[SUM] - And this is where we are at right now:

It's Tuesday and that means it's short-update-madness day for me, for you ... for all of us so to speak.

First on the list of many things: 'Loner's Peak' and it's ongoing series.
   During my holiday last month I decided on a couple of things. First of which being the name of the series will be 'Omnivore' for the time being, hopefully only subject to change if a publisher subjects to the name. That being said - I'm still waiting for that one reply to my queries telling me 'Yes this agency is in fact offering you representation for your work.'
Though not all queries have been replied to yet, but the thing to do will be mostlikely sending out another heap of those in the near future.

Second on the list: 'Bloodstained Shadows' - my fan-fiction
   I've been going on about this project for a while now and the editing has been going surprisingly slowly until now, but just as expected it took up a lot of speed with part three of the four. And as of right now there is roughly a fifth of the whole text still to be done. Expect that to get finished up soon/-ish.

Third: 'Sleeptalking' - the Victorian horror
   Editing run number four, which was originally announced to happen parallel to the editing of 'Bloodstained Shadows' will pick up as soon as I'm done with BS - CoaLS. That should put it on par with Loner's Peak.

Forth: 'The Bamboo Labyrinth' - the short-short short
    We be finished as my schedule allows me to... there are a couple of things I need to address myself to that are just simply more important. Take it as unfinished for the time being, although there isn't that much that still has to be added to complete the picture.

Fifth: Project 'Nightingale' and 'Kaleidoscope'
    Both of which have been subject to a lot of thinking over the one short week that was my holiday in the U.A.E. Most important thing to note is that there will be a name-swap for the two.
The story formerly know as "Nightingale" will be renamed to 'Heavy Silence' for now (although I'm not completely happy with it yet) and "Kaleidoscope" will be - much to anybody's confusion renamed to 'Nightingale'. Also... the prologue I had posted on this site for 'Nightingale' - now referred to as 'Heavy Silence' is heavily outdated and might as well be re-posted in the future.

And last but not least - a short scribble from my notebook taken from the notes to 'Heavy Silence' so you see I haven't solely been sitting at the beach or pool the whole time (which in fact I did :s) :


*~*


'My name? You'll find it to be utterly pointless but if you so desire to know...
Michael - it's the mashed potatoes of name seeking: no matter how you turn it or try to spice it up, it never changes. Helplessly bland, boring and not even the shot of milk, or in my case whisky, added anything to the mix.'


*~*


No offense to the Michael's of this world btw... it's not my opinion but that of the main character.

Aaaaand there you go... Short-update-madness successfully uploaded. Enjoy the overload of information.
As always thanks for reading and have a great week.
Marc, now quickly back to editing again - maybe I'll get that part done today. (Editz: Yays... only one part left to go!)

[SUM] Time flies when you're having fun.

Indeed it does...

After announcing I'd keep it short on Sunday and as per usually not giving a damn about it afterwards I'll try to cut it today...
Skyrim's taking it's toll on my mind and boy *MUST PLAY... MUST SLAY DRAGONS* etc pp. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

For the actual topic of Short-Update-Madness before I completely forget about it: Pretty much nothing. There's not much to be said honestly. I've been thinking about on how I could continue on with the storyline introduced via Loner's Peak and thanks to a few third party ideas coming from mah family something completely new opened up for me in my mind, now waiting to be explored and evaluated by my bad-idea sensors.
Aside from that, oddly enough I got a few more lines for Nightingale ready to be taken down on digital paper. Not that it'd help out a whole lot right now but I guess it's still better than nothing, right?

On the skyrim part of my life... I invested the last night into becoming a great and strong viking - falling for various daedra princes as they started to seduce me and I think I'm ready to go ingame crazy and just say to hell with it all.
But that could also only be actual-me as I grow more and more tired.
Gotta love those days when you've got the chance to do nothing else but essentially killing yourself with clichées.
Anyways... as I continue to barter with myself whether or not I can add a second day just like this one to this already completely screwed up week I'll try not to keel over from exhaustion as addmittedly I am kinda tired. But I'm not Korean ... no offence.

And before you head back off the site - if you want a quality read for a change - check out last Friday's Storytime with the first part of 'The Bamboo Labyrinth'. The second part will of course follow this weeks Friday.

As always, thanks for reading... more info on all the stuff to come ... worst case szenario: next week. Just look at it as vacation, or something like that...
Marc, Sheogorath's disciple

[SUM] It's that time already, it seems.

And with that time I mean preview-time! Yeah!
Well, sort of at least. In the spirit of the original Short-Update-Madness-update-thingy I will try to keep my ramblings to a minimum and present to you even more of my most recent endeavours.

As it proves most difficult sharing nothing of major importance for the plot of 'Loner's Peak' this far into the story, I will turn my attention and the longing to share at least something to another vile creation of my brain.
Which in this case would be - my personal take on another more loopy tale of horror - a bit more of 'Nightingale'.

I already posted my ideas for a prologue for said story a while ago on the blog and the things you are about to read should be taken as the start of the first chapter following immediately afterwards. It is again told from a first-person view (I just love using it - despite the usual scorn you receive for doing so. The element of chaos and chance that come with it - I love it! ... But yeah, people do tend to complain.). Yet the story will be presented as a retrospect for most parts.

It is a good bit of text, though not taken directly from the chapters beginning, stripping it a bit of the context - intentionally as I may add. So for now just plainly ... enjoy!


*~*

This frail reality you still cling to so vigorously even until now, this projection of a world in which you believed it to be the ultimate truth is nothing but a mere shadow, a shade of the bleak wish for something able to be grasped as your understanding first started failing you within the utter darkness that is this realm.

Everything you experience or might have thought to have experienced in the past is about as meaningful and redundant as a forgotten dream during the morning hours in the eye of the impending nothingness around us. And still, even though we are only hanging over this chasm by a worn-out thread, it is our mind that keeps us afloat, that keeps us somewhat sane by incessantly feeding us these pictures of happiness and hope, begging that our consciousness never would start questioning them.

As the land might melt, the sea shall burn and the sky will fall, but even then the mind will remain to be eternal. A divine gift bestowed upon us by creation. A gift we never deserved or even been meant to receive in the first place.

It is a true miracle created solely by our imagination that we are still able to sustain ourselves and survive in this nightmarish place we call home so dearly. A light haze cast upon us, serving but only our lowest instincts.

Yet once you have discovered this sacred veil and dared to explore beyond its reach, everything will remain without color nor taste for you. Only your very soul will feel the drought which you have brought upon yourself before it is already too late to turn.

It seems these words would roughly sum up to be my story. But your black eyes filled only with emptiness already tell me that you need more... They scream it at me violently. You need more to fully understand me and I shall grant you this one wish. You haven’t got much time left in you, haven’t you? And neither do I..., I guess at least.

*~*


I have my ideas for that story - but as I also mentioned earlier on this blog - I will probably only finish the first chapter over the next one or two weeks or so and then put it to rest until the stuff I'm actually working on is finished. Yeah I'm repeating myself a lot.

So I will leave you with this for today.
As always, thanks for reading.
Marc, Melter of Lands

[ST] - First Reflexions

Welcome to this first go at my 'Storytime' segment of this blog.
As already briefly explained last time in the SUM of Tuesday, I want to use my Fridays to get a bit new original content onto the site in form of Flash-Fiction (and probably also short stories later on) on a regular basis and not only on random occasions as it has been until now.

I already have a couple of texts prepared for you and I think it'd be easiest to just start off and get today's update, the first of said texts, on the way.
And just to be on the safe side: Each of these very short-short stories I'd like to present to you, has a very individual theme to it. They may not be incredibly fancy as they start out, because of their rather basic nature at the beginning. But I believe they shall entertain you nonetheless (as they also grow more wacky and wonky over time).

Not all of them have titles at the moment, but I may add those later on.

But for now: all the talking aside, enjoy the first flash fiction in this little series.


*~*


Reflexions

What is it to life that makes it so incredibly difficult?

Even when you put the ‘Why am I here?’ aside for a moment, it does not ease up anything at all.  There is always somebody putting pressure onto you.  And although most of these people only seem as if they want to help out, they never stop expecting something in return. 

Those people tell you that they only want the best for you, but in secret most of them are only trying to shape you according to themselves.  This is something that I had to realize the hard way and I am not proud of it. 

What a treacherous habit for any human to have, indeed.  

They cover you in sweet words and expect you to swallow them because it is their pure good will which carries you on your way through life.  Sadly not even age is able to stop them.  They just keep on telling you what would be best to do according to their imagination even after you have grown out of the role as a child or teenager. 

I’m growing tired of it all.  I’m growing tired of being used by somebody else as his or her canvas.

And after a while it stops mattering whether it is your friends, your father, mother or even your grandparents who are pushing you towards something you don’t want.  Despite the love you feel for them, you just can’t take it any longer.  And that is exactly where the problem remains to be.

To realize your own dreams and not those of somebody else is what is making ‘living’ so difficult and sometimes furthermore ... straining.  

Yet getting those close to your heart to accept something as trivial as this is often harder than you might imagine.  It is sad how stubborn people can be although they are only trying to help somebody out. 

Then again, we should be grateful that we are allowed to even think of this as a ‘problem’ in the first place.  In many eras of the past it would have been unthinkable to raise such a question, to raise these thoughts.  You were expected to blindly follow the direction given by your family or sometimes by people you did not know at all.  Considering this we are incredibly lucky. 

We are lucky that we have the opportunity to stand up for ourselves.  Pushing on is the only thing that will ease the process. 

It might not be easy and it might just sound like another lie, but there is no other way. 

Leave this place behind and start living your life to the fullest. 

*~*


There you go. I hope you liked reading this little scrap of text taken from my mind. The theme I chose for this one... well yeah... it should at least be pretty self-explanatory.(Hint: look at the poorly chosen headline! and yeah BE - why you ask? well... because my brain felt like it I guess. In all honesty..., I don't have too much right to have a say in most matters.)

Also: "The land shall melt, the sea shall burn and the sky shall fall... but still the mind remains to be eternal."
Taken from my notebook for 'Nightingale'. ...HarHar...

As always, thanks for reading and enjoy your day.
Marc, the non-reflecting Mirror

P.S.: Kinda Kitty on the way for you.

[SUM] All scheduled up!

Well hello there everybody and welcome to the first post of October and with the new month also the new 'system' I try to get running for this blog.
You see the thing I did with the title? Yeah, I guess you did. I'm trying to indicate that this here post is a 'Short-Update-Madness' post - hence SUM as an abbreviation before the actual title I chose.
Some of you might be asking yourself right now, why I'm trying to commit to such shenanigans all of a sudden. Well the answer to that is quite simple as it stands right now:
The blog is now up and running for nearly half a year and in all honesty, a schedule for the updates of this blog would not necessarily be needed at the time being, even if it somewhat pains me to admit that. (But we all know that the first (few) year(s) is(/are) always the hardest!) Yet on the other hand it is a great way of getting the updates more frequently onto the site, plus they offer a kind of topic differentiation on top of that. And that is just what I want to achieve.

To give you a general idea of my plans for the future, in other words the schedule:

Monday        ---
Tuesday        'Short-Update-Madness'
Wednesday   'Beni's Kitchen' (every 3 to 4 weeks)
Thursday       ---
Friday           'Storytime'
Saturday        ---
Sunday          'Random Bloggy Stuff'

The next thing to ask and wonder is of course what to expect from the various topics.
'Short-Update-Madness' will include - as the name hints on - short updates on what I'm currently working on, planning to do concerning my stories as well as this here blog - therefore this post fits perfectly into my plan.
'Beni' Kitchen' which will supposedly sneak its way onto the site every three to four weeks - contents completely up to the bear (yet this 'column' will not start directly tomorrow).
'Storytime' is going to be something special for you guys and girls reading my blog... at least I hope so. Which means starting this week I plan on uploading one Flash-Fiction with a length of approximately 400 to 500 words each Friday. So just as the name suggests - each Friday a new story for you.
And finally, the 'Random Bloggy Stuff' is reserved for the Sundays of the year. I'll use that as a place to ... well... express all the random bloggy stuff I feel I want to publish.

(On a side note: the Kittens will not be affected by the schedule - they'll just be put online whenever I feel like it - just as before.)

This should give an idea of what I'm planing. Currently I still have a head start concerning the flash fiction, so that part shouldn't give me any troubles getting this all started and in gear.

There you have it, my first 'Short-Update-Madness' in the new format, this time mainly focused on the blog itself. Concerning the stuff I'm working on... 'Loner's Peak' is going strong, with all the re-editing and rewriting as I go through stuff written a few days ago. Still I'm only barely half-way through it (yeah that's how much time I wasted already... at least it feels that way for me... darn it... I probably need a deadline as I currently don't have one).
I also got a single page for the first chapter of 'Nightingale' done on an evening I just couldn't really come to a rest. And why not directly write it down? For safe-keeping or whatever...
I still do not plan on working on those two projects simultaneously though - and I really need to get 'Loner's Peak' done.

That should be all for just now.
As always thanks for reading!
Marc, the schedulized

Headaches included free of additional charge...

The following text could be called an experiment.
I currently plan on using this as a prologue to one of my upcoming stories. Still it's just a rough idea at this point in time.
Admittedly it's not exactly an easy read, but yeah... gotta try going somewhat different (difficult) ways, right?
(I know, I know... I'll prepare for my stoning ... wouldn't want to be unprepared for that, wouldn't we?)

Updated Version and without the out-of-date title available here: *click*

*~*


Nightingale

Welcome to my funeral.

Ich sitze hier bei meiner Wacht,

Kalt grüßte mich die die dunkle Nacht.

Ich sitze hier in Einsamkeit

Keine Seele weit und breit.

Everybody’s only waiting for my confession.

Ich vergieße kein Träne,

Keine Heiße, keine Kalte.

So verkünd ich doch kein Geräusch.

So bin ich doch einer mit von euch.

It’s the sudden end of my honesty.

Jeder schlaue Mann schon schläft,

jede fromme Frau schon ruht.

Und doch gibt es der Streuner viele,

Als es manchem Herz gefiehle.

Innocence abruptly torn apart and tainted with blood.

Die Einsamkeit lässt Trauer schlagen

Viele Stimmen klagen, klagen.

Und will ich doch so weg von euch,

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

Left alone by the one you used to love.

Die Schatten wallen weiterhin

Bewegen sich von Haus zu Haus

Löschen alle Lichter aus.

Die Dunkelheit zieht ein.

Even my family’s turning their backs...

Mein Herz ist warm und doch so kalt,

Meine Seele schwitzt und friert.

Sollen sie doch Ruhe geben,

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

No more money.

Der Morgen naht, der Schatten schwindet

Die Sonne gar sehr gräßlich findet

Bringt doch Licht mit ins Haus

Und treibt die Schatten alle aus.

Not even a place to stay for the night.

Nein die Sonne war es nicht

Die Licht in diesen Schatten bricht

Nur meine einsam Laterne funkelt wie ein Sterne,

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

Everything is dark and cold when you’re alone.

Groß und Klein, Dick und Dürr,

Auch gar manch wohlgeformt Gestalt

Streifen durch die Dunkelheit,

Im Kampf mit einem Sinn.

Above all I’m charged with murder.

Wirke gar verloren sein

Blick ich in mein Herz hinein

Und erblicke dort dein Bild,

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

Life as it was used to be is corroding away before my eyes.

Der Sehnsucht langer Atemzug

Vergeblich neue Opfer sucht

Der Hunger dieser Einsamkeit

Wurd jüngst erst erneut befreit.

And still my thoughts are with you.

Und kämpf ich doch dagegen an

So bin ich doch sein Untertan

Das gefühl ist doch zu stark für mich,

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

I didn’t mean to get dragged into this.

Die Sehnsucht frisst die Seele auf,

Saugt dir deine Wärme aus

Macht dich zum Schatten gar

Glück im Kampfe rar.

Downhill is always a steep and slippery road to travel.

Seh ich doch die Hoffnung schwinden

Wie sich alle Schatten winden.

Kämpfe nochmal dagegen an.

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

Please! Help me!

Die Willen brechen

Die Herzen sprechen

Die Schatten schaudern

Die Geister plaudern

But you won’t.

Nun vergieße ich die Tränen doch

Ohne Reue immerfort.

Möge doch das Licht zergehn!

So bin ich doch ein Teil von euch.

Not after what had happened.

Die Nacht ist düster weiterhin,

Die Winde ihre Lieder sing’n.

Der Verzweiflung letzte Stuf,'

Wie sie diese Schatten schuf.

Though even the police thinks I’m not capable of such a thing.

Der Hoffnung gibt es keine.

Der Lösung jedoch eine.

So hab ich doch dein Bild erseh'n.

So bin ich doch Kein Teil von euch.

Yet what nobody knows...

I did kill her...

*~*


Messing around with two different languages is kind of fun... at least when you know both...
(I'll break with my actual plans and offer a rough translation for the poem at some point.)

As always thanks for reading,
Marc, fighting with fate


P.S.: Dear diary,
        Today I patted a unicorn.