Write By the Beat

[Matra Hammer]

Time for a bit of cooldown fun since everyone is all wired up and (mostly) done scrambling apps for MOIV. Something to fill the gap between app deadline and waiting on the voting spread.

The Writing Playlists thread got me thinking about exposure and writing habits. Why is it some of us struggle with music playing and others go nuts? What is stopping us from just letting loose, following the Beat, and seeing where we end up? Easy answers are "I want to do this right" and "I need to concentrate." What're the root of those? Worry. Worry that you'll miss something or lose yourself because the music is too influential.

At least, that's what it is for me...

THE POINT

I'm proposing a shared writing experience so we can have fun while testing our limits. I'll give the step-by-step below, but the summary is as follows: we all get on at the same time, we all (individually) fire up the same album (for free on YouTube,) we all continuously write until the album ends, and we all post the results here for discussion/reflection. I believe this challenge is the perfect balance of time management, measured progress, and, most importantly, letting go and producing.

Here's all the relevant information. Ask questions if you think of any, and try sticking with this thread for said questions/discussion.

Proposed Time
Thursday, June 15th, 10 p.m. - 11:15 p.m. EST

Method
At 9:45 p.m. I will post the album's link in this thread. At 10 p.m. we will all start the album at the same time and begin writing. At 11:15 we will all stop writing and post our finished products in this thread. Contributors are encouraged to talk about their experience, or how they were moved into writing what they wrote. Observers are encouraged to listen and marvel at how strange and different all of our approaches are to the same string of songs.

ETC
- There is NO set genre, and no need for even a Redwall setting, but do try and keep things PG-13.
- The album should finish before 11:15. Use this time to spruce things up before you post, but keep in mind: this is about honesty, fun, and learning to let go, not winning a Hugo award. If it's unfinished then it's unfinished. If it's short then it's short. Tell us why. Perspective is important!
- The shy, or unavailable, are welcome to listen later and post the results. Do try using the same constraints, but tell us if you don't and why for discussion's sake.
- The album will remain a mystery until the proposed time, but it will be entirely instrumental so no worries about content rating, sensibilities, etc.
- The date and time is flexible since this is short notice, but I selected this coming Thursday specifically since it's between the app deadline and the app voting phase.

For those who already listen to music while you write? Cool, neat, join along. For those, like me, who're worried? Be brave, we are all friends here.

Hope to see what you make on Thursday. Let me know here if you plan on participating or not.

[Vera Silvertooth]

I'm totally in on this, though I will have to start a little later than the rest of you, since 7 EST is 5 MST and that means dinner prep for the minions is well underway. But I'll try to run through it a couple hours later when I know all my children are in bed and distractions will be at a minimum.

[Vizon]

It sounds like fun. I used to be able to write to music a little bit once. So maybe I can do it, even though usually I find music to be more distracting than inspiring.

I'm one hour earlier than Vera, so for me I'd be starting at 4 and ending with 15 minutes left for dinner prep. I think I can do that. I could do an hour earlier or two hours later also.

[Matra Hammer]

We can do two hours after (9 p.m. to 10:15 p.m.) if you'd like. I've Friday off because an installation guy quoted ALL OF FRIDAY as his estimated arrival time. Jerk.

Would 9 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. EST work? Could you both make it then?

[Vizon]

Sorry Matra - totally screwed up the math on that one. I'm three hours difference so even 9:00 would be 6:00. Middle of dinner. Bedtime is 7-7:30 for the kiddos so that'd be a start time of 10:30 EST. Probably too late. Might be better to keep it earlier then?

[foxpen]

I'm good the whole day. This idea sounds quite charming!

[Matra Hammer]

How does...

10 p.m. EST to 11:15 EST on 6/15/17

...sound? It'll be tough for me since bedtime is usually 9ish, but I got the next day off and there's coffee around.

[Frost]

Hey all, that works for me!

[Tooley Bostay]

I propose a name change to Crypt of the Necrowriter.

This sounds like a ton of fun, so count me in! I think it'll be a great way to unwind after all the contest tension.

[Matra Hammer]

Happy for the turnout so far. For those of you on the fence...

C'monnnnnn.
C'monnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

Edited the introductory post with all the correct information.

[Rascal]

It sounds like an interesting idea. I'll give it a shot o.o

[Matra Hammer]

A heads up for everyone still interested.

Song goes live in 1 hour and 15 minutes. That's 9:45 EST.

Get your spell bags and pocket sand ready. The song link will go up in this thread.

[nutkin]

Hi all!

Here's the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w3cJGDCSfk

[Matra Hammer]

Liftoff in 10 minutes, folks.

Remember:

Just write. No money on the table, no awards or rankings. Stop at 11:15 (yes, the album will stop before the time limit.)

Give the music some time. If you don't have an initial image then wait a little.

And finally, let us know your thought process and how you approached things when you post your piece after 11:15.

I also suggest using spoiler cuts if what you make is really long. Not sure how to do those though...

-Airan Edit: To do spoiler tags, you use the same coding as you would for things like italics and bold. (spoiler) words words words (/spoiler). Just swap the parentheses for brackets.

[Matra Hammer]

Reflection as promised.

Took a few minutes at the start of the album and soaked in the atmosphere. I was immediately reminded of the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. Not in content but in tone, the drab drapings of otherwise thoughtful beings besieged by misfortune. Why? Perhaps the turn of the songs, which were always 1.5 parts hopeful and 3.5 parts dire to my ears. And when I think of dire situations? I think of children.

The physical writing went fast throughout, and I think the mid shift of the first song spurred me along. Overall that's the main effect the music had on me. Whenever my spirit flagged I tuned back in, caught the beat, and found my place again. But, for the most part, I stayed aware of the music only at a sub-conscious level. Except for the crescendos! You can see in the story where they happen. Winding descriptions and tonal brick laying are often disrupted by shifts of scene or the appearance of a device which pushed everything forward. Very neat, and very unexpected.

Overall, I'm not pleased with the product. Especially since "kids search a field for magic" is one of the bigger items on the "Tired Story List." Sure, a few of the lines are nice (I especially like the doctor one) and the story is "complete" in the loosest sense of the term (shy lady confronts her fears and moves on) but neither are enough to make this particularly interesting. I feel I'm opposite of Vizon in this way. I never wanted for content, but I never dug a deep enough well.

Here's the story in the spoiler. Enjoy!

[spoiler]
The kettlefields ran foul with cobbled barricades. They stood as the last reminders of plots gifted to the peasantry by nobles without heirs, by wealthy foreigners who knew nothing else in the terms of local gratitude. All bribes for the farm hand who saw one strangling too many, those simple souls too valuable to the land for outright execution, yet too superstitious for carrying on without some bauble - some parcel of land - to keep their sanity. Strange things happen to men with privilege and no promise of permanence. Strange crops grew in the fields the quiet farmers called home.

But those were the grim days, and the shadows and bean rows guarded by cobblestone walls were now the heaps and rushes children dared one another to walk through.

Lorelei Simmons offered one such dare to her darling cousin, Mertle. Pie-faced Mertle knew nothing of noble bribes or the snakes, nettles, and pitfalls of forgotten farmer fields. Lorelei remained at a respectful distance from the black iron fence at the end of the village - covered in signs in too many languages warning of ill omens - her birthday dress always pressed and her ribbons never worn twice. Mertle immediately tore her secondhand stockings on the rusted gate hinge, and froze before the reaches of reeds twice again over her tawny braids.

They loomed ever higher, those dread reeds, reaching into the somatic clouds above which heaved and clawed for the earth.

"We can go back," said Lorelei. "I will have to tell Clyde, but we can go back."

"NO! You mustn't. He will...he will..." Mertle didn't know what Clyde would do. The boy didn't do much of anything beyond sit beside the master's seat at dinner and nod. Their Uncle's stories received the young ward's nod of approval. Their Aunt's fussings were endured without so much as a flinch of his astounding, timeless cheekbones. Mertle found herself reaching for those golden cheeks before the gate, like two white apples ripe for plucking, but snapped to reality as Lorelei sniffed. "He just must not know. Promise you won't tell him?"

"I will do the right thing, as will he. You spent all afternoon saying you're more than prepared for the kettlefields, that you'd find a brick and show us how brave you are. How else shall Clyde treat a liar?"

Mertle ran a finger along the tear of stocking, and the tear of her flesh. The blood on her fingertip spiraled downwards and soaked into her broad palm.

"I am not a liar." The effort even gave the hungry clouds above pause, but Mertle turned on her cousin's frigid stare in full. "I will go. I'll find a brick of old and come home."

"Then go."

"I will."

"Fine."

Mertle backed up a few paces until the heel of her boots left the cobbled trail and sunk into the damp earth. Lorelei did not flinch, or turn for the rows of slat and stone cottages winding through the valley behind. Not as the the few paces were followed by minutes of silence, not as the silence was followed by the already shrouded sun sinking behind the treeline.

Then the whispers. At first Mertle though her cousin mumbled curses at her cowardice, but these ran softer, deeper, like the assurance of a doctor out of ideas. Mertle could not make out the words, and she turned into the reeds in search of the source.

"Excuse me," said Lorelei. "You're leaving? You're actually...are you sure?"

Lorelei's voice faded with every step beyond the iron fence. The reeds greeted her braids with trapped rain already a day old. The mud sucked at her heels in warning, but Mertle pressed on with one hand to her ear and another parting the verdant tide. She turned once, then again, but no matter which way she stumbled the whispers neither grew more coherent or faded. She stopped to find a bearing, but through the thrash of heavy grass over her she saw only granite sky, with no sun or star to guide. A jump only rewarded her dress hem with a fresh coat of mud, and the ground below reformed too fast for any trail to remain.

"Lorie? Hellooo?" No response save the wind and whip of fern. The chill ran damp and sure, like a cat wetting its lips. "You can tell him. I'm s-sorry I-"

Dust. Red dust like one finds in poorly ground rye, or in the pinch of an abandoned painting tray. At first Mertle thought her cut reopened and spattered the ground and rush, but the spatters of dust became small piles as she followed. The piles turned into heaps, the heaps into mounds. When she scrambled up one and breached the top of the reeds she did not spot a valley of stone cottages all lit and carved in uniform. She did not spot a twisted iron fence with too many signs.

A strong, cobbled wall and a brick and thatch hut stood only yards away. Mertle knew the paintings of old which hung in her Uncle's study, but not a one had stood for many hundreds of years. Yet Mertle smelt the game and reek of shorn animals and laundry long past due, the same scent she only knew from carriage rides between home and familial manors.

One candle floated by the hut's only window. The silhouette of young woman stared out at Mertle before the flame extinguished. All at once Mertle realized how soaked her dress became from the reeds, how caked and coated her boots ran from red dust and mud. How dark the sky became in so short a time. When had she left? How had five minutes in the reeds turned into so much more?

"Hello?" Mertle clapped a hand over her mouth on realizing she'd called out first. Immediately she rolled down the hill and tucked against the cobbled wall. No reply echoed, but she heard the hinge of a wooden door and the slap of raw leather against grass.

Mertle did not have to look up to know the woman loomed over the fence. But she did, and found Lorelei's hard, inscrutable face staring down.

"Lorie?" The woman did not answer, and Mertle realized, indeed, this was not her young cousin who tailored clothes for small dolls and lectured on the importance of foreign tea ceremonies. This woman ran hard as stone and higher than the reeds of the kettlefields.

The woman reached down, grabbed Mertle by the collar, and picked her up like an errant goat climbing the barn rafters.

"One of the house's brats, ain't yah?" Mertle gasped at the loose vernacular. Even without Clyde around, Lorelei would never end her sentence in such a careless fashion. Yet, the woman smelt of her cousin's rosehip perfume, and the electricity of a person forever inconvenienced. "How long you been missin'?"

"Uh, fifteen minutes?" Mertle wiggled free and plopped onto the ground. On this side of the fence she noticed a valley filled with pristine, stone fenced squares. Some held crops, some held more red brick huts, but all ran clear of weeds and reeds unlike the one behind...

Mertle turned around and saw yet another pristine farming field.

"No. This isn't the way. There was grass there."

The tall woman, the fake Lorelei tucked her hands into her linen apron.

"Yeah, there's grass there and there and all places."

"No! Big grass. Tall grass. Clyde told us there are old bricks in the grass and I said...I said I could find one. And he...he laughed..."

"Clyde, huh?" At least that remained the same, thought Mertle. The fake Lorelei clapped her hands and pointed at the hut like a master ordering a dog. Mertle trundled into the suprisingly warm hut without protest. "You stay here and clean up a bit. Lucky you I'd a kettle boilin'. Some soap in the drawer if you got a nose for it."

The fake Lorelei slammed the door shut before Mertle could protest. And protest she didn't, for every scrap of clothing on her soaked through, and the pitch fire in the hearth begged compliance through warmth alone. As promised, a kettle over the flame jostled about, and Mertle poured a little into a copper bin by the cook table. A full four towels were tarnished before she rid herself of dirt, and the spare clothes the fake Lorelei owned fit well enough with a length of rope to tie off the extra.

The whole hut ran as one room, complete with bed, dining table, a cabinet full of hanging herbs and finery side by side. And a rock. A flat, light gray rock painted with what Mertle would've guessed were cave drawings. As she came closer she saw the bleached hair and angular glory. Even in a childish painting Clyde's features tightened Mertle's windpipe.

"The brick. I have to get back."

Without a prayer or permission Mertle ripped a brick from the wall of fake Lorelei's hut and dashed out the front door.

A pair of armored men, a carriage, and the fake Lorelei awaited her. The fake Lorelei immediately blitzed past Mertle, retrieved her dirty clothes, and brought them before the carriage. She held them up before the blackened window as she pleaded.

"As I said, milord." Fake Lorelei curtsied a few hundred times as she spoke. "Not fit for a peasant girl. I figured she must've pinched em from your stores, begging my pardon for assuming."

Silence. Mertle tried to speak for herself, tried to stand up, but the way the armored men gripped at the...swords? They word swords and actual, plated steel instead of the coach rifles and bandoliers of the estate guard. Mertle's heart raced in the silence, and the fake Lorelei twitched until she burst out with:

"So I was thinking, just thinking, catching this little rat could earn me a brick or twenty more. It's awful cramped here by my lonesome, y'know. And if you could find it in your heart to help here, perhaps we could speak more of our-"

"Enough. I will see this thief."

The command stopped everyone's hearts. The carriage door eased open. The fake Clyde was no less angular, but the beauty died at his eyes. No warmth, but only steel clouds framed in silks and lace the Clyde Mertle knew, the real Clyde, would've...no. He would've worn this hideous, motley outfit. Lorelei would've stolen the brick from Mertle. Neither of them cared for the mystery of the field or their summer together. They cared only for a target, for a spot of sport.

Mertle made her own sport. She threw the brick, pegged the fake Clyde between the eyes, and ran.

She heard the spark of steel on steel as swords freed from their rimmed sheaths. She heard the scream of the fake Lorelei kneeling beside her indifferent God, wailing for vengeance upon her foes and mercy for her fallen "lover." She heard laughter. Her own laughter. Spirited and true as she blitzed across the manicured fields. Other brick huts opened up as she ran, and trodden peasants balked at sprite of a child escaping the noble's guards.

Mertle vaulted stone fences, she vaulted crops, she vaulted broken cobble, she plunged into...into reeds once again. She'd not seen them coming, nor did she hear the boots of pursuing guards. But onward she ran.

Daylight cut through the tops of the reeds as she thrashed through the overgrown field. The whispers grew once more until they crashed like overhead thunder. Louder, louder still, and then the breach.

Mertle hurtled through the open iron gate and smeared the line between the mud and the cobbled walkway of the village. The uniform stone homes were back. The valley of gas lamps and milling busybodies were back. Her uncle's mansion on the hill was back.

And so was Lorelei. Mertle's size again, in her pressed dress again instead of a linen frock. And by her side stood the owner of cheekbones so lovely they made the very creator weep. Both spoke in turn, Lorelei in her disgust and Clyde in his dismissal.

Mertle heard neither of them. She caught her breath, strolled between them, and smeared her brick dust hands on their stunned faces.
[/spoiler]

Thanks to my SO (nutkin) for finding and posting the song. Many thanks to those who played along, I look forward to reading your work. And future thanks for those who haven't given the gig a swing but are planning to. And even if you're not interested in listening and writing? Read what we churned out and let us know what you think.

Onward!