Jesse Koepke

Hello there! Yes, it is I. I had a few extra moments and thought I’d type something up. Actually, I was reading a blog of a friend of mine from Montana and was inspired. So.

Writing is progressing. I’m trying to get going on a screenplay – doing the research right now, trying to figure out the details. Screenwriting is a lot different from prose; one seems to need a plan (at least for me at this early stage) and the other seems to be more free-flowing. But I like both. So I’m trying to get going on a screenplay, and then I’m starting to work on a series of short stories – but I can’t tell you much about those. Someone might read about them….

So yep. The writing continues. Keeping that sword fresh.

Carry on.

Well. Looks like the blog has fallen by the wayside. 

It was a good go, and I enjoyed it. Perhaps future stuff will be posted, so we’ll see. The story of the sailor is kind of intriguing…

…and imprison was good.

I’ll keep writing, trying to keep that sword sharp. Don’t let your talents get rusty. 

You might lose them.

 

Until another time…

Well. 

Yes, it’s been too long. I apologize. I could put up several excuses, I’m sure, but those don’t matter. No one is keeping score, no one is tallying the misses, no one is counting it against me; save me, most likely. 

I have, in fact, been trying to write. I’m going to a writers conference in Redding, CA in a couple of weeks, and there’s a writing contest. I’ve banged and whacked out a first draft, and it’s due this Friday. But that’s not the point. The point is to write. The sword is rusty, and my arm is tired and out of shape. 

But. The point is to write. And so I do.

 

I pine for what was once so grand

And now has fallen in disrepair

Strive and work with fading might

I press on for what once stood

 

At times I feel the pen’s deep burn

And think I’ve come back home

But when I’ve took up pen to write

I find no words, just ling’ring want

 

Perhaps it’s like the growing babe

And one day I’ll stand and walk

For now, alas, I struggle on

Fumbling, struggling, to even crawl

 

Oh! I’ve felt the wind a’blow

Sails full, oceans glad

Now I set my frail gaze

And aim toward horizon’s edge.

3/31/09

            Well, not exactly ‘tomorrow’, but closer than a couple of weeks! Have I ever mentioned that I love spring? If not, I’d like to boldly say for the record, right this moment, that I LOVE SPRING! I think it’s the crisp, yet warm air; the…well, that about covers it. It’s new! It’s a breeze that doesn’t chill, an air that doesn’t freeze; nor is it a smothering heat or a withering sun. It’s free, it’s open, and I love it. Not exactly very descriptive, but some things you can’t really verbalize, much less grasp. That is, after all, the search of a writer: to express the inexpressible, to describe and put into words something that eludes the common man. That is why a good writer is treasured, even exalted: they capture what others can’t put into words. Take Dickens, for instance. He described 19^th century England like no one could. He captured the working man on the streets, the struggle for life in an industrial London. He was a master at description, and we love him for it. Some of us try to attain it, even surpass it – but alas, most of work too little at our trade and let our hands grow weak from inactivity. And that is the point of this writing (of this blog, for those scant few who stumble upon it through the internet): to reforge the blade that was rusted and sundered, hoping that by some miracle even a portion of what once was might be recovered. “Help me, Lord. You’ve given me a gift, and I have squandered it. Forgive me, and help me as I till this hard ground.”

            So, the word: excitement.

           

            The sailor trudged long on the path, ever pushing deeper into the Waiting Wood. He stopped only twice to catch his breath, and while doing so he peered back the way he had come, but could see nothing, for the fog had swallowed all with a gray, dim shadow. Still there was no sound in the forest, beside the popping of wood and rustle of leaves. As he loped along the winding way he wondered at the emptiness of the wood, and it seemed to him that as he pushed further on and farther in that he passed from reality to a dream, a waking one in which all he heard was the sound of wind upon his ears the soft thud of his footsteps on the path.            

            Something flickered white ahead, just as the path curved hard to the right round a tight groves of saplings, and he sprang forward, bounding the last remaining steps to the corner and turning it sharply, his hands tingling with anticipation of beholding the Gray Lady and the Bundle.

            But there was no one; only the path and the ever continuing undergrowth of rich green. Yet here the path ran differently, for now it lay straight as an arrow and grew wider, till several yards ahead, before passing through the thick branches of a high bush, it was wide enough for two men to walk comfortably abreast.

            It was a high hedge that grew here at the end of the path, stretching far to the right and left into the foggy trees. The sailor noticed that the branches were swaying as if recently pushed aside, and as he stood quietly he began to hear the sound of open air and soft footsteps just on the other side of the hedge.

            He licked his lips and flexed his hands. His breath rose and fell rapidly in his chest, and the thud of his heart was like the pounding of the surf as excitement ran like fire through his body. Then he moved forward and pushed his way through the hedge and out the other side.

 

            Neat. My darn wrist! What’s the deal? I can’t type for longer than five minutes before my fingers kind of tingle…is it the laptop? Or just typing in general? This isn’t good. What does carpal tunnel feel like? (he asks as he keeps typing). Well, I want to work on Shadows, but I don’t know if I can. Maybe if I give my hands a rest. Or if I stop typing. Thanks again! It’s been fun. Till…next time. Which will hopefully be tomorrow. Cheers.

3/29/09           

            Indeed. Write daily, you said? Indeed. Where hath the burns of Muse gone? From mine hand they departed, as I lay long idle and stolid. Rust and dust I gathered ere I awoke and came to know that my gift I had squandered. Alas, I morn the days of wet and firelight, for now all is gray and dying, and I fear I shall never recover.

            But to the word again I turn, if any chance may be that a day may finally come and when at last the gears are greased, the wheels freed, and the mill begins to churn once more to the merry sound of falling water and the creaking of the paddle.

            So, the word: seethe (simmer, stew, burn)

 

            Tentatively the sailor walked deeper into the wood. There was a cold, wet feeling in the air, aided by the low hanging fog, and he pulled his jacket close about his chest. The forest creaked softly in a breeze that whistled in their crowns, but otherwise all was quiet. No birds sang their tunes; no insects scratched or clicked. The forest was waiting, it seemed him, and he felt a tingling expectation curdling in his fingers, that at any moment the wood might spring to life in a flurry of tree and root and swallow him wholly.

            Still, he pushed on, for deeper than the tingle was the absence of the bundle in his grasp, and still his heart longed for it. Curious it was, that such a change should have come over him. He remembered the feeling in his heart as he rowed up the shore in the dawn hours, how he had felt a black heat coming from the bundle as it sat before him in the stern. With every pull of oars he had felt the feeling grow, till it seemed to him that the shadows in the stern seethed and rolled with desire, a desire to – be free. There, that was it: the bundle wanted to be freed; it wanted to be free of him and its rope and casing. But the more it pushed him away the greater he had felt compelled to hold it close, until at length, when he had arrived at the cove of which the Rodent had spoken, he found that he desired greatly to keep the bundle and not deliver it to whom it was due. Within in him burned now a growing desire to retrieve it, to not be parted with it, for it had been his, and he would not allow it to be rent from him before he had seen what lay beneath the wrapping.

            Purposeful became his strides, then, as he moved farther from the shore and deeper into the Waiting Wood. He began to hear (or was it only a fancy) that a call floated with the breeze, hidden just within the hanging fog; a call of It, from It. For did it not want to be found? Had it not chosen him as its bearer? The Rodent had simply been It’s chosen messenger, till he the sailor had been found. And then the Gray Lady had come and taken It from him. They were parted, and he felt in his heart that it should not be.

            His walk became a run, and the Waiting Wood swallowed him in its shadows.

 

            Huh. Interesting. Better, I suppose. I think what would help is to have a story that I actually set out to write. These little things are good, and I should keep doing them. But I think I might find a writing contest somewhere that has a theme and actually set out to write a story for it. Remember what it was like to get an idea and then just go for it? That’s the freedom of writing: to get an idea, a small kernel, an image, and build upon it, to run with it and see where the path might lead. That would help a lot, I think. And if my wrist didn’t hurt. Weird. Well, anyway, that’s today’s writing. Hopefully there is a tomorrow.