I am skipping exercise 4 because, in doing exercise 3, I already did it. In Exercise 4, it asks me to write about a person so unstable in his thoughts that he shifts from first person narration to third person narration. Basically, the idea of being unstable as a narrator such that we interchange. However, my narrator from Exercise 3 was undergoing a transition from being a healthy, normal human being to becoming a madman. Therefore, I contend that I have already done this.
Exercise 5: Journalism. Write part of a story in the form of journal entries. Everything that happens will most likely happen between the entries. Make sure your readers can see the events offstage, but also present your journalist's blind spots.
Stipulations: The rules stipulate to keep the entries rather close together and to write fiction, not journalism. This means to me that i have to have the journalist's voice shine through. Furthermore, I have to have a situation where the journalist can write. Not sure what that will be.
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Day 25
It is simply amazing what you find when you are not looking for it. While searching the cursed northern trails for the undead, and it is precisely the undead, which we have not seen. Nature seems to know when you are not looking for something and particularly if you are not interested in her best features, and so she brings out her absolute best to adorn herself with, even in a place known for being filled with absolute disinterest. We set out nearly a month ago from Sarkoshia, and so far, we have met with very little of concern. Even the passage through enemy Morrigar was not a difficult one, and given our magical implements, we were not harassed much.
Morrigar is so eager for legitimate trade, they are almost willing to call it anyone or anything within sight. It was obvious we were neither Xomirian, nor Elcherusian, despite what our papers said. Our accents betrayed us immediately for a rather motley, mixed crew, but even so, that should have been a great signal for someone we were not from one of these friendlier nations to Morrigar. I feel that Morrigar begrudges its shaky, yet necessary, allegiances with Sarkoshia, and only checks so much.
We met a fellow, a Harbor Master perhaps, in Port Okabbis, a snarling, sprawling city that infects the coastline like a rat plague, fronting the rest of the world east of it with a face made of flimsy, clapboard and frayed ropes. The ships forced to harbor there seem to sulk like spoiled children long used to luxury elsewhere, and our own was little exception. But it is far north, bitter and cold, and so the port authorities are loathe to be called from their warm little shacks to seriously examine everything coming through the port. So a few cutthroats peddling some rotten vegetables and sending into the wastelands a crew of bounty hunter types. But this fellow we met there, he was a peculiar one. Didn't look quite Morrigari to me, the way he acted and was dressed. He didn't have that efficiency about him the Morrigari seem to breed into their people and that punctilious nature so many seemed keep as a second nature in their pocket like so many unshelled nuts. No, this one was truly put upon to be out of doors and away from whatever kept him warm, and from the sound of the giggling in his shack, I'd say it was more than a fire.
His uniform was a bit unkempt and no matter how he fidgeted, didn't ever achieve the arrow-straight angles and lines the Morrigari put into everything. His shirtwaist was untucked and buttoned all wrong and it didn't take long for any of us to note he hadn't expected our arrival to be on time, despite our nearly monthly schedule for trade. I believe he said his name was officer Smatress or Smathery or some such name I didn't catch in his accent, which was not Morrigari, but a more lilted, vowely lower Xomirian, or maybe even Elcherusian. He had long mustaches hanging down and black hair, which set up a base camp at his bushy brows. How he got to be such a high-ranking officer amongst such others that would probably rather hang his skin on a wall as much as marvel at its darker tint, was a miracle unto itself.
Anyway, he took our 'early' arrival as a personal affront, and immediately decided he would inspect every damned thing we brought ashore. He wanted to see our manifests, our crates, our barrels. He poked a long, sharpened rod down into bushels of things as though he half expected to stir a potful of bright, sparkly fairies into the air and catch one. It was a rather trying day, and for our troubles of being extra careful of him not seeing just how we intended to smuggle six or seven undeads back to Sarkoshia, I didn't even get to see any half-dressed courtesans peering out of his shack to see when he'd return to them. If he had had any women hidden away in that tiny shack with its dim yellow windows and warm orange light, they were either well ensconced in a corner like half-drunk wine barrels, or the smallest people ever to live, but I know that I heard the sounds of laughter from within. Feminine laughter. The bastard, I thought, he'd gotten all the good women to himself tonight.
We arrived late, as I said, so we did not proceed past Port Okabbis. The road beyond leads through some rocky badlands riddled with thieves and wolves and all manner of unpleasant things. So, after our inspection was done, and the premature winter night stepped on the town, we roosted in the only inn, The Bucket. I'm pleased to have very little to report that happened at the Bucket, except that, if there are any women of value here in this town, that damned foreigner Harbormaster had inspected them and kept them for himself.
Day 30
As I said in a previous entry, when you are not looking for it, there it is. We lost three of our number yesterday, as we stumbled upon a werpial unawares. At least, we were unaware the damned thing lived about. Apparently, there is little that shields us from the eyes of a werpial, though we have much to shield us from the eyes of the undead. Of course, this beast does not 'see' the same way, and perceived our warmth and our vitality, and our physical persons, rather than the souls underneath as the undead so often do.
The trail had taken a downturn into a valley and through a particularly thick growth of evergreens, apparently the creature's territory. As none of us are particular experts about these bizarre creatures, it is difficult to say whether or not we should have seen sign. The beast lunged out of the bushes and crushed one of our men beneath its paws. With a shake of its head, it snapped the man's neck, which was pinned firmly in the grip of its mouth, and proceeded to tear at his throat. The werpial's primary defense is its large amounts of extra and extremely filthy flesh and spines along its backside. It requires very long spears to kill one of these creatures, and we did not have long spears. We had poles for catching and holding undead, but they were bound on our mounts. Needless to say, we tried to give as much as we got, but the creature's spines and the infection they carried, killed three of our men, and these not even the slaves we brought with us to help manage the undead we were truly after.
We did not even manage to kill the creature. It took one of its victims with it to presumably eat.
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I dunno. If people want me to continue this, I will. I really don't like this exercise, or at least I cannot seem to come up with anything for it much that isn't a novel right now. However, I got a decent description out of it, and an interesting idea did come about from it that I might use later.
I'm thinking that the story was really at the port, where the port authority guy was being manipulated by a vampire. I have been having interesting ideas about vampires. They are, basically, like magical, pseudo-demonic gangsters (no, not the illuminati common to Blade movies or other secret society vampires), but more like creatures that can be very entertaining to a person from whom they are robbing something. Sometimes, they suck blood, sometimes, they suck life or vitality or energy, and sometimes they merely eat up a person's time. I'm thinking the Port Authority guy was given imaginary girls through vampire magic, and so he was unlikely to upset any apple carts. Vampires are not resisted not as much because they are so powerful, but because they do things that are entertaining, though evil. They do hurt and kill people, but they also recruit people who will allow them to do it. They are the pornographers, the illegal casino owners, etc. Vampires will cheat and manipulate people, and will make the people enjoy it. Basically, vampires will exploit a person's vices and lack of self-control.
Yes, they will drink blood, but mainly, they live through other people, sucking blood, energy, breath, and memories out of people. A friend of mine, Brennen, suggested that vampires are OCD, and this may be a motivation for this behavior, in that they enjoy eating the lives out of other people without getting any of the ill effects. Honestly, I'm tired of vampires trying to make blood-drinking look appealing. The most egregious and ridiculous examples being the Twilight movie where Bella drinks blood out of a friggin' cup with a STRAW. Blood doesn't replace sex or beer for Trithofar vampires, I'm thinking. Instead, vampires get something out of the taking from a person, and among that they get power and experiences and knowledge and unnatural life.
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