The Cranky Old Gnome

Chapter 1

Only thirty yards stood between Corr and freedom. The tall reeds whipped at his unexposed skin as he ran towards the forest edge. He did his best to protect his face with his hands, but every step he took was more painful than the last. He knew that once he passed the edge of the Riverlands and entered the lowland forests of Endrin he would be beyond the outer edge of any patrolmen of the Rhen Alliance.

When he finally reached the forest’s edge

I am a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan.  Even though this isn’t directly related to my writing exercises I would nevertheless like to take a moment to discuss an episode from season 6 entitled Tapestry. In this episode Captain Jean-Luc Picard is given an opportunity to relive his life at age 21. For the benefit of those who have been living under a rock since 1993, I’ll go over the plot. For those of you who have already seen it, well then, this will be a nice review. Or you can Click this to jump ahead.

Make it so number one!

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This sucks, and I’m a terrible writer. I can’t ever seem to get the ideas in my subconscious to come out in any sort of logical, interesting way. Even this little exercise about how I’m writing about how I’m a terrible writer is plagued by my internal critic. I can’t even write about writing about bad writing in a way that doesn’t suck. I obsess over every word. Do my ideas connect? They probably aren’t even interesting. I bet that I’m leaving out something totally obvious. Or someone else has already done this before and they have done it better. Way better. I shouldn’t even bother trying, because after all, someone else has already done it, and they have done it better. If I put something out there it will just waste people’s time. And what about the idea that isn’t already out there? Why don’t I write about that you ask? Well my internal critic has an answer for that too: Someone else can probably do it better, and when they do it will make your work look so terrible that you will be shamed forever. So it’s better to not even try because that way you won’t have to feel bad when people laugh at you. True, you’ll never actually accomplish anything, but at least this way you won’t get made fun of.

Everyone’s a critic

Writing Exercise: Develop a religion where people worship something that no one would ever worship in our world. And it can’t be silly.

These people worship Rhythm and Vibration.  They believe that their deity manifests itself through vibration.  It’s not all sound that’s sacred–it’s specific rhythmic vibrations.  The longer, louder, and slower, the better.  They believe that the chaotic noises of nature (e.g. wind, thunder, quakes, etc) are their God fighting the Silence.  The Silence seeks to still everything, and stop all life.  These people believe that the human heartbeat was given to mankind as a reminder and connection to God.  They believe that the Silence seeks to quiet their rhythm by causing chaos in man’s soul. Sin causes the harmony of their own rhythm to fall out of sync with their God’s rhythm.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The prompt is: “You can never go home again.”

Lerit pulled gently on Switch’s reins and coaxed him to a stop at the crest of the hill.  The old steed grunted in protest, but eventually halted.  The small village laid out before him, nestled tightly in the small valley below.  Lerit thought that he had been prepared to see it again, but he found himself surprised by how he felt.  It had been three years since he’d left this village.  Three years since the day he’d discovered his power.  Three years since they exiled him for using it.  Three years since he’d been forced to leave his home behind.  He had expected to feel sad, or perhaps even angry at seeing the tiny village again.  But instead he found he was relieved.  It was good to see Creat again.

The trip up had been