Control

He’s got his life under control.

He knows what he’s doing,

Where he’s going,

And when he’s gonna get there.

He feels the stress

And laughs it off.

He sees his problems

And blows them off.

Day by day it piles up,

And day by day he

Confronts it with

Supreme nonchalance.

He goes around with

His wit and his charm,

He has a quip for everything,

And something to say to anything.

He doesn’t worry about a thing.

Then he goes home,

To that place where facades die,

And he kicks off his shoes.

He puts on something sappy

And he curls up on the couch,

And he cries.

He tries to summon up his wit,

His arguments,

His never-failing reason,

But nothing comes.

So he cries.

Overwhelmed by how much

He’s gotten in over his head.

He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

He doesn’t know where the hell he’s going.

He doesn’t know how the hell he’s going to get there.

In this place the only thing he knows

Is how to cry,

So he does,

So that when the world can see him

He can smile and pretend

That he’s got his life under control.

Drifiting

This is an older one, I wrote it close to a year ago I think, I just haven't shared it with anyone yet. I didn't like it all that much when I wrote it, but now that I read it again in a different state of mind, I rather enjoy it:

Drifting,
Pining,
Wandering endlessly through this monotonous life.
Every day expecting something to change,
Yet every day I’m no closer to what I desire.

Trudging,
Seeking,
Trying to find something in this place that can lift my heavy spirits.
Not knowing what I need,
Or even exactly what I want.
Only knowing that something is missing,
Something vital that disappeared.

I see so much happiness all around me,
Everything I need, I have,
But I can’t settle for what I need,
I have to chase what I want,
I have to find that last thing that my heart desires.

I’ve already been given so much more than I could ever ask for,
Yet I find the words to say I want more.
This ache inside me demands more,
But I can’t name what it is!

And the light turns on,
And I know what my heart desires.

Stopping,
Staring,
Numbly watching as she drifts further away.
Wanting more than anything to cry out for her to stop,
Knowing that it would do no good.
Powerless to stop it as my everything
Leaves me behind.

Forward

I can’t keep up.
I’m racing along as fast as I can,
But it’s all just getting further away.
The ground beneath me is moving me backward,
Or forward?
I lost track somewhere along the way
Which direction I’m supposed to be going.

It all began easily enough.
For four long-
Or were they all too short?-
Years I kept up with all of it just fine.
But all good things must come to an end,
It was time to keep moving forward-
Backward?-
With our lives.

Something new...

So I have clearly failed at the novel challenge, and I have no illusions of getting into The Foretold heavily enough to continue it (not to say that I'm abandoning it of course!). So while I will update as I progress, I am going to use this blog for other miscellaneous writings. Short stories that I'm working on, story concepts that I'm playing with, and some poetry.

I haven't had a medium lately for sharing my work, and I miss it. So, vain as it is, I'm going to start showing off my work for anybody that happens to stop by. To start it all off, a poem I wrote a couple weeks ago. I may eventually decide to convert it to a rhyme scheme, but for now, this is "Rags."


Wandering through a broken city,
Wearing these rags for clothes.
I’m tired of this,
I want something more.

Chapter 1

     Heat blanketed the brown-grassed plains to the north of Symon. Summer’s heat was peaking early this year, and the man resting in the relative cool of a tree’s shade was feeling the effects of it. Jan Raedel reclined against a thick oak trunk, staring lazily over the long flat plains. He couldn’t recall exactly how long he’d been lying there, the sun had put him in a lethargic state long ago, but he was content to remain there until he needed to move.

     His bow was leaning against his right shoulder where it had come to rest after falling from its place propped against the tree. He tried to remember it bumping against his shoulder, but couldn’t seem to manage. Jan relished these days when he could sit alone and relax for hours on end. There was nothing pressing for him to attend to for days yet. As long as he managed to bring something back home with him, it did not matter what he did while he was gone.

Prologue

          Snow fell lightly on the foothills of Mount Arrai where a small army was camped. The camp was so small that many would not even classify it as an army, though numbers are not everything. Strike force might be a better term, a group with a single goal as opposed to drawn out battles or war. The sun had long since fallen beyond the horizon, and a single figure strode purposefully through the paths between tents. 
          There were few fire pits among the quiet tents, and they were dispersed evenly throughout the camp. There were no hearty evening conversations here, no jovial laughter. The camp was as dead and cold as the frozen trees on the flat Northland behind them.
          The figure noted the oppressing quiet with satisfaction, he hired them for their swords not their camaraderie. His cloak blew behind him in the breeze and his hood hung on his back as if winter’s chill did not exist. He walked silently to a large tent near the center of the camp and stopped in front of the two guards on either side of the entrance. Well, not exactly standing, the untrained eye would call them inattentive at best, half asleep at worst. The dozing guards’ eyes snapped open when they heard the approaching footsteps and their hands strayed to the swords at their hips. When the tall man came into view, the guards snapped to attention, and he smiled.

I accept your challenge!

I've been home on summer break for nearly three months now, and I've done about a page's worth of creative writing. Worse, that page wasn't at all related to the story I'm supposed to be writing.

So. The purpose of this blog is to display my progress on Jan's story (the title of which, if you haven't figured out from the blog title, is The Foretold) throughout the month of August. I'm not even going to pretend that I'll be posting daily, you guys will be lucky to see a post every other day from me. That doesn't mean I'm not writing though, just that I'm a little too lazy to post. Whenever I do post, I'll post each chapter (or scene, if I decide against lining out chapters yet) on it's own. You know, to make it look like I've done more than just a post every few days.

I doubt I'll be able to finish this in a month, but I'll certainly get something written for once. I'll post the couple chapters I have written sometime between now and August 1st.

Happy reading,
Holst