The Gillion

I’ve been posting a lot of poetry but I’m also working on a young adult dark high fantasy novel. Here’s a bit of the pitch for it. Down below you’ll see the poem I wrote in college. The poem informed the flash fiction that is becoming the novel. Would you want to read this?

Pitch:

Death rolls over the mind, a lingering pain as dreams are slowly devoured. Mint scorches the air. A boy screams. Still, an ever persistent hunger lingers. Always so empty. Always alone. A mother walks into a room and sees a creature with glowing blue eyes leaning over her son. Sixteen-year-old Aarya wakes up screaming. Nightmares. The creature disappears. Days later, the boy dies. It wasn’t just a dream; it was the first of many deaths.

Poem:

I wrote this at least six years ago. It is the inspiration for my novel but is quite different in how everything works. However, I felt this would be fun to post and share with everyone.

The Gillion

The trees shook and shivered as the moon rose to its zenith
The felines hissed and canines barked voices raised in fear
People ducked inside as the rain cascaded down
And a jackal’s woeful cries echoed in my ear

The moon screamed once as a shadow took its glow
The stars hid and whispered as their master stole their light
You might ignore the cats, and tell the dogs to shush
But when the sky goes black turn in for the night

I’m sure you’re wondering, what caused this scene to peak
What caused the barks and meows, and made the moon go out
Have you heard of the Gillion, monsters of the sky
Who swoop and dive and strike when the darkness is about

The Gillion are the remnants of those forbidden dreams
Phantasms of a world of darkness and spite
Where dreamers are forbidden and children are concealed
And death is dealt quickly for each imagined slight

They always find our world a most pleasant place to feed
Culling out dreams burned with incandescent light
They cross at new moon to hunt as we dream
Of futures and fancies and the next day’s delight

Their long midnight tails pull the thoughts from our minds
They then tie them and bind them and lock them away
They feed on our hopes and devour our dreams
Until our dreams are but shards in thoughtless disarray

They say the summer sun will scare them away
And when soundly sleeping they’ll ignore our beds
They claim that a child can slay them from the sky
But that battle must be fought where only dreamers tread

Many weeks have passed since I was called to war
The felines hissed and canines barked warning all to hide
The trees shook and shivered as the moon hid away
That night I fought a Gillion and watched two worlds collide

He hunted me all night, my dreams an eerie call
I laughed as I hid preparing to do war
He finally caught my dreams and drug me to his side
I swooped and dived and then let out a mighty roar

I twisted from his grasp and grabbed my deepest dream
I focused deep inside and stuck a mighty hit
The brawl was long and fearsome but victory was mine
And down fell a Gillion made to finally submit

No more will we fear, the Gillion’s midnight romps
They no longer cross the border at the jackal’s woeful call
Fear not, my friends, a Gillion was destroyed by my blow
And at last he released dreams stolen from us all

Transported

Every time I sit down to write I’m transported into a world that I’ve created. For those minutes (sometimes hours) I allow myself to be swept away be an imaginary character I’ve created. Along with the joy of spending time with these friends and enemies, is a sense of responsibility to find and tell their stories.

My current story is older YA. A person at a writing group asked if I ever considered writing an adult story. My mind strayed to the unfinished manuscript I have saved to my computer. That story is 100,000 words that never quite became a full story, which never built a grand arc of tension, and which will eventually require massive rewriting.

I told him I had and mentioned the other story. It’s adult fantasy with sinister villains, sword fights, sex, magic, and death.  At some point I’ll finish that story. But for now? Now, I’m enjoying the world of monsters and teenage angst.

What genre and age range do you write and why are you drawn to it? Answer in the comments!

Tension and Contests

I might not have posted since October, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. In February I entered a flash fiction writing contest. It’s the first contest I’ve ever entered and I’m nervously/excitedly waiting for feedback from the judges. Women on Writing (wow-womenonwriting.com) hosts quarterly contests, the entry fee is only $10 to cover their costs and prizes. You can also buy a critique of the story which is another $10. So, for a grand total of $20 I’ll get feedback on my story and it’s entered in a contest.

In other writing news, I put my rough draft fantasy novel on the shelf and I am expanding the flash fiction story into something longer. I’m not sure how that’s going to change the story but it has psychological thriller tension that I’m cautiously outlining. I’m nervous about getting too hopeful because I’ve had issues with tension throughout an entire story before. It seems to be going well so here’s hoping.

When you write tension how do you track it?  I’m working with outlines but I’ve heard about people using spreadsheets and sticky notes. What works for you?

Working through a SNAFU

So, we write because we have a story to tell.  What happens when the story we tell isn’t one that somebody else is reading?  In my current novel I have an elaborate world which is hard to get across.  Some have told me it’s too elaborate, some that it isn’t.  There is a great depth to it.  Getting enough through in this first novel is proving difficult.

 

On a side note.  Working with a friend to critique each other’s writing.  Very helpful.  It’s nice to have an honest opinion which isn’t tainted by previous knowledge of the book.  Back to trying to figure out how to illustrate this information.