The Kindness Bench for SimLit Writers - For All Games!
What is a kindness bench? Kindness benches are inspired by the Buddy Bench movement which is in practice in many schools. With Buddy Benches, children who need someone to play with or talk to at lu...
@CathyTea *hugs, many hugs* Thank you, very much a lot.
I took that test you linked a couple pages ago, and it said that my purpose for being creative was to help and to create positive change and that sort of thing
So telling me "Just write for yourself and it shouldn't matter if anyone ever responds" isn't helpful, because I don't write for myself. I need to feel like what I write has some purpose and point outside of myself.
And the only skill I have 10 points in is writing, so that's the only thing I have to give. So it's important to me that it be a worthy present, that there is some point in giving it.
Actually my next highest skill would be photography, at maybe a 4 or 5, and then after that I'm lucky if I can scrounge up 2 points in any of the other skills, lol.
Is this the part you mean, about the darkness and its longing for the human?
I tell the hedges many things. I tell them about the human, about the walks we took together. I tell them about fishing the human out of the deep blue, and what that took from me. I tell them about the human’s one skin, and all the universes it holds inside itself.
I slip through the shadows of the hedgemouths, but they do not move. The maze does not answer.
I arrive at an end of the hedges. The leaves rustle as a breeze blows through.
I thought the human would be here, at the end. I thought that if I made it through the maze I would see the human again, but there’s only a tree and a rock and high stone walls.
I step out of the shadows and into the light, and the light burns and burns, and I scream for the human. I scream and scream and it burns and I run the burning into the tree, over and over, and finally the tree is burning too and it is screaming and I am screaming and we are at an edge, but this is not the end.
The breeze picks up embers from our burning. It carries them to the hedges. The teethleaves begin to blacken and curl in on themselves.
I scream, “Where is the human? Where is it?!”
The blackened hedgemouths open and close, open and close, but only smoke comes out.
The maze does not answer.
Probably not. You said begins. *searches through earlier chapters*
Anyway, what you said really does mean a lot. Thank you.
*squints at the excerpt*
I used too much alliteration in that line with all the sl and sh sounds, didn't I? Makes it too obvious. But I do need the repetition of the imagery of the hedgemouths, and how they have teethleaves that are quite sharp.
Edited it and took out one of the sl words, but left both the sh words. That'll work for now, I guess.
Nope, it didn't. Took out the second sh word too.
@ValoisFulcanelli I like that story. It's how like when I pick up the worms that I see that are still alive on the sidewalk and move them.
It gets to me sometimes though that you can't control how open someone else is to the beauty you create. Not as much as it used to, because I've learned a lot about humans and how their tastes and prejudices and attitudes are formed. Still though, it does kind of hurt knowing how many people will never even give my work a chance.
*squints some more at the excerpt*
Well, I guess it doesn't matter, because what I write is not beautiful or good.
