#also... wrote a small snippet for later (unrelated)

[luv-again]

GUYS I KEEP FORGETTING I'M INCLUDINF MARINE IN THIS AU

[lafaiette]

WIP Thursday

Tagged by @emmg ! I'm actually finishing the last chapter of a fic unrelated to DA, but I wrote this short snippet after watching all the review videos and getting inspired. I missed writing my Scarlet 😭

I don't know who to tag, to be honest - please feel free to participate if you see this on your dash!

Varric walked into the room with a weary sigh. There were times when the years weighed more than usual on his short frame, as if heavy boulders filled with regrets were pressing on his shoulders.

He forced a smile back on his face when he saw the Inquisitor standing next to a table, studying what looked like a map of northern Thedas - just like he had left her a few hours prior, when he had gone to rest his dusty old bones for a while.

"Ah, Shy, you work too hard."

She smiled at him, but her eyes quickly went back to the map, as if she couldn't look away from it even for a second. The fingers of her real hand were dirty with ink, meaning she had been taking notes, or perhaps writing letters.

She looked tired, pale, and Varric felt a pang of fatherly concern, mixed with pride.

"At least use another candle." he said, lighting one up for her and placing it on the table. Better, but the room was still a bit dark, and her golden eyes looked as bloodshot as ever.

"It's alright, Varric. I'll go to sleep as soon as I'm done checking some things here."

She nodded at the map, and Varric noticed the small symbols she had written on it with a pencil - arrows, some sort of trail leading from Antiva to Tevinter, question marks...

"I doubt Solas' hideout will appear on there, no matter how much you keep glaring at it, Shy."

He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth, but she laughed, the sound very similar to the one she would make in the past, back when she was still Inquisitor.

"You're right, but I can't help it."

She pushed back her red hair from her face, trying to put some rebellious locks behind her long ears. He noticed her prosthetic arm moved stiffly, and made a mental note to ask Dagna to check it later.

"We'll find him, Scarlet." he swore, locking eyes with her. Her face, free from vallaslin ever since that night at Crestwood, suddenly looked younger as she stared at him, eyes wide.

Then a melancholy smile curled her lips, timid like his nickname for her, but also filled with hope.

"If this 'Rook' you found is as good as you claim..."

"Oh, they are! They're basically my right hand, at this point."

"... Then I'm not worried."

"Last time I heard them, they said they had a good feeling about a new trail." He sighed, staring at the strong flame of the new candle he had lit up. "I think this is it, Inquisitor."

She swallowed and glanced back at the map, just for a moment, the fingers of her left, fake hand twitching at her side.

"I just hope you and your friend will have better luck at talking with him than I did."

"You know me, Inquisitor." Varric gave her his famous lopsided grin, puffing out his chest. "I can be very convincing when I want to."

"Yes." She smiled again, another small victory. But she got serious and worried again, making Varric tense up. "But please - promise me you and Rook will be careful."

"I promise." He even crossed his heart, hoping to make her smile or laugh again. But Scarlet kept staring at him, pale and gaunt, anxious and worried, her love for Solas still burning strong in her heart after all those years.

Varric knew he still visited her dreams. He had - without meaning to - heard her talk about it with Dorian.

"But first..." He glared at her. "Promise me something in return."

Scarlet's eyebrows rose in surprise, and she nodded.

"Please, please, take care of yourself while me and Harding are away." Varric snorted, crossing his arms. "Solas would weep if he saw how exhausted you are. And I don't want him to skin me alive when we'll manage to drag him back to you."

Scarlet giggled - a third victory! Varric cheered - and nodded, the jawbone hanging from her neck swinging back and forth.

"Good! Now go eat something and rest. I'll tidy things up here."

"Thank you, Varric."

She left the room, her fake arm stiff, almost still. Varric turned to the table, instictively stared at Minrathous' icon on the map for a few seconds, then sighed and started putting away all the notes and letters scattered here and there, hoping he would have good news to share with her soon.

[butwhatifidothis]

Captain’s fic seems to not like waiting to set up stuff for a payoff. It just does things with no concern on how, for example, showing byleth with emotions early on, weakens the development later on when Byleth cries after Jeralt dies.

This is also seen with how much, as pointed out by others, Edelgard’s backstory is brought up again and again and again and again.

With sad backstories you need to be careful on when the character is to reveal it. And how it is revealed. There are some options. They can give small snippets here and there that eventually will add to create a whole truth. They can straight up lie but leave hints of inconsistencies for the reader to pick up on before more information is added. They can even say nothing on there backstory until a big event in the story makes them reach their breaking point and they have to reveal it. This overall depends on what story you are trying to tell.

Dumping a sob story very early on is not a good strategy. Especially when the writer wants the character to be sympathetic. It devalues the build up to other characters learning of the backstory and their reactions when the POV character constantly brings it up in full detail.

Also on an unrelated note, in the roasting Woobiegard au Ashe would probably be mixed on not appearing much. He’s sort of sad because he isn’t in the hilarity but he’s glad that he isn’t being embarrassed.

He also for a while has to comfort Caspar for also not having screen time. Though he would then point out that he wanted more screen time when Caspar is ready to quit because of his relationship with Kronya.

Alois would constantly check the book whenever Jeralt was in the story just to make sure it was actually Jeralt written down and not some other weirdo.

Dorothea would occasionally do ‘very serious’ dramatic readings of some of the ‘best’ parts. When she sees Edelgard holding a dying child in her arms she just snorts and chugs down a bottle.

Sylvain then looks at the paper and…tries… to recreate the scene with Felix, who is not at all pleased. Sylvain somehow makes the scene even more melodramatic and is soon punted by Felix.

Cyril regrets being taught how to read if this is the kind of stuff people make.

100% right on Cap’n not writing things for a payoff well. Often times he either leaves things alone when they could have made for some actually interesting dilemma (like what I said in my notes, the idea of Edelgard bringing up Miklan’s bandits when Dorothea, Ingrid, and Lysithea went to check up on her) or even seemingly full on forgets what he’s written (”No one can truly understand another’s pain” during the grieving Byleth scene vs “NO ONE BUT A FEW - WHICH INCLUDES ME - CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR PAIN” damn near everywhere else). Edelgard has pains in her arms and chest from the scars on her, but everyone can go around slapping the shit outta her shoulders and back without a peep from her, Byleth can grab and squeeze her hands and arms without a hint of complaint from Edelgard - n one needs to actually adjust themselves to Edelgard’s pain nor does she have to actually adjust to living with them, they’re a sidenote at best. The whole ordeal of Byleth’s emotions not giving any meaningful impact like you said, since she was never that detached from them anyway

As well as her backstory - there’s no subtlety at all. The way it’s handled - and how a lot of things in this fic are handled really - actually reminds my of this quote from a Youtuber named KrimsonRogue:

You know after a while you gotta stop holding the reader’s hands, they gotta figure some of this out on their own. If you keep reinforcing this - for no reason - it looks like you have no faith in their retention. “Hi guys, I wrote this book. I kept saying the same thing over and over because I think you’re all idiots.

And man, if that ain’t the fuckin’ truth. So many of these flashbacks just reveal the same thing over and over - Agnes was a 100% pure angel who never did Edelgard any wrong ever, Edelgard Sad, Duke Aegir Bad. And if they’re really meant to be “dissociative” then they fail on that front too, since Edelgard never loses focus after they happen and other never comment on any weird pauses she’d have. They’re just there for the reader to know that she’s sad - as if that hasn’t be utterly drilled into our skulls by now. When I see a paragraph of italics it’s just like aw shit, here we go again, another flashback to remind me of one of three things I already know. My favorite.

AND ROOSTING THE FIC AU RETURNS 

Ashe has to be the comforting shoulder for a lot of characters when they see how badly they’ve been butchered - Marianne is a frequenter, once she sees how ass-backwards she is in this fic. Dedue and Mercedes eventually have this happen to them too once everyone realizes that their names don’t even pop up like ever, let along them actually being physically present.

Bernadetta would read how Jeralt is written and look at Alois, then back at the “Jeralt,” then back to Alois - she thought they were two entirely different people?? Why is this Jeralt so much like Uncle Alois??

DOROTHEA ACTING THE FIC OUT OMG she convinces Manulea to join in and they overact to hell and back, especially in the more overdramatic moments - they’re half the reason the gang can get through this in the first place lmaooo, Sylvain tries to get Felix to join in with them and Felix fuckin’ instant transmissions out of the room

Cyril is not bappy

[tlbodine]

I don't know if you'll be able to relate to this, because this isn't a problem for you, but I have all the time to write now, and I don't have any ideas. I can't remember my old ideas, and the old ones I do, I'm still stuck on. I used to be able to get ideas effortlessly, I would look at a picture, watch a movie, or read a book, even look around me, and ideas would just come. Now I'm preoccupied with stuff that worries me, or thinking about video games and not my own games, just games.

While it’s true I’m in no risk of running out of ideas any time soon, that’s mostly because I’ve been hoarding them in an idea stockpile for years. Also, truth be told, I most often end up writing the newer ideas (because they are fresh and shiny) than the old ones, so some of the old ideas tend to sit at the bottom of the pile for years (ahem...decades). 

That said, sometimes inspiration doesn’t come to you, and you need to come after it with a stick. Fortunately, there are some ways to do that! “Getting Ideas” is a skill you can home like anything else, and practicing it will make you more receptive to inspiration. 

So a process for that: 

1.) Write them down. There are a lot of writers who subscribe to the “never write down any ideas because the good ones will stick with you” philosophy (Stephen King for example) but if you’re having trouble with thinking up new ones, writing down the ones you get can be really helpful. It’s kind of like how writing down your dreams in a journal helps you remember your dreams better. 

For a long time, I kept a small notebook in my bag at all times and wrote down ideas in there. I’d jot down random snippets of dialogue that popped in my head, quotes that struck me as interesting, doodles of things, basically whatever I had in my brain. I got out of the habit of doing that, but these days I do still keep a lot of notes on my phone. 

2.) Consume a lot of good media. The Oatmeal has a comic about how creativity is like breathing -- you have to inhale (other people’s stuff) before you can exhale (your own stuff). Watch/read/play things and just let it soak over you and see if you can light up those tingly pleasure receptors in your brain. Sometimes being starved for ideas just means you’re not creatively stimulated enough. 

The other thing you can do is just passively collect information. Like, I keep my tags for “wtf news” and “wtf history” and “folklore” so I can skim back through them for ideas later. You can take a couple seemingly unrelated topics (such as: Joseph Fritzl + Selkies) and suddenly, a story! Again, I write horror, so I draw a lot of inspiration from horrifying news stories and creepy-cool science facts. Fun fact: My “Mothman” story is inspired by smashing together the breeding habits of parasitic wasps with those of bedbugs. 

3.) Think in “what if”. Many of my ideas come from imagining what it would be like to be in a certain scenario. Not just what would happen, but what it would feel like. Because I am an anxious person and I write horror, this works out pretty well for me. But even if you’re not interested in writing horror, you can still imagine yourself into all kinds of situations: what would it be like to live in a world where we never invented farming? what would it be like to fly an airship? what would it be like to fall in love with your best friend? 

Don’t worry about thinking in terms of story at this stage, just kind of daydream and let yourself imagine things. You might stumble upon an angle or an image or an idea that excites you. 

Finally, be gentle on yourself. The world is in a really wild place right now, and a lot of us are stressing out for one reason or another. If you need to take a break from creating and focus on just surviving, there’s no shame in that. Don’t be scared. The ideas will come back when your brain is ready for them. 

[fakeyellow]

Kamilah faces the consequences of her actions. The Ending(s) of Forget Me Not.

I wrote three different endings. If you don’t want to read all of them, just read the third one.

1.

Kamilah watches from afar as Isla puts her life back together, piece by piece. There’s a bit of confusion, adjustment needed as Isla comes to terms with the missing gaps of her memory but she’s always been strong and she picks herself up.

Kamilah follows Isla’s career as she becomes Grant Emerson’s campaign manager and successfully gets him elected as Mayor of New York. And although she knows it’s old fashioned to cut out newspaper clippings, she does exactly so, collecting all the snippets in articles and photos that include even the slightest mention of her.

When Isla seems to decide that she doesn’t want a future in politics, she looks into jobs with financial corporations, and at one point, her resume crosses Kamilah’s desk via the mistake of an intern.

Her hand pauses over the small, professional headshot included in the resume and Kamilah can’t help but stroke it tenderly, as if she were stroking the woman’s actual face.

She’s changed her hair since the campaign and it suits her. Although the picture is still Isla, there is a remarked maturity in her face that reminds Kamilah bitterly of just how much time has passed.

She can only imagine how much Isla must have grown, how much she must have changed, how much she must have gone through. The new connections she must have made, the new interests she must have discovered, the new relationships she must have formed...

There is only so much her guards can tell Kamilah, from their positions in Isla’s neighbouring apartments, and besides, she had placed them there to guard Isla, not to spy on her.

She forces herself to be content with what she does know of Isla and she continues to scour the newspapers for new mentions of her.

—

A few years later, when Isla’s become established in her own career, Isla falls in love.

Kamilah discovers this all by chance one day when she’s meeting with the lawyer representing a business Ahmanet Financial is in the middle of acquiring.

The lawyer’s phone lights up with a call and although the woman quickly apologises and puts it into her pocket, Kamilah catches a glimpse of the lock screen.

It is a photo of Isla and the woman, dressed in a beautiful white dress and a white suit respectively. They’re kissing and Kamilah suddenly notices the shiny, new wedding band on the lawyer’s finger.

The meeting finishes without any other complications and Kamilah is left alone in her office.

There is an unspeakable pain in her heart, a sudden pang of loss even though she had always known this was likely to happen, and she closes her eyes, the photo branded onto her mind.

It’s in the middle of her grief that Kamilah then hears the voice.

It’s small, even with Kamilah’s heightened senses, and she realises it must be coming from the lawyer’s cellphone as she makes her way to the elevator.

Words of affection are exchanged between the two women and Kamilah listens to Isla, hearing the happiness, the warmth, the love that flows in her voice.

Although it still hurts, Kamilah smiles.

“I’m happy for you Isla,” she whispers into her empty office.

And that is the last time Kamilah hears Isla’s voice.

—

For all intents and purposes, Isla lives a long, fulfilling life.

She thrives in her career, leading numerous initiatives that help the lives of thousands of people. She flourishes in her marriage to the lawyer, and they spend a happy 50 years together.

Isla passes peacefully in her sleep at the old age of 84 and her funeral is filled with all the people who’s lives she touched.

Speeches are made of her great deeds, her loving nature, her unrelenting determination to do what is right.

And when the last funeral-goers finally trickle out and Isla’s body is laid to rest in the ground, a single figure dressed in black appears.

The figure walks slowly towards the newly engraved tombstone and bows her head, tears trickling down her cheeks.

Kamilah kneels and places a single stem of forget me not flowers on the grave of the woman who will always hold her heart

2. Short ending if Serafine’s memory erasure hadn’t held.

Some background information: When Isla awakes without any memories or clues of the past year, she becomes determined to never again be left with nothing. She gets into photography, a way to forever capture moments of time. Even if her memories disappear once again, she will at least have her photographs.

One day when she’s developing her photographs, she notices a woman appearing over and over in her photos. She’s always in the background, with her face partially obscured, but Isla finally finds a picture where the woman’s full face can be seen.

After doing some research, Isla figures out that it is Kamilah Sayeed, the elusive CEO of Ahmanet Financial, and she goes over to the corporation building.

In the place where so many things had happened, Isla’s memories suddenly return and she goes to confront Kamilah in her office.

—

“How could you?” Isla burst out.

The shock on Kamilah’s face disappeared, giving way to a deep weariness and shame.

Kamilah sighed heavily, “I know. I did terrible things and I have been paying the price every day since.”

“No,” Isla shook her head as her eyes began to water, “How could you do that to me?”

“You were tearing yourself apart, Isla,” Kamilah said desperately, needing Isla to understand why she’d done what she had, “I wasn’t going to just stand still and watch as a small part of you died each day.”

“Still,” Isla’s voice broke on the word.

“It should have been my choice,” she continued fiercely, “And I would have told you that no matter what happened, I would always love you. I would always choose you.”

“We could have gotten through it together,” Isla cried out before turning silent.

It was after a long silence that Isla eventually asked, in a small voice that conveyed the weight of all of the hurt she carried, “Didn’t you trust me?”

She gazed probingly into Kamilah’s eyes, as if searching for something in its depths. But finding them lacking, Isla finally sighed and whispered.

“Goodbye Kamilah.”

3. If Serafine’s memory erasure hadn’t held: Version 2

“How could you do that to me?” Isla asked, her face crumpling as she grappled with the full realisation of what had happened.

And although Kamilah wanted nothing more than to sweep her up in her arms and never let go, there was also a part of her that wasn’t sorry for what she’d done.

“You were tearing yourself apart Isla!” Kamilah burst out almost in frustration, desperately needing Isla to understand why she’d done what she had done, “I wasn’t going to just stand still and watch as more and more of you died with each day.”

“So what,” Isla scoffed, her watery eyes burning furiously at Kamilah, “You thought you’d erase my memories? You thought that if I didn’t remember you or anything else from the past year, I’d just return to my normal life, as if nothing had ever happened?

Kamilah remained silent, unable to say anything as Isla’s voice grew in intensity.

“Well you were wrong,” Isla bitterly said, “When I woke up, I was alone. Do you know how it feels to have woken up only to realize that you’ve lost an entire year of your life?”

“You even took Lily away from me,” Isla cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks, “You took Adrian and Jax and…”

“You all were my family and you took it all away” She continued, “I couldn’t even remember you. I just knew that there was something essential missing.”

Isla paused now, her voice growing quiet as she stared directly at Kamilah, “I cried myself to sleep every night. Did your guards tell you that?”

Kamilah flinched but Isla continued.

“Did they tell you that every day I woke up wishing I hadn’t? Did they tell you that I felt like a shell of a person, that sometimes, it felt as if I would drown in my loneliness?”

“Isla, I-” Kamilah began hoarsely.

“Did you even miss me?” Isla cut her off, searching probingly into the depths of Kamilah’s eyes.

A thousand words swelled up in her chest, begging to be released, but in the end, Kamilah could only breathe out, “Every day. Each and every second, I never stopped missing you.”

A fresh wave of tears spilled over and flowed down her face even as Isla forced herself to harden.

“I don’t forgive you,” Isla softly stated and Kamilah closed her eyes in response. There was pain written in the lines of her face but she nodded, as if she had expected this.

And then, suddenly, warm arms wrapped around Kamilah, Isla’s head nestling into her chest.

“But you’ve punished yourself for long enough,” Isla finished tearfully, “You have to forgive yourself. You deserve happiness too Kamilah.”

And Isla’s words finally caused Kamilah to break down in long, overdue tears. She’d repressed her emotions for so long in an attempt to atone for the weight of her countless sins, a weight that she’d constantly carried with her.

The redemption in Isla’s words were more than she’d ever hoped for.

Isla leaned back in their embrace, tenderly wiping away Kamilah’s tears. Kamilah grabbed onto Isla’s hand, leaning into her touch.

“Everyone is allowed to make mistakes. To mourn over something they wish they could undo. The important thing is that you come out of it a better person. You face up to what you did and you make amends. That is how you make up for your actions. Not by punishing yourself out of misplaced guilt,” Isla said.

Kamilah nodded and stared wondrously at Isla, almost unable to believe that this remarkable woman had come back to her, that Isla still believed so strongly in her.

“I still don’t forgive you for what you did to me,” Isla interjected sternly before softening, “But I will. And I will never stop loving you.”

Kamilah’s heart swelled with affection and it seemed impossible that one person could love someone so much.

“I love you too.”

—

A/N: The first ending was what I originally had in mind for the story and is why I titled it “Forget Me Not.” I thought it’d be sad to imagine Kamilah watching over Isla from a distance, seeing her have a happy life even if it broke her heart to not be with her.

Then I wrote the second ending where Isla isn’t able to forgive Kamilah for what she’s done to her. I really just wanted to end it on “Goodbye Kamilah.”

Then I thought about the second ending again and I thought the MC should be angrier at Kamilah at first, so that transformed into the third ending, which I think I like the best. I had a hard time coming up with what Isla’d say at the end so I used the long, italicised quotes from BB Book 2 Chapter 12 and 15. 

Which ending was your favourite?

[ours-is-feral-love]

Find Me Far Away From Here

A/N: My next James x Alyssa story. I’ve been working hard on it. Hope it’s to your liking, and thanks so much for the love on the first one. This is a bit longer and it will be in two parts. Also, it’s unrelated to my previous story. 

Part Two will be uploaded on Sunday around this time.

Summary: James is released from prison after four years for good behaviour. He is told by his parole officer, Jack, that he cannot leave the country. But he has to find her.

Part One

* * *

I can’t see you, but I hear your call/ 

baby, hold on now

* * *

Prison changes you. I know, because it changed me. Not dramatically like in the films. I hadn’t transformed into a hardened criminal. I hadn’t taken a strong disliking to the justice system; only a small one, and that was only because midway through my sentence they changed the meal plan in the cafeteria. I hated fish fingers, but every Friday was Fish Finger Friday.

Prison did change me. It made me human.

See, I had always thought of myself as being somewhere on the fringe of humanity. I wasn’t quite there, but I had one foot in the door. The psychologist they gave me said this had something to do with my mum killing herself in front of me. I was so young when it happened that I switched a piece of myself off in order to cope with all of the trauma. Instead of feeling too much, I subconsciously decided to not feel enough.

I didn’t know if that was true. If that was what caused my apathy and general desire to murder things. But he kept telling me it was true, and I eventually got too tired to argue with him.

The trouble is, I don’t remember a time before my mum died. I remember the actual day as if was yesterday. As if it was a dream I had just woken up from and could still vividly remember. But anything prior to her plunging into the lake with the car windows rolled down—I couldn’t unlock those days. In turn, I couldn’t say whether or not the psychologist was right, or if he was full of shit.

There were snippets. Brief moments—memories. I remembered watching her get ready one evening for a rare date night with my dad. She spritzed a flowery perfume on her wrists, and since the funeral I had wanted to vomit every time I smelt roses. 

I’m not sure if the psychologist was right, but I did know that my shift, my step further into the realm of compassion and kindness and love began the day Alyssa came up to me during lunch. I hadn’t been aware of it at the time. It happened slowly, in small increments, and by the time I realised what she had done to me, I was lying on the ground bloodied and crying. 

I didn’t like it at first. Imagine going more than half your life thinking you were a callous pre-murderer only to find out that you were actually a regular boy. The change was sudden, and it meant, for a while, I didn’t know who I was. 

But, as I said, prison changed me. In my cell, I grew to understand the person I had become after Alyssa unlocked all of my secret doors. It went on even after she stopped coming to see me. Even after she stopped writing.  

The day I was released on parole for good behaviour, I was more than ready to leave. Four years behind bars had me missing the home I had grown up in. Shockingly, I missed my dad. My bed. The comfort of not fearing for my life. Not that I feared for my life very often. Most of the other prisoners admired my story. I learned quickly that rapists were not liked, but people who killed rapists were. 

I was ready to show off my newly acquired empathy. Dad would be proud. 

They came to get me at lunchtime. Two armed guards, one comically short and the other comically tall, approached me as I sat not touching my fish fingers and told me it was time. 

“Harry,” I said, turning in my chair to face my cellmate. He looked sad, so I held out my burned hand. “Goodbye.”

He took my proffered appendage and shook vigorously. His pale cheeks took on a slight pink colour. “Goodbye, James. An honour spending the last few years with you.”

I removed my hand from his harsh grip—my fingers pulsed, but I smiled at him and raised my eyebrows in farewell—and stood to join the guards. Harry was the one thing about prison I would find myself missing. He had been my cellmate for all four years of my sentence, and we had become what I would consider halfway friends. It was either that, or spend however many days hating each other. 

Harry was in for life. He came home from work one night seven years ago and killed his girlfriend with a carving knife while she slept. She had been pregnant with their baby. 

He was actually alright. Whenever there was someone new to the cell block who looked at me funny, Harry would teach them to be afraid. 

I always had someone watching over me, even in a place filled with the worst kinds of people. 

Harry said he didn’t remember the murder. That was a lie. I had heard him talking in his sleep. He dreamed a lot about that night. I looked past his tendency to tell false truths, though, because I liked being his friend. When I wasn’t worried about him murdering me as I slept on the bottom bunk, he was a lot of fun to be around. 

The two guards walked either side of me out of the eating area. One of them handed me a bag and told me I had to change into the clothes I was brought in wearing. They let me go off to the private toilets, but I wasn’t allowed to lock the door. I dressed in my civilian clothes and the guards escorted me through the penitentiary one final time. 

My trainers squeaked against the white floor. Someone got stabbed in this spot with the sharpened end of a toothbrush last night. Twelve hours ago these floors glistened red with Robert Roberts blood. The cleaners must have spent a long time polishing the area. 

It was the middle of July and there I was, waiting for the man by the prisoner’s exit to give me the rest of my things, in a large, black sweater and long, black trousers. I had managed to run for longer than anything thought I would—longer than I thought I would. It was the early November when I got picked up. 

“Bye, James. Don’t wanna see you back here, you hear?” one of the guard’s—Jerry; he was a prick—said as I exited the building. 

I nodded back to him and turned to face the outside world. A long fenced-in area blocked me from true freedom, but I heard a buzz and a click and the metal door a couple of metres down the dirt path slid slowly open. The bright sun hurt my eyes. I could already feel the heat crawling underneath my clothes. I wanted to drop the box that I held in my arms and rip off the sweater.

I heard another buzz. A car horn. 

Dad. 

He pulled up in his new Mercedes. The colour was nice. Nicer than the old one. It was grey and shiny. He didn’t get out. Jails had always worried him. Whenever he would come to visit me, his eyes would dart left and right as if he was scared someone was either going to pounce on him, or put him in shackles. As I walked up to meet him I could see my reflection in the passenger side door. 

Dad rolled the window down. He had dressed up to collect me. A thoughtful, if unnecessary, gesture. He smiled so wide I could count all 30 of his teeth. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

He was referring to the car. 

“Yeah,” I said looking it over. 

I got inside. Dad immediately started talking. I had forgotten how much he loved to fill the quiet with meaningless noise.

“And she wasn’t expensive. And she’s an automatic. How handy is that? I kept putting my foot down for the clutch when I first got her . . .”

He went on about the car, never once mentioning anything about the fact that I had just been released from prison after being interned for murder, as he drove me to my parole officer’s building. 

He had no idea I was going to steal it from him later. He never learned. 

* * *

If you’re waiting all your life/ 

you won’t ever go

* * *

Jack Smith was a round, balding man. His entire office smelt of cigarettes.

In prison, cigarettes were used as currency. Because of their worth, I thought I should try them out. Build up an addiction. But one drag and I was sick. They reminded me too much of Alyssa. Of our time together. 

I sat in front of Jack Smith holding my breath as he talked about the rules and regulations of being a man out on parole. There weren’t a lot. Don’t break the law was the big one Jack kept repeating in his harsh Geordie accent. 

“You look like a good enough kid, James,” he said.

It irritated me. “I’m not a kid.”

Jack rolled his eyes and wrote something down on a sheet of paper I couldn’t see. “I said you look like one. You coerced a girl into running away with you and then killed someone. You’re obviously not that good.”

I didn’t like Jack. 

“Speaking of the girl,” Jack said, and my ears strained instantly. He looked down at me, scratching his scruffy beard. “You’re not to see her.”

I felt sick. My chest hurt. My hands started to shake, so I stuffed them underneath my thighs. “I don’t even know where she is,” I said. 

Jack didn’t look convinced. He nodded, but there was mistrust in his brown eyes. “Sure, Kid.” He liked calling me Kid. I think it was a purposeful decision. An attempt to undermine me. “Look, just . . . no causing trouble. No leaving the country. No late night parties. You’ll be coming to me every two weeks for the next five years, and if I smell even one drop of alcohol on your breath, you’re gonna be in big trouble.” 

“Yeah. Of course.” 

“It’s hard,” he said. He was like my dad. He loved talking just to save himself from the quiet. I had learned in prison to be okay with silence. “It’s hard to come out of there. Especially for someone as young as you, James. You’re gonna struggle to find yourself, but you’ll get there in the end. You have to. The only two other options are more jail time and death.”

Jack seemed like he was trapped between being my parole officer and being my therapist. I preferred the parole officer persona. Inspirational speeches tended to irk me slightly.

Besides, I didn’t find it hard to readjust to life as a free man. Going to jail had put my world on pause. Now that I was out, I could finally press play again. And Jack didn’t know what he was talking about. I had not lost myself. I knew exactly who I was. 

“Get out of here, Kid.” Jack waved me off, telling me to be on time for our next meeting and warning me he might drop in unannounced at times to check up on me. 

I hoped he wouldn’t come tonight. 

I left Jack’s smoke-filled office still itching to take my sweater off. Dad was waiting outside in the car for me, blasting the AC and listening to the radio. We drove home. Dad commentated the entire time, running lines with the radio host. Was this what he had done while I was jail? Talk to people who couldn’t hear him? 

When we arrived home, I was overcome by this strange feeling. It was as if I had been away on vacation for a really, really long time. The air outside of the car was warm and I looked at my house and I was . . . content. Almost happy. To be there. To be with my dad. To be away from the cold, pristine walls of the jailhouse. We went inside, me carrying the box, my dad carrying a smile and the keys to his car. He hadn’t stopped smiling since he collected me. 

I felt guilty that I would again be responsible for wiping that smile off of his face as I watched him place the car keys in a small, ceramic bowl on the kitchen table. 

Dad left me alone for a while so I could reacquaint myself with the place. Everything looked pretty much the same. It was all of the old things I had seen my whole life. All of the seventies-era wood panelling; the small, box telly; the ugly sofas upon which I sat plotting a wild assortment of different murders. 

I trudged through the long halls and found my way upstairs. My room was untouched. The sheets looked washed and the floor looked hoovered, but other than that there were no changes. 

Placing the cardboard box on the bed, I finally tore my sweater off and threw it into the empty bin by the door that lead the roof. Next went the trousers. The psychologist said at our last session that when I was released I should throw away as much as I could that reminded me of my crimes. Standing in just my pants, I lifted the lid of the box and stared inside. I knew exactly what was in there without needing to study each item. There were handfuls of letters. Over 400 with my name on them and a red lipstick print on the upper right hand corner.  

I reached inside. I sensed the energy radiating off of the envelopes as my fingertips neared them. 

I brushed against a stack and instantly retracted my hand as though I had been electrocuted. 

I couldn’t do it. I quickly grabbed the lid and pressed it firmly over the box, blocking its contents from view. Half-naked, I sat on my bed, ignoring my dad’s call from downstairs that dinner was ready. It was unfair, but I needed him to think I had gone to sleep. 

Hours went by before I heard the telly go quiet. Dad came up several minutes later. I listened carefully for the sound of his snores. They met my ears in less than half-an-hour. 

I dressed quietly in a pair of dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt. From inside my neat closet, I pulled an old zip-up hoodie just in case I got cold on my journey and the grey suit I wore for my trial. I made my way to the door, stopping before I opened it to look back at the box on the bed. 

I should have left them, but they called to me and I was their slave, so I snatched the box and opened the door one-handed. 

Downstairs, in the kitchen, the keys were exactly where Dad had left them. Setting the note I had written for him on the table, I plucked the keys from the bowl and soundlessly crept out of the house. The car started with ease, and the engine was quiet, like it knew we were not meant to be doing this. Like it was on my side. And I drove away. Headlights shining, an old tape playing through the speakers. 

I’ve gone to find her. 

That was what the note said. 

I’ve gone to find her. 

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Deborah Harvey

Deborah Harvey’s poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please, while her poem Oystercatchers recently won the 2018 Plough Prize Short Poem Competition. Her fourth collection, The Shadow Factory, will be published by Indigo Dreams during 2019. She has three previous poetry collections, Breadcrumbs (2016), Map Reading for Beginners (2014) and Communion (2011), also published by Indigo Dreams, while her historical novel, Dart, appeared under their Tamar Books imprint in 2013.

Deborah is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy.

https://theleapingword.com/

http://deborahharvey.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-shadow-factory.html

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

I started writing poems and stories when I was a young child and continued throughout primary school, but as is so often the case, at secondary school the emphasis shifted onto learning for the purpose of passing exams, rather than exploring any creativity we might have; in fact, the teachers seemed to go out of their way to discourage such unruly impulses, and eventually I stopped writing altogether. Then, decades later, when I was struggling to raise four children and my marriage was falling apart, I had a very vivid, urgent dream, which seemed to me to be saying that unless I found a way of expressing myself, I’d die. So there I was, knowing I had to write poetry but not even sure what a poem was. I started to write what came, though, and to read poetry too, to make sure I was doing it right, and gradually the process became less agonising.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Being brought up in the Methodist tradition meant I was exposed to poetic images, language and cadences for several hours every Sunday from a very young age. I used to love the call and response of psalm reading, and hymns were great because I got to stand on the pew and sing words I didn’t understand but which were mysterious and conjured pictures in my head – fiery cloudy pillars, chariots rising into the sky, all that sort of stuff. So the poets of the Old Testament and Charles Wesley have a lot to answer for.

Then there was my grandmother, who taught me and my many cousins all our nursery rhymes and told us traditional stories with lots of repetition in them; tales like Chicken Licken and In A Dark Dark House. She wrote poems too, and always kept a scrap of paper and a pencil in her apron pocket to jot down lines and images as they occurred to her.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

When I started writing 20 years ago, I was not only aware but completely over-awed. I’d enjoyed English literature at school and planned to study it at A-level, but was told by my teacher that I wasn’t good enough (even though I got As in language and literature at O-level).  I was completely thrown by this experience and believed what she’d said for years, so when I realised I had to write, the thought of reading poetry as well was very daunting. A few months earlier I’d seen a programme on telly about Ted Hughes’ ‘Birthday Letters’, so I took the plunge and found it completely absorbing. The second poetry book I bought was Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems, and I went on from there.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I have three day-jobs, two of which involve caring for dependents, so I rarely get a whole day to myself, and I’m pretty much on call all the time. What makes writing poetry a practical means of self-expression is that I can do it out of the corner of my eye, as I go about my day.

5. What motivates you to write?

The greatest motivator of all: the fear of dying before I’m finished. I think this is partly because I spent three decades in a relationship that was obliterating me, and I neglected my responsibility towards myself and my development as a creative human being. Now everything I do is an attempt to make up for the years I lost, and expressing myself by writing poems is a kind of redemption.

6. What is your work ethic?

It’s very basic, really. I try to spend at least a small part of each day writing, and if that’s not possible, doing something that will feed into my writing, whether it’s reading poetry or prose, walking somewhere new or in a place that has resonance for me, doing a bit of research, going to hear another, better poet read, watching starlings in the garden. Then, even if I’m stuck in a trough of discouragement, at least I can tell myself I’m cobbling together a ladder to climb out.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Calling someone a coming-of-age author carries quite pejorative connotations, but the three writers who had the biggest impression on me as a child and teenager – Bulgakov, Camus and Steinbeck – shaped me to such an extent that I carry them with me every day.  ‘Master and Margarita’ is still a very important novel for me, and I don’t know where I’d be without my inner witch. As for ‘The Red Pony’, which I started to read by accident when I was seven and abandoned in disgust when it turned out to be about death rather than gymkhanas and rosettes, that early encounter coloured my whole life. That experience convinced that early exposure to seminal stories and poems has a profound effect on the developing imagination – as long as you remember to read them again later too, when you can fully understand them.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Alan Garner is just about the last of my childhood heroes who’s still alive. Reading ‘Boneland’ a few years ago, having grown old alongside the character Colin of ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ and ‘The Moon of Gomrath’, was profoundly moving, and I was bereft when the story ended. I am completely in awe of Garner’s connection with his landscape, and the way his stories inhabit mythic time.

In contrast, a writer I very much admire whom I read for the first time recently, is Rebecca Solnit. I got such a lot out of her memoir/travelogue ‘The Faraway Nearby’ that I’m lining up more of her books by my bed to read.

As for poets, there’s Alice Oswald, Kathleen Jamie and Stanley Kunitz for the way they capture nature; Charles Simic for his startling imagery; Neruda for always taking the reader with him on his huge associative leaps; Raymond Carver for his story-telling; Heaney and U A Fanthorpe for their unrelenting humanity; Carol Ann Duffy for her surety of touch; Kei Miller and Liz Berry for their true voices; Leonard Cohen for sounding like God; I could go on

9. Why do you write?

Because not writing is not an option.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Becoming a writer – a good one – means embarking on an apprenticeship that will last the rest of your life. You have to be prepared always to improve, to welcome criticism, and above all, to read the work of others. In fact, read whatever you can lay your hands on: poetry, novels, folk stories, plays, non-fiction, atlases, art books, biographies, soak it all up. Don’t ever think there’s no room for improvement.

The other thing is to be prepared to stick your neck out in order to get an audience for your writing. This can be particularly hard for poets. The impulse that makes us write poems often co-exists with a profound reticence when it comes to publicising our work. But poetry is an inherently collaborative art form, and a poem only fully exists when it is being inhabited by the reader, so all that uncomfortable stuff has to be done. Good luck with it.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

My fourth collection – The Shadow Factory – is due to be published by Indigo Dreams in 2019, so I’m now in that lovely space where I can turn my attention towards something new. Well, not really new; I’ve lived in Bristol all my life and have amassed stories, family anecdotes and memories, old photos, historical snippets, the voices you hear in the queue at the bus stop, the way places change and people come and go, but the city remembers how it always was and keeps re-creating itself in that image. The past in the present. I want to write all that.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Deborah Harvey Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[maclitpub]

Ask an Expert: Can the Plagiarism Charges Against Emma Cline Hold Up in Court?

They were little-known writers when they fell in love. Then she rose to stardom, and he did not. Now they’re suing each other in a San Francisco court.

Emma Cline, the author of last year’s spectacularly successful debut novel The Girls, and her ex, Chaz Reetz-Laiolo, filed dueling federal lawsuits on Wednesday that tell conflicting stories about the death of their relationship and the birth of a literary hit. Reetz-Laiolo says Cline spied on him and plagiarized parts of his unproduced screenplay to write The Girls. Cline says Reetz-Laiolo abused her and now is trying to extort her and destroy her reputation.

Plagiarism cases can be notoriously difficult to prove, especially between a pair of writers who once collaborated and critiqued each other’s work, as Cline and Reezt-Laiolo did. So will the plagiarism charges hold up if the case goes to trial, as both parties have requested? Orly Lobel, a professor of law at the University of San Diego and the author of You Don’t Own Me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie’s Dark Side was skeptical, particularly since nearly all of the instances of plagiarism Reetz-Laiolo’s complaint cited were not word-for-word quotations, but rather ideas, images, and fragments of anecdotes from their lives together — none of which are protected under copyright law.

The story begins with a few undisputed facts. They met in 2009, when Cline was 20 and Reetz-Laiolo was 33. Part of what drew them together was their literary ambitions. But the relationship was not without problems, and not long after they started dating, Cline installed spy software on her own computer — a computer that Reetz-Laiolo occasionally used. Her complaint says she did this because she knew he was cheating on her, because he was abusive, because she “could no longer distinguish the truth from ReetzLaiolo’s [sic] constant lies.” His complaint says that they were never monogamous to begin with. In any event, in 2013, after they’d broken up, Cline agreed to sell Reetz-Laiolo the laptop with the spyware. From there, the stories diverge even further. His complaint argues that Cline intentionally left the software on the computer, and suggests that she “may” have upgraded to a more advanced version of the spyware program that would have allowed Cline continued remote access to the computer. Cline’s complaint calls this theory “ludicrous.”

Both agree that after Cline sold her book to Random House, in 2014, she approached Reetz-Laiolo and asked him to read a draft of the manuscript; he declined. Her complaint asserts that he delayed reading the book because “the stakes for Cline would only rise higher as she moved further along in the publication process.” In 2015 — according to his complaint, the year he discovered the spyware on his computer — Reetz-Laiolo began to review drafts of The Girls. Over the course of the following year, he sent Cline and her publisher (also named in the suit) dozens of instances of alleged plagiarism.

According to Lobel, most of these examples would not hold up in court. One instance includes the mention of the body brush, a personal grooming implement. In an earlier draft of the book, Cline included this sentence: “My mother spoke to Sal about body brushing, of the movement of energies around meridian points. The charts.” Reetz-Laiolo claimed this plagiarized a sentence that appeared in his short story, “Animals,” in Ecotone magazine: “Laurel in the morning brushing her body on the patio with a body brush, slowly combing it up her legs towards her heart, up her arms towards her heart. Circling her belly. There was something totemic about her out there in the sun.”

But Cline’s complaint stated that she owned a body brush. “The law does not allow you to own those kinds of ideas for art,” said Lobel. “There’s no copyright infringement there. It’s very clear that our whole history of art, of writing, of literature is built on paying homage to previous authors, other authors, being in conversation, and that’s actually part of what art is.”

Regardless of whether these “snippets” amounted to plagiarism, Cline and her publisher removed all the sentences that Reetz-Laiolo identified prior to publication so they could resolve the dispute, her complaint stated. But Reetz-Laiolo had also asked Cline to remove a small section of the text that his complaint alleged resembled a section of his screenplay, a script she could only have read if she did, in fact, remotely hack into his computer. If the case does go to trial, this will likely be at the center of it, since it is the only instance of alleged plagiarism that made its way into the published version of The Girls. Lobel was skeptical of the plagiarism charge here as well, but if Reetz-Laiolo’s legal team is able to prove that Cline hacked into Reetz-Laiolo’s computer, Cline may be charged with something, though likely not plagiarism.

“I discuss in my book the concept of ‘scenes a faire’ — the fact that a lot of times there will be elements that are similar in two works but the courts understand that those elements are necessary to the genres so even if there is similarity, it’s not copyright infringement,” Lobel wrote in an email. At the same time, Lobel added, breaking into someone else’s computer and taking “proprietary information” can amount to “theft and unjust enrichment.” “You cannot steal an idea for a story line by hacking into someone’s computer,” she wrote. “So this will be a factual inquiry.”

It’s important to note that Reetz-Laiolo hired Harvey Weinstein’s former law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, and that the law firm used a trove of Cline’s personal documents — captured by the spyware program she installed on her own computer — to threaten Cline. Reetz-Laiolo’s complaint is threaded with salacious and humiliating details about Cline that are completely unrelated to any charge of plagiarism. (The complaint also alleges that Cline hacked into the email accounts of two other acquaintances, one of whom is Reetz-Laiolo’s ex-girlfriend, also named as plaintiffs in the suit.) According to The New Yorker, an earlier draft of the complaint contained even more salacious details, including naked selfies, explicit chat messages, and a section called “Cline’s History of Manipulating Older Men,” which began like this: “[E]vidence shows that Cline was not the innocent and inexperienced naïf she portrayed herself to be, and had instead for many years maintained numerous ‘relations’ with older men and others, from whom she extracted gifts and money.” The New Yorker also reported that after news broke that David Boies had hired private investigators to discredit an actress who accused Weinstein of rape, Boies’s name was removed from Reetz-Laiolo’s complaint.

As Cline’s complaint noted, this earlier draft of Reetz-Laiolo’s lawsuit “followed an age-old playbook: it invoked the specter of sexual shame to threaten a woman into silence and acquiescence.”

Neither Cline nor Reetz-Laiolo responded to request for comment, but Cline’s literary agent Bill Clegg described Reetz-Laiolo’s lawsuit as a baseless attack “designed to damage her reputation and extract undeserved financial windfall.”

“It has been heartbreaking and enraging to watch a bitter ex-boyfriend whom Emma met when she was still in college — a man thirteen years her senior — try to disgrace her and leverage their shared time for his personal gain,” Clegg wrote in a statement provided to Vulture. “Emma’s success is her own, and any claims that she infringed her ex-boyfriend’s work in her novel The Girls are false. There is a long, documented history showing that Emma’s idea for and work on The Girls preceded and remained completely separate from this person. Before they met, Emma had already won two prestigious literary prizes, been published at the age of seventeen in a national literary journal, and written the story, ‘Marion’, about a young girl’s experience on a commune in California, which would later be published in The Paris Review and prompt her to win that journal’s once-a-year citation, the Plimpton Prize for Fiction. These facts speak for themselves, as do the actions and histories of those who have tried to intimidate and exploit Emma.”

from macalester http://ift.tt/2zFfPmm via http://ift.tt/2gNulE5