Writing

So I haven’t been post­ing here much late­ly. Nano has kind of tak­en over.

Here’s a sam­ple, if you’re interested:

In the slice of time between heart­beats, civ­i­liza­tions were born, flour­ished, grew cor­rupt, col­lapsed into war­ring nation-states. Con­ti­nents crawled across oceans, met, rose heav­en­ward in himalayan mountain-building.

He could see the slug, could see the eye-sear­ing bril­liance of the expand­ing gas­es. Sir Edouard was com­ing to his feet, mov­ing slow, as slow as if he were embed­ded in hon­ey. Tiny sun­lets of flame and smoke puffed from the anti-recoil holes along the pis­tol’s bar­rel, swelling in excru­ci­at­ing slow motion.

He was embed­ded in a block of plas­tic, unable to draw a breath. Noth­ing would move for him. He want­ed to scream but he might as well not have had a mouth.

Sir Edouard had unfold­ed him­self from his seiza posi­tion. He was almost to his feet. His eyes were flat mir­rors, reflect­ing the flame of his pis­tol’s muz­zle. His mouth was set in a nar­row, lip­less line. His halo of snow had burst from him like a star­burst, a white cloud envelop­ing his head. It might have been com­i­cal but for the expres­sion on his face.

As Yak­oub watched, his paral­y­sis com­plete, the knight took a step, impos­si­bly slow, then anoth­er and anoth­er. Slow­ly, inex­orably, he closed the gap between them.

The snowflakes remained where they were as he approached, slow as a glac­i­er. One step, and anoth­er, and anoth­er. He stopped, heels togeth­er, two paces away from Yak­oub, and reached up with an arm.

With the speed of a con­ti­nent, he plucked the slug from the air. A chill smile spread across his face. His eyes glit­tered with reflect­ed flame.

Want more? Here’s the whole thing: Salyx. 38,000 words so far, by the word counter in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

How’s your November?