Beth Alvarez's Blog, page 42

Wind

Some said her affinity was the worst to have; at times like this, Firal was tempted to agree.

She wasn’t foolish enough to think the task would be easy. If it were easy, it wouldn’t have been part of their tests. But she did feel she had a disadvantage due to the energy source her power was bound to, one perhaps only shared by earth-bound mages. The others faced minimal challenge at best.

The test was simple: shift the wind just enough to change the direction the leaves on a sapling moved. Most of her classmates achieved it with little obvious effort. The gale Ran created nearly tore the sapling’s roots from the ground, but everything he did seemed easy—when he actually attended class.

She tried not to fret while she watched the students ahead of her perform their task. A more experienced mage than she would be able to sense the way they manipulated the energy around them, but she was still too young for that. When she was strong enough to move up to green robes, perhaps she’d be skilled enough to tell. For now, all she could do was watch and wonder, trying to determine just how she was supposed to accomplish the same feat.

Mages with an air affinity would find it easiest; all they had to do was tell the air to move. Fire and water mages had easy access to air currents, too, relying on heat and humidity to give them power. She didn’t know how earth affinities fit in, but she could always ask a friend later. But the four of them were core elements, stronger, more power available at their fingertips. Firal’s Gift was healing, tying her to the power of life. It sounded good on her written studies, but when she stood alongside her classmates, she couldn’t help but notice how much weaker she was.

Life force was everywhere, but to sap strength from other living creatures struck her as wrong. It meant working with a handicap, leaving her with only her own strength to rely on. Demonstrations left her tired. Sometimes they were beyond her skill completely. More than once she’d wished it possible to change her affinity. She would have liked to be a mage tied to water or wind, able to shift the weather to suit her moods. But it wasn’t a choice, so she’d settled for the next best thing; making friends with other healer mages, hoping to learn from their expertise.

“Firal?” the Master mage beside the sapling called, beckoning her with a finger.

Swallowing hard, Firal strode forward. She looked up at the sapling, convinced it had grown taller and stouter while she walked.

“Move even the smallest branch successfully, and you will pass.” The white-haired Master smiled, inclining her head before stepping back and gesturing toward the tree.

Firal stared, watching the bright leaves fluttering on their narrow stems. The breeze was steady, stronger than she first thought, and would be difficult to turn. Licking her lips and worrying her yellow training robes in her hands, she extended her sense of self to her surroundings. As always, life sprung before her senses with the most strength, flowing from the people around her, the grass underfoot, even the tree itself. Life was the most difficult element to use; despite all their studies, the how and why of what gave things life was a mystery to even the most knowledgeable Masters. They could tap it, manipulate it, even end it, but that was all they knew.

And life had nothing to do with wind.

Nibbling her lower lip, she tried to focus on the feeling of the air against her skin, watching the way it made the leaves dance. She tried to feel the strength within it, searching for some way to anchor herself to it. With water, earth and even fire, touching it was enough to let her find purchase. With air, she felt nothing.

Nothing at all.

“Mageling Firal?” the Master prompted.

She tried harder, her senses finding nothing.

“All you have to do is move a branch,” the woman in white said.

Firal gritted her teeth. Couldn’t the woman see she was trying? She squeezed her eyes closed.

A long moment of silence drew by before the Master mage sighed. “Just shift it with air and you’ll be done, mageling.”

Firal’s amber eyes flashed open and it was all she could do to keep from glaring. “Just shift it with air?”

The Master nodded.

Clenching her fists at her sides, Firal marched to the base of the tree, sucking in a deep breath, her cheeks ballooning as she blew.

The lowest branch swayed and rustled, pushing against the breeze.

The students stared, even the Master gaping. Then, somewhere to the side of the crowd, Ran burst out laughing.

“Will that do for you, Master?” Firal glanced at the woman from the corner of her eye.

For a moment, the white-robed Master sputtered. Then her face darkened and she thrust a finger toward the low building that housed the classrooms. “Not in the least, young lady! You are to go see Master Nondar and tell him of your insolence immediately!

Tossing her unruly black hair over her shoulder, Firal lifted her chin and spun on her heel, marching toward the classrooms.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been sent to Nondar for discipline, but she was sure the old man would side with her today.

After all, her teacher never said the wind had to be magic.

To market, to market

Though it’s common for me to write blog posts ahead of time, I typically post them manually when blog day rolls around. I usually have them scheduled, just in case something happens, like my power going out or something like that. But I like hitting ‘publish’ on each new post, and I like being able to share the posts with friends and family as soon as they go up. And this week, I didn’t have anything written up ahead of time, so for the first time in a few years, I didn’t have a Tuesday blog update.

Normally when I travel, I have my laptop and phone with me, so I can post an update if I really need to. But the trip this past week was a bit busier than normal, since on top of traveling to see my family, I was taking craft supplies and handmade things with me to attend the picker’s market where they live.

It’s a pretty neat thing, running from spring to fall and closing up during winter months. The second Sunday of each month, the historic main street closes and vendors set up shop. It’s mostly vintage and antique stuff, but this month they allowed handmade crafts, too. I’ve been selling my handmade goods online for a while, mostly selling through Etsy, but I’d done two craft shows before. Neither one was very successful, and honestly, this one wasn’t either.

It’s a vetted show, so the first step is getting accepted. I ended up being the only jewelry vendor, oddly enough, and we got in without any problems, but booth spaces were assigned, not chosen. Instead of closing the main street for one more block, they opted to put a number of vendors into a parking lot behind the main street buildings, where nobody could see them. Guess where our booth ended up?

Naturally, that meant we didn’t get much foot traffic, while the vendors on the main street were surrounded by several thousand shoppers! The parking lot would have been a great setup for the food vendors, but it is what it is. If they offer crafting booths again in the future, they might have a better setup next time. Not that I’d be there–it was an interesting event, with live music and lots of things to look at, but it’s too far to travel. Especially when my poor car ended up sustaining damage on the trip up, and the money I did make won’t even cover cost of repairs.

The time spent at the house with some of my siblings was lovely though, and Dad and I squeezed in some bonding time while we puzzled over how we’d fix the paint on the roof of my car. Mom enjoyed lots of time with her grand-baby, and little bit enjoyed lots of time with her aunts and uncles.

Of course, I didn’t get a single bit of work done the whole week, but once I’m finished unpacking and things start to settle, I’ll have something to talk about: Born of the Moon.

Just like a clock

Kifel didn’t hear the door open, oblivious to his stewardess standing at the entrance to his office until she cleared her throat. He paused with his pen poised above paper, glancing up. She never interrupted him unless it was important; that his son stood beside her indicated a problem.

The boy’s head was down, his expression sullen, dirt smudged on his face. He held Medreal’s hand, as he was expected to, but he stared at the floor.

Frowning, Kifel put his pen aside. “What has he done?”

“I found him in the garden, Majesty,” Medreal said, sparing the child a sidewise glance. She had a sour twist to the corners of her mouth, which didn’t bode well for the news of his behavior. “He had just bloodied the nose of the Captain’s boy, tussling in the dirt. He broke the chain to the necklace you had made for his birthday, I’ve already sent it to be repaired.”

“Thank you, Medreal. You may leave him here.”

The old woman nodded, dipping in a curtsy before sliding back into the hallway, drawing the door shut behind her.

The boy winced when the latch clicked.

Kifel rested his elbows on his desk and laced his fingers together. “Come here, Ran.”

Hesitating, perhaps trying to decide if he had other options, the boy padded across the room to stand in front of the heavy desk.

“How badly was he hurt?” Kifel asked.

“He started it,” Ran grumbled, staring at the carpeted floor.

“That’s not what I asked.” Careful to keep his tone patient but stern, Kifel sat a little straighter. “How badly did you hurt him?”

Ran clasped his hands behind his back, bowing his head a little more. “Not bad.”

“And he saw you as you are?”

“Yes, sir.”

A problem, but not a large one. Captain Tanrys was a reasonable man; if he weren’t, he wouldn’t be Captain. A short meeting would take care of any concerns that came from Ennil’s boy scuffling with royalty. Kifel rearranged duties in his head to make room for it that afternoon. “Did you apologize?”

Snorting, Ran kicked the carpet. “He’s just a peasant boy.”

Kifel’s lips pressed thin. Slowly, he stood, turning toward the large fireplace against the far wall. It was decorative more than anything, but it was occasionally useful for destroying papers. “Come here. I want you to see something.”

His son padded along behind him, watching as he pulled the clock down from the mantel and wiped dust from the glass over its face. Kifel knelt, holding it out. “What do you see?”

Ran studied it for a moment, finally lifting his somber violet eyes to meet his father’s gaze. “It’s your clock.”

Nodding, Kifel tapped a finger at the center, where the two hands converged. “This represents us. We are the hands of the clock. We are what people see. We tell people when they are to do things. As rulers, that’s our duty. We are the face, the forefront of a kingdom. And the kingdom is a clock.”

Peering at the shifting minute hand, Ran frowned. “How do you mean?”

Kifel held up a finger, turning the clock face down into his palm, unfastening the back. He removed it carefully, mindful of the ticking and whirring gears that moved inside. “Here’s what you don’t see. The workings are very delicate. What do you suppose would happen if I removed one of these gears?”

“It would stop working,” Ran murmured, leaning close.

“And a kingdom is just like a clock. You see, a kingdom is composed of thousands of parts, each one vital. You might not see them right at first. All you see is the rulers, the face. But behind him is an elaborate scheme of gears and wheels, all of them turning, all of them working together. It doesn’t matter how large or small a gear is. If one is removed, everything ceases to turn.” Kifel stuck a fingernail between the cogwheels, tilting the clock to show how all the workings ceased.

“These are the peasants, Ran. The fishermen and the harbormasters, the farmers, shepherds, maids, servants and soldiers. The rulers may be the clock hands, but the peasants are the gears.” He pulled his finger back, letting the workings resume. “Do you understand?”

The boy nodded. “They’re all important, aren’t they?”

“Precisely. Remember that.”

Sighing, Ran gave him a sheepish look. “Does that mean I have to apologize?”

“As a matter of fact, it does.” Kifel closed the back of the clock, putting it back on the mantel. Then he smiled, reaching out and tousling his son’s dark hair. “Because no matter how big or how small the job, every job is just as important as yours. Just like what’s inside a clock.”

Persimmon Tree Tea’s Rooibos Vanilla Chai

Yes, tea again this week! I’ve been so busy the past few weeks that I’ve had little else to write about.

Until now, my knowledge of chai tea was limited to knowing it was on the menu at most cafes.

Well, that’s not entirely true; I had a vague idea of what it would taste like, based on the ingredients it contained.

Based on that limited knowledge, I predicted that the slightly cinnamon-like flavor of rooibos would be well-suited to a chai tea, and I’m proud to say that even as a tea novice, I was right.

The package boasts of traditional masala chai spices, but it has a few extras, too. A hint of vanilla adds a bit of sweetness to the aroma, though it’s hard to detect in the tea itself. It also has bits of orange peel, which add a little tang. I thought the inclusion of orange peel was odd, since chai is traditionally served with milk, but I was brave and tested it. While it adds a little flavor, it doesn’t add enough citrus to curdle the milk. And milk definitely helps this tea be all it can be!

The flavor is very bold when it’s straight, but most of what you taste is cinnamon and anise. I’m not very fond of anise, but that flavor fortunately is mellowed when milk is added. With milk in the cup, what I tasted was mostly cinnamon, a hint of vanilla, and a note of something almost minty.

I shamelessly added sugar, too, since it’s common for chai to be sweetened. Just a hint was plenty to make it taste great, a pleasant blend of warmth that would be great to sip on a wintery morning. The warm flavor makes me less likely to want this in the summer, but I’m sorry I won’t be able to add this one to my shelf.

A small mound of stones

They were all shapes and sizes, all different colors. Some were semiprecious, glittering crystals with their markings etched in. Others were plain stone in drab hues, sometimes with the markings only painted on the surface. But they were special, just the same. Each one a treasure, a symbol—to him, at least—of a life being rebuilt.

Rune hadn’t won many, but he had enough. Most people he played with had full sets made just for them, game pieces in uniform sizes and uniform materials. He could have had his own set made, but he liked what he had. A small mound of mismatched stones, no two alike, but each one important. He rolled them in the palm of his hand, studying the way the light glinted off some and made others appear to glow. He had more fine stones than plain, now that he looked at them, but it had more to do with who he played against than anything else.

“Playing to how many points?” his opponent asked, arranging his set of matching stones along his side of the board.

“Three.” Rune spared the man’s choices barely a glance before digging through his own stones, turning them over one at a time, selecting seven stones and laying them on the checkered tiles of the board. Were they playing to a higher score, they would have each had fourteen. But fourteen stones would have made the game too short, and they did want to enjoy it at least a little.

He still preferred chess to runestones, but chess wasn’t so common. The councilor across the table from him had a chessboard, but everyone from farmers to soldiers to the king himself played runestones. Chess pieces took up more space and couldn’t be made by peasants with a ready supply of smooth river rocks and a rainy evening at home. The grid for runestones was one square smaller, seven by seven, and the rules were more difficult to remember since each of the thirty-seven pieces had their own unique movements and uses. Sometimes he thought the people he played against took advantage of the fact he was still learning. More than once, the councilor had to correct him on his understanding of a piece. Sometimes he also thought the councilor was too honest to hold his position in politics.

Putting the rest of his stones away, Rune paused to study the last one left in his hand when the rest poured off into their bag. It was the first stone he’d gotten, a gift from Redoram, the councilor across from him now. He carried it with him, even when he didn’t carry his bag of stones. It was the marking he wore on the back of his hand, the scar that had given his name. He dumped it in with the rest and pulled the drawstrings closed. “Who chose the marks for the runestones, anyway?”

Redoram raised one thick white brow, lifting his eyes from perusal of his opponent’s pieces. “Who can say? There used to be forty-six, but there were so many redundancies and markings that looked alike that nine fell out of use. They could pare it down more, I’m sure. There are still quite a few stones that do essentially the same thing.” He slid a stone across the board with a fingertip, clearing his throat. “Not all of them have meanings, either.”

“Not meanings you know of,” Rune muttered, fitting a talon-tip to the grooved shape in the top of a stone to move it. He preferred etched stones for that reason. The smooth ones were sometimes hard for him to pick up.

Chuckling, Redoram nodded. “True enough. Some are letters from ancient languages I’ve studied, but some are symbols I’ve never encountered. I suppose each culture adds a bit of themselves to the game.” His counter-move took the first piece off the board.

Rune frowned. “Maybe that’s why I’m no good at it. There’s no part of my culture in this game. We don’t have it.”

“Don’t you?” Redoram’s gaze shifted to the scar in the back of his scaly hand.

Irritated, Rune turned it so he couldn’t see. “No.”

“Well then, I suppose you’ll have to insert a bit of yourself into how you play. Games like this are meant to evolve, after all.” The councilor paused, glancing to the board.

Rune’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Redoram waved a hand. “Well, go ahead, my friend. After all, it’s your move.”

******

This week’s prompt was “A small mound of stones.” This was one I kept coming back to, since it was hard for me to think of something to use for it, but it ended up  being one I really enjoyed. You can see what the lovely Megan Cutler has done with this prompt here, and what her awesome writing partner put together here.

Persimmon Tree Tea’s Ruby Orange

I was surprised and disappointed earlier this month to discover Persimmon Tree Tea’s website had no stock. All their pages indicate an indefinite hiatus, which ruffles my feathers since they’re the producers of my favorite Earl Grey and Green Pomegranate tea blends.

When I made this discovery, I was unsure if I should continue posting reviews of their teas, since people who like the sound of them won’t be able to get them. But I decided I would, obviously, since I’m posting this. I still feel like the information is important, if only because documenting information about the teas here will help as a point of reference for similar alternatives later down the road. Good tea is very valuable, after all; to the Vikings, it was worth its weight in gold.

I still have five teas of theirs to review out of my batch of samples, so here’s one of the five: Ruby Orange.

Ruby Orange is a delightful rooibos blend, sweet and fruity on its own without a need for sugar. Pieces of orange peel give it a wonderfully tangy aroma, while the tea brews without the normal bitterness the peel often leaves behind. It has a mellow herbal taste, the addition of hibiscus petals adding a pleasant earthy floral note while enriching the natural red color of the rooibos. As rooibos always seems to for me, it has a very faint taste of cinnamon, but it’s just enough to keep the flavor warm without being overwhelming.

Overall, I’d say I definitely liked this tea, and if it was currently available, I’d probably consider adding a few ounces to my tea shelf. With luck, I’ll be able to find a comparable tea in the future.

As cold as the desert

The desert got cold at night.

It was the same piece of advice Laele had gotten from everyone. Take an extra blanket. Take a cloak. The desert gets cold at night. As if she’d learned nothing from the guild academy, or hadn’t taken time to look up information on the place she was headed.

It wasn’t her first time traveling, but it was her first time traveling alone. Everyone in the guild had warned her about the scorching heat and bone-biting cold, the toxic plants and the animals that prowled the dunes. No one had seen fit to warn her about the real dangers until she was there.

The desert was home to the worst sort of scoundrels, men who would beat you senseless and rob you blind, leaving you on the sand for the scavengers to kill. The desert was home to the Soulless, whose empty eyes showed nothing as their poisoned daggers bit flesh. But the desert got cold, they said.

As if that was all that mattered.

During the day, she never would have imagined the cold. The cracked earth drank every drop of sweat, the sun searing the wet marks out of the dust before she’d moved out of sight. She had only traveled alone until she reached the city. She needed a guide, and he needed money. It made sense that they work together. That she had the power to change his fate was something they hadn’t spoken of again, though the thought crossed her mind every time they settled for the night.

There were no campfires, though Laele desperately longed for one. Even were they able to find more than a few pieces of scraggly brush, the bitter winds would have blown out any flame she could coax to life. It was the most brutal environment she’d ever been in, but the cold was the least of her worries.

She couldn’t trust the Soulless, they said. Hiring one would be a mistake. He used his mischievous grins and twinkling eyes to lull her into a sense of security, but a member of the guild should know better. He had no heart, no feelings, no soul; his blue eyes gave that away. He was empty, a husk, a killer. Nothing more than a tool used for wicked deeds. Even if she made it to her destination and found the treasure she sought, there was no chance he’d let her escape with it alive.

Laele had nodded, but she didn’t believe.

A man with no soul couldn’t sit sighing over brooding thoughts.

A man with no soul couldn’t laugh so hard at her pitiful attempts to retell jokes she’d overheard.

At the same time, though, a man with a soul couldn’t sleep so soundly with so much blood on his hands. And sleep soundly he did, whenever it was her turn to stand watch. She’d seen things that made her sure his heart was as cold as the desert’s night, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that the label wasn’t right.

Night after night, she watched him clean his knives and check his vials of poison when she settled for sleep, always wondering if she was wrong to think he was different, if tonight would be the night one of those knives slid between her ribs.

The thought filled her dreams. She woke, shivering, in the dark of the night. But before she could move, his warm, gentle hands pulled the blankets back to her chin.

******

This week’s prompt was “She woke, shivering, in the dark of the night.” While my fellow writers haven’t tackled this one yet, you can read their prompt for this week–“Committing a crime”–on their pages here and here! As an added bonus this time, they’re writing the same scene, just from different character perspectives.

Until next time!

Adding artwork

I’m not sure why, but writing and art go sort of hand-in-hand. Many of the artists I’ve known have also been writers, and the writers I’ve known have also been artists. I’m a little bit of both, myself, though my husband’s art skills far surpass my own.

I’ve been illustrating things for my books for as long as I’ve been writing them. In fact, I started drawing at the same time I started writing Serpent’s Tears, because I wanted to create images of the characters in the story. Needless to say, my early ventures weren’t very good, but I feel like over the course of the past decade, I’ve grown competent enough that I can at least give people a general idea of what’s in my mind’s eye.  I’m still learning, but what artist isn’t? There’s always room for improvement.

At the same time, I feel like I’ve reached a point in my art hobby where I can comfortably start putting together a semi-professional looking gallery. While my art varies wildly in style, some realistic and some decidedly cartoony, I’m going to stick to the more professional here, using my best character portraits alongside developmental concept sketches, maps, and things along that line. Anything to help flesh out the worlds I’m creating. Right now, expanding my fantasy world is the main priority.

In any event, the gallery is small at the moment, though there are a few pieces in it that I’ve kept in reserve for this release and haven’t posted anywhere else. The collection of art will grow over time as I complete character portraits for the series, and as I begin working on other stories, you’ll see art appearing for those as well. In the meantime, you can view the gallery and images by clicking on the “Art Gallery” section on the left, or by clicking here.

The first meeting

It was not the first time he’d noticed a girl. The older he got, the more they all seemed to stand out. There were dozens of pretty maids roaming his father’s halls, some of them near his age. There were pretty girls selling goods in the market, begging his attention with fluttered eyelashes, but only to try to loosen his purse strings. There were pretty girls in the temple by the dozen.

And then there was her.

He hadn’t thought her pretty at first glance, though there was something striking enough about her that he’d wanted to look again. Her hair was unruly, always tangled and frizzy, hanging around her shoulders like an ebony cloud. Her lavender training robes were ill-fitting for her developing figure, tight in all the wrong places and making her look more like an unevenly stuffed pillow than a person. But her eyes burned like sunlit honey in her round face, casting their warm glow over everything whenever she smiled.

He’d stopped and stared the first time, earning himself a rap on the back of his head before being hurried along.

Most days he didn’t have the freedom to roam the temple, some teacher or another escorting him from class to class, then up to the Archmage for testing before he was whisked back to his home in the capital. So when he looked after that, he tried to do it more discreetly.

So he looked during classes, when he sat behind her and she couldn’t see. He glanced after her when they went separate directions, when she went to have a midday meal and he was led to the Archmage’s tower. And he tried not to stare when they took turns doing demonstrations at the end of each week.

She wasn’t as strong as some of her classmates, and her power paled in comparison to his. But she was determined, always working, always studying, pushing to better herself despite her limitations. She was always surrounded by friends, often laughing, making his isolation even more painful.

What might it have been like, if he’d been one of them? If he could walk with her to class every day?

The thought had slowed him on the path when it rolled through his head for the dozenth time. He’d turned his head ever so slightly, hoping to watch her make her way toward the dinner hall, instead grimacing when Edagan’s knuckles cracked against the back of his head.

“No time for that, boy,” she told him. “You know what girls would think of you, besides.”

He had been incensed, but he couldn’t argue; he knew better than anyone else.

Girls wanted something from him he couldn’t offer, a life that wasn’t his to give. The girls at home swooned when it was inconvenient and batted their eyes when they thought it was. But they didn’t know his circumstances. They only saw his father’s station.

From then on he put his head down and walked without a word. He knew the odds of someone understanding. He was different. Special, but not in a good way. So he tried to shut out the thoughts of her, of her inviting amber eyes and the sweet dimples in her round cheeks whenever she smiled. And he tried very hard not to watch her when they parted ways after the last morning class, lest he earn himself any more knocks on the head.

He tried so hard, in fact, that he didn’t even see her the day she headed toward the library instead of the dinner hall, and when she emerged from the first floor of the Archmage’s tower ahead of him, he didn’t raise his eyes from the ground until he walked directly into her.

Edagan, escorting him again, had caught the girl before she could fall over and gave him a wicked glare. She snapped something, but he didn’t understand. Instead he gawped, his ears burning, an uncomfortable fluttering in his chest.

“I’m all right, Master,” the girl said, brushing herself off, still holding tight to her book. Then she looked at him, and for the first time, he found himself bathed in the warmth of those fiery amber eyes that had held him captivated for weeks. “You’re in one of my classes, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he’d said, his throat closing on the thousand other words that wanted to follow, keeping any of them from escaping.

She smiled. “Well it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Firal.” The dinner bell rang and she jumped ahead on the path, pausing after a stride to turn back and look at him again. “You should speak to me some time when you aren’t running errands for Masters. Perhaps we could study together.”

And then she’d been gone, her words of invitation hanging heavy in the air, changing everything in a moment.

He’d thought it made a difference. For years, he held that hope.

And fifty years later, the memory of that first touch still danced in his mind late at night, when he sat beneath the stars, alone despite the thousand other soldiers around him.

Hope, it seemed, was only worth so much.

**********

This week’s prompt was “The memory of the first time they met the first person they loved.”

My friends haven’t tackled this one yet, but you can see their entries for this week here and here.

Gentle Prompting

By now I’m sure anyone reading this has noticed the Friday updates. I hope you’re enjoying them, too.

I’ve never used writing prompts before. I never felt like I needed them or had time for them, since I was always so focused on other things. Then at the beginning of August, I hit a terrible slump in my writing. Slumps happen from time to time, but they’re still frustrating, especially when they hit right at the beginning of a project, and one you’ve been wanting to write for a dozen years, at that.

I started the month with a plan to write 20,000 words for my next big project. It seemed like a reasonable amount, less than 1,000 words a day. And yet by the middle of the month, I had only 5,000 words, half of them needing to be scrapped and reworked. It was just that bad.

So I picked up something different. Some friends were doing writing prompts for fun, something different from the norm that let them get the juices flowing with characters who might not get a lot of exercise otherwise. After all, even after you’re done writing a series, you still think of the characters you grew to love while working on it. And when you have a big workload with a lot of books to finish, like me, it might be a long time before you cycle back to some of your favorite fictional friends.

I feel like it’s helped a lot to use prompts selected randomly from a list, and then complete them without editing anything written. It hasn’t gotten me all the way back on track–I certainly didn’t reach 20,000 words with my current project–but it does still have me writing, and every prompt I complete helps me feel like I’m getting back into the swing of things after a little bit of burnout.

So for the next few weeks, at least, you’ll be seeing pieces of flash fiction from writing prompts posted here every Friday. They can be accessed in the future by viewing the Short Stories archive linked to on the left. And if you’re looking for more pieces of free writing, you can check out the work my friends are posting here and here!