Another Release of Creative Frustration

What a welcome home present. Twelve years at war, and he came back to this. It was a war all its own, Deryk thought.
"How long has she been asleep?" he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed. He took Rhia's hand, his worried gaze tracing over her face. She was so pale. Paler than usual. Her scars looked even deeper and even more permanent than when he'd left.
"Seven years." The boy - no, he wasn't a boy any longer. It had been twelve years since Deryk had left his son with his wife to go fight. He was sixteen now.
"Cayule...Tell me what happened." His hazel eyes turned to look at Cayule.
The young man released a slow sigh and sank into the seat he'd brought over to the side of the bed. "Late one night, a few looters attacked the estate. They were after the horses. Mom...She tried to fight them off. She almost did, too, but..." He closed his eyes, hands curling into fists. "There were too many. They came all at once. She fought off all but three of them...They impaled her with their swords. I don't know how she survived, but she did. She's still alive...Though she's never woken up since then. They made off with the horses, took some of our things from the house, then just left."
Deryk's face had twisted into a look of pure hatred, empty hand curling into a tight fist, so that his knuckles turned white. "Charles...He'll pay for this..." He got to his feet in a hurry, but when he tried to let go of Rhia's hand, he found he was unable. Her fingers had curled around his hand.
"Don't...go..."
Deryk's and Cayule's eyes both went wide and turned to look down at Rhia. To their amazement, her eyes began to drift open. She looked up at Deryk, the all too familiar pleading look he could never say no to coming onto her face. "It wasn't Charles...it wasn't anyone you know, or would want to know. Please...Just stay..."

Big news!

Just kidding.. Things have been the same as the past couple of weeks. Slow. Been playing Jak and Daxter the past three or four days. Will be through with that tomorrow. It never ceases to amaze me how well game writers can make a script. Jak says not a work throughout this first game. Not sure if he gets any lines in his next games, but I'll find that out this week. But there's FFX, as well. At the beginning of the game, you can choose to name Tidus something else, so not once in the game is the name Tidus said. It's really quite amazing. A step up from the text-heavy voice-lacking rpgs, where the thing's just programmed to plug in whatever name you stick in. Though, this does remind me of the fact that it took me three month's to remember my best friend's name, and I think even longer to remember my otoutousan's name.. I don't remember where I was going with this when I started..the powers of good writing, maybe. ::sigh:: Who knows. My mind's everywhere but here, I suppose. Still trying to settle into the new house. The couch has started to kill my back, so I think it may be time to start pulling out the futon again. But anyway..this isn't supposed to be about me, it's supposed to be about the books.. God, I hope I finish the first within a couple of years.. So tired of every day "How's the book coming alone?" as if overnight I might be three chapters further along. Writing is a very delicate and nit-picky process, people! It's not like poetry, that should just flow without too much deep thought. This is storytelling. Everything has to be precise and perfect if the readers are going to get the clearest picture possible. Sure, every now and then, it just flows out of my pen, but that's just a few paragraphs or pages at a time. All of these little blurbs have to be sorted, sifted through to see which ones are good as-is or need to be changed, then strung together with filler and the rest of the important stuff. All of that, and I just can't accept the fact that I don't have to write from beginning to end.. ::cough::

Ugh..

This is what happens when I sit down and force myself to write. Certainly not my best stuff.. Sounds like I'm trying too hard, ne?

With the smell of blood thick on the air, it was a wonder she managed to escape the dogs that had, until a few minutes before, been snacking on her heels. Luckily for her, it was night, and the men could not see the red that stained the stream. The water, too, saved her in that it deadened the scent of blood, the dogs losing her trail. She did her best to steady her rapid breathing that comes from running six miles from those who'd love to carry her head home on their spears.
The hollow created by the stream running under a tree root proved to be sufficient shelter from the bounty hunters, for in a few minutes she could no longer hear the beying of the hounds or the grunts and snarls of their masters. She waited only a minute more, to be sure, before she crawled into the center of the stream and dared to get to her feet. Her skin looked even grayer in the moonlight, and the blood loss was of no help to that. Gripping her side, where from the blood still flowed due to the spear wound one of the hunters had managed to get in, she stumbled out of the stream and began to run all over again.
The worn-out deer skin boots were of little protection to her feet as she could feel each and every root, stone, and nut she trodded on. She was beginning to regret hiding in the stream as well. November had been cold enough as it was with just thin breeches and a ragged undershirt without them being soaked through. Her long amber hair was soaked as well, sticking uncomfortably to her neck and whipping her back and face whenever she stumbled, which was proving to be often.

To Celebrate my Valiant Return.

The lights were dim in the office. The room's size only made it seem darker. Collar heavy around her neck, Rhia found it difficult to use her night vision. She could not see clearly the face of the man who had called her in. The lamp behind his head was of no help, of course. The manacles chained together around her wrists forced her posture into a stoop, and the collar forced her head down. The dress that clung to her was of a thin and worn material. No surprise that there were holes in the skirt, or that the hems were freyed. It certainly did nothing to hide the scars, new and old, that laced her pale, ashen skin. Her feet were bare as well, calloused from the long march. The plush carpet in the office felt like moss between her toes, and she was grateful for it. The room smelled of incense, though she could just barely pick up the scent of tobacco underneathe the incense. Not uncommon in those times. It smelled good; pleasant.
The door closed behind her. She'd been left alone with the man at the desk; her new master. The fourth since that warlock had cursed her with the collar. The last three had all been a nightmare; she had little hope of this new master being any different.
"Rhiannon, is it?"
His voice was deep, but not so much that it shook her stomach. It seemed to float on the air, caressing her sunburned skin. Her heart gave a flutter and she almost gained the strength to look up at the man's face. Almost; the travel of her gaze ended at the great oak desk he sat behind. His hands were clasped together on top of some papers just in front of him. There was an ash tray at the side of the desk, as well as the incense boat, both filled with ashes. She noticed, too, a small portrait hole, probably containing the portrait of a family member. Mother she supposed, knowing what she did of this faction of the syndicate. A second after she took this all in, she dropped her gaze back to the floor. He took it as a nod, which she'd hopped for.
"Well, I suspect you'll behave yourself for now. Come and sit. Good. I look forward to watching your progress with this family, Miss Typhoon. That's right, I know who you really are. Don't worry about it; it's the reason I bought you in the first place. I'll see what I can do about that collar of yours, hm?"
Alright, so perhaps she was wrong to think this man would be no different from the others. Seems she'd just been bought by her biggest fan.

Eeyah @-@

I've finally got the net up and running at the new house. About time, ne?
I was finally informed by a friend that commenting has not been easy for anyone. I apologize immensely for that. I had no idea it was set to members only being able to comment. That has been changed. Anyone can comment now. And yes, I know the little security bit at the end is a little annoying, but I'd been getting advertising machines posting comments/advertisings on my blog, and that was the best way to stop that, so, deal with it.
Lastly, over the next couple of days, I'll be really cracking down in writing the first book. I have yet to decide whether or not I'll be posting glimpses of the story I have at the time up here. I'm thinking about asking for comments demanding I do so before I post. A good way to encourage people to pass around the fact that this story and website exists. All you reading it now, I urge you to ask people to check this site out, at least read a couple of the writing samples. As anyone might suspect, it's good to have a fan-base before publishing to get good results. Look at Megatokyo, afterall. They probably wouldn't have sold as many copies if there hadn't been millions of people in many countries already anticipating the release date. With that in mind, I might very well go ahead and post the story up here a chapter or so at a time. But I think I'll still go with asking for comments demanding more. Once I have the first chapter written - mind you, it may not be the chapter that's found in the book after the revisions and what not, but it'll be something - I'll let you all know how many people I'll need to comment for me to post. Depending on how that goes, I'll most likely ask for more comments with each chapter. This will not only allow all of you to get a peek into Rhia's beginnings before the story hits the shelves, but it will also get my ass in gear to keep going, knowing people are expecting more.
So do me a favor and let me know what you all think. No excuses now with the commenting problem fixed, so I expect more than one or two comments on each important post, got it? Good. Enjoy ^-^