The Pond - Part 32

Izolda’s mother had often warned her about the consequences of using the dark magic, the price that would have to be paid. This was why the women of their family eschewed the darkness and clung to the light. Though she had nodded in agreement at the time, in her mind Izolda had scoffed at such warnings.

The price for the dark magic she and Varnya performed seemed inconsequential – releasing the essence of special herbs they gathered through fire, the spilling of their own blood, taking the life of an animal – when it gave them such power.

But Varnya had remained hidden, lest others become aware of what she was doing, the source of her magic. And it had darkened her soul. Izolda had been more careful in her dealings in the dark arts, but now, here was proof she had not been careful enough.

“Rusalka!” The name was both a judgement and a curse. “How can this be?”

“Ask yourself,” the creature told her.

Initial shock over, Izolda struggled to her feet again. “My circle compels you to remain; my potion compels you to speak the truth. Why have you taken this form?”

“Because it is my own.”

“No. The one whose form this is was left far from here.”

“And yet, here I am. The manner of my death has allowed me to become what I am.”

“That is impossible. A true rusalka is tied to the water where she died. You did not die in this place.”

“I would not be the first to win their freedom through an application of power.” The girlish voice was all the more disturbing coming from the skeletal, weed covered creature. “Did you not once vanquish a rusalka who had the ability to move from place to place?”

Izolda showed no surprise that the creature knew this. “Varnya was not a true rusalka. She merely took on the appearance of one when it suited her. How are you able to relocate?”

“Power. Much power.”

“Whose power? You had none of your own when you died, nor would a true rusalka have the kind of power you have shown.”

“Mine is not the only soul you have taken. I am not the only one who wishes vengeance.”

There was a clap of thunder, and Izolda’s circle was broken. The creature vanished beneath the water and Izolda was left trembling with impotent rage.

She returned to her home, a little numb with the knowledge of what she was facing. Going straight to her workroom, she sat in the rocking chair and began to rock. She had much thinking to do.


In the morning, she emerged from her workroom to start breakfast for Dmitri and Nicolai. With Marta gone she would be doing the household duties on her own. At least until they could find someone to replace her.

Father and son waited until she filled a plate of her own and sat down before they started eating. No one seemed to have much to say. No one seemed to have much of an appetite either. Finally, Izolda excused Dmitri from the table, to go to his room.

As soon as he was gone, she turned to Nikolai. “We should leave. This place is cursed.”

“Leave? And go where?” Nikolai frowned.

“We could go to the city, where your brother is. We could—”

“No.” His tone was implacable.

“But—”

“This is our home. We will stay, no matter what.”

With that, Nikolai rose from the table. Calling to Dmitri, the pair left for the mill. Izolda’s fists clenched. He may believe the conversation was over, but he was wrong.

Whitney Verse Form

If you like the Japanese forms with their lack of rhyme and strict syllable counts, you’ll love the Whitney. This form was created by Betty Ann Whitney, an American poet, writer, and visual artist living in Florida.

The Whitney is a single stanza of seven lines with 28 syllables in total – 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 7.

Schematic:

xxx
xxxx
xxx
xxxx
xxx
xxxx
xxxxxxx

And that’s pretty much all there is to it. There’s no mention of a theme, no constraints on subject matter, and there’s no rhyme involved. At first I thought this form is simple enough that even the most timid of novice poets can master it with ease. But when I went to write my example it took a little more thought than I expected. However, once I got the hang of it, it was kind of hard to stop.


Sun setting
temperatures
start to drop
the wind dying
night falling
the moon rises
the stars begin to appear


mist rising
foghorn sounding
a lonely
distant echo
of times past
when ships would sail
sans benefit of radar


one day you
will look behind
and all that
you will see is
regret and
broken pledges
act now, while there is still time

Step Aside, Inner Critic

Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take it’s place. When you make a mistake, forgive yourself, learn from it, and move on instead of obsessing about it. Equally important, don’t allow anyone else to dwell on your mistakes or shortcomings or to expect perfection from you.
― Beverly Engel

Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.
― Amy Leigh Mercree

When we direct a lot of hostile energy toward the inner critic, we enter into a losing battle.
― Sharon Salzberg

One of the nice things about going away for a retreat is that I don’t have to wrack my brain trying to figure out what to write here for a few weeks. Unfortunately though, some of the workshops I wasn’t able to take a lot of notes, so I won’t be able to share all of them, and as I’m finding out today, some of my notes are . . . well, let’s just say my note-taking leaves much to be desired.

As I mentioned last week, I missed the first workshop on memoir writing, so the first one I actually got to was called, Step Aside, Inner Critic, presented by Adrian Michael Kelly.

He began by talking about resistance. Resistance never stops. When you sit down to write, it will change you. It’s an engine of destruction – implacable, intractable, indefatigable. You need to reduce it to a single cell and destroy it.

This resistance attacks by flooding your inner world with feelings of failure, negativity, and self-doubt. If you don’t fight back, resistance creates a vision of a bleak future stripped of all possibility. On bad days it does feel like a battle. If you’re saying yes to the writing life, you’re saying yes to resistance.

At its best, writing will bewilder you. It’s easier to accomplish it with a better mood. Practice self-care. Upper most in accomplishing this is to maintain a regular sleep schedule. Lack of sleep will reduce your energy levels.

Befriend your unconscious. Train your body and your mind to work together. A healthier life style leads to better, and more productive, writing. Exercise before sitting down to write, it will energize you. Do the most strenuous exercise you can.

Adopt a healthy eating plan. Healthy eating will compliment your sleep and exercise and maintain your vitality. Avoid alcohol or other chemical substances while writing, an altered mental state is not beneficial to the writer.

Regular meditation is also beneficial. It will center you and make you calmer. It enables you to face difficult situations easier. If your thoughts tend to run rampant, meditation, practiced on a daily basis can help calm your mind. It also helps bring awareness of your body.

We can’t think our way around resistance, we have to work at it.

Recommended reading: The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield, and The Tools by Dr. Philip Stutz

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Sadly, I do not have all that much to review for the past week. I was still feeling a little under the weather from whatever bug I had while I was at the retreat, and when I saw my doctor early in the week she put me on a new medication (for an ongoing problem) that really knocked me on my ass.

I don’t know if it just exacerbated the stomach bug I already had, or if the side effects were just really bad on their own, but I spent the bulk of my week headachy, nauseated, and super tired, among other things.

Anyway, I ultimately decided to go off of it temporarily to let my body get back to normal. Then I’m going to seriously consider the benefits versus the drawbacks of this medication. I was assured that the side effects would only last four weeks, tops, but I’ve heard that before with other drugs that didn’t work for me. And given the severity of my reaction to it after just a few days . . .

NEW WORDS:
1506+638+340+734=3,218
UP – 20 words from last week

Let’s just say the spirit was willing but the body was really tired and sick last week, shall we? I had big plans, and not a whole lot going on for the week, but the stupid side effects took care of that for me.

While I didn’t get all my blogs up on time, I at least got them up, which is saying something. I even got my serial installment done. Of course I’d like to go back and rewrite it, but it is what it is, and the story is just a draft version. It’s starting to wind down, I think, which is a good thing.

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 hours
It’s really hard to think about editing when you’re feeling sick and tired.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. I bought myself a laminator, but I haven’t tried it out yet. That’s as good as it got.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new. Figure out Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Poetry has once again saved me from being a compete and utter fraud as a writer. I shared the Echo verse as my form for the week. It’s different, but I don’t see me writing an abundance of them. And I wrote a poem about superstition for the poetry group. It turned out okay, but it wasn’t the poem I wanted it to be. *shrugs* It happens sometimes.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
*Hangs head in shame* You’d think with all that time I spent feeling crappy where I sat literally doing nothing, I could have been working on the afghan, but I didn’t. A few of the ladies from the stitchery group have been meeting at the library on alternate weeks to our regular meeting, and I did drop in for a bit, but we were so busy chatting I didn’t even pull my afghan out of its bag.

Goal For Next Week:
Push to get the afghan done so I’m free to work on other stuff with a clear conscience.

WHAT I’M READING:
I did a little better, reading wise. I finished Hex Appeal, by Kate Johnson, and also The Witching Well, by Shelley Dorey. It’s the first of a trilogy, and I’ve started book 2, Spellbound. I’ve also started reading The Knockoff Eclipse by Melissa Bull, which was a book included in my goody bag from the retreat.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the slow and steady ready pace.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I’m really hesitant to make too many plans for this week, just in case I go back on that medication and it knocks me on my butt again. On the other hand, I don’t want another week to go by where I don’t get anything done.

I actually did find a few extra minutes before going to the gym one morning to get my morning pages done, but thanks to feeling so tired and crappy, I only made it to the gym twice last week. Of course I suppose I could have done them on the days I didn’t go, but I never thought of it.

I would definitely like to make a bigger effort to start working in my office this week, and getting my writing done during the day so I can be working on the afghan during the evenings. I also want to learn how to use my laminator. This should be interesting, with my two very nosy sidekicks around.

And I really need to start typing out the notes I took while at the retreat. There are a couple of stories I have the bare bones for that I’d like to pursue as well.

Looks like I’ve got lots to do, now all I need is to find the get-up-and-go to do it.

The Pond - Part 31

Everyone in the tiny community came to Pavlina’s funeral. Dmitri stood stoically between Izolda and Nikolai. His father had one hand resting on this shoulder, as though to reassure himself that he would not disappear.

Izolda was like a statue, her face white marble. She shed no tears, made no sound. In fact, after that first wail of grief and loss when Pavlina’s body was brought to her, not a word had passed her lips. Many of those gathering whispered at the sight of her. Some made a furtive sign against evil.

Dmitri snuffled as his sister’s body was lowered into the dark hole in the ground, and even Nikolai had big, fat tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks. But Izolda stood immobile, eyes hard and dry.

And still she stood, as the others filed by, some throwing handfuls of dirt into the grave, others flowers. When all the rest had gone, Nikolai turned and touched Izolda on the arm.

“Come, wife,” he said. “There is nothing left for us here.”

She ignored him, refusing to move. After a moment, he turned again and led their son back home, leaving her behind.

The sun was starting to lower in the sky before a shiver went through Izolda and she finally stirred. Her gaze lifted and she looked from the grave towards the pond. Something passed over her face then, and had there been anyone to see, they would have fled in fear.

Slowly, she made her way home, her steps heavy. There was a pot of stew still simmering on the stove, courtesy of one of the village women, but she ignored it and went straight to her work room, locking herself in.

She went to the trunk where she kept her spell books, delving deep and bringing up the oldest of the books she’d acquired from Varnya. Flipping through the pages, it didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Silently she read what was on the page twice over, then began gathering ingredients.

Using a mortar and pestle, she ground the herbs fine and transferred them to a ceramic bowl, then added liquids and stirred, chanting under her breath. Waving a hand over the bowl, she chanted a little louder and a wisp of vapour wafted upwards.

Nodding in satisfaction, she decanted the mixture into a small, blue bottle, sealed it, putting it in the pocket of her dress. Then she mixed a handful of dirt she had brought with her from the graveyard into a bag of salt and took it with her. Without stopping to clean up her mess, as she usually would, she left the house and disappeared into the night.

Nikolai made as though to follow her but she flicked a hand towards him and suddenly he had the urge to sit by the fire. Women were mysterious creatures, there was no need to see what his wife was up to. She would mourn in her own way.

It was fully dark when Izolda left her house, but she did not need a light to make her way to the pond. Without hesitation, she began to pace around the edge of the pond, leaving a trail of salt in her wake. When the circle of salt was complete, she stood just inside it, raised her hands high in the air, and began to chant.

A wind rose up, but she ignored it. The water in the pond churned and bubbled, and she ignored it. Three times she chanted, never wavering from her place. When she finished the third round of the chant, she took the bottle from her pocket, unsealed it, and hurled it into the pond. The water seethed and boiled, accompanied by an unearthly shriek.

“By my power, light and dark, I demand you show yourself,” Izolda shouted.

Still shrieking, something rose from the center of the pond. It’s woman-like figure was draped in the remnants of a gown, it’s hair entwined with seaweed and crustations. Black water sluiced off of it as it fully manifested.

“What are you?” Izolda demanded. “Who are you?”

“Do you not recognize me?” the creature asked.

Izolda took a step closer.

“You made me, dear friend.”

“No, it cannot be!” Izolda sank to her knees.

Echo Verse Poem

As might be inferred from its name, the Echo verse repeats the sound at the end of each line in the imitation of an echo. It was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries in Italy, France, and England, usually in pastoral poetry or drama.

There is no set rhyme scheme, meter, or length to the Echo poem. The echo can be the same word or a homophone (a word that has the same sound but a different meaning and spelling, like two, too, and to, or there, their, and they’re).

There are a couple of different ways to write an echo verse.

The echo can be on the same line:
This wasn’t meant to be, be
There is no need to plea, plea
It’s all the same to me, me
But I drank up all the tea, tea

It can be given a line of its own:
The melting snow
snow
Is good to see
see
Spring is here
here
Without a doubt
Doubt

Or you can write it so the echo compliments, or continues the previous line:
I walked along the aisle, isle
To see what there should be, bee
And stopped beside the dam, damn
I couldn’t really hear, here

Even though it was the hardest of the three, I kind of liked the one using the homophone, it seemed like more of a poem. Leave it to me to wait until late at night and the choose the hardest of the three examples. :-D


The tome I held had weight, wait
I read this book last week, weak
With the end of mourning, morning
That shone with the sun, son
That was so sweet, suite
a symphony of peace, piece
That pierces the soul, sole
That makes me whole, hole
Left by a knot, not.

Shake It Up Baby!

When I write, I can shake off all my cares.
— Anne Frank

'Shake It Up' definitely teaches kids about the importance of reaching for your dreams and setting high goals. It also teaches great lessons about friendship and family.
— Zendaya

I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up.
— Mary Cassatt

Well, here I am again, at a writer’s retreat in Kingston. I’m hoping this will be what I need to shake things up a bit and jump start my writing mojo. I think it might be working because as much as I like being here, I’m kind of looking forward to going home and working in my newly re-arranged office.

I have to say, the retreat did not get off to a great start. I thought I left in plenty of time on Thursday, but I hadn’t counted on some unnaturally heavy traffic. So . . . I was already running behind by the time I got to Kingston, and then my infallible sense of direction failed me when I turned right when I should have turned left. By the time I reached the hotel, it was already more than 30 minutes into the first workshop. So I parked the car at the hotel, and went wandering until the second workshop.

I’ll be discussing some of what I’ve learned in future posts, so for now I’m just going to share my first impressions. Of the nine workshops that have been held so far (I’m writing this on Saturday evening) I have missed two – one accidentally and one on purpose – I really enjoyed two, I’ve been disappointed in two, and today’s were great, so-so, and okay.

There’s not as much actual writing as I expected, and these people talk way too fast for effective note taking. So really, I’m not sure how my future blog posts are going to turn out. I did write a rather humorous story about a talking hand though.

There are about half a dozen of us who paid for the four-day pass, so I see them at most of the workshops. Then there are a few who are local and were able to just pick and choose what they wanted participate in. I think the most surprising group was the workshop for writing Rom Coms, which included several men.

And I don’t know if it’s stress, poor eating, or what, but I’ve been feeling pretty crappy since I’ve arrived. Coffee started having an adverse effect on my stomach, so I’ve been drinking a lot of water and green tea. I felt slightly better today, so hopefully I’ve taken a turn for the better.

The other part of the shaking it up I’ve got for you, is the changes to the wordage report that I talked about last week. Turns out the retreat has left me with some time on my hands that I don’t care to fill with watching TV or reading. And the weather has been too crappy to take any of those nice long walks I was planning on.

So I redesigned the Wordage Report a bit to include “The Week in Review” and “The Week Ahead.” I’m hoping having what I intend to do written down will encourage me to actually . . . do some of it. :-D

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Well, let’s see. It started out with my car having to go into the shop. Is it just me, or does my car go on the fritz every time I have to go more than 100 kilometres out of town? As you recall, the last time my car went on the fritz was around Christmas when I was supposed to go to Hamilton. And here’s a bit of trivia for you, Cobourg is almost halfway between Hamilton and Kingston.

Fortunately, the dealership was able to take my car in on Monday and I had it back on Tuesday. But I was still forced to take the hubby’s car to my stitchery gathering. I’m not fond of his car, I feel like I’m sitting on the road – I drive a GMC Terrain, he drives a Hyundai Genesis.

Despite this being the March Break, we only saw the granddaughter on Wednesday, which is a shame because she’s a lot of fun to be around. Then after her mother picked her up I spent the rest of the evening getting ready for Writersfest.

NEW WORDS:
1895+399+272+632=3,198

UP – 438 words from last week

Technically, I do have more words to show for my week, but I haven’t had time to type them out, so I can't really include them.

With the exception of Sunday’s post, they were all up on time, even the serial installment which I had to finish here. And kudos to me for getting two of them written while I was in Kingston.

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 hours
Well, you can hardly blame me, I was a little busy getting ready for Writersfest. But thank you Writersfest! I’m actually looking forward to getting back to work on Elemental Spirit.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
No tech to speak of, unless you count attempting to connect to the hotel wifi (they changed their access and forgot to change the info card that came with their key cards) but I’ve got seven workshops of training under my belt. And I’m coming away with a new desire to keep learning. AND I really need to get on top of backing up all my stuff to Dropbox.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new. Figure out Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Technically, last week’s poetry words should have been included in the word count from the week before, because that’s when I had them written. I believe there’s a gathering of my poetry group scheduled for this week – guess I’d better check my email to see what the poemwork is.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share, do my poemwork.

CRAFTING:
Seeing as there was a stitchery gathering last week, I got a few more rows done on the afghan. Only three more colours to go! And if I actually stick to my plan to do more work in my office this week, I’ll get to crochet while watching TV at night.

Goal For Next Week:
Push to get the afghan done so I’m free to work on other stuff with a clear conscience.

WHAT I’M READING:
Believe it or not, I didn’t do much reading last week. Not even while I was away. I took four books with me, figuring I’d have plenty of time to read, but I didn’t. I’m about a quarter of the way through Hex Appeal, by Kate Johnson, and that's it.

Goal For Next Week:
Maybe try to increase my reading just a little.

THE WEEK AHEAD:
As much as I’ve enjoyed being here at Writersfest, I’m looking forward to being back at home. The chairs here are not as comfortable as they are at home, and the weather has prevented me from venturing too far from the hotel to forage for food. The restaurant here has a limited menu and it’s pretty pricy.

One of the things we learned on the first day was about daily pages – where you get up in the morning and immediately free write for 15-30 minutes before doing anything else. This is fine while I’m here, or even on the weekend, but during the week I get up at 5:30 a.m. and have just enough time to get dressed and drive to the gym, I really don’t see myself getting up 15 minutes earlier just to freewrite. I’m going to have to figure out how to modify this.

I would like to spend more time working in my office, and I can’t see any reason why I can’t begin to do so, other than my own mental hangups. And if I’m working in my office during the day, this will free me up to work on crafts during the night. The projects are piling up again.

We had one poetry workshop, and while I was a little ambivalent about the instructor, I did come away with a few ideas to apply to working on a poetry anthology. Or two. Or more. Time to pick up that big book ‘o poems and crack it open.

Two more workshops to go, and then it’s home again, home again, hot diggity dog.

The Pond - Part 30

With Mikhail safely away, things became very quiet. Izolda did not trust the quiet.

There were times she caught Nikolai looking at her with a strange look on his face, as though he was about to ask her something, but then he’d turn away without saying anything.

The water in the well of one of the outlying farms became tainted, and the entire family died, as did much of their livestock. No one could understand how such a think could happen – none of the other sources of water were affected.

Nikolai fought with his elder brother Konstantin. It began as something trivial but exploded into near violence. The result was Konstantin uprooting his family to look for better luck elsewhere. Others took this as a sign and began moving away as well.

Izolda kept her remaining children close by her side. If anyone thought this was odd, they knew better than to say anything. Her temper, never even at the best of times, was beginning to fray. The stress of her continued failure to stop the entity was wearing on her.

Where once Nikolai enjoyed good fortune in everything he did, now he seemed to have nothing but ill luck. It became rare that a week would go by without an accident happening at one of the logging camps – one man received a serious slice in his arm when the cross cut saw he was using snapped, another lost the use of his legs when a tree fell wrong, and a third lost his life when a log stack gave way.

“Another family has moved away,” Marta, the woman employed as a housekeeper and to help watch over the children, said one evening.

“Who was it this time?” Izolda asked, when Nikolai said nothing.

“Lavin and his wife Sara. They packed up their children and their belongings, and left like thieves in the night.”

“That is the third family this month,” Izolda said.

“It makes you wonder who might be next.”

Nikolai rose from where he’d been sitting and left without a word, slamming the door behind him.

Izolda could hardly blame him. Life had never been easy in their small settlement, but now it was becoming next to intolerable. It was like an impending storm was about to break. And when it did, it was a blow none of them expected.

A few days later, Marta came to Izolda, white faced. “I have looked everywhere, but I cannot find her,” she said.

“Who are you talking about?” Izolda asked impatiently, angry at being disturbed.

“Pavlina. I left her napping in her room, but she is gone.”

Izolda went white as bone. “If anything has happened to her, I will kill you with my bare hands,” she vowed.

All work was suspended and search parties were quickly gathered and sent out. Dimitri had been out with his father at the time and knew nothing of his sister’s whereabouts. Izolda demanded that he stay with her while the others searched, and if she held onto him a little too tightly he knew better than to protest.

When the men finally returned, just before sunset, she had only to look at their grim faces to know the worst had happened. Izolda’s keening wail of grief sent the birds in the surrounding tress to wing.

Pavlina had been found in the pond, floating face up, but still quite dead, ringed in water lilies.

The next day, Marta was found hanging by her apron from a tree just outside the village.