I feel that I have been eclipsed by my own work. How small I must think myself to be lost in the shadow of a paltry, incomplete project.
Day 36 of 200 days of writing
Today, I wanted to write about my heart project. Instead of a prompt or a general journal, I wanted to talk to you guys, the ether, or god about Burn.
I wanted to talk about Burn because I want Burn. I want to write Burn. I want to want to write Burn.
I’ve used so many diminishing and cruel words to describe Burn. I’ve called it corny, cliched, stupid. I’ve avoided talking about it so that people couldn’t laugh and they couldn’t be able to arch a brow at it. I was preempting the moral judgment I thought they would make. Prescribing it to myself and cutting my self and my work down until the candle of my work was boiled in venom and disappeared.
I am going to be kinder now, for the girl who thought up Burn and bore the weight of her own vitriol.
Burn is about a girl.
Burn is about magic.
Burn is about scars and change.
It’s about meeting people and losing people, not to death but to your own choices, and not being able to fix things. Burn is about a little girl and a man. It is about a woman and a kingdom. It is about fire. It is about so much fire. Burn is about religious extremism as a result of trauma. Burn is about trauma. It’s about bodily autonomy. It’s about war. It’s about meeting people and living. It’s about living regardless. Regardless of the pain and the loss and the fire and the change. Burn is about a lot of change. Changes that the main character isn’t ready for, isn’t willing to face. Burn is about a lost queen. Burn is about a reluctant hero. It’s about love above all else. It’s about travel. It’s about secrets. It might even be about drugs, I haven’t decided yet. Burn is about a hawk. It’s about parents and doctors and soldiers and kings. It’s about a golden past and rose colored glasses. It’s about little sisters. It’s about old friends.
Burn
I think of burn often.
I think about Marcel, her name almost as natural to my lips as my own. I think of Arrand, Lilith, and Cherith. I think of the Frye. I think of their magic and what it means to be them in the world I have created. I think of all of this, and I feel afraid. I think of all of this, and I am at the bottom of a mountain in my bare feet and night gown, clutching my stuffed tiger, blinking into the moonlight. It’s so much easier to turn around and head home. It’s so much easier to not climb the mountain, even if everything I’ve dreamed of is at the top. Even if when I get home and lie back down in my bed, tiger clutched in my arms, smelling of the outside, I fall asleep and see myself there at the top night after night.
It’s easier to be such a good writer if I only had the time than to be the writer who was bad when she tried.
Photo by Malcolm Mittendrin on Unsplash
Thanks for coming by today. I really need people right now. I also think I needed to face this. Burn has been this spector thats been following me around since the beginning of this project. It is like the moon, always there, sometimes faint, sometimes marvelous.
I want to write Burn. That little girl who sits in the writer’s seat wants to write Burn. But there’s this other snapping voice that snips and slashes at her every time she shares her voice. That voice has beedy blood shot eyes. She spits when she speaks, and I am afraid of her. It’s hard to face a part when you are afraid of them. When what you feel is anger, there is sternness and compassion that you can bring to the table. When it is sadness, there is love and comfort. But when it is fear, how do you look it in the eyes and ask it to change? How do you look it in the eyes to begin with?
I wonder why I am feeling so unwell today. I am hoping things aren’t getting bad again. I’m just feeling pretty alone and small today. I want to want, I want to want. It’s been the refrain of the last couple days with me. Getting your period, bad news, and then a cold really does a number on a girl. I want to say goodbye today with some lines from Burn. I struggled to read through it today, but I really think I needed it. When I finish it, and it is a book, I hope you’ll give it a read.
—————-
Seth was not there. Marcel knew instinctively where he was. She knew that he was gone. That Anna would not be this way if he weren’t inside that crumbled, crackling house.
Marcel stumbled towards her now smaller family, soot-soaked and coughing. She stood silhouetted by the fire’s light, the dagger in her hand hummed like bees, and she felt the bite of the metal like stingers in her palm as the knife burst into flames.
The crowd watched as she held the blade before her, the heat licking her skin but not burning. Even though it didn’t hurt, she felt the sobbing cracking of her chest increase. Everyone watched in shock. Anna was the only one who did not turn to stare,
The people’s faces were blurred by the dark and the tears in Marcel’s eyes, but she heard the whispers turn into shouts.
“Look what she’s done.”
“I knew she was a curse.”
“Monster” “Beast” “Fryemen”
The little girl tried to choke out a denial, an explanation, but she only coughed. The blades’ flame grew taller in her hands. She cried out in fear, and the crowd flinched back a step.
Suddenly, from above her, a voice.
“Ah, there you are, Marcel.”
————–
