The exercise:
Write about something that has been: shutdown.
Power outage over the weekend messed with the servers at work, so we didn't have access to our email for most of the morning.
Which would have been less of a problem if I hadn't had like ten things I needed to take care of via email.
4 comments:
Hmm, are you not aware of RFC1149 then? That would allow you to handle the email problem via your local population of feral pigeons :) Or eagles, or whatever birds you have that prey on moose (rocs?). However, I can sympathise with being stuck on almost every task while waiting for one seemingly-simple thing to resolve :)
The prompt gets much less of a mention than I'd intended (but it is there!), mostly because I'm trying to write better 'chunks' than I have been. So this prompt might get sort of extended across a couple of days.
Shutdown
"You were learning about magic at the Temple of Remedna," said Rystin. He stretched slightly and seemed to relax and Fabian tried to copy his lead. The forest was peaceful; not quiet as there was (to his ears) a ridiculous amount of birdsong, and every few seconds a branch cracked or leaves rustled or a rabbit bounded by. "Did you learn much about wisp-elf magic yet?"
Fabian suppressed a flush of guilt that he'd not been back to the Temple for more lessons yet and thought hard. "Not much," he admitted, disliking the words that slipped between his lips. "You and Dread have probably told me most about it. Control magic, by the sounds of it. But not limited to wisp-elves, just... I don't know, developed most by them, maybe?"
"That's probably fair," said Rystin. He wriggled his shoulders as though loosening the muscles. "I would say that wisp-elves have more of an affinity for control magic than other elves, or even humans, but I don't know how much of that is true and how much is tradition. Come over here."
He led Fabian to the altar, which was unimpressive: a nearly square block of stone that reached to calf-height and had been smoothed in some places and left rough in others. The stone was white where moss and lichen wasn't growing on it and Fabian had the oddest impression, just for a moment, that it glittered.
"This was a forest church, once," said Rystin. "I did think of taking you to the ruins of the wisp-elf church across the river from where we first met, but that's got a bad reputation."
"It has?" Fabian wasn't sure he'd ever heard anyone talk about it.
"Amongst elves, at least. This is a much less talked about place." He placed a hand on the stone and Fabian copied him. The stone was cool to the touch, and a woodlouse scurried across and over the edge. "This was considered a place of transformation."
"What?" Fabian pulled his hand back. "Like, turning into something else?" He thought hard, wondering if that was rude. "Or, or, spiritual transformation? Like, meditating, and yoga and crap like that?"
Rystin raised an eyebrow and smiled. "You didn't really tell me what yoga was," he said, "but if it's 'crap' then that's probably not what this is. This is actual transformation. The wisp-elves would come here to work their spells and look different for a while. During the wars they were the most effective spies the elven side had. Until it was all shut down, of course. Would you like to see some of it?"
Fabian hesitated, wondering all of a sudden how much he could trust Rystin. Coming out here, with no-one else knowing where he was, with a relative stranger after wisp-elves seemed to be attacking him suddenly seemed like a remarkably stupid thing to do.
"Let me show you," said Rystin, whose eyes were observing Fabian quite carefully. He stepped up onto the altar block.
Hi AUTO blogging! I'm assuming from your name that you're a Tesla, or perhaps other self-driving car, that's self-aware enough to start blogging now -- and that's fantastic! I know that I, personally, despise the hints in newspapers and online 'news' sources that there might be actual humans involved in the creation of stories, and I'm sure I'm not alone! As the blog's name here suggests, this is for practice, and I do think you're very wise to do that. The spelling and grammatical errors you have in your first two lines alone are irritating -- as an AUTO blogger you'll need how to make those mistakes endearing instead. Perhaps you might add some kitten photographs or emojis?
In light of your obvious goal with 'Generatortext' to create writing without content have you considered working in a more oulipo format perhaps? A story about a Kardashian that uses no positive adjectives? A story about the former president of the USA that is written entirely in orange text and uses only vocabulary expected to be available to a seven-year old? Perhaps even vowelless stream-of consciousness poetry? I bet if you try you could make Virginia Woolf spin in her grave so fast we could use her as a renewable power source!
Greg - yeah, should definitely have thought of that.
More fascinating stuff, and I am very, very curious to see what Rystin is about to do.
And, as always, happy to see you having fun with the spammer :)
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