The Mangled Dreamscape - Camp NaNoWriMo April 2016 (update)

     Camp NaNoWriMo is approaching like a cheetah chasing her prey. I want to outrun it and buy myself a bit more time, but that would make it too easy, now wouldn't it? That being said, I have every intention of participating and winning again this April. So, as per usual, this is my announcement post, in which I describe the works that I will be working on over the month. 

     This April I have decided not to start a new novel, for lack of inspiration, and because there are still quite a bit of unfinished works I should get to. That being said, the first novel I will be working on is "Mangled Reflections", a horror/supernatural novel I started in November's NaNoWriMo. When November ended, I was right at the end of the novel and work and exhaustion drew me away from finishing it. So that will be the first thing I will be getting to come April.

     Then I will be continuing a work I started last April, titled "Escape from Dreamscape", which Blake Tessier explores his subconscious dreamscape to allow him to wake up and return to reality. At the time, I had intended on there being four different parts of his subconscious to work through, all of which being different types of worlds on their own. Last April, we found ourselves in a world of fantasy, which ended up occupying nearly 96 thousand words on its own, nearly 400 pages. So, that being said, I think "Escape from Dreamscape" is best called my second series (following the series of "The Beginning of The End"). I will sort out the details at another time.

     Lastly, I may include 25,000 words of a rewrite of "The Beginning of The End". Being my main novel that I've been working on for a bit more than five years now, it is constantly going through heavy revisions, and NaNoWriMo gives me a chance to put it back in novel format. 

     All that being said, I expect this April to be possibly the most busy month of my life (second only to last April).  With that in mind, my current word count goal is lower than last year, at 75,000 words, 2500 a day. 

      I am excited to undertake this challenge again. There's something inspiration about being backed into a corner by a deadline and my own terrible procrastination. Last April, I was so behind that in the last 3 days, I had to write 30,000 words. It was a thrilling, passionate experience to say the least, if not the least bit exhausting. 

     Anyways, I believe I've gone on long enough. Until next time,

-Zero  

Confessions of a Shadow (poem)

I hid myself from you
like Adam in the garden,
the shame of my being
driving me away from you.

And when I did this,
I stole my love from you,
built a wall between us 
which I would not let fall.

I became a shadow 
that flames cast
on a cave's wall,
but I feign body.

I, like glasses without lenses,
an empty frame,
but mere appearance,
blurring the truth.

And for this I'm sorry,
the word was not made flesh in me,
I spoke but I did not act,
I was nothing appearing as something.

I wish I could go back,
and show you the Flames of my being,
my beginning and my end,
but it is too late now.

So instead I confess,
and ask for forgiveness,
not as a worded shadow,
but as word made flesh.

-Zero

Summer's Dreams (poem)

I dream of tall pines

strung across the river's edge,

the gentle rapids massage the water,

and the current cleans the rocks.

I dream of the sun,

shining down on a meadow

where children play

with baseballs and bats.

Like a romantic poet,

I dream of nature

like something long past,

as if it were actually lost.

But in reality,

I spend my summers indoors,

clinging to air conditioning and games,

because the heat makes me uncomfortable.

I don't dream of nature lost,

I dream of a time before,

before the crash that changed everything,

of the summers we'd spend together.

-Zero

Freezing Confinement (poem)

This place, its walls, its words,

is like ice creeping in all around me.

Maybe for some, it's different,

maybe here they feel the fickle flames of inspiration.

But my flames burn within,

and this place seeks to drown them

in the solid ice of redundancy,

formed by the love of idiosyncratic details.

So I sit here and start a fire,

feeding it with self-made inspiration,

with all the power of my spirit,

so that I am not encased in ice.

I become a man lost in the woods

in the depths of winter's madness,

clinging to a single burning flame

just to survive the night.

And it lights the darkness,

illuminates the surroundings,

and I can make out the trees,

watching like the glowing muses of old.

But soon the sun will rise,

and show me the path home;

these walls will fall away,

and I will make my escape.

-Zero