Happy Halloween (And Literary Quote #4, I think it is?)

. . . Because it's a ghost story. Sort of. And since the song's stuck in my head and driving me insane, it might as well be stuck in yours too ;)



"'Poor wretch!' I thought; 'you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride cannot blind God! You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation.'"

-Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte


A book chock-full of amazing dialogue and quotes--a few speeches never fail to give me shivers--but this is definitely one of the best. Cheers.

'A Dreamer's Tales'

I have to present a political essay of my choice to my English class today, and I'm a little nervous, but I have friends in that class so hopefully they'll be kind.

Anyway, so I was doing some last minute internet surfing to get as much information about the essay's background as I can (precious little, I'm afraid), and then I stumbled across this. I'm still not sure how. But just the title 'A Dreamer's Tales' hooked me, and when I found that it was written in 1910, I was even more eager to give it a read, because fantasy stories written at the dawn of fantasy have a lovely sort of mood and purity about them that I adore. Ever read 'The Worm Ouroboros?'

Well anyway, I don't have much time, but I read the first story in the collection, called 'Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean' (don't you just love those old wild sounding fantasy names that folks came up with before Tolkien changed the fantasy genre forever?). I read the story through and actually adore it. It reminds me of Arabian Nights in its ritualistic form of narrative . . . Very nice. Now I'm eager to read the rest of this book. It really does feel like the work of a dreamer, of a Dreamer in a society before Dreaming was taken seriously and thereby tainted and destroyed.

I will definitely be searching out Lord Dunsany's books now . . .

Pic

My New Motto

"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it." - "Charles II" Twelve Types

Yes, I am quoting G.K. Chesterton again. But with a quote like that . . . how could I resist? If y'all are interested in learning more about this guy, here's the link.

And wowee, that's a lot of fast comments on my 'short' story, heh heh. Many thanks! I will post the next part ASAP, if you're lucky it'll be tomorrow, but more likely next week. This week is midterms for me, and I am flat out exhausted. *Yawn*

'The Nighthawk's Candle' - Part I

Okay, so this is my newest short story. I have written more than just part one, but part one is all you're getting today, because I want to polish part two a bit. And part one isn't very long, it's more a foreword than anything, but I hope you forgive me for that.

And hopefully this story isn't too confusing . . . It's been following me around, nipping at my ankles, for about a month, so the other day I finally decided to try and write it down, and it accepted eagerly and swiftly filled about four pages in record time. Yay!

(About the illustrations: I decided to go with a less realistic style for the illustrations: strong colors, clean lines, a bit more cartoony than is my wont. I think it works with the rather strange story, anyway. And yes, those are two children. All illustrations save one are done with black pen and colored pencils. On the pages of a very small sketchbook. So this is about the size of an index card. Done while I should have been studying, shame on me . . .)

The Nighthawk's Candle

I.

There was no Nighthawk, and no candle, but it was called the Nighthawk’s Candle all the same. It was a light in the woods, and had been there as long as anyone’s grandfather could remember. On sunny, bright days it was pale and yellow like glass; when rain fell in torrents it was a white shimmer, and at night it was a fallen star, silver and golden and glowing.

It never went out.

When the clearing of the forest had first begun, so that the men of the village could collect wood to build their first homes many generations ago, the woodcutters had found the Candle. It had been hidden deep within the forest, but now it sparkled on its fringe, for all the trees shielding it had been cut down, yet no one dared to go further. The queer, unwavering light was inexplicable, and was therefore a warning.

Perhaps this warning was what had led the villagers to invent the Nighthawk. There was no account of any such being in any of the old woodcutters’ accounts of the discovery of the candle, yet still he stalked through the people’s folklore and imaginations like a dread ghost: Tall, slim, deadly. He sometimes wore a mask, and sometimes not; sometimes carried a sword, sometimes a pistol, and sometimes merely throttled unwary travelers with his hands.

For he was always a being of death. And he had always wide, dilated eyes, whose blackness could destroy the mind of a victim who gazed within them, and long black hair. His fate was, inextricably, bound up with the Candle flame. Women said he haunted it, guarding the light jealously, for it was his soul. And the men laughed, but did not contradict.

Because in the end it was merely a story, and the womenfolk could make what they liked of it, as long as they did not frighten the children too terribly. True, no one knew exactly what made the light burn in the trees, the light that never went out, but this was an ancient land, with ancient mysteries, and since the light did no one any harm, and no one needed wood any longer, there was no point in brooding. There was no Nighthawk; of that all men and even the storytelling wives were certain.

But children were warned against playing near the Nighthawk’s Candle.

Just in case.

An Artist Reborn

Yesterday I had a sudden moment of brilliance. The school's bookstore must sell art supplies, right? So I dashed over there and spent about an hour happily browsing the shelves. I really wanted calligraphy ink and the nice vellum they had, but I left my calligraphy quill at home. And anyway, they were too expensive. But a girl can dream, right?

Still, I was able to find a good selection of colored pencils, and a really good, fine black pen for line work. As well as a good pencil sharpener, some pastel fixative, and a pocket sketchbook.

So now I have the means to draw properly again, and it is like my artistic side was dammed all this time and just exploded from its confinement. Ever since my happy purchases I've been drawing like mad, and more surprising, they've all turned out well so far. But they're all illustrations for my short story that I'm almost done with . . . so you can't see them yet. But anyway, when I do post the short story here, it'll come with pictures. Yay!

On a more sober note, my first mid-term is today. So I left my pencils and other goodies at home, to keep me safe from temptation. Bleh.