christmas and drabbles and droubbles

so christmas is over.  all of the rushing around is done, the presents have been given and received, too much food has been consumed, and life is beginning to show signs of returning to normal.
thank the gods for that! 
it was a quiet day in the end - just me and hubby at my aunty's, along with my parents and great uncle.  it was slow and lovely.  as was the food. *happy sigh*

the following two days (today and yesterday) have been somewhat more trying though.
i have three grown-up stepchildren (aged from 17 to 21).  eldest stepson and partner have an eight-month-old.  they all have very long legs.  and there is only seating for five adults in our front room.  given that the main activity when they come round tends to be computer games, and we have one less seat than we need, i have spent most of the last two days in the kitchen, wandering around on the internet, and doing little of use.  i tried to edit Cirque Du Seul, but the kitchen chairs are not the most cofortable in the world, and i just couldn't get into it.

tonight, they left, and the peace is bliss.  i think Literary Kitteh was happy to see them go, too.  the minute the front door shut behind them, he was happily curled up on the settee, snoozing as only a kitteh can.  and i have been writing a little.

anyone who saw the last couple of posts will perhaps have seen comments and some excellent drabbles from Liz. this evening, she asked me for some different source words so, with an evil laugh, i gave her "ennui", "squamous", and "shriven".  she then announced that she was upping the word limit to 250.
now ok - i'll admit that this bothered me a little.  in art, conventions and rules can be bent and broken with gay abandon by whosoever should wish to do so - that's one of the glorious things about it. sometimes it produces genius, sometimes a big steaming pile of...  well, never mind.  you get the idea, i'm sure.  but personally? i rather like artistic conventions.  i find they give me structure and purpose when i would otherwise be flailing around and in steaming territory.  clear parameters are something i find i need more than i would have thought possible.  still in the playpen, you see. 

anyway, i went and had a dip in wikipedia, and found that the definition of a drabble has become somewhat more loose than i initially thought.  however, i still rather like the pushing and wriggling of trying to fit into the 100 word constraint.  it's an interesting challenge.  but there is, apparently, such a thing as a "droubble" or a double drabble (see the end of the article).  exactly 200 words.  so i put this to Liz, and she agreed.  she suggested, though, that since this is double the word limit, we should have double the source words.  fine by me.  i'd actually already started writing my droubble by this point, but that's fine - it's a further challenge to see if i can crowbar the words into what i had in mind.  but she has not, as yet, got back to me with those three extra source words, so i have finished the one i was writing, and await the arrival of the new words.  when they arrive, i may, indeed, try and crowbar them in, or i may just (which is also more likely) write a whole new one.  here's the droubble wot i wrote, anyway - along with a couple of drabbles that also happened this evening:

droubble

ennui/squamous/shriven

He had done everything. He had swum with dolphins, playing with them in the crystalline waters of the Caribbean. He had jumped from a high bridge attached to a piece of elastic cord. He had witnessed a sunrise from space, and a sunset from the top of a mountain. He had travelled through deserts and jungles and cities and tundra, drinking in all that was on offer from the landscape around him.
And then ennui had set in. Surely his odyssey had shown him all that this shrunken planet had to offer. After all, he had flown the length and breadth of the planet more times than he could count. What could there be that he had not already seen? He returned to his vast mansion set in its endless acres and gloomily flipped through his electronic photo library, looking for details that he may have missed. And then it hit him. Staring at an accidental picture of his shoe, his squamous eyes opened, and he felt shriven of the soul- weariness plaguing him. Rushing to his vast wardrobe, he grabbed the first pair of walking boots he could find, and set off into the world.
This time, on foot.


drabbles

effortless / doubt / propensity

She envied others' art. The seemingly effortless melding of incidents and accidents that produced things of great terror and beauty filled her with longing. The propensity to doubt her own abilities led her to dismiss those who told her she had talent, and to seek darker avenues to improve her own art.
Trading with demons in dark alleys, she swapped a piece of her soul for each new ability. At last, she had what she thought she needed. Exhibiting her works to the world, she proudly waited for reviews to flood in. A tide of comments containing one word:
"Soulless."


dissolve / books / revolution
The revolution had come and gone. It left in its wake a vague feeling of "Meet the new boss - same as the old boss". And one other difference. There were no more books. The glorious republic had decided that books were antiquated, had outlived their time. But no matter. There was all the new technology that still allowed storytelling without all of that cumbersome paper getting in the way. Now there was only the sharp clarity of electrical impulses speaking to each other. But without the feel, sight and smell of books, the culture began slowly, imperceptibly, to dissolve.


still waiting for those words, Liz...  ;o)

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(edit - added after comments posted)

so as you can see in the comments, i got my three extra words, and made this:

ennui/squamous/shriven/sniffle/evocative/muse


The ennui had passed.
The slithering, squamous creatures that haunted his dreams had ceased their vile hissing whispers. He'd laboured in darkness for seeming aeons, hacking and scratching with rusty pen and clotted ink at damp, spongy paper. Not an evocative word in sight. The moist chill in the air making him sniffle interminably, he'd pushed his way through the thorny vines of writer's block, wondering if his torment would ever end. He knew he'd brought it on himself. By allowing himself to become distracted by the worst dregs of popular culture, he'd alienated his sensitive and capricious muse, and she'd left. Her punishment was harsh. Unrelenting. He'd toiled for weeks on end to make amends - eschewing television, newspaper, magazine and radio, just to create sufficient space for her. He decorated the space with strange blooms, sumptuous fabrics, elegant sweetmeats and champagne. He carried it in his head as he hacked through the stinking, half-rotted vegetation of z-list celebrity and tabloid journalism, cradling it carefully and keeping it inviolate.
Eventually, a ray of golden inspiration hit him full in the face and, as he felt her pour into the space he'd so carefully created, he knew he was shriven.


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