Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Walking on Cobblestones

This is the opening paragraph to a WIP that I am playing around with. I am not sure if it will go anywhere: maybe it will... maybe it won't. The Main Character is an archaeologist who is in search of her holy grail and winds up with less than she hoped for. Unfortunately her hopes make her blind to the facts and the maneuverings that follow leads her on a winding road through political intrigue and religious squabbles.

For starters: What do you think of the title? The character: Love her? hate her? Is she sympathetic sounding? Intriguing?
As always: The characters and events in this post and all connected posts are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. 


Gleaming white against a backdrop of cerulean sky, she ascends amidst the rock and clay, angel of light rising up in an intangible dusk that has followed her halfway around the world. She stretches her arms outward as though to take in the broken and shattered, hands aching palpably. Involuntarily, she rubs the hollowed center of her hand, sensing the inarticulated connection. She stares into the clouds, heart aching for the brokenness she senses crying out in the darkness. She looks up, her mute supplications carried up on the wings of the wind as it whips up and over the rock, lifting her scarf vertically out from unyielding shoulders, a semaphore for change in the days ahead. Oblivious to the gales that assault and batter, she is statuesque, patiently awaiting the days ahead. Gray pillows boil toward her on the desert’s horizon, hungrily swallowing all that is in their path. The laying out of battle plans: gathering of forces, placement of reinforcements, lines being laid for attack are in full operation by the forces that will bombard are all that concerns her. Alliances have been made, the enemies of her enemies moving together, whispering conspiracy that her eavesdropping ears picked up in the halls she once dominated. Impending attacks from distant shores are what she deliberates and prepares for, knowing they will attempt to assail her position so she will be vulnerable to a full on assault with the final aim of making her their inverted Hypatia. Her arms raise involuntarily once more, vulnerability in gesture and frame, yielding to heaven as gracefully as Henry the Eighth’s second wife.

4 comments:

  1. Love the title "walking on cobblestones".

    ReplyDelete
  2. The title is fine, but, in my opinion, this prose is really purple. It works for novels of a different era or for a genre that demands purple prose but is this what you are going for? If what you are writing is aimed at a contemporary market, I could strike out half the adjectives you are using here. I would like to know more of the background/goals that you are working toward with this piece. In other words...is your audience a PhD professor and publication in some Cornell or Harvard Journal where exactly 100 people will read it?

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  3. Hi Sweet!

    I love the poetry in this piece and it really feels 'other worldly' to me. As though she is from another time. And I love the title.

    Hope you're having a fab week!

    xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Delores! Haven't completely decided about the title. It might be too wimpy for the content (if I go ahead with the story)

    Michael: Probably.

    Talei: Your the dearest! Thanks for the good word. I know it's not standard fare so it's not everybody's cup of tea so the good word is much appreciated!

    And to all three! I appreciate the time you all took to read this and comment!!!

    ReplyDelete

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