67 replies to this topic

[Coops]

Write Every Week

We write something once a week, sort of like Chappy's draw every week thread. Since we already have our weekly themed writing contest, no need to have themes, I guess. You can write anything, in any genre/format. The only limit is try to make it 250 words or more.

Please remember to follow Neocodex forum rules, and the writing subforum rules: here.

All work must be original!

Every week begins on a Sunday (so it will start officially on 31 January 2016). Until then, if you want to participate and be tagged weekly, go ahead and post.

Participants: @QueenLoki @Katya @Kelvin @DonValentino @Jess @0ryx @Susie

[KaibaSama]

So I guess fanfiction works for this then? Great! I need motivation to write chapter 2 of my story. I got chapter 1, the beginning of chapter 2 and that's it. 

[Coops]

So I guess fanfiction works for this then? Great! I need motivation to write chapter 2 of my story. I got chapter 1, the beginning of chapter 2 and that's it. 

Yeah, I don't see why not. Fanfic is sort of this weird grey area. But you've made it known, so we should be okay.

[Katya]

I like this! Add me to your ping list, please

[KaibaSama]

Yeah, I don't see why not. Fanfic is sort of this weird grey area. But you've made it known, so we should be okay.

I can understand that. Fanfic is your original work, at least for what you wrote that was not taken directly from the movie/anime/whatever. Such as writing an action sequence that you made up and then using the exact dialogue from the movie for another part of the story. It's sort of like a combo of original your work, and others work.

[Keil]

I'll join in.

[Coops]

Yay. Peoples participating. 

[DonValentino]

Yup

[NapisaurusRex]

I will do this also. 

[Unmata]

Oh yes please!

[Alexiel]

I'm down. Could you add me to the ping list please?

[Susie]

I'll try it. Can't make any promises it'll be anything worth reading.

[Coops]

I will make sure to add everyone. c:

Also, @Susie, try not to stress whether you think it's worth reading or not. You never know. Writers tend to be their own worst critics. Besides, this is about exercising the brain and getting the creativity going around here. Strictly fun -- it doesn't have to be anything more than that. :3

[Coops]

Week one is officially on. You have one week to write something of 250 words +, any genre, format, whatever and post here to share. c: Remember to abide by Codex rules and that your work must be original.

@Jess
@Kelvin

@Katya

@QueenLoki
@0ryx
@DonValentino

@Susie
 

[Katya]

@Coops, there's something wrong with those tags. Make sure to correct them or people won't get the notification. D:

[Coops]

@Coops, there's something wrong with those tags. Make sure to correct them or people won't get the notification. D:

I think it's because I copied and pasted. Thank you. I'll fix them e.e

[Swar]

I think it's because I copied and pasted. Thank you. I'll fix them e.e

I don't think the tags work if you edit them (they link to their profiles, but they don't get the notification), so next time you can just copy the list, and instead of ctrl+v, do ctrl+shift+v and it will paste them without the links, so when you post it, it will link them correctly! To make sure they all see it:

@QueenLoki @Katya @Kelvin @DonValentino @Jess @0ryx @Alexiel @Susie

[Keil]

I confirm Swarley's point. I got a notification only from his post just now.

[Coops]

I don't think the tags work if you edit them (they link to their profiles, but they don't get the notification), so next time you can just copy the list, and instead of ctrl+v, do ctrl+shift+v and it will paste them without the links, so when you post it, it will link them correctly! To make sure they all see it:

@QueenLoki @Katya @Kelvin @DonValentino @Jess @0ryx @Alexiel @Susie

Thanks Swarles. I erased them and rewrote them and it still didn't work e.e

[Swar]

Thanks Swarles. I erased them and rewrote them and it still didn't work e.e

The tagging part or the notification?

[Coops]

The tagging part or the notification?

I presume the notification/tagging because Kelvin said he didn't a notification until your post.

[Swar]

I presume the notification/tagging because Kelvin said he didn't a notification until your post.

Yeah, but that's because after you post something, if you add it with a tag, it will only link the name to their profile, but they won't receive the notification. What I was saying is that for you to be able to just copy/paste and notify them, you have to paste with ctrl+shift+v because it pastes with no formatting. When you just use ctrl+v, it doesn't always work correctly for some reason. Does that make more sense?

[Katya]

Before I post my thing for this week, I just wanted to thank you @Coops because you made me go dig my it-seems-that-I've-been-writing-this-crap-since-I-learned-how-to-write book, and I'm writing again. And because of that, you deserve a +rep!

Excuse the errors, English is not my language, blah blah.
 
 

Clara’s grandpa had been a famous writer. He had written everything since romantic novels to stories of bloody thrillers. He was a self-taught writer, never asked for help to anything, therefore everything he had learned about how the human body works so he could describe the scene of a crime, he would spend hours studying anatomy books and had made acquaintances with a few detectives. The anatomy books were the most fascinating thing in the Clara’s grandparent’s library. There was a whole bookcase full of them. The library also had dictionaries, novels, old sci-fi books, History books, police novels from every country in the world and in foreign languages neither Clara nor I understood.

That was Clara’s world. After her grandpa died, and when she was not with me, she would spend most of her summer vacation’s time in that room. During the rest of the year, I visited her grandma to know things about Clara. We had almost a whole country between us during eleven months, and some days that thought was too heavy to carry, but all the times I entered that big old house and listened to her grandma’s stories I always felt as close to her as the times when we share a beach towel every summer night laying in the lawn by the pool counting the stars and waiting for a satellite to appear.

I had spent years hearing her grandma telling me how Clara loved to go to the library and get lost in the stories her grandpa cherished his whole life. And I felt the luckiest kid the first time she took me there. “It’s my secret. But now it will be yours too.” She had grabbed me by the hand; something she didn’t do often and always made us both nervous. “As soon as you get in here, you’ll be in my world. I want you to understand that the minute you do, you’ll be part of me. Do you understand, Duarte?” He face was as serious as a seven year girl can be. Her big green eyes tried to find the smallest sign of my snarky smile or something that could show her I would make fun of her. But I was as serious as she was. All I ever wanted was to enter her world, I wanted to know everything about her and if she was willing to let me in in that enchanted realm I would do anything to deserve it.

“Yes. I will be part of you.” And just like that, with those simple words carrying the weight of two lives linked by our sweaty hands, Clara smiled and hugged me before she opened the door and let me in a bit more in her being.

“Forever, Duarte. Forever.”

Forever.

[Keil]

"Bend"

 

There are only a few people in the world who can make me jealous. The kind of envy that sinks me down into my self-imprisoned corner of insecurity, with the full realization that nothing I do or can possibly ever do will get me out. Talent--the thing I clung to the most as my only saving grace, was my own only saving grace and even then, it was challenged. In this world of competition, people will only look at you and think “you have it!” if you’re lucky or "where is he who has it?" if you don’t. That one “it” is the difference between having the spotlight and champagne at your every turn, or being abandoned in the shadows, bitter and thirsty. Nobody wants to be trapped in the latter.

 

I looked away, seeming aloof and detached from the clinking of fine silverware against the imported china and the mellow brushing of Italian leather shoes against the imported Persian rug. I craned my neck up at an oil painting the size of my apartment bathtub that always took the extra five minutes to fully drain. It was of a prairie landscape. The grass bowing to the rolling winds.

 

The hotel owner saw me fixated on the piece. He eagerly told me it was made in the late seventeenth century by a famous Czech painter whose name, in my ears, melded with the indistinct conversations behind me. I thanked him for his time before he caught a second wind of more self-indulgent boasting and walked to the lobby. I never was interested in the painting. I just wanted tonight to be over.

 

I sat, hunched forward at the edge of the indoor fountain. My left knuckle propped up my chin. I watched the bellhops roll their guests' luggage into the elevator and a colleague or two step out into the garden to smoke. 

 

From the corner of my eye, a man my age approached me. He was tall, dressed in a black pinstriped tuxedo with eyes slightly sunken and drowsy. He had a handsome charm about him that seemed to captivate almost everyone he met. His blonde hair, slicked back with pomade but not without the occasional strand refusing to do as it was combed. 

 

“What are you doing out here? The party thrown just for us is back at the ballroom." He sat down, but not without holding his tailcoat down against his thighs to prevent it from being dipped into the water. He was only an arm’s length away. The nerve of that guy. 

 

“I needed air. What brought you out?” I didn’t turn my head to look at him. Four people were now smoking outside. Two colleagues, and two valets behind the glass doors. They seemed like they were having a good time judging by how their cigarettes rarely meet their lips.

 

“The restroom--I couldn’t find it even after the staff gave me directions. Do you know where it is?”

 

“Up those stairs and go left of the balcony.” I waved my right hand at the general direction without breaking poise. 

 

“Thanks, buddy. Oh and I’m looking forward to working with you from now on.”

 

I nodded. He got up and disappeared up the white marble stairs. I thought I’d have my peace for the night, but yet again it was interrupted. 

 

“Vice President, where is the President? We all have to get back now. We are already a few minutes behind the induction ceremony schedule.”

 

“He’s probably taking a dump. Give him five minutes.”

[Coops]

I'm really glad @Katya that this got you writing again. Hopefully it can do the same for me.

"Nothing"

The quiet hurts my ears.

I cannot explain it. When I am alone, with nothing but the dull drone of my thoughts, I consider the end. I never understood why people were so afraid of nothingness. That is to say before we lived, we were nothing. Death doesn’t instill any amount of fear in me.

I hear the sound of the key twisting in the lock and sigh. The door opens and the muffled hello permeates the wall. It would have to be now or never, I suppose. I stand up, the sound of blood rushing through my ears and I glance over my shoulder at the bedroom door.

“Hello? Are you home?”

It’s louder now. The faint sound of footsteps echo in the hall and my grip tightens. My knuckles are white hot fire and I rub my eye, the cool metal caressing my cheek.

“Where are you?”

The voice sounds anxious and concerned now and I hear the door handle fret.

“Why is the door locked?”

He starts banging on the door, but not even his sense of concern or terror manages to sink in through the numbness. He’s still rattling the door, even as I press the barrel into my mouth. The curiosity of regret passes through my mind in a second and I hear the thin door crack. I wrap my finger around the trigger, and realize the gun tastes bitter. The sharp sound of a split erupts behind me and in that moment, I become nothing. Finally.