Falling behind...

So, it turns out that working full time can be very distracting when one wants to write. Not that I'm going to let that stop me. But of course, I'm going to blog about that instead of actually getting down to writing, because I need a warm up.

Today has been filled with many things that were not writing. I had to teach (nothing surprising there), I had to coach (again the norm), I had to be on duty in the dorm (again par for the course), and I also had to attempt to organize the community service part of the trip to the Grand Canyon that I'm organizing for November (this is also a part of my job, but this particular piece - organizing the service par to the trip- is new to me this year). All of these things combined (with a cold coming on too) have not helped my writing efficiency. Now, to detract from it even more, I am writing this blog entry instead of writing fiction. Yargh...

Despite all of that I did manage to write yesterday, and I've written a tiny bit today, and will write more tonight once I'm not longer on duty. Come on 11pm! In the meantime I'll leave you with the following excerpt from one of my short stories I'm currently working on: (It's completely unedited, I haven't even looked over it once since I wrote it, so no need to write in with corrections, typos, or suggestions. This is the roughest of rough drafts!)


She awoke lying flat on her back. At least, she thought she was awake. The dark was so complete that she couldn’t see any part of herself or of the world around her. She wasn’t convinced that her eyes were open until she put her hands to her face to confirm it. She supposed this was what being blind was like. She had experienced darkness like this before so she wasn’t prepared to worry yet. 

Sitting up did nothing to aid her sight, but it made her feel slightly less vulnerable. Slightly. As it was she had to sit up extremely carefully, since she could see nothing she had no idea what obstacles might lie between her and sitting up. Yet nothing collided with her as she raise her head and shoulders. She considered standing, but decided that was folly. Since she was essentially blind it made no sense for her to put herself at risk to possibly walk over some unseen obstacle, or worse, precipice. 
She couldn’t recall how she’d gotten here or where here was, but as she sat and adjusted to her surroundings a faint roar brought flashes of memory to her. Sparks of color in the darkness as her mind supplied images her body couldn’t see. A waterfall, the cascade of power down slick stone, the pain of water, the cradle of it. A voice? Hadn’t that all been a dream? Surely she would never have been foolish enough to push herself through that waterfall. Was she dead?

“She never harms her children.”

Was that the roaring water in the distance, or was that truly a voice? Had she heard that voice before? It sounded familiar.

“Hello?” She asked. Not sure if the voice was real or imagined but sure that sitting still in this blackness wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

“Hello, Child.” Definitely a words, but they still sounded as though they were formed from the distant roar of the water.

“Umm… Who’s there?” 

“I am Mizuchi.”

The voice sounded like water cascading off stone, but the words were clear enough. What confused her was why the voice had a Japanese name. Was there a Japanese tourist in here with her? The voice didn’t sound human, but since she’d never yet heard anything that wasn’t human speak with words she didn’t know what else it could be.

“Do you have any kind of light with you? I can’t see anything.”

If a waterfall could laugh, she was fairly certain that’s what she had just heard.

“I could provide light,” the voice said. “But I don’t think you would feel comfortable if you could see me.”

“Are you an extremely large water dragon then?” 

Silence, filled with the constant drum of water against stone was the only response.

“Are you still there?” She asked. 

“You know me?”

“Know you? I’ve only just… erm… met you. Or that is to say heard your voice for the first time. For all I know I’m talking to a recording while trapped in a lightless box somewhere.”

“But you said… Can you see me?”

“Didn’t I just say I can only hear your voice? I can’t see anything! Why do you ask?”

In response the room began to lighten, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the dark receded. Certainly, it seemed as though the center of the room, without any push from something as mundane as a light source began to grow less dark. That ball of “less dark” slowly spread outward until it encompassed the entire space. The space slowly revealed itself to be a very large cavern. Something that would have surprised her and even had her full attention had she not been focused on the very large dragon in front of her.