Once upon a time, she rose. Once upon a time she sank. But when is once upon a time? How many times has she risen and fallen again? How long is her everlasting breath?
Just now a new journey begins. The same as her whole life, but still so different. Today she will endow the people with light. So red and beautiful. Each little ray of the miraculous glow, thousand different colours mixed to form one.
She creeps over the land, with each step that seems so tiny, travelling a million miles. And as she gazes over the mountain her colour changes. It's getting brighter and more powerful. Another time life awakes.
Slowly, something is stretching along the warm sand. The animal moves majestically, displaying its long, black, split tongue, a challenge 'till death for anything opposing it. The snake does this with perfect preciseness.
And now she sets again, ready to show herself to another part of this planet the moment the snake sees her no more. The footless creature moves over the still fiery stones waiting for tomorrow when another time the all seeing eye will spread its arms on the country.
The stars, a sea of light in the darkness, now is the only companion of the snake. And so she waits for another morning.
This was inspired by track 19. Everytime I listened to it, i had a sunrise with a snake sliding along a dessert in my mind. I tried to descibe these images as good as possible trying to use personification and some metaphors.
ReplyDeleteHi Sydney,
ReplyDeleteI'm Andy - your new wordvoodoo mentor. It's great to read your stuff for the first time. I'm impressed by how presice your language is - it's really clear even though you're using a lot of metaphors. That's a real skill - well done.
The description of the sun is great. I love the sound of 'time life' as well - that's awesome. Similarly the snake comes across brilliantly - you've got a very well controlled sentence with 'The animal moves majestically, displaying its long, black, split tongue, a challenge 'till death for anything opposing it.' I loved that.
Maybe look at changing: 'perfect preciseness.' The 'p' sounds are good, but 'ness' words as adjectives sound a bit weak in writing. You could use 'precision' here.
Other picky points are that 'now is the only companion of the snake' sounds a bit weird - maybe but 'now' at the end - and that 'thousand different colours' should be 'a thousand.'
Also 'sea of light' was a little more generic, and a little less evocative, that the rest of your great description, so you could think of sounding else to describe the stars.
All in all I think you've done a great job of the task. Mostly I'm impressed by the clarity of your prose, but your metaphors and images are great too, and I liked that this image emerged organically for you from the music. You should be really proud of this.
Looking forwards to seeing your next piece. Take care,
Andy
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI’m Sarah, one of your new wordvoodoo mentors, and I’m really excited to begin working with you! Especially on the strength of this task, as there’s some great stuff here.
This piece works as an isolated chunk of descriptive writing, yet still has a strong narrative structure: the course of a day, with its clearly marked beginning, middle and end. This gives the piece a sense of propulsion and drive, which is fantastic! Writing should not be static: it should always have a sense of movement, something pushing the reader onwards, and your submission has this very quality. I also really enjoyed the way you opened up the cliché of ‘once upon a time’, using an established beginning but giving it a fresh twist.
The changing syntax works well, giving the piece a sense of variety, and there’s some lovely language here: ‘each little ray of the miraculous glow, thousand different colours mixed to form one’ - though I agree with Andy that it should be ‘a thousand’, this is organic as an image and fairly awe-inspiring as a fact - and ‘long, black, split tongue’ - often writers will be warned against “over writing”, but here I think the string of three adjectives works, mainly due to the rhythm it creates. A skilful use of a sonic device! However, I didn’t think ‘still fiery stones’ worked as well – ‘still’ is obsolete, as the reader wouldn’t expect stones to be moving! Also the mixed metaphor of an ‘all-seeing eye’ with ‘arms’ was a little confusing.
Overall though, this is a really sterling attempt, and I look forwards to reading what you come up with next!
Sarah
Sydney, your piece is amazing! I especially like this part 'and so she waits for another morning'; wonderful ending. However, 'and she gazes over the mountain her colour changes.It's getting brighter and more powerful.'... Why the change to 'it'? Just previously written were the words 'she'. Is it intentional or something else. Just curious, in any case it is an amazing piece.
ReplyDelete