Writing is Hard!

A secret passion of mine was always writing. I tried for many years to purvey my many ideas through written word to no avail. I never could understand how to fill in all the plot holes, or even how to advance in some places. This is fricking not easy!

Last year, I purchased the One Year Adventure Novel program. We had sampled it years before and it seemed like a good purchase. It comes with 7 disks of video lessons, a textbook, a workbook, and a sample novel, as well as a resource disk and a forum membership. Whenever I get stuck (which is often), I go and chill in the forum's chat.

This is how I learned to drabble.

A drabble is a short, 100+ word story based on a few keywords. It can be one word, two words, seven, or whatever. Once all participants are done, we take turns posting them in chat.

My first session's keys were graveyard, music, winter, and shadow. When it's just a paragraph or two, it's easy. Here's what I came up with (in all of 15 or so minutes).

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I sat behind his grave, my back pressed to the cold, gray stone. Sighing, I hummed the songs he wrote for me. Can you hear me? I wondered, closing my eyes to the winter skies.

The frigid breeze swirled snow around me. Cold didn't bother me anymore, I was too numb to feel much of anything.I turned around and pressed my face to the stone. "Why am I still here, Araan?" Shadows of the living passed through me, chattering in distorted voices. If I listened really hard, I could make out words, but today, it did not interest me. I shivered violently as they stepped across the dirt mound that was- that used to be- me. It jutted out of the ground, brown and muddy, while the snow around it bore the week old foot prints of my mourners. Soon, Lady Winter would erase them with her crystal faeries and lay my lifeless body in white.


I stared at the old man under the tree. He had been here since times of cowboys and the first railways, sitting under that tree, year after year, watching the world pass. What if I suffer the same fate? This isn't what I wanted. I wanted to be with Araan! I promised to follow him to the end of time, and now I couldn't even leave the cemetery grounds. Why did he have to leave me? And why couldn't I go where he was?

I guess it's kinda dumb, but I did it, and that's all that matters.

Au revoir!