between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Someone tell me why, the very night before I go back to class, the first line and the plot of a novel fall into my head?

The airship Marie-Celeste lay like a tethered dragon in the dark waters of her berth, furled armatures of her golden sunsails folded wings along her sides.

How strange is life?

Yesterday, while cleaning up some of the detritus of a week of alien invasion (I have the forces of the enemy in full retreat now, but that's besides the point) I came across one of my notebooks from two years ago.

It's a habit of mine to carry around a notebook with my kit - it's often handier to take short notes for college and societies and make the kind of lists that keep me moving forwards than to use my A4 pad, outside of lectures (around which my life still revolves) - and sometimes when I wake up from a dream in the middle of the night I'd be writing it down, especially if it involved strong imagery, people who are not recognisably people I know, and/or the entire plot of an epic mutli-volume novel.

(Trust me. The entire plot of the epic novel thing has happened more than once.)

So. It turns out I had a story-dream which I wrote down and promptly forgot about. Said dream involved an airship with clockwork "sunsails" (don't ask me, I just work here), "normal sails", prisoner-transport, "Badlands - jagged purple lightning, red rocky peaks, weird and uncanny forests, non-functional navigational instruments" and a cast of characters for whom, given that this was a dream I apparently immediately forgot, I wrote down rather a lot of incidents and backstory. Among which is my scribbled line "can be c'dmned slavery in civil suit? countersuit by cmpny/patron? = what result?", "communication by silver bowl" and "lost city?"

Yeah. Well, I read through that notebook last night before bed, and guess what? I dreamed about it last night. Again. In technicolour with chases, and explosions, and Character Moments (tm). I think that's weird. And slightly creepy.

Four hours' sleep last night. Some society work today, the beginnings of an essay, and a lecture to which the lecturer failed to show.

Which resulted in me spending an hour discussing homoeroticism and Robin Hood* with a couple of friends, after which I hied me to the gym.

And now, friends, citizens, fellow Romans, I am drunkenly tired and cannot move. Endorphins, we loves them, yes, but I'm starting to wonder whether I'll be too stiff to head to the climbing session tomorrow night.

I'm not nearly as unfit as I keep expecting to find myself, though. I suppose all the dashing for early trains is good for something, after all.

*In case you're wondering, yes, I'm still thinking about Robin Hood. I now want to write a story where Will Scathlocke is Marian in disguise - the daughter of a mad knight** who believed her to be his son after her twin brother died, or something else suitably implausible.

**In this version, it'd be Marian, not Robin, who gets to come home from the Crusades. Weird brain, I can has one.

In honour of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, I'm posting six poems and a short story.

They're not, I suppose, 'professional' quality, but they're the closest I have.

(I'm posting early because I have a theology essay and a Roman art and architecture test this week, and thus do not expect to be sticking my head up for a while.)

The Poems:

( Symmetries of Stone, April 2004 )

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( Letter to another, who could be me )

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( For Gallipoli )

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( I am a stone )

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( Homecoming, April 2006 )

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( Wrack, September 2006 )

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The Story:

( Eschatology of a Witch )

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And in the spirit of eternal hope and chancing one's arm:

( and finally )

First line meme behind the ( cut: )

Well, I think that's quite enough to be going on with.

2007 has arrived.

There are many things that must be done this week. I need to check my college fees to make sure the government has paid them as it is supposed to; I need to write my 1500-word essay on kingship in Sumer and Israel; I need to print out and deliver my CV to places which may be convinced to employ me; I need to work up a plan of study; and I need to arrange to lay aside time in my schedule for gym and karate.

Five things. That's enough for the next six days.

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1200 words today. New story. First paragraph, for the mockery of all three people on the internets who read this journal:

( Untitled fairytale cliché story )

If I was to be an optimistic person, I might imagine I could finish that this week, too. But I'm not an optimist.

Happy 2007.