Make with the Writey!!
I am very very guilty lately of bailing on writing when I really should be getting some work done. It's not like I don't like writing. I love writing. It's just hard to start sometimes. And I am very lazy. I say to myself, "I'm going to have to write later today." and a tiny inner voice responds, "You and I both know that you're not." to which I nod my head resignedly.
So last night to break some of this writer's-block ice I decided to write a short sketch for a project I'm not currently working on, but am looking forward to if I ever get my act together and finish this novel. Sometimes it feels good just to take a break and write something different.
Now, I don't intend to usually do this...I'm paranoid about sharing my writing on the internet...but since it's short and for a future project I thought I'd post it.
It's a character sketch for my fantasy satire. Which as of yet, has no real plot, a vague sense of atmosphere, and plenty of characters. It's only a page, so it's not very long. So check it out!
Hope ya'll like it!
Her mother had been a beauty of great renown. That’s what Vail had been told. Young men had serenaded her at her window, poets had written epic odes to her, and scores of the rejected had thrown themselves off cliffs for her. Admittedly she still is unbelievably beautiful, but after the addition of thirty years, a possessive husband (who, incidentally, was pretty handy with the rifle), and three kids…well…there are rather less love-struck suicides.
Dad was always saying that Vail was the spitting image of her mother. She couldn’t help but notice that dear old mom would stiffen up and pointedly leave the room upon hearing this. To some degree it was true. Vail had the same wave of long blonde hair as her mother. It was good hair, even Vail had to admit, great hair in fact. The kind of suspiciously healthy hair that one would think could only be the result of a disciplined team of fifty men and women each having studied a different hair care product for the last twelve years of their lives. This, however, was not the case. Must be the shampoo fairies.
She’d inherited her mother’s perfect skin and sharp brown eyes…but the problems came in what she had inherited from her daddy. His slow metabolism, short stature, and propensity to spit in the faces of people he didn’t like all passed along quite nicely to his sweet little girl.
Vail wouldn’t call herself fat, she wouldn’t think it necessary to say pudgy, and she’d sooner die than let the phrase “pleasantly plump” pass her lips. What she would say, were you to bring up the question, would be, “Well, I’m not a stick if that’s what you mean.”
She had a critical nature and was quite intelligent. She’d had the best education money could buy. She was talented, and, assuredly beautiful, though not in the conventional consumptive sense. She could also shoot the warts off a frog, if you wanted to know. That goes over great at parties.
However, what you would call, the main facet of Vail’s character, that is, what people tended to remember her for, was a series of personality traits that all became one basic impression. Simply put, she was a complete and utter jackass.
It’s important that we accept this and not wrap this up in pretty bows and paper. She is not sassy. She is not high spirited. She is definitely not an assertive woman doing whatever it takes to make it in a man’s world. She’s just a jerk. A jerk.
But that’s okay; she’s in good company.
So last night to break some of this writer's-block ice I decided to write a short sketch for a project I'm not currently working on, but am looking forward to if I ever get my act together and finish this novel. Sometimes it feels good just to take a break and write something different.
Now, I don't intend to usually do this...I'm paranoid about sharing my writing on the internet...but since it's short and for a future project I thought I'd post it.
It's a character sketch for my fantasy satire. Which as of yet, has no real plot, a vague sense of atmosphere, and plenty of characters. It's only a page, so it's not very long. So check it out!
Hope ya'll like it!
Her mother had been a beauty of great renown. That’s what Vail had been told. Young men had serenaded her at her window, poets had written epic odes to her, and scores of the rejected had thrown themselves off cliffs for her. Admittedly she still is unbelievably beautiful, but after the addition of thirty years, a possessive husband (who, incidentally, was pretty handy with the rifle), and three kids…well…there are rather less love-struck suicides.
Dad was always saying that Vail was the spitting image of her mother. She couldn’t help but notice that dear old mom would stiffen up and pointedly leave the room upon hearing this. To some degree it was true. Vail had the same wave of long blonde hair as her mother. It was good hair, even Vail had to admit, great hair in fact. The kind of suspiciously healthy hair that one would think could only be the result of a disciplined team of fifty men and women each having studied a different hair care product for the last twelve years of their lives. This, however, was not the case. Must be the shampoo fairies.
She’d inherited her mother’s perfect skin and sharp brown eyes…but the problems came in what she had inherited from her daddy. His slow metabolism, short stature, and propensity to spit in the faces of people he didn’t like all passed along quite nicely to his sweet little girl.
Vail wouldn’t call herself fat, she wouldn’t think it necessary to say pudgy, and she’d sooner die than let the phrase “pleasantly plump” pass her lips. What she would say, were you to bring up the question, would be, “Well, I’m not a stick if that’s what you mean.”
She had a critical nature and was quite intelligent. She’d had the best education money could buy. She was talented, and, assuredly beautiful, though not in the conventional consumptive sense. She could also shoot the warts off a frog, if you wanted to know. That goes over great at parties.
However, what you would call, the main facet of Vail’s character, that is, what people tended to remember her for, was a series of personality traits that all became one basic impression. Simply put, she was a complete and utter jackass.
It’s important that we accept this and not wrap this up in pretty bows and paper. She is not sassy. She is not high spirited. She is definitely not an assertive woman doing whatever it takes to make it in a man’s world. She’s just a jerk. A jerk.
But that’s okay; she’s in good company.