On stress relief
Apr. 24th, 2007 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterI know I have a problem with being what I like to call high-strung. I deal with it, and I've recently encountered a trick that works for me. Technically Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way recommends these "morning pages", free-writing for as long as the words keep flowing, to clear your head in the morning, but I've found that the morning is the time I rarely need them. Instead, I write when nervousness builds, and it helps me immensely. By the time I hit 1 000 words, the problems are formulated, solved, and I feel calm. The trick is not to re-read as you write, just write until it dries up.
And if I do manage to write in the morning, I can write fiction, too - usually nice mood-vignettes that work in quiet ways. This is yesterday's: Thanatos is the Greek personification of Death I've written of before.
320 AD, a meadow in Dacia
They are not the Deaths of plants, and thus Thanatos feels nothing when se watches Azrael's fingers all but clip the stalks of the yellow flowers. When the fingernail presses into the green structure, a drop of white fluid appears. It smells fresh, green. Like sun.
"You should wear white," Azrael says, adding the flower to the bunch already in hir lap. The white fluid leaves dark stains on Azrael's skin.
"I'd end up green," Thanatos points out. Se is not watching Azrael. Se is simply propped up on one elbow, the wind throwing hir hair in hir face. Watching, for enemies. It isn't as if those who would dispose of hir would think to look on a Dacian meadow, but se hasn't got to where se is by allowing hir control to slip.
Azrael lifts the flower to hir lips, turning it so that the stalk faces up. Two front teeth clip the end of the stalk even, and Thanatos notices one upper tooth is chipped.
Thanatos's left foot is almost hidden in a furrow overgrown with taller grass. It's almost yellowed already, although it's barely May. It tickles hir foot between the straps of the sandal.
Azrael smiles and reaches for another flower.
"Why?" Thanatos asks. "They will die soon."
"They're not grave flowers," Azrael muses. "Is that why you don't like them?"
Slim fingers tap the folds of a chiton. "I didn't say that. I don't see the point. You don't have a house to decorate with them."
"I could have. But no, these aren't flowers for a vase."
Thanatos chooses not to comment, instead watching as more of the yellow flowers are acquired and deposited in Azrael's lap. Se recalls this kind of flower. Later in the summer, it will close, then flower again with pale fluff that travels with the wind, or one's breath. If Azrael leaves any, that is.
Thanatos remembers this flower, a white one, in a woman's hand. It's one of the images se's stopped wondering about centuries before. Whoever the woman was, she's been dead for a millennium.
Thanatos is old, and that is why se watches without malice.
"Like this," Azrael says, hir fingers moving deftly. It's just a knot, but when it's tied again and again, one stem after another, it's like jewel-making.
"How do you do it?" Thanatos asks. Azrael always seems so young, though se rivals Thanatos hirself in age. Perhaps more, because Azrael is an angel, a definition so much larger than the word for some creatures that sometimes, rarely, are the only kind a Death can mock-create. And still there is light in Azrael's eyes, and each smile seems like the first smile in the world.
"Like this," Azrael repeats, and reaches down to wrap hir fingers around Thanatos's wrist.
Later, se insists on putting one of the wreaths on Thanatos's head, and a multi-looped bracelet of the flowers on Thanatos's forearm. The white fluid stains the skin, but it's easier to go along than argue.
When Azrael decides se is too tired to go back and immediately into the duties that await them, Thanatos watches the way Azrael's wings gleam in the sun.
And if I do manage to write in the morning, I can write fiction, too - usually nice mood-vignettes that work in quiet ways. This is yesterday's: Thanatos is the Greek personification of Death I've written of before.
320 AD, a meadow in Dacia
They are not the Deaths of plants, and thus Thanatos feels nothing when se watches Azrael's fingers all but clip the stalks of the yellow flowers. When the fingernail presses into the green structure, a drop of white fluid appears. It smells fresh, green. Like sun.
"You should wear white," Azrael says, adding the flower to the bunch already in hir lap. The white fluid leaves dark stains on Azrael's skin.
"I'd end up green," Thanatos points out. Se is not watching Azrael. Se is simply propped up on one elbow, the wind throwing hir hair in hir face. Watching, for enemies. It isn't as if those who would dispose of hir would think to look on a Dacian meadow, but se hasn't got to where se is by allowing hir control to slip.
Azrael lifts the flower to hir lips, turning it so that the stalk faces up. Two front teeth clip the end of the stalk even, and Thanatos notices one upper tooth is chipped.
Thanatos's left foot is almost hidden in a furrow overgrown with taller grass. It's almost yellowed already, although it's barely May. It tickles hir foot between the straps of the sandal.
Azrael smiles and reaches for another flower.
"Why?" Thanatos asks. "They will die soon."
"They're not grave flowers," Azrael muses. "Is that why you don't like them?"
Slim fingers tap the folds of a chiton. "I didn't say that. I don't see the point. You don't have a house to decorate with them."
"I could have. But no, these aren't flowers for a vase."
Thanatos chooses not to comment, instead watching as more of the yellow flowers are acquired and deposited in Azrael's lap. Se recalls this kind of flower. Later in the summer, it will close, then flower again with pale fluff that travels with the wind, or one's breath. If Azrael leaves any, that is.
Thanatos remembers this flower, a white one, in a woman's hand. It's one of the images se's stopped wondering about centuries before. Whoever the woman was, she's been dead for a millennium.
Thanatos is old, and that is why se watches without malice.
"Like this," Azrael says, hir fingers moving deftly. It's just a knot, but when it's tied again and again, one stem after another, it's like jewel-making.
"How do you do it?" Thanatos asks. Azrael always seems so young, though se rivals Thanatos hirself in age. Perhaps more, because Azrael is an angel, a definition so much larger than the word for some creatures that sometimes, rarely, are the only kind a Death can mock-create. And still there is light in Azrael's eyes, and each smile seems like the first smile in the world.
"Like this," Azrael repeats, and reaches down to wrap hir fingers around Thanatos's wrist.
Later, se insists on putting one of the wreaths on Thanatos's head, and a multi-looped bracelet of the flowers on Thanatos's forearm. The white fluid stains the skin, but it's easier to go along than argue.
When Azrael decides se is too tired to go back and immediately into the duties that await them, Thanatos watches the way Azrael's wings gleam in the sun.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wishing you continued success with your writing........
Date: 2007-04-25 01:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 08:31 am (UTC)I think I like this vignette because it takes place during the summer, and it´s spring/summer weather where I am, with all sorts of flowers blooming. I especially liked the following phrases:
Thanatos remembers this flower, a white one, in a woman's hand. It's one of the images se's stopped wondering about centuries before. Whoever the woman was, she's been dead for a millennium.
It's just a knot, but when it's tied again and again, one stem after another, it's like jewel-making.
but it's easier to go along than argue. For that last one: ha, it´s so entertaining to watch the Deaths/angels play off each other.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 08:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 09:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 02:46 pm (UTC)