God I'm so bad at keeping promises

Hello everyone- yeah I promised I would write more and honestly I should probably stop doing that. Not that anyone of you have any expectations, seeing as like ten people see this blog but still. It's a pretty bad reflection of my character. University is just crazy right now, but seeing as I've been producing a lot of work due to the classes I've been taking you may see some of that here. But no promises.

Grill

All he knew was burgers. Cheeseburgers, burgers with tomato, no pickles please, burgers lathered in barbecue sauce. So many combinations in between two buns. He grilled burgers every day, he loved hearing the sizzling of meat and fat commingling with each other. It was calming, the only calm he had was in the beginning of the day when the restaurant was still closed and the kids were at school and his wife was in their apartment vacuuming or laughing it up on the phone, twisting the cord in between her slender fingers. This was his moment of peace, no noise other than the sizzling. 

Television Time

It should be warned that I watch a lot of television. I will consume episodes on episodes of shows, just plunging into a cycle of pressing "Next Episode" on Netflix. So I thought, since my well of inspiration for writing is usually a little dry, why not take some inspiration from some of my favorite shows. If you're worried (or maybe looking really forward) to fan fiction, don't worry. Most of these pieces will be really short, and simply inspired by these shows. And if you're one of the maybe two people that read this blog (shout out to the person whose been +1ing my posts since the beginning) maybe you can guess what show inspired the piece of writing. Maybe I'll have a prize at the end of the month for the person that guesses the most.

I'll be aiming for two pieces a week until the end of February. See you soon, readers.

Enjoy Some Bad Speculative Fiction I Wrote During Nanowrimo

Sally Mae was convinced she was born in the wrong generation, but it turns out she was in the right generation but simply the wrong dimension. She first got the small trembles of a mind shift and that all was no right when she was six years old. When everyone in her village was named Unka or Symilian or Skdjasjdej, she realized she was the outlier with her name. You know your name must not fit when every fifth child is named Skdjasjdej. It was then that her parents revealed the truth that she knew the whole time: she was adopted. In hindsight, the fact that she was at least ten shades darker than her milky pale parents should have tipped her off but it was the name thing that did her in. Her parents don’t know where she came from, she just drifted in on an ice floe. Her parents were the kindest souls, always taking in the children of the lost so she fit right in. She gained twelve brothers and sisters that night she was brought in.

            Everyone loved Sally Mae. In a village filled with humans, elves, dwarfs and talking goats, someone with dark skin isn’t just going to be not tolerated you racist pricks. 

            But with all the love, tolerance, neutrality, and hate she got, she never felt at home. So when she was thirteen, after an argument with her sister, she set off on the ice floes, toward the sea that she was brought in on to the people she loved the most in the world. She felt that to be fully immersed in the present, she needed to get rid of the mystery surrounding her past.

            She took a canoe in the middle of the night, when the full moon was positioned perpendicular to the village and the green and purple lights streaked through the sky. She would only have four hours until dawn, so she had to be quick. The paddled out, the tiny waves attracting the sea foxes. They were harmless and loved to cuddle. She pet a few of them and tossed a few of the fishes she saved for them. They yipped and followed her, their little webbed paws paddling after her.

            There had been nothing in the air but the crisp frost and the sound of waves when she heard it. It was music. It was nothing like the lutes and the drums that the travelling bards would play, it was more of a sad wailing with occasional screeches but it was music, she could feel it. She frantically paddled, alerting the sea foxes, some of them had fallen asleep on her paddles.

            She saw that there was a hole where the sky should be. Tinged with a glowing blue, what should’ve been the background of icy sea was instead a small hole the size of her fist. She stopped her canoe, slowing right in front of the hole. She peered around it, but there was nothing, on the other side was the same black icy sea. It was a curious thing.

            The music had changed. There was a voice shouting out about a house the called the rising sun in New Orleans. It was nothing like she ever heard. It was such a curious thing. She closed her eyes and swayed to the beat. It was magical, something that she had never felt in the land of charms and enchanters.

            The hole began to close. “No” was all she could gasp. She reached out to touch the hole, not sure what would happen when she did. The blue edge, singed the edge of her glove and she whipped her hand back. It disappeared and she was back to the silence.

“Sally Mae, are you alright? You haven’t touched your breakfast at all today, my lovely.” Her mother pushed her braid behind her ear. “Tell me my pet, what’s wrong?”

            She looked up at her mother. The wrinkles around her face that normally crinkled were pulled down, making her face sag.

            “Mama, I know you don’t like me bringing up my past but I want to know more.”

            Her mother frowned slightly and gestured her to go one.

            “I love you mama, but you have to understand that my past is important to me. I feel different, even though I am human, I feel that there is no one like me.”

            Her mother sighed. “I know, my child. I can’t refuse you your past so ask anything, if I know the question, I will answer it.”

            “First off, why did you give me this name?”

            “Because you told us.”

            They lied. “What do you mean, you told me I was a baby.”

            “You were a baby, my love, don’t think we have deceived you. But you were talking by then, mostly burbles but we understood the name. Sally Mae, you kept saying. Sally Mae. Your father and I thought it was fitting so we gave you the name.”

            She took a deep breath. “Did I come from one of the holes in the sea?”

            Her mother chuckled a little bit. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

            “I went out to the sea last night.” Her mother paled so she spit it out before she could be interrupted. “And I went out and saw a hole and music came out of it, so I was wondering if music could come out, maybe I could’ve-“

            Her mother slammed the table. “You are only thirteen. A little girl compared to the long stretch of life. And you are telling me that you snuck out, stole the canoe and went out into the sea?” Her mother’s pale skin had turned scarlet.

            Sally Mae hung her head. “Yes, I know. I know, but you don’t understand-”

            “What I understand is that you are forbidden to leave this house except to do chores and to go to school. I don’t need you running off. Understood?”

            She nodded her head. “I understand.”

            They were interrupted by the cries of the newest edition of the family. A little dark elf baby named Ilys. She wasn’t the darkest one in the family anymore.

            “Great, we woke the baby.” She put a hand to her head. “Please sweep up and clean up and I’ll be upstairs.”

            She muttered a curse, she knew she shouldn’t have told the truth but she couldn’t help it, this was the only mother she knew, the only one who cared and to betray that trust and lie was a line that she did not want to cross. But seeing that rift in the sea and sky held her curiosity more. She had to consult with Mimira.

Mimira was the village psychic and the only human in the village besides Sally Mae that came from the outside. But Mimira belonged in this world, she hailed from the lands in the south, where the heat never left even if the sun did and the sands would just burn the flesh. She was driven out of her lands because she was a prophet, she could not guess the future but she saw the past clearly, saw the deepest secrets one tried to hide and the ones that no one knew. She was one of Three, the prophets that predicted the past, present and future. You had to know the past to ascertain the future. Her parents didn’t like her at all, and refused Sally Mae to even go near the part of town she was nestled in.  Mimira was the one that she had to see.

            “Mimira.”

            She looked up at Sally Mae, her gold eyes glinting. “Yes, my pet. I’m not the Third but I don’t need to see your future to know that you want me to ask about where you come from.” She motioned to a turquoise sequined pillow on the floor. “Sit.”

            Mimira poured a cup of tea. She passed the brown teacup to Sally Mae who scrunched her nose at the smell. Mimira laughed. “You did not come from this world, child. That is the first thing you should know.”

            “Then where did I come from?”

            “Because of the abundance of magic in this land, it sometimes looks to spread outward. There are rifts in time created. Rifts, portals, wormholes. People have many names for them, so you can call them whatever you want. You came in through one.” She tilted her head back. “You saw one last night, you already had your suspicions of this since you saw it in the sea.”

            Sally Mae felt like she couldn’t breathe. She was getting her answers, but Mimira was stripping her of any doubts. “Then where did I come from?”

            “You came from one of the rifts. The specific one came from a place called New Orleans in 1935.” She frowned. “You were able to escape a great hatred of your kind, you didn’t have to suffer as they did.”

            “Would I be able to go back?”

            “Remember, I can’t tell you the future. But the rifts open there every night, it seems like that place is special.  Not only do they open different worlds but they open different times, and only for a little bit. Who’s to say you’ll find the right time and place to go to your roots.”

            Sally Mae thanked her and gave her a few coins. Mimira thanked her. “Be careful, you’ve seen what the rifts do once they start closing.

Sally Mae did kept that in mind, every night she went back into the sea where she saw the rifts. Her parents were occupied with the baby, and its constant crying. They were dead for the few hours of sleep they got.

            Every night, she heard more music, more languages, more noises that were foreign to her. She fell in love with them, fell in love with her people on the other side of the rift.

One night, she saw a rift the size of the creaky, wooden door of her house. She could see a vibrancy of colors that made the monochromatic, eternal winter feel like a wasteland.  She heard giggling. Girls the same color as her, looked through the rift. She didn’t understand a single word they said but one. “New Orleans.”

            She clutched her stomach. This was her home, where she belonged. She looked back toward where she came from, to the small village nestled between the mountains and the sea. But it felt alien to her. The world in front of her was alien as well, but she wanted to know it.

            The rift wouldn’t be open much longer, she had to make a choice. A few sea foxes came up to her boat and whimpered, putting their webbed paws on the edges of the boat. She took a deep breath, this wasn’t her life, she wasn’t meant to be here, she was meant to be on the other side. She clambered in through the rift, landing onto a hard stone street. She looked behind the already closing rift, the last thing she saw of her home was the darkened sea. 

End of the Week: Have some Cinemagraphs!

I should really make a photo/picture Friday, because visual art can be just as inspiring to writers. It is to me anyways. I just love cinemagraphs so I thought I'd share a few I like, keeping to a fall and cozy theme because my favorite season is here.
Happy Friday everyone.

NaNoWriMo: A Month-Long Freewrite

What if you could write the novel that you've always wanted to in the span of a month? If you've never heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), that's exactly what it promises to do in the month of November. I've known about the website for a couple of years now but I've never really put much thought into since I'm still learning how to write- I feel like I'm nowhere close to writing a novel.

But this year I decided to give it a shot. What's changed? I'm not looking at is as my opportunity to write the next great bestseller, rather as a month long word vomit to get out my ideas finally out of my mind and into the world.

To give myself a bigger challenge, I'm going to be also delving into a genre that I have never even attempted before but have always wanted to: fantasy. I grew up on Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Eragon series and since then my love of other worlds has followed me into adulthood. So wish my luck and if you want to follow my progress my username is kellyduarte. And to anyone also participating best of luck!

Untitled poem

She feels alone                                                In a crowded room

She feels broken                                              In the reflection

She feels vulnerable                                        As she walks down the street

She feels ashamed                                           She sees a man

She feels foolish                                              And she is promised love

She feels risky                                                 As she takes that chance

She feels afraid                                               That he can make her wonderful

She feels strong                                               But her heart is turned to glass

                                                                       

She feels confident                                         So it can be shattered

She feels content                                             One last time

Sorry I haven't been writing so often, life sometimes gets in the way of everything but I promise I'll try to update more!