This is Where I Buckle Down and Admit the Muse Won

So today, I struck a deal with my muse that went like so…

Dear Muse,

Under the circumstances of dire duress, I permit you to write anything you want during this November period under two conditions, as follows:

1. You must produce words and a significant chunk of them at any point when I am following your guidance, and
2. You must also produce definitive and significant progress on whatever story you undertake to have me write—

definitive meaning reliable, fully-formed, and complete; and significant meaning important and of sufficient volume to be worth my while.

Any failure to comply with the above conditions will result in immediate and summary dismissal of your input regarding which project I am working on.

Thank you and regards.

Sincerely,

the scribbler

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

NaNo Day 8: Jaguar Lives

She was a smaller child than Monkey when first her people left her alone beneath those leaves and ordered her to bring home meat. A tiny thing, she was fearful of the dark, for her eyes were black and human, prey not predator.

Yellow eyes startled her out of the night. The jaguar shifted forward from the undergrowth and picked his way on great paws to breathe against her shoulder in a voice she should not have been able to understand. “What is this soul and skin you wear?”

That was when she knew she was Jaguar, when she lifted her small hands to his great shoulders and embraced the beast, breathing back, when she learned how the jaguar hunt.

— from “Breath from a Stone”

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.