Fiction | A Writer's Discrepant Memoirs and Other Tales

I will make my goals. I will make my goals. (Repeats mantra for the umpteenth time this month alone.)

Sticking to the planner has become a game changer for me. It’s kind of like gaming, keeping track of my “quests”, marking them off, or watching them carry over from month to month, has an effective, compulsory nature to it.

Writing at least two flash fictions a month will quickly get me to my goal of 90 completed fics for the year, and it’s something I’ve written in the planner so I actually make time to do it. This month’s offerings brings me to 85. Only five left to write and I’ll have them completed in probably the next two months. Yay! A completed goal well before the end of the year. (I’m also close on my book reading and movie watching.)

What is this strange sense of accomplishment I’m feeling..?

Unlikely

I hadn’t really expected to find it. It was both a fairy tale and a warning of what was possible.

Every mer creature was given the chance to discover the world above. There was much to learn, to see, to experience. It was a chance for each of us to decide how we could help our people. Could we bring back useful information? Would the humans above be a threat to our way of life? They were poisoning our water, killing our friends, destroying everything around them, but as we learned, they didn’t all do that. Some were trying to reverse years of damage, but even still, when my turn came to go to the surface, I was hesitant. I had heard a great deal, seen some of the results of their “curiosity”. I was properly prepared, calm, resigned to my task.

But I had found kindness. I had found passion. I had found someone so different and yet not.

I stayed too long.

With his help back to the sea, we said our farewells. He held me in his arms, so strong, doing his best to remain stoic. He and I looked toward the vast expanse before us, each seeing something different. He saw an unknown world, miles upon miles that would separate us. I saw home.

But my heart was conflicted.

Regret

So, yes, I was to blame for my current predicament. I had, because I had been put in the position as “leader”, made the decision to make Alistair king, and that made it my fault that he was now willing to put me aside, because while I was good enough to sacrifice my life for the “greater good”, I was not of a bloodline worthy to sit beside him on the throne.

Did he not love me anymore? Did he not think me worth fighting for?

And as he thought on it, a moment longer than I thought respectable, all I could think was, “In your hesitation, I found my answer.”

It wasn’t fair to have thrust so much upon him, to expect so much when most things were now out of his control, but his heart…that still belonged to him, and who he chose to give it to was still very much in his power. Maybe I still had it, but he had been swayed to think that he should have a “proper” wife, and he thought he was doing me a kindness…hmm…perhaps, I had a great many thoughts on the subject, but the foremost one was I knew he would come to regret his very first decision as king.

~ * ~

Hey, writing community! Feel like joining me in a little writing prompt challenge? I look forward to reading/seeing your creations!

Happy Writing!

I’m currently reading Chuck Palahniuk’s Stranger than Fiction and I came across this text in one of his nonfiction essays. Among stories about public sex acts and learning not to care what people think of you while dressed as a dog, I discovered this nugget that, truthfully, was the most startling thing I’ve read so far.

The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard. The idea that, dying, you’ll realize you only ever lived on paper. Your only adventures were make believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room, masturbating and making money.
Chuck Palahniuk

Why did this unsettle me, you ask? Because until he said it, until I read it, I didn’t know this was something to worry about.

And then my mind spiraled.

I am a homebody, an introvert, a writer of sci-fi and fantasy. I know as a writer I have to get out and experience the world in order to have those things stored in the “bank of creative tidbits”, but honestly, sometimes I’d prefer not to make the effort, and I know that’s a shortcoming. I have plenty of interests to keep me occupied but if I only ever run in the same circle, I’ll never learn and grow, experience awe or displeasure. I’ll never be exposed to new ideas and new things by experiencing them firsthand.

It wasn’t until I read these words that I started to wonder about the subjects I’m drawn to and the stories that resonate with me – they’re lives I’ll never lead.

I’ll never be a woman with a mythological god as a best friend. I’ll never be the woman traipsing across the stars in an alien space ship in search of her sister. I’ll never be a spy. I’ll never save the world.

These are adventures I can only have on the page. They are unlikely, imaginary scenarios, and that’s why I write them, so I must be content with those adventures that are available to me, and as writers, we can’t forget that. We need to get out, we need to observe and feel so that we not only live, but can also create.

And maybe not worry that we’re living vicariously through our characters.

I may not be as daring as Chuck Palahniuk, willing to put myself at physical risk or in compromising situations to experience all the different facets of humanity, but I can make more of an effort to have a wider understanding of the world around me. We may not learn, see, and do everything we want – there’s so much more to explore than once person could ever do in a lifetime – but there’s no harm in at least attempting it.