The Writing Soul

Submitted by sashaivette:

          The little girl wept into her blanket, afraid to look at what was before her. She was lost to the world, and this room that held her hostage, was a room she never really wanted to leave. She had been here for centuries, asleep to those that looked at life through the eyes, but awake to those that looked at life through their hearts and souls.

          So why did she cry, you wonder?

          All of the centuries that she had remained in a deep slumber were lost to her now, as she wept, and as she saw the world through her eyes again. She was no longer awake and her truth had been overwhelmed by her ego, causing her to lose all realization, all awareness. That feeling had been stripped away as it once had been when she was born, and though I tell you this, that sleeping girl does not know what she has lost.

          All that she feels is a sense of loss, a sense of loneliness and despair, and that is the reason for her tears. What she once knew was hidden behind a veil, a veil she could not see beyond, and her mind was clouded only by the illusion placed before her.

          There were cobwebs all around, even over the lavender sofa she lay upon comfortably. Her childhood teddy bear, Nathaniel, sat alone on the floor, as if he had never been touched. It frightened her to see him there, sitting perfectly, when she knew that he had been her closest friend and she always held him tight. However, she did not move, she left him to be there, alone and still.

          What she hadn’t remembered was that she had made a decision to cut all ties with the things and the people she had once loved. She allowed herself to drift into her sleep of awakening, unattached and unbound, with only the sense of herself and of her entirety. Her willingness to let go and be free is what had allowed her to sleep while transcending into a pure and  awakening awareness.

          The mere fact that she was only a child was what gave her the will to slip into the unknown. It was the unknown of absolute truth, one that millions of people had searched for but never found. This little girl, Samantha, was no ordinary child. She was a child taught by an enlightened soul. Her grandfather had always read to her, spoken to her, and reach into her soul rather than into her mind. He did not allow television, nor radios. He had only allowed the mere simplicity of life, and of course he had allowed the teddy bear, Nathaniel, to keep his baby girl company when he could not.

          One stormy night, however, Samantha’s grandfather had stepped beyond the veil, deeper than anyone had ever accomplished before. He had allowed himself to let go of his precious treasure, his pupil, his beautiful granddaughter. She had only been six years old, but she was so smart, and almost as spiritual as he was, that he knew she would soon step towards the path that he had taught her to follow. And when Samantha discovered her lifeless grandfather, she wept for nights, on her favorite lavender sofa, holding onto Nathaniel, paralyzed by her fear of loneliness.

          And here she was, three hundred year later, weeping and trapped inside of a six year old, frightened child. Oh, but, she was so much more than what the eyes could display. She was all that mattered, in a sense, because she was all that was. All the answers were inside of her, and as the tears ceased and her eyes dried, she remembered something that her grandfather had once told her.

          “Always look inside of yourself. Accept who and what you are, and you will discover all that is absolute. Never allow yourself to be consumed by the darkness, by the illusion, and by the people that orchestrate such things. Detach yourself from all that you love, and do not look back, for all that you love will always be and you my dear, must unravel the mystery. Nothing is what it seems. It is not about what you see, but about what you don’t see. Awaken yourself, my beautiful child, and be set free of pain, of suffering, of slavery. I will love you always, but I will soon be gone. Do not forget what matters most - you.”

          Samantha listened to herself breathe, listened to her heart beat, and closed her eyes softly. She pictured nothing, and thought of nothing. She simply listened to what was within and she soon drifted back into her slumber. All that she knew of illusions disintegrated, and all that was truth marveled before her. She was nothing, everything was nothing, life was nothing, and nothing was everything.

I like the structure of your sentences. You play with syntax wonderfully, but make sure that you have a complete thought and don’t force readers to go back and reread in order to understand the basic principle of the sentence. It’s okay to force readers to go back to get deeper truths, or absolutes, from the sentence, but make sure that everything is coherent.

I really enjoyed many of the concepts that you brought to light here. Wonderful :)

By Gwen:

Hey everyone, can you let me know what you think. My boyfriend wants something that I’ve written for his birthday and a few of my other friends have been clamoring for things I’ve written to. This is a really early draft, and I’m trying to move the narrative so it passes between characters, so just some thoughts would be wonderful:

The train lurched to a halt sending the 150 passengers into a heap in the front of the train. The dark mass began to roll backwards as they fought to disentangle themselves. Soft grunts emerged as elbows collided with eyes and knees found stomachs. The doors slid open, poisoning the eyes of the freight, which had not seen light in four days. The odor of body swept down from the train and rolled along the snow to the pale ones feet, not judged by the pale ones eyes.

“Aus! Aus!,” the pale ones cried. “Macht fur den Tur! Macht schnell!”

Those that were able to get their bearings jumped down from the train, holding each other and making red footprints in the snow. A young boy felt the coolness, already melting from the pattering feet, just barely crinkle beneath his toes. He looked back to see still forms laying across the floor. He watched, waiting for them to move, catching the eye of one. But, it never blinked and laid still. He waited as others passed by, wanting to ask the still forms to join.

The blow on the back of his head from the butt of a gun caused the boy to stagger forward, never joined by those that lay still.

He felt a small gloved slip into his. To afraid of the gun, he didn’t look down, didn’t see her face.

“Please stay with me,” she whispered. “I don’t know where my family is. Please be mine now.”

He gave her hand a small squeeze and pulled her closer. They approached the guards, assessing the children with their cold, blue eyes. The boy stood tall, chin out, breathing heavily with just a twinge of hoarseness.

The guards pulled him to the left, and the girl to the right. Her hand held onto his, refusing to be separated, when she was scooped into the air and carried forward.

“Not that way, little one,” a man’s voice said. “Those that go that way, will never leave this place of death. Or they will, but not in this body.”

She tried to look over his shoulder, but she couldn’t see past his bushy beard. Guarded in his arms, they walked past the pale ones. He whispered sweet murmurings in her ear, contradictory to the smoke coming from the tall pipes that loomed ever nearer.

Another set of guards, directing them into different gates, divided by high barbed wire fences. He looked up and saw families being torn apart, father’s trying to stay with their daughters and mother’s with their sons. Glancing around, he saw a woman whose eyes reflected his thoughts.

Her child was plucked out of her hands, she cried out, but took the girl instead, knowing that someone would take care of her son as they were divided by gender and the barbed wire fence. She watched the older man with the bushy beard carry away her child and looked down at the child that nestled into her arms.

She looked forward to an an old lady who walked before them with her hiding both her hobble and broken heart. She left her cane hidden in the dark shadows of the train. But she held her head high, imagining angels wings that eased her burden. She watched as the black cauldrons poured soot out, ashes out, ashes that would more than likely be of her husband and son soon. The old woman heard a small cry behind her, and turned quickly around.

A girl, no older than 12, felt sadness, a tangible feeling that caused her heart to contract and never restart. She stumbled along the fence, its mass provided her with something solid, when everything was changing. Tears did not fall, just hard shock haunted her eyes much like the other prisoners, until she felt the a weight lift off her feet as an old woman caught her at her elbow. There was still humanity in this place of death, she thought.

“You must think strong,” the old woman whispered. “If you think, then you are. Imagine angels wings. This is the only way to survive. They must think you are strong. They must think you are made of ice, like them.”

Moving forward, they were ordered into cleansing chambers. Young and old danced naked on the cold tile chamber as water poured over their bodies. The girl, receiving a long shirt and tattered blanket, huddled close to the old woman.

Hustled into barracks, she traced the wood grains with shaking fingers. And a pair of dark eyes watched her, and the others stream by. The dark eyes watched from her corner, her nest of safety both out of sight and out of mind. She shrunk away from all the people, fearing that there emotions would fed on her, that she would care about them. Staying close to the wall meant she felt the cold of Germany’s winter embrace her, interlace its fingers with her, pierce her heart. It bound her, entangled her. As the other women passed by, she became colder and colder. Unable to keep awake, she dropped into the middle of the streaming prisoners that continued to walk by.

Submitted by true-nature:

I Hope

in the frost shaden night and by furious blazing sky,

I may find you again in fragments of some other life,

and be it to pass that we who sin are all damned,

I will still give to you all the things that only a man can.

  And I hope again by my loathing of fading iridescence,

in-compromised you advocate still a child’s wild abandon,

through ash vacillating where before had been marrow of bone,

you will aim truest in their hearts like cold arrow of stone.

  Still time will be then and a day again how ticking hands are,

malevolence carving their mire from their hard and cooling scars,

if one day your resolve abate by jewel of searing and gilded cold,

I too bear them amity in death; I hope I die before I get old.

I absolutely love this. This was practically flawless. The only line I’m not sure about was the third to last. But it was absolutely beautiful.

-Gwen <3

Hi everyone,

I’m so, so, sorry that I’ve been away so long. It’s been such a busy summer, I was in pretty much running the news section of the paper last semester and then I’ve been working seven days a week this summer, five of which with a two hour commute.

I have read all the submissions and they are simply lovely. I’m working on putting in comments and such. There are a few published and in the queue and once I get back from working at the cave I will work on the rest of them, so you should have a solid amount of work being put up on the blog.

Feel free to submit, but I won’t put my comments on until after I deal with the backlog, but I promise I will be able to do more in the next few weeks as I wrap my internship up on August 5.

Speaking of comments, let me know what you think of my comments. Even if it’s not a piece of yours that I commented on, feel free to both offer your suggestions and let me know what you thought of mine!

Other than that, keep submitting and see what we come up with.

Gwen <3

P.S. When you submit, let me know what you want next to “submitted by” link, name, what have you. I will be posting all submission to the site, but let me know if you want my comments on The Writing Soul or in your Ask Box (Just with the post is easier so everyone can also get a feel for other comments, but whatever floats your boat.)

Submitted by true-nature

Demos II. My stories with the people.

  Her bottom was quite proportional. Either side were as round and curving as the other. She seemed to be bending forward with her clitoris exposed to whoever watched from behind. Long legs carved the remaining length of the mirror. The lines of the body carved by whatever random object could be sharpened and put to recreation. They were the color of the blood a mirror would bleed if mirrors bled when carved upon.

  There were other carvings. Some impressive on the steel. Some less so on the brick. Each read into some story long lost in the void of tenure. The mirror etching was particularly well done. Most often they were ignored. They would dissipate into the walls only as soft features of the holding.

  A loud rustic rattle from the right. The grate grinds in its frame to the left. Metallic clatter echoes long into the corridor. It is soaked in fluorescence. Those painful white lights that illuminate every etching of a person. They cause such discomfort. A sac of rough and brown paper is tossed into the center of the room where there is a small drain and minor depression in the cold concrete. The grate slams. Metal reverberates from the mirror to the steel chassis of the sink-toilet and fades into the surrounding brick.

  He sits atop the steel platform one foot above the concrete and chained to the brick walls. He is cross-legged, back ridged and parallel with the back wall. He stares at the bag for a time. The eyes drift to the drain then. It must be for the piss and vomit the dogs secrete when they miss their stainless steel sink-toilet.

  It is “chow time”.

  Inside the bag he finds simple round crackers with cheese that matched the consistency of paste or grout. There is a cereal bar of plain cheerios with a thick paste of solid milk in-between. There is also an orange. These are the feasts of dogs at whatever moment in the A.M. was decided for feeding time. That is all we - they are.

  The walls can grow smaller and then much smaller. One must be conscious of this. If a man isn’t careful he can become swallowed all together. In the blackness of a time he is unawares. Mental capacity is all that decides how long or comfortable the sleep will be. He can claw at the crevices of the skull. Or he can carve a cooch’ into the mirror.

  They were stripped earlier like all dogs should be. The goal was to prevent mass suicide and/or vandalism through captive-bead-rings or belt-buckle’s or shoe laces. He did not wear the rags on his chest only below his waist. Sweat crest his brow. Under the eye dark circles expand with each hour - each day - each week. They filled with perspiration until they burst unto the cheek and jawline.

  He could only physically exhaust himself constantly hour after hour to attain that rest his body desired. No longer did he himself request it or long for it. It was only his mind that remembered its kind embrace. Sleep was a memory. When the walls grew smaller he would lambaste himself until he would almost pass out of shear fatigue. Hours later he would awake - unshaven - unbroken.

  Time of day was undecipherable. Teasing sunlight grazed the brick walls with short golden combs; offered by large sky-light openings in the ceiling. Light would peak in through the grates five by six inch glass opening. A mockery of a window. The edges of the vagina sparkled with gold then.

  His eyes were all that could be seen beyond the teal grate. It were cold and hard and lifeless. And looking up to the ceiling there were something magnificent.

  In hard brown etchings there were the symbol of Christian faith. It were warm and kind and abundant. What kept a man from knowing he was no dog were those before he - hieroglyphics.

Hi! Sorry, it took me so long. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but the establishment of the main character seems to be quite confusing. What I found out at the end, but I could be very wrong about that, is it about the male. So I’m not sure exactly how the female ties in, is he watching her?

Your writing is excellent, just be cautious there is a line where you’re focusing so much on being “good” with your words and making it the next big novel, that it will sometimes become too confusing. I’m not saying write simply, although that is sometimes what is necessary, but to be aware that if you really try to, I don’t want to say advance, but push your writing so much that it can become non-accessible.

Okay other than that, I would recommend reworking, or creating, a transition between the third and fourth lines. If you want to emphasize “all dogs” then bold them on all occasions used. You say in the second graf that “But more often they were ignored.” More often as opposed to what? That sentence just hangs there.

 ”He could only physically exhaust himself constantly hour after hour to attain that rest his body desired.” I know what you are trying to say here, but it needs to be structured for it to correctly flow in the way that you mean it. Perhaps “Sleep, so coveted by his body, was only attained after physically exhausting himself constantly hour after hour.”

I would also move some description of time towards the beginning if you can, because then we can get a better feel of the actual setting, something that we can picture your character being. Withholding information can be good sometimes, particularly in novels. But in short stories, you really want things to be clear. You can be clear with the setting while still highlighting the madness of the walls creeping in.

-Gwen <3

Hi everyone!

I’m so sorry that I haven’t been on here at all recently. I have been so busy with school work and am in the midst of training to be News Editor of my college paper next year, if you are interested in knowing what myself and Oswego State has been up to check out The Oswegonian!

That said, the semester is winding down. I will be home, and have at least a resemblance of free time in two weeks and will give long responses to all of you who have submitted your work. I have been reading all of your stories and poems, I just haven’t had time to do respond yet, but I promise I will.

Forgive me?

-Gwen

By: Dr. Confucius

In the dead of night a voice, unmistakably black, echoed down the street.

“I see you!”

Instinctively I pulled back from the window, hiding behind the drapes.  All I could see were the silhouettes of two men, and a couple of lights that had come on in neighbors’ homes.

“I see all of you white people!”

Wait a minute.  I’m not white, I’m Chinese.  Did he mean me, too?  Or was I excluded?  It’s pretty dark out there; how can he see whether any of us are white or not?  It was all so confusing.  I stayed back from the window. 

He ranted unintelligibly.  Another voice, more subdued, seemed to be trying to calm him down.  A minute later the cops arrived.  They tend to do that when blacks show up around here.  Voices murmured, rose and fell, the word “sir” appearing often, growled silkily through pursed lips.

“What’s going on?”  Laura sounded sleepy, curious but unconcerned.

“Sounds like they got thrown out of a party or something.”

“There was a party?”

“Yeah.  Go figure.”  Nobody in our neighborhood has the kind of party that people get thrown out of.  They have dinner parties where you network relentlessly and then when you get home, you need a crowbar to crack the frigid smile off your face.

“Come back to bed.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said.  Laura yawned and shuffled away.  There was something comforting, endearing, in the gentle scuff of her slippers on the floor.

I poured myself a brandy and peered between the curtains.  The cops drove off and the two black guys walked away, debating the unfairness of their lot while I wondered what would happen to them, and what had happened to me.  This is my idea of excitement now?

By Gwen

It haunted her footsteps in an empty corridor. It made the tears that rippled down her face onto the meadow. It grew out of the shadows of the forest.

Death claimed all of her beautiful children. Death claimed anything she loved. Stole it away in the night, in the day. It mattered not where and when, only that it was no longer hers.

It wanted her. Death wanted to prove that he was more powerful. But she ran, barefoot in the soft mulched forest, alluding him. She grew weary and eventually she gave up the chase. She welcomed the arms of Death. But he refused, for if Life gave up, there would be no Death.

She made him suffer. Kept killing herself, laying herself right there for him. But he had to refuse. To accept her would be his own demise.

And it was she that he wanted more than anything. But without Life, there cannot be Death. And there they were caught, in that eternal dance, to halves to a whole.