T is for Tale: the second tale - Part 5

*Hooked you say? Goodness! Then for you my friend, I will endeavor to keep this story going properly even while I am writing the other. Priorities have made it so that I am now days away from being able to send my book to the agents and that is why my little writing spot/blog has been neglected.*

---Read's mind reeled at the very thought of it. A giant expanse of land like the bottom of the sea but without water, without swimming, just full of air and birds. He couldn't imagine anything that sounded more freeing. To be able to sail through the sky and still be on the ground like his home. He had been worried he would never see it again when Pock kept swimming upwards.
  "We'll rest today. Tomorrow we will look for land."

  Read spent the night dreaming of clouds and of sharks flying in the sky.---


Pock was swimming in the slow drowsy circles of his particular type of sleep when Read woke up. He was excited and invigorated by his dream, even more set on getting to the sky now. He wrapped his legs around the nearest rock and pulled himself out of the small hole he had found. Luckily he was flexible because otherwise his overly large head would not have fit.
He moved up past the sleeping shark and ran his long legs over the rocky wall as he slowly glided upwards.
There was a ripple ahead. Something wrong with the water. He couldn't see past the strange blur before him. What was it? He poked a tentacle at it and it was suddenly cold as ice. He dipped back in in shock and swam back down quickly. He bumped right into Pock.
"There's something wrong with the water. It feels cold and... Strange." he said.
"That's air." Pock smiled at him, "We've reached the island."
No. It couldn't be. Pock swam up and tentatively pushed a tentacle through the rippling water again. It was cold and... Something else. He moved the tentacle around and there was nothing stopping him from swaying it. Freedom. Air.
He pushed his tentacles up higher and something tickled them. Like a strong current it pushed them to the side but it didn't swirl like water, it enveloped like it was trying to lift and Read longed for that to happen.
He was just about to push through and chance a look with his own two eyes when something poked at his tentacle. He twitched. Something poked again. It hurt this time. On the third poke he pulled back and suddenly a sharp yellow object slammed into the water at his face and he yelled propelling himself backwards quickly.
Pock was in front of him in seconds and his large jaws snapped as he lifted his head and tossed the yellow thing out of the water with his round nose.
"What was that?!" Read exclaimed
"A bird." Pock said.
"The ones that fly?" Read asked flexing all his tentacles to be sure they were all still there.
"Yes," Pock said, "But they've never jabbed at me before. They eat small fishies like I do."
"Maybe they thought the tip of my tentacle was a fin." I offered, trying to give the flyers the benefit of the doubt.
Pock seemed unsure.
"Why don't you get on my back and we can talk to them together. I don't want you to get hurt." Pock said.
Read smiled. He was lucky to have such a good friend and he knew it. Pock and him were a team. He swam over and wrapped his tentacles around the large dorsal fin and braced himself for impact as Pock rose up towards the rippling end of the ocean.

T is for total

Do you write? I imagine if you are fascinated with the idea of someone documenting things on the internet that you would be interested in the way that they deliver these documentations. So I know that you like reading. Just one step away from writing really.
I really believe that anyone can write. It doesn't really matter if it isn't interesting or if it's something that you don't want to share with anyone, what matters is the action. The moment when you lay your pen down on the papers and the ink seeps into it. That minuscule second when you have to decide whether you are going to create symbols that will forms words that will create sentence and form ideas, or if you are going to start doodling tornadoes because it's your math book and you've been staring at the clock on the wall for about forty minutes now.

I wish everyone could write and read. Imagine how terrible it would be not to be able to read all those beautiful stories and images and ideas that people have written down, preserved forever.

I am at the very end of the last rewrite of my book. And then I'm going to send it out. It would be amazing if anyone read it really and if anyone does wouldn't it be great to talk to them? As a writer my imagination has no bounds so sometimes I imagine having lots of people read my stories. Don't you think you'd be so grateful for that? People actually liking some silly idea you formulated in your head? A story that you made up being appreciated and enjoyed by others.
 I think that would be a gift beyond compare.

T is for tabanid

Or more commonly referred to as Horse Flies (but that wouldn't fit with the theme now would it!)

It is hot.
Hot, hot, hot. You know it's hot when you're wiping parts of your face that you didn't realize could sweat and you are only wiping them because out of nowhere they are dripping bucketfuls of sweat on whatever part of your anatomy happens to be in the immediate vicinity. Or lower vicinity I should guess.
You know when you move to a city, any city in Canada really, but a certain city famous for having rude winters and such. You would infer, that it was not such a warm place. Though I had been warned of the heat so I knew it was coming and am sitting in the most scantily short shorts in the world and fanning my, well let's just call it a sports bra because it really doesn't cover much else, with a makeshift paper fan. But still!
Perhaps it's because I'm European, all our cold cities are cold constantly. I mean if you go to England or Ireland or Scotland or even Belgium and Denmark. Don't really expect to see much sunlight, if any. Movies are movies for a reason. And if you go to Sweden or Norway bring a pocket torch because no light pollution means no lights!
No, no, no that's as ridiculous as saying it's cold everywhere in Canada. But it is a reality that the North of Europe will be cold year round and the South will be warm until the dastardly cold wind currents set in and then you just have to hold on to your hair (ever wondered why french fashion women always have beautiful yet wild short hair cuts, SOLVED).
I'm coming to the realization that this post isn't really about much. But what would life be if it was just a succession of really important things?

I think the sale of stress release pills and attendance at such activities would skyrocket. 
But then again there would be something important happening at that activity or involving the pills....
Goodness it never ends!!!!!!!!!

T is for totally-in-the-zone

There is nothing better in this world than positive feedback on a project that you have been pouring your heart and soul into.
I have been writing a novel since I was somewhere around.... 17? I finished it when I was 19 and then school got in the way.
Now I have never been a fan of book clubs because I am a strange kind of reader; I don't like to be forced, I don't want to be rushed, everything depends on the book and what kind of savoring it needs. Some books are good to breeze through, some are so good that you fly through them too, some are intelligent and hard hitting and deserve a precise attention to detail, some are so thoughtful that you need to mull over every chapter or sentence and think about the taste of it, the feel of it, the way it was structured and the meanings it bears. Hence not being able to stick to a time structure made me wary of the idea BUT! In Vancouver I joined a meetup group called, Just Write and we did just that. We wrote. We sat together and for ten minutes had a chat and then for the rest of the two hours we wrote, in a coffee shop or a doughnut shop or wherever they had been able to wrangle enough seats. We all bought at least two items during the time we were there and the owners liked the peace we brought to the place. It didn't matter what you wrote or how you wrote, you were just with writers enjoying writing and getting enthused by the fact that they were writing. I loved it.
Hence when I picked up the book again to rewrite it and restructure it about 4 months ago I blew through the first chapters and am now almost halfway through a complete reboot to a story that is now much better in my eyes.

But I needed to get some kind of approval. Some kind of notion that what I was doing was good. So I gave it to the harshest critic I know, the one who -when she read the first draft- couldn't really get through it and ended up leaving it to the side. This was good though, you need a book to grab someone and you definitely don't want to have to force someone to read something to see whether it's good or not. You need to make them want more pages. And today, a couple days after I handed her the first sixty pages, she called to ask when the next ones were coming.
I cannot picture a better moment than when I saw a kind of incredulous smile creep along her face as she brought up the story. Her voice only strengthening her surprise as she admitted to really enjoying the story and suddenly realizing that she didn't have the whole thing.

I have never been happier. I've written enough pages today to convince me that this boost has put me in a zone that I don't soon want to drop out of. Something tells me however, that I won't. 

T is for tidbit

Woe is me the ever dulling sensations of an over indulged passion.

Gone is the unfortunate condolences of a pastime rarely passed.

Protected is the feeling of discomfort when reality strikes home.

Do you have a poet inside of your head? An idiot who comes up with dull one liners that wouldn't do much to the heart of a passerby much less create an atmosphere for an entire population. I like to talk to the poet when I need a piece of inspiring dialogue at a moment in a story. The story is epic, the plot line structured, that moment of dialogue is a second in the lives of a myriad of characters.
I wish the poet were more literate. Perhaps then they would be more worthwhile. But for now the poet is summoned for a cursory glance in a sea of words.