ESDE Short Story: Wrought Its Ghost

>>programme initiation: "start"
>>programme: "2644/993/hqkwvsstf61"
>>active participant:
>>>>NORTH _ YORK_55791204
>>>>BW
>>>>FERR.BZ.
>>>>"1"
>>>>"11"
>>opponent:
>--------OVERRIDE
>>database access:
>>.....
>>permission: GRANTED
>>opponent:
>>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>>SW
>>>>SPRHK.
>>>>"418"
>>>>"199"
>>programme: "INITIATED"
>participant UNMOVING
>>facial recognition: running
>>..
>>facial recognition: "SHOCK"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"SNARL"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"GRAB KNIFE#139"
>participant UNMOVING
>>facial recognition: running
>>....
>>facial recognition: "SADNESS"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>.....
>>NO DATABASE RESPONSE LOGGED
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"ADVANCE#772"
>"SPIT"
>"BITE TONGUE"
>"GRIP#067"
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>........
>>speech recognition: ((i _ did _ think _ this _ through _ but _ you _ weren't _ trying _ to _ kill _ me _ ha _ ha))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>....
>>NO DATABASE RESPONSE LOGGED
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"LUNGE#169"
>"CLICK#033"
>participant STEPPING BACK
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"TWIST#493"
>"SLASH KNIFE#081"
>participant SPEAKING:
>>speech recognition: running
>>............
>>speech recognition: ((don't _ know _ why _ i _ thought _ that _ this _ is _ just _ like _ real _ aaaaaahhhh _ fuck _ aahhh))
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>"96813"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"LAUGH#212"
>"SPIT"
>"STAB#731"
>participant SPEAKING:
>>speech recognition: running
>>..
>>speech recognition: ((shit))
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>"27933"
>>>participant
>>>"08631"
>>>participant
>>>"00019"
>>active participant "NORTH _ YORK_55791204"
>>>DECEASED
>>opponent "JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283"
>>>VICTORIOUS
>>programme: "terminated"


>>programme initiation: "start"
>>programme: "2644/994/0wfkfya6ik1"
>>active participant:
>>>>NORTH _ YORK_55791204
>>>>BW
>>>>FERR.BZ.
>>>>"1"
>>>>"12"
>>opponent:
>--------OVERRIDE
>>database access:
>>.....
>>permission: GRANTED
>>opponent:
>>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>>SW
>>>>SPRHK.
>>>>"418"
>>>>"199"
>>programme: "INITIATED"
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.............
>>speech recognition: ((they _ think _ im _ insane _ and _ i _ probably _ am _ but _ i _ had _ to _ try _ because _ we _ all))
>participant CRYING
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"LAUGH#041"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"GRAB PISTOL#733"
>participant HANDS UP
>>facial recognition: running
>>.......
>>facial recognition: "GRIEF"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>......
>>NO DATABASE RESPONSE LOGGED
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"LUNGE#160"
>participant BACKING AWAY
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.......
>>speech recognition: ((i _ just _ had _ i _ had _ i _ had _ to _ say _ something _ and _ it's _ a _ bad _ idea _ but))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>........
>>NO DATABASE RESPONSE LOGGED
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"SHOOT#951"
>participant SCREAMING
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#85717
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"LAUGH#249"
>"SHOOT#952"
>participant SCREAMING
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#85717
>>>participant
>>>#85801
>>>participant
>>>#00047
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"DROP GUN#012"
>"STEP#417"
>"CLICK#993"
>participant CRYING
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.....
>>speech recognition: ((you're _ a _ fucking _ bastard _ kiah))
>>word recognition: "FUCKING"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"SPIT"
>>word recognition: "BASTARD"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"LAUGH#063"
>>word recognition: "KIAH"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"GLARE#091"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"KICK#113"
>participant CURLING UP
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#85717
>>>participant
>>>#85801
>>>participant
>>>#00047
>>>participant
>>>#09432
>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>#84731
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"KICK#115"
>"STAMP#283"
>"LAUGH#330"
>participant CRYING
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#85717
>>>participant
>>>#85801
>>>participant
>>>#00047
>>>participant
>>>#09432
>>>participant
>>>#09449
>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>#84731
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"KICK#116"
>"KICK#866"
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#85717
>>>participant
>>>#85801
>>>participant
>>>#00047
>>>participant
>>>#09432
>>>participant
>>>#09449
>>>participant
>>>#09771
>>>participant
>>>#44381
>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>#84731
>>active participant "NORTH _ YORK_55791204"
>>>DECEASED
>>opponent "JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283"
>>>VICTORIOUS
>>programme: "terminated"


>>programme initiation: "start"
>>programme: "2644/995/0t0mefg11tz"
>>active participant:
>>>>NORTH _ YORK_55791204
>>>>BW
>>>>FERR.BZ.
>>>>"1"
>>>>"13"
>>opponent:
>--------OVERRIDE
>>database access:
>>.....
>>permission: GRANTED
>>opponent:
>>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>>SW
>>>>SPRHK.
>>>>"418"
>>>>"199"
>>programme: "INITIATED"
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.....................
>>speech recognition: ((ive _ found _ endless _ excuses _ and _ reasons _ its _ a _ damaged _ system _ its _ mental _ health _ its _ just _ the _ way _ but _ all _ of _ those _ erase _ the _ you _ from _ everything _ and _ thats _ the _ opposite _ of _ what _ i _ i _ im _ here _ because _ were _ getting _ counselling _ now _ and _ they _ told _ me _ to _ write _ you _ a _ letter _ when _ i _ told _ my))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"INTERRUPT"
>"LAUGH#581"
>"GRAB HAMMER#910"
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>...
>>speech recognition: ((fuck _ okay _ i _ just _ fuck _ fuck))
>>word recognition: "FUCK"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"SNARL#811"
>>facial recognition: running
>>...
>>facial recognition: "PANIC"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"SMIRK#191"
>"ADVANCE#663"
>participant BACKING AWAY
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"CLICK#964"
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>......
>>speech recognition: ((i _ only _ seem _ to _ fall _ in _ love _ with _ the _ ones _ who _ destroy _ me))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>................
>>NO RESPONSE
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"STRIKE#371"
>participant SCREAMING
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#73627
>>>participant
>>>#04258
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.............
>>speech recognition: ((aaaaaaaahhhh _ aaaaahhh _ fuck _ you _ you _ were _ a _ bonfire _ and _ the _ closer _ we _ stood _ the _ more _ alive _ we _ felt _ and _ i _ don't _ know _ if _ it _ was _ really _ you _ igniting _ life _ in _ all _ of _ us _ or _ whether _ you _ just _ burned _ out _ and _ took _ us _ with _ you))
>>word recognition: "FUCK
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"SNARL#811"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database action:
>"STRIKE#586"
>participant CRYING
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#73627
>>>participant
>>>#04258
>>>participant
>>>#61947
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.........
>>speech recognition: ((i _ dont _ doubt _ it _ any _ more _ even _ if _ i _ know _ there _ is _ no _ universe _ where _ you _ survived _ and _ we _ were _ bonfires _ together))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>......
>>NO RESPONSE
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"SPIT"
>"STRIKE#007"
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#73627
>>>participant
>>>#04258
>>>participant
>>>#61947
>>>participant
>>>#04263
>>>participant
>>>#69133
>>>participant
>>>#05192
>>facial recognition: running
>>..........
>>facial recognition: "GUILT"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>......
>>NO RESPONSE
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>.....
>>speech recognition: ((theres _ not _ a _ second _ i _ dont _ hate _ you _ for _ every _ single _ goddamn _ thing))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>.........
>>NO RESPONSE
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>facial recognition: running
>>..
>>facial recognition: "ANGER"
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>"LAUGH#067"
>>facial recognition: running
>>.....................
>>facial recognition: "GRIEF"
>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>...
>>NO RESPONSE
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>participant SPEAKING
>>speech recognition: running
>>....
>>speech recognition: ((but _ i _ loved _ you _ i _ i _ love _ you))
>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 database response:
>>...............
>>NO RESPONSE
>>>IGNORE COMMAND
>>standard response:
>"STRIKE#391"
>>facial recognition: running
>>............
>>facial recognition: "DEVOTION"
>>injury report:
>>>participant
>>>#73627
>>>participant
>>>#04258
>>>participant
>>>#61947
>>>participant
>>>#04263
>>>participant
>>>#69133
>>>participant
>>>#05192
>>>participant
>>>#15381
>>>participant
>>>#54199
>>>participant
>>>#19332
>>active participant "NORTH _ YORK_55791204"
>>>DECEASED
>>opponent "JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283"
>>>VICTORIOUS
>>programme: "terminated"


>>programme initiated: "start"
>--------OVERRIDE
>>database access:
>>.....
>>permission: GRANTED
>>database access:
>>>JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>>"DELETE"
>>>delete database JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 ?
>>>>"YES"
>>>deletion of database will remove all records of JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>access will no longer be granted to JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283
>>>all traces of JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283 will be removed from database including responses, actions, and previous PRELIM records
>>>>"YES"
>>.....................................................
>>"JEDEKIAH_KHOURY_47257283"
>>>deleted
>>programme: "terminated"

I Really Need to Learn How to Intro Artwork

Uhhhhhhhhh yeah so I painted a thing?? And? You should look at it?

Cool cool cool cool cool le's go~

"Yellow-white lines of fire which burned into Sylv's eyes as he hit the ground suddenly shifted, and flickered, and roared.
They wreathed up into a form, flickering and flaring into stripes which changed and shifted but between which the black was impenetrable. White-blue claws dug into the earth, sparking on the soil and flicking twigs and stones up until they burned into ash; where the paws stepped they left a smear of black charcoal. At the shoulders yellow-orange flames shifted up, swept along the body, the push of heat a physical weight, and a tail of deep orange which bled into a guttural smoking red swept around.
The flames illuminated the trees, dark and uncaring as they looked on, long branches reaching overhead. Shadows bounded and leapt as the tiger curled around Sylv, and lowered its face to his. Its fangs were the same sparking blue-green as its claws, its muzzle pale yellow, a mane of surging flames dancing from its cheeks.
It cocked its head, and its fire-made mouth twisted and opened so that its shifting lips could have formed a smirk.
Then the dog-boy's bright blue-grey eyes met those of the tiger, and the world crashed out from inside his chest, pulling free of his mouth in the form of a scream."

SO yeah it's acrylics on a 3' canvas and I was supposed to do it over a few days but I accidentally did nearly all of it in one go because I got excited. Whoops.

And the observant and Sylv-keen might recognise this particular image - I have drawn it before, specifically with markers.

Both of these pieces can be found originally on the Sylvestus page

The image is extremely important in Sylvestus, and honestly, I am fascinated with the aesthetic of it. No, it has nothing to do with that Tyger poem; if one more person asks me they may be gently slapped (if two more people ask me they will be slapped with more vigour). So what does it have to do with?

Read the damn snippet above, lazy. I didn't spend a dedicated 68 seconds finding that and copy-pasting it from the Sylvestus draft for you to just ignore it and look at the pretty tiger.

And for anything more, why you'll just have to wait until December, won't you?

The markers gave me the medium to give the idea a solid form, but they can't capture the specifically fluid and dynamic nature of the spectre itself. I considered watercolours, but I just knew acrylics would be perfect - I very rarely use them, and I've never done something larger than A4 before, although my GCSE Art teacher did keep nagging that I should go bigger with them to get the full effect. Hope ur happy Mrs. Middleton.

I also changed some things about the image itself between the drawings and the painting. For me, the description above is one of my favourite things so far about the Sylvestus Vol. I draft, and extremely graphic. Plus, of course, this mysterious creature/spectre/character's (?? u shall never know until december mwahaha) importance to the story itself.

Okay well done, thanks for lookin' at the art and hopefully reading some of the thing. And being excited for Sylvestus. Yeeiiis.

The original painting is on sale for a negotiable price, however I am not taking commissions of acrylic paintings. For other mediums, see my commissions page, or email emberfell@outlook.com.

Ready Steady Book

I'm sorry it's so lame it just made me laugh so I had to keep it. Did anyone else watch Ready Steady Cook as a kid? Was that the one with Big Cook and Little Cook? Am I confusing this with the small-brown-box song?

... Anyway.

I've just come back from volunteering with Grupo Lobo in Portugal, at the Iberian Wolf Recovery Centre. This small team does incredible work taking in wolves with nowhere else to go - rescued from illegal captivity, or from zoos with no more space - and giving them as natural lives as possible, as well as providing new and vital research into forest management, wolf behaviour, and population recovery. If you have an interest in visiting, supporting, or volunteering with them, I highly recommend checking out their website or Facebook - it was a great experience I am incredibly grateful to have been involved with.

If you'd like more information on the Iberian wolf or volunteering abroad, I guess you can contact them or even me. Whatever.

... Now, at this point in the post I'm a little stuck. The plan was "Funny introduction, mention the IWRC, recommend them, get onto the writing part" but now... Well, I don't want to toss aside the volunteering thing to go BACK TO ME. I never was good at paragraph connectors.

This dilemma, though, is in a way relevant to something I felt while I was there - something I feel a lot.

Writing is important to me. It's very important to me. You might have picked up that impression at some point or another.

Although I have been writing all my life (and forays into old notebooks reveal a surprising number of successful, and remarkably good, early attempts at novels and short stories; I only clearly remember a few, but I think I always had some kind of idea on the go), I only really consider myself to have been writing "properly" in the past five years. This is because, five years and two months ago, I started to write what would become my first finished novel: The Red Prince. I can date the exact birth of it surprisingly well, because I remember the specific piece of inspiration that ticked off something in my brain and birthed this whole world. I meant to celebrate it, but given that no-one except a small handful of friends and beta-readers has been introduced to Rheimer and his fellows yet, it didn't seem the right time. Maybe on the sixth anniversary.

It's hard to call that the life-changing moment; sure, without that inspiration I would never have written The Red Prince, without that I would never have written Seeking, without that I would never have published Dying Ember... And so on. But, arguably, without every half-written chapter scrawled in a notebook with a dragon on curled up on the floor of my bedroom at age eight, I would never have been able to write The Red Prince, even when that image of the insolent, damaged prince scowling from the stage lodged in my head and (very quickly) in my soul.

Before I started on novels (essentially with me calling everything post-May 2012 my novel-stage), most of what I wrote was with communities of young writers like myself. I intend to talk about this amazing group of people around the world much more later, because of its relevance to Sylvestus - really, the nature of this post is to introduce a lot of things which are going to be worked on more later. It's kind of a starting post. Ready Steady Book.

I ended up writing with them even more when a friend invited me back into one of the communities during the first draft of The Red Prince, although I no longer work with any now as I have taken up my novel-writing on a more full-time basis.

But between these communities - where we would each produce several thousand words every 2-3 days in a shared, incredibly broad and deep story - and my own personal writing, I've pretty much been writing every day for the past five years. Each of my novels except Sylvestus so far has involved a ~6 month hiatus in the middle, but even during those, I generally started on the next one, and was still writing with these communities in the meantime. I have written a lot in the past five years. A  l o t.

In fact, I decided to add up, a few weeks ago, roughly how much I have written.

I was curious. I don't remember where it was, but maybe two years ago I read something online saying that - I can't even remember if it was actual research, or just motivational philosophy - a writer doesn't start to get good until they reach 1 million words. When they hit 1 million, they'll finally start making the good stuff.

I didn't include in this estimate anything pre-Red, because it's impossible to estimate how much is hibernating or lost forever in notebooks and the harddrives of long-dead laptops. A lot of my community writing is also gone, and much more of it too difficult to find and add up, so I only included the estimates for one character in one of the worlds (for whom I wrote a great deal more than for anyone else - in eighteen months, I produced for him over 100 individual 1500-word posts, and meanwhile also wrote the entire of Dying Ember). Onto this character alone, I added The Red Prince, Seeking, Each Separate Dying Ember, and the first draft of Sylvestus. And this is what my little phone calculator told me:

Yep. I even screenshotted it as it happened

I was genuinely shocked.

At some point in the middle of Sylvestus, I had passed the 1 million word marker. Sure, the count was probably quite inaccurate; sure, with other characters and older stories it would be more than that; sure, I had no source for this 1 million word thing and it was probably some pseudoinspirational internet BS anyway.

But something about it was important to me anyway.

As if I've been writing for as long as I can remember, but only five years ago did I start to really put my soul into it, to find an idea and stick with it, to show people even when the thought was sickening, to take criticism and feedback - and only now, at some point in the middle of Sylvestus, did it all slot into place.

Okay. Now back to the wolf sanctuary. Remember that? Yeah, things got a little off-track. It happens.

Ever since I started to write The Red Prince, I feel as if my dependence on writing has gradually grown. I started to take my laptop on weekends away more and more frequently, not for social media or films or The Internet, but just to write. If I couldn't bring my laptop, I'd take a notebook and pen and go old-school. I would sneak away for quiet hours, pretend to go to bed early, say I was going for a walk - anything to take a few hours on my own away from the people I was with, to write. Always secretive; no need for them to know what I was doing. What if they wanted to read it? What if they didn't understand?

The first time I did not take either my laptop or a notebook away with me, probably in several years, was a week after I calculated the 1,050,000 words estimate. I was visiting a close friend, just before exam season - six hours of train each way, and I had just set my Sylvestus December 2017 deadline.

And I thought of my friend, and I thought of the hours and hours and hours that have gone into those 1 million words. There's no way to know really how much it was; sometimes I can smash out 2000 words an hour, sometimes it takes a few hours to get a decent 500. And I thought of four days without writing. And, of course, the revision for the exam two days after I got back from the visit.

And I left behind my laptop. I didn't even write on my phone.

I had half put Sylvestus on hold during exams, accepting their priority in the short-term, figuring I could make it up in summer. The two weeks between exams and Portugal were a mess of catching up - trying to get ahead, actually, so I wouldn't get further behind in Portugal - and trying to get the rest of my summer in order. Everything had hinged on before exams and after Portugal; I hadn't considered the space between.

Then it was Portugal. I didn't take my laptop. I did take a notebook and pen, because two weeks is a long time and we had been warned we wouldn't have very good or constant WiFi.

I didn't actually write any Sylvestus. After three days of no writing at all my thoughts were rather filled with it, more out of habit than anything I think. It's always been the way for me to finish a chapter in a few days, take two days off roughly, then start to plan for the next one for a day or so and start writing again. With this December deadline that timeline is going to be a little condensed, but it's still the fashion.

But I couldn't remember exactly what had happened (the last time I'd written before leaving was, I believe, at 1am instead of the early night I was supposed to have gotten before the flight, and in such instances I normally re-read in daylight the next morning) in the part before, and... Something about Portugal wasn't right for Sylv. He's been written in a fair few places, but this just didn't feel like one of them.

I did write something, but it wasn't Sylvestus. It's something I keep complaining to Beta that I should not be writing; I generally do write two things at any one time, one main project (the current novel) and then an alternating series of minor ones (usually to be future novels, or community writing), but I can't afford to with this deadline looming. But there was something about the little wooden cabin in a forest on a mountain, about the lack of WiFi and intermittent hot water, about a cramped hand around a pen and a tiny leather-bound notebook, that ironically, didn't demand I write about a soldier in the wilderness long before WiFi and laptops and showers were invented, but rather that I write about a towering white city and a glittering green sky and the pulsing pink-yellow lights of neon. At one point I lost the pen and had to use a pencil, which I sharpened with a pen-knife another volunteer was using to whittle, and let me tell you I felt badass as shit. I'm easily amused.

So far I'm calling it [City Novel], and you may note that it is on my schedule page, but not actually in the schedule. I'm still fine with that, I think; I had a good two weeks writing it every other day, but now it's comfortably sat in that notebook.

So here, finally, is the point of this post.

I'm back from Portugal. My summer has started. I've broken 1 million words.

I have five months to finish Sylvestus Vol. I. I've put away [City Novel], just like I've put away [Pyrate Novel] and Red. And when Sylvestus Vol. II is underway, I'll open up [Pyrate Novel] and start again. And when that's underway I'll open up Red and start again. And when that's underway, I'll maybe open up [City Novel], or maybe something new which comes in the meantime.

And it will wait for me. Trapped in the pages of a read leather-bound notebook, the words smudged and faded, carrying with them the dust of a forest on a mountain in Portugal, and the scratch of a pencil sharpened with a borrowed pen-knife.

But now?

I have a big painting planned. I have trips to do. I have a second year of university to prepare for. I have dogs to walk and birds to look after.

And I have a novel to write.

Ready

Steady

Book

It was funny in my head