Exploring Rural Forests

Exploring rural forests

- Bring a flashlight. Bring an extra battery. Bring another battery. Bring your headphones. Do not bring a camera.

- Set out after rain. It cleans the air.

- If a tree falls in your peripheral, it's a warning. Be careful, you only get one.

- If a tree falls right in front of you, something is out to kill you, and something wants to protect you.

- Those hooves you hear? Don't go looking, it's not a deer.

- You might get the urge to take your shoes off. Allow yourself to give in, if you are feeling reckless. However, no matter how familiar the ground seems, don't let it touch your ankles. Make sure you remember your name. Not all trees are born from seeds.

- The man with the dog does have eyes. He just shares them.

- If you come across a field with cows, check the height of the grass. Does it grow above your knees? Make haste. Do not dwell on the question what the cows have eaten instead.

- You might hear your own steps echoed in the bushes. Looking will not help you. There is nothing there to see.

- It's not thunder, it's moaning. You are lucky their pain is keeping them occupied.

- If you visit the abandoned house, don't close the door behind you.

- You can rest on a fallen trunk, but do not eat. You can lay your bag on a picknick bench, but remain standing.

- The carved signs are not meant for you.

- Horses do not step in puddles for they fear they will break a leg. Horses do not step in puddles for they fear they will be dragged under.

- The shadow is not that big, it's just closer than you think.

- The rolling fields look wonderful. Don't stay for the sunset.

Reblog if youd be totally fine with someone you dont know tagging you in a tag game

I had a sweet Nonny the other day asking how to get started, and honestly posts like this are a great way. I know games go kinda fallow during school and events like NaNo, but we can get this one circulating and building up a list of folks to tag when were ready to get back to it :)

This is what I am writing!! Befuddled early twenties! Panicked late twenties! Falling in love again - and it’s still hard. Maintaining a relation - also hard! Hunting down a crime organization while trying to organize a found family - very hard! 

we need more books that are written like YA novels but have characters in their 20s… like I can’t keep reading books about teenagers but I’m also not ready for the weird adult romance section of the book store

The first story has been written! It is about a forest and a pair of black riding boots. On top of that, let me reveal one more character:  Elliot, the ‘awkward apprentice’, has a talent for luring memories from objects. He has the gentleness and the patience that is required for so delicate a task. But sometimes Gabri worries about him. So many of these treasured objects come with memories of grieve, of lost lovers or lost friends or lost parents. And experiencing all that sadness and anger, even if it is secondhand? She is just not sure if he will have the stomach for it. 

So…  I am thinking of creating a podcast. It would kind of be like the Magnus Archives, in the sense that every episode is its own small story (and maybe connected to a larger frame?).  Only instead of horror, it’s urban fantasy, loosely inspired by Scottish mythology.  And instead of an Archivist, it is told by Gabri, a women in her early thirties running a small antique store. She uses magic to pull the memories from objects; memories she assembles, smooths out and collects.  Prepare for a lot of faeries, magic lore, awkward apprentices, extravagant antique-sellers, apparitions, foggy autumn feelings and summonings.  Would this be something you people would listen to? 

if we’re mutuals, and I don’t care whether we’ve been mutuals for twelve (12) minutes or three (3) years, you can send me a message any time about any thing. family life is shit? bitch, tell me about it and even if I can’t help, I can listen. struggling with mental illness and feel like you can’t talk to anyone? talk to me. literally. you always can. saw a cute cat? SEND THAT BITCH MY WAY

what is one thing you absolutely need to write?

For a deadline: I need to write a short story that is respectable and good enough to send to a potential publisher.

For myself: I need to write a story about leaving and homecoming, about friends and family and love and how to find out if you have told the truth when you are not sure anymore. I need to write about the beautiful pointless passion of people. And I need to write about the gravestone with the poem etched into it, because I cannot stop thinking about it.