’s what they were at the time.

In the dark of the night, as I poked my face from under the thick duvet and stared into the nightlight-lit gloom of our room, my quest to see Santa was distracted by a dancing show of dusty lights and shadows above my brother’s face. A boy sliding down a hill on a snowboard, and laughing with mates.

I called his name, but he didn’t answer. But the show changed.

I left the warm embrace of my duvet and padded over the carpet to lean on his bed and look closer, reaching out for the show.

The boy fell off the snowboard, and my brother flinched.

My hand went straight through the dust. Nothing was there.

I asked him about it the next day, but he had no idea what it was about.

Since then, I tried to stay up as late as I could to see it again. Each night I could stay awake long enough, it appeared above my brother’s face.

Different shadows and lights this time, like he’d left the TV on. Except it was black and white, like the olden days.

I ran into my parents’ room, and they had black and white TVs of their own above their heads.

No one believed me when I tried to ask about it. I kept quiet.

It took years to realise it was people’s dreams, or their nightmares. But I learned early on that I saw no dreams or nightmares for myself.

Instead of seeing them for myself, I saw theirs.

I tried telling a roommate once. Years later. We’d been drinking, and he’d been telling me about a weird dream he’d had the night before. I knew. I’d seen it. Though I wish I hadn’t. I learned as I got older sometimes it was best not to see people’s dreams.

He laughed. Didn’t believe me, asked if I was the sandman or something.

“Don’t be ridiculous, mate,” I said, tossing my screwed up sandwich bag into the bin. Goal. “The sandman can control dreams, can’t he. I can’t.”

Or could I. I’d never tried.

It wasn’t long before he crashed to sleep, drunk, and the grey and pale dust spiralled around his head in a strange cloud of drunken dreams. Curious, I got up and reached out my hand.

But what did I make him dream about?

In the dim, I saw the motorbike racing poster above his bed.

Let’s try that.

I held out my hand again and concentrated on the dust, imagining amongst the strange spiralling a racer zooming out from the cloud and skidding around a corner on a race track.

The dust moved, but no bike came.

I scoffed. Of course it wouldn’t work.

The sandman hadn’t been seen or talked about for centuries. As if.

I was just about to climb into my own bed when out of the corner of my eye I saw a bike racer leap out of the dusty cloud above my friend’s face. I froze, knee on my bed.

Hands raised again, pointing towards my friend, and this time I thought harder. Bike turns to a crappy little bi-plane.

Don’t ask why.

I tried to really visualise it this time, and then it appeared in front of me, zooming over my friend’s head.

A laugh of disbelief burst from my mouth, and I sat on the bed, grinning ear to ear, still wild from the booze.

Wings fall off …

In the dust, the plane plummeted, and my friend cried out and fidgeted.

Land in a giant pile of marshmallows …

He did, and my friend let out a sigh in his sleep.

I stared at my hands, grey in the darkness. What if I WAS the sandman?

I can see people’s dreams and nightmares.

But not my own.

The Knight Who Can’t Remove Their Helmet — Fantasy Story Ideas

Thinking about that scene from Shrek where he doesn’t want to remove his helmet and makes some excuse about helmet hair.

But what if there was a knight who couldn’t actually remove their helmet because they’d been cursed.

For one, people probably wouldn’t believe them. Would they just get used to making lame excuses like that to try get out of actually explaining the real reason, to avoid all the disbelief and explanations and arguments?

‘Oh, forgot to wash my hair last night. Looks awful. Don’t mind me.’

‘Bad hair colour job. New fairy hairdresser couldn’t get their hands around the spells. It’ll wash out eventually …’

‘Got in a pub fight with a barbarian. Face looks like I was sat on by a dragon. Didn’t want to shock you. It’s meant to be your big day, being rescued and all.’

‘Lost a bet with a wizard and they said I had to keep my helmet on for a year. Only a few more months to go!’

‘You know what, just looked at my face today and thought it wasn’t the day for me. Worse thing was, the mirror agreed.’

And why would they be cursed to wear a helmet forever in the first place? Too ugly? Too pretty? Gods were jealous? Drunk wizard mother got frustrated that their freckles looked too much like their father’s?

Then how would you fix it? Can’t get kissed by true love: helmet’s in the way.

I think the best story would be a self-acceptance one. Helmet finally pops off when they accept themself.

What other lame excuses do you think the knight could make about why they’re not going to take the helmet off?

Breaking the Mold: Why Fantasy Needs Flawed Characters

I’m not sure about you, but I’m really struggling to read and access current fantasy and sci-fi books.

It’s the characters. Something is just so porcelain and perfect about them, like I’ve seen them all before in other stories and they’re the same stony, perfect people in different settings.

Where’s the diversity? The genuinely flawed characters that capture the essence of human imperfection and complexity? Characters that make us readers yearn for more of their story as we truly connect with them?

Flawed characters.

That’s what I want to see more of in fantasy books.

Like, real proper, flawed characters. Not the perfect Mary-Sue or male equivalents we’re getting in books at the moment. You’re perfect but you’re grumpy and treat everyone around you badly? That doesn’t count!

I want to see excitable characters, introverted, gentle men and bold women with laughs as great as the sun.

I want to see people who aren’t smart, or people who are smart but are absolutely terrible at everything else.

People who can’t fight and don’t then mysteriously pick up a weapon and use it perfectly the first time.

Girls who aren’t girly, but not in the ‘trying to be a stereotype opposite’ way we get in everything.

Men whose default flaw isn’t just drinking.

And while we’re at addictions, what about other addictions? Characters go on grand adventures — don’t they miss or struggle losing something? How many of us these days can go a day without our coffee? What are your characters addicted to? Stories can have drugs, gambling, or coffee, or chocolate and foods.

Talking about foods, how about characters of different sizes?

People who struggle with crippling self-doubt, no matter how good they are, so it holds them back.

People who are socially awkward, but not in the ‘sexy’ way we’re seeing everywhere. Real struggles that can lead to funny or cringe-worthy moments as they struggle to communicate, and their friend rolls their eyes.

I can go on, but I think we get the picture. We want non-standard fantasy characters.

Real people.

We need to stop making our fantasy characters perfect or superficially flawed. Humans are messy, and that’s glorious.

That’s what we’ll relate to. That’s what we’ll love. They’re the characters who will stay with us.

So let’s create more of them.

___

Originally publishing on Medium.

Character art: Meet the MC, Yoshiko

Character art: Yoshiko. I'm still in awe over the skills of @flow_n_draw. This was one of the art pieces we looked at for the cover of Origin Curse, and though we didn't end up using it as I felt the vibe was a little too young and light for the story, I still adore it.

Yoshiko is the primary character in Origin Curse, pictured here in Flo's interpretation (so cool by the way to see a character come to life in an artistic interpretation). At the start of the book, she's hopeful, has dreams and things she wants to achieve, and is curious and chatty. This really sums up start of the book Yoshiko well.

I think had she had the opportunity to discover her powers in a scenario where her life had stayed the same, this would have summed up her relationship with her powers beautifully.

Instead, she ends up fearing them, and it takes her a while to come to grips with who she really is.

I think learning she can use them to help people around her really brought her to piece with her powers, cursed as they were.

What impressions of her and her story do you get from looking at this gorgeous character art?

#fantasyart #fantasycharacter #fantasycharacterdesign #OriginCurse #fantasybooks #fantasyseries #characterart

Heard of a positive's only edit?

Recently on a writing group's post, I saw someone wanting to hire an editor for a positives only edit. I've never heard of one of those before, so I reflected on the benefits and challenges a positives only edit could bring to both an author and editor.

Posted on LinkedIn, you can click this link to read it:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/positi...

The curse: a Quote from Origin Curse

The curse that started it all. This is a snippet from one of the earlier chapters of my debut fantasy book, Origin Curse, book 1 in the international fantasy series Dynasty Codes. In this quote, Asumi, the mother of the primary protagonist Yoshiko, is telling her daughter about their familial curse.

Have you heard of Kiyohimé?

‘Many generations ago, in the age the spirits walked between this world and theirs’ freely, our ancestor was cursed. You’ve probably heard of folktales where humans were blessed or—more commonly—condemned by the spirits. Once, a heartbroken and vengeful woman was turned into a dragon, fated to hunt down the man who broke her heart, only for both to suffer. You know the story of Kiyohimé.

‘Well, a woman in our line was cursed as such, to transform into a dragon and her descendants with her. I don’t know why. That much is lost. It gave her strength and power, abilities only the dragons could have, including transformation, if strong enough. But each time she transformed, she became more and more like a dragon. Each time, her human body paid the price until, eventually, it consumed her, and when she turned into a dragon, she could no longer be human again.

‘They say that’s when they go crazy. Humans trapped inside the body of a dragon, they hunt down whatever is closest to what made them that way, then live until they die of some unnaturally old age or are killed.’

#bookquotes #fantasybookseries #epicfantasy #fantasyquotes #authorlife

Why I wanted to be an author

Pre-sale for my debut fantasy novel Dynasty Codes: Origin Curse is beginning, and of course I'm feeling reflective and a little sentimental. Author. Finally. I've had this dream since I was a little girl, and life and my perfectionism and anxiety got in the way. I'm breaking all those barriers now, and finally it's happening. Now it is, I thought I'd share with you all why I wanted to be an author. It's been a long time coming.

Starting from the beginning. I don't know when this dream became my dream. It's been there as long as I could remember. According to my dad, as long as I could read, which was very young. I was raised in a house that adored books, and I was a fortunate child to have parents that read to me often and encouraged stories and fun games.

I mirrored that. While I never got on with my little sister much, sadly, one thing we did enjoy was the time we shared a bedroom when we were really tiny, and when the lights went out and parents told us to sleep, instead we'd sit up in bed, and in the night of the nightlight (because I was scared of the dark), my sister would ask me to act out plays and stories with her teddies.

Of course, her teddies were the good guys, and mine were the bad guys. Had to be that way with a younger sibling. I used to whisper to mine, 'Don't worry, I know you're not bad, really!'

I was too sensitive a kid.

Was? Correction. Still am.

Always scribbling stories on scraps of paper, I used to make little books in drawing time or at home and show my friends and family. Literally, it's all I wanted to be in life. As I got older, the idea formed more as to why.

Why be an author? Because it was fun, and stories were amazing and magical, and I loved magic. I could daydream and imagine so much with books and stories, and go on so many adventures that I couldn't go on in real life, and I wanted to make that too. For others to read and, honestly, for myself to read.

You know they say to write the book you want to read.

Honestly, too, I was really ill as a kid. I couldn't go out much. Sometimes could barely move. So books were often my only reality and friends when I was stuck within the 4 walls of home or the hospital. Now, I don't want this to sound like a sob story. As an introvert, I REALLY loved my own company, and there was nothing better than a good fantasy story. So while I hated that part of my life--being ill, that is--I'll never regret the time it gave me with books.

I know there are other people like that out there, who for whatever reason can't or prefer not to go out, instead relying on books for adventure, fun, stories, company.

I was the girl who characters were more real and more friends to me than real people, and I know there are other people like that too.

I wasn't interested in boys or crushes until VERY late, and even then my grey/demi self was pretty neutral. But, of course, I had my fair share of fiction book crushes.

... Had? ...

I laugh now, as it clearly didn't happen, but I remember seven-year-old me deciding her goal was to be the world's youngest author.

Well, little me, it took another 22 years. Sorry. That's life, that's anxiety, but it's not about the time you did it, just that you finally became true to yourself and did it.

I guess I could sum it up like this: books were my life, and they saved my life at a time it was dark and lonely. Many times. Not when I was just a kid.

If even one person can feel like that with a book I wrote--this one out now or any in the future--I'd feel so happy. Because I know how much it meant to me when I read books that made me feel that way, and to bring that colour and adventure to someone else is the most incredible gift ever.

Interested in Origin Curse? Check it out here.

#authorlife #reflections #beinganauthor #whyIwrite

At last she leaned in and whispered - a writing prompt

(Writing to a writing prompt. There was a beautiful line in Memoirs of a Geisha as I was doing a blackout poetry with my old copy of it. I couldn't use the line in that poem, so I wanted to use it in another piece of fantasy writing. Here's what I wrote.)

Ahead of me, not several steps, a creature so fair, the likes I’d never seen before and was sure I’d never see again. Leaves woven into her deep brown hair, and skin the colour of rich moss. She turned my way, and her eyes were molten bronze and seemed to stare into my core, and then a playful smile danced upon her face.

She skipped my way, and had I been paying attention to her feet, I’d have seen roots stepping on grass.A tree spirit.

She stopped just in front of me and held out a hand, delicate fingers made of light brown twigs, but more supple than a gifted weaver, running through my long hair. Her eyes showed almost as much awe and I was sure were mirrored in mine.

My breath caught to have such a vision so close to me, and I was certain my thudding heart would be heard in the silence that followed.

At last she leaned in and whispered. “I’ve not known a female human before … they only send the males. Do they hope you will sate me?”

I swallowed. For years, the town had been sacrificing men to this creature to sate her urges as a bargain that she’d help control the forest and not let it overgrow the human settlement. But once she’d finished with them, the men never returned.

I was part of their new plan.

I stared into her eyes as bravely as I could, keeping her gaze, hoping for the sake of my little siblings I could satisfy her long enough to keep them safe even for a little longer from the wild and enchanted trees.

“Very well, then. This will be fun,” she purred softly like the wind brushing the leaves.

She took my hand and led me deeper into the darkness of the ancient and overgrown forest, and I swore I felt roots twisting about beneath my feet.

I steeled myself, trying to be brave, until she turned her divine face back to smile at me as she walked, revealing several rows of sharp, thorn-like teeth.

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