Another Installment

As I've mentioned before the key to writing well is to practice always. So, to continue a theme started in my string theory post I'm going to pick another one of the lines from my notebook and do another free write. (Keep in mind this means that I am literally thinking on my feet as I type and will hit publish before I edit.)

Everything was just slightly crooked. She wasn't sure whether that was a comment on her character or just the fact that she was lazy. Spells, when you wrote them, were supposed to be neat and even. Guildmistress Tam would scold her for sure when she saw her work. Anyone could cast a spell that was true, but they had to read the spell from an official Scribal book. Only a Scribe had the power to imbue paper with the ability to transform a rock into a loaf of bread, to extinguish a fire, or even to heal a person.
Selena flipped through her sheets of paper, bound together beautifully with multi-colored ribbons. The beauty of her tools though, didn't improve her task. Classes at the Scribal Guild weren't as interesting as she had hoped. There was a reason that fewer and fewer people in Fyeria were choosing to become scribes. Fyerians were an active people by nature and most people did not want to assume that discipline that becoming a scribe required. Most Fyerians were artisans, creating wealth from raw materials and their hands rather than from ink and paper.
Selena idly dipped her brush into her ink pot and drew a few letters. She blew on the ink to quicken the drying process. However, the ink simply splattered onto her desk and unfortunately, Guildmistress Tam who happened to be walking by Selena's station.
"This will not do." The Guildmistress scolded. "Crooked, splattered, characters do not produce strong spells." Abruptly she clapped her hands calling the attention of everyone in the room. "Class, Selena will now demonstrate what happens when a Scribe does not write with patience and deliberation."
Selena slunk to the front of the room wishing that she had finished writing that invisibility spell. Once in front of the class she read aloud, "Feathery wings sprout/Blustery breeze lift me up/Past the horizon." Unfortunately for Selena the 'o' and 'n' in 'horizon' were smudged and the entire spell was written in cramped, slanted handwriting. Instead of temporary wings sprouting and lifting her into the air a feather duster materialized behind Selena and swept her feet, knocking her on the floor. 
Personally, Selena thought it was more impressive that she had managed to create a solid object from thin air than to be able to fly but Guildmistress Tam disagreed.
"And that class," she said ushering Selena back to her chair, "is why we do not let sloppy spells out into the city. Imagine if the Queen had needed us to use that flight spell on her Royal Transport. A cleaner vehicle would do her no good."
Hunching into her arms, Selena idly sketched a feather duster next to her failed flying spell along with a picture of a tidy Royal Transport. She would show it to Roi after class. He at least would laugh at her mistake.

This could be a fun story. As I always say, I love the power of ink on paper and this story would allow me to really give these two materials power. Imagine a world where those who write have the power and yet most people want to avoid the power. It's a magical world of silk-tent houses, and roads that are rivers traveled by raft. Fyeria is a migrating city spreading its crafts and spells throughout the world. The city, rivers and all, can be packed up into the Royal Transport which is a flying train.

Everything that I've just written is coming straight from my imagination. I haven't thought through anything yet and that's the beauty of free writing. It's a breath of fresh air after the more constrained task of editing. When you free write it can be anything you want and nothing quite has to make sense because there's no way of knowing where the story is going. I'm hoping to get another short story out of this but for now, it's one freewrite among many. 

Adventures in Paper Writing

I know it seems impossible but schoolwork has actually taught me something. Or my creative writing taught me something about schoolwork. I'm really not quite sure and if I try and figure it out I'll end up getting into a chicken vs. egg thing and I don't want to go there. The real point is that somehow, luckily, working on my writing process creative pieces has enabled me to write stronger college papers. Right now I'm working on a paper and I'm not quite sure where the thesis is yet. However, like not knowing the full plot I have decided not to care. Instead, I'm writing all these half-baked paragraphs that don't quite make sense and have ideas that may or may not make it into the final product. Much like   my recently revisited Guardians notebook, some things will stay and some won't make the final cut. I think that this is truly the beauty of all writing. It's not a formulaic process, but rather an organic flow of ideas that are pruned rather than suppressed at the get-go. And it's amazing how things are varying as Biblical feminism, American literature, and dragons and fairies all start from the same place and undergo the same transformations.