And there will be a next time.  I’m thinking about my next post now.  However, there’s not a whole lot of content on the other blog (or this one for that matter) as of yet.  As in, there are two posts and one of them is a Hello World.  Oh well.  STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER UPDATES.

I have been quite a fan of TaleWorlds’ Mount & Blade series for some time.  For those of you that are not familiar with the Mount & Blade series, they are a set of open-ended RPGs focusing on medieval mounted combat (hence the “mount” in the title).   You create your own character and lead a band of heroes and soldiers in a world wrought with war (you get to decide who makes up your army and how many soldiers you take along).  The games prior to With Fire and Sword took  place in a semi-realistic fictional medieval land called Calradia.  When I say semi-realistic, I mean that there’s no magic, and that the characters mostly stick to what we would consider the societal norms of a medieval realm.  Though the Mount & Blade series lacks the polished feel of other sandbox-like games, they are probably the most accurate RPG representation of a medieval world I have encountered.  Granted, I haven’t encountered that many games that focus on realistic medieval mounted combat.  But if you enjoy exploring a world of lords and ladies and carving a name out of the war-torn land for yourself — these are some niche games that are worth a shot.

On to my observations about the newest installment of TaleWorld’s signature series, which by now, came out a couple months ago.

Mount & Blade: With Fire And Sword!

I feel like I should point out that Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword is not a sequel or what I consider a normal expansion; it is a “stand-alone expansion.”  A very odd category that I checked out the wikipedia entry on anyway.  I thought that being a stand-alone expansion meant it would include and expands on the previous Mount & Blade games, specifically Warband.  However, it became clear to me that With Fire and Sword is supposed to be an entirely separate game altogether, mostly just using the framework of the previous two.  That’s fine; it just seems to be a little slim on the new content and features that would make it very different (in ways that I enjoy) from Warband.  A better term for With Fire and Sword in respect to the previous Mount & Blade games is probably that it’s a “spin-off.”

There are some very big differences in content however that I think I should also point out before I go on to discuss the game play itself.  Probably the biggest difference is that the game’s setting and story are based on a historical fiction novel, Ogniem i Mieczem by Henryk Sienkiewicz.  Toto, I don’t think we’re in Calradia anymore.  This is very important when it comes to With Fire and Sword‘s “historical accuracy,” which I applaud certain aspects of.

What type of games are the Mount & Blade games, anyway?

As I was writing this, I was trying to think of what I would classify Mount & Blade as…  As I have stated, I am no expert.  I’m not a developer or a professional critic who supposedly knows all the ins and outs of these terms.  But to me, I have always called it a “sandbox RPG.”  It’s not like the hardcore RPGs and JRPGs where you play a set character and have a very strict story line to follow.  It is more along the lines of something like Oblivion or Fallout but it seems to have far less story than those WRPGs (though it is supposedly more story driven than Warband), only sharing the open aspect of the world map and semi-customizable player character.  I don’t really know, and I think it’s just semantics.  But you treat and RPG very different from an RTS.

It's a good thing I picked a unisex name for my character...

Mount & Blade is sometimes referred to as an open-ended action-RPG.  I could agree with that. The games are definitely open-ended and there’s definitely a lot of action in those battles and tournaments.  However, there are also the aspects of your relationships with lords and villages, as well as the nurturing of any villages you might own.  And there are the classic RPG elements of creating your own character.  But.  Eh.  What’s in a name?

I approach the Mount & Blade franchise primarily as a very free form RPG, which led to my first disappointment in With Fire and Sword.  Many core elements that made the previous games RPGs were removed: right off the bat you cannot choose your sex or the several facets of your background like you could in Warband.  I was actually in denial for a little while.  I just thought I had missed the options somehow.  I was very disappointed to find out that no, those options were flat out removed/left out of this implementation of the newest installment in the Mount & Blade series.  I almost stopped playing right there.  I wanted to play a certain character in my head and I couldn’t.  I was left with a character defined only by stats and equipment.  Usually in expansion packs, features and content are added not removed.  

The Tutorial: A Whole New World? Not Quite.

But I dealt with it and kept playing, because I enjoyed the game play of Warband as a male character, so I could enjoy the game play of With Fire and Sword as a male too.  The tutorial seemed much more… I don’t want to say important, but maybe… defined?  Instead of waking up and being attacked, you… randomly break down a barricade of a village and help some named guy fight off some other guys? The comparison I meant to make was between the “Merchant” and this named guy whose name escapes me at the moment (this will probably come back to bite me as I think he may be a prominent historical figure and I am displaying my ignorance of the subject matter). Anyway, the likelihood I will see said named guy again after the tutorial seems much greater than seeing the “Merchant” of Warband.

In the tutorial they give you the standard, this is how you move, fight, mount a horse (up until this point those of us that have played the previous games cannot click fast enough to get through the hand holding), and fire a gun!  Oh, and not firing a gun at a person, but at a lock to open a gate!  OOh, that was actually interesting to me.  I didn’t think of that.  But then of course you go and fight some bandits, or brigands, or whatever they’re called, and because this is With Fire and Sword I decided to try out mounted shooting.  Well that was difficult!  I failed so badly at hitting any mounted opponents.  I quickly went back to using the techniques with a blade I’d refined in Warband.  (I have since then become a little better at mounted aiming, but ranged combat has always been difficult for me in Mount & Blade.)

Combat: Fire at will! No? Oh…

What I stare at for half the duration of each battle if I chose a firearm.

One thing I did notice that I both loved and hated at the same time was the amount of realism that has been put into the weaponry.  When using a melee weapon, depending on which way you flick your mouse, the weapon does different strokes.  Well, the realistic bit that they tacked onto their guns is the reloading: you literally have to wait about 15 seconds while your character pours in the shot, beats it down and whatnot.  Then you can fire.  It cracks me up.  And while I think some may find it annoying because it makes you wait, it adds a touch of realism to the game that I have always applauded Mount & Blade for.

Also, for some reason it’s entertaining when you run out of ammo and get to bash people upside the head with the barrel of your matchlock carbine. Although I did realize during a shootout with an NPC that sometimes, it’s easier to just charge them with your sword instead of racing to see who can reload, aim and shoot faster.  Which I also found entertaining.  I kept thinking as I was running towards him: who brings a blade to a gun fight?

I haven’t gotten to the grenades aspect of the game yet, but they sound like a great addition to the game.  One reviewer said that they were a great way to combat the trademark Mount & Blade battle clusters – where all your enemies and soldiers cluster together in one big… well.  Cluster. (It’s never good to be caught in the middle of that.)  So, grenades make a wonderful area attack to exploit this very, very common occurrence in the many battles that you will play.  I’m looking forward to it.

Questing: Where’s the salt!?

Alright seriously. It took me nine in game days to find 3 bags of salt to finish the first quest and I couldn’t even tell you how many villages and fortresses/cities I visited.  Questing was always repetitivein Warband (go to the other side of the map to deliver this, kill this meanie, collect these taxes, bring us cows, e tc) and not necessarily easy (sometimes no one has any cows! and if they do, they certainly don’t have 9 spares to sell you!).  Anyway, so while I was running around searching for salt, I quickly became outnumbered: the meanies (deserters, looters, bandits and whatnot) had much bigger armies (say, 40 whereas I was… 1) and it took me a while to find a mercenary camp where I could recruit soldiers for my army.  I miss being able to recruit random peasants.  In order to survive, you really need an army.

Ooh Shiny!

On an aesthetic note, the graphics are pretty much the same, although somehow the User Interface seems shinier and yet exactly the same… I don’t know how that’s possible.  I think the “parchment” template is just lighter and somehow streamlined.

But your character is just as blocky and scary looking as ever.  With Fire and Sword has the same level of avatar appearance customization as Warband. The way you can tweak the different aspects of the face is very Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – esque.  And I like it.  It’s just hard to made a good looking character.  I also haven’t been able to find out if you can pick a banner anywhere, which you could do in Warband if you started out with the impoverished noble background.  You can however, customize your army my talking to the leaders in the same type of mercenary camp as the group of soldiers you are trying to customize.  You can upgrade their armor, horses, weapons, and hats.  There may be some other aspects I’m failing to mention, but you probably get the gist of it.  Although it makes some sense that you can only customize the specific regional type of soldier from the corresponding camp, it makes it a little inconvenient if you happen to have soldiers from a far away land and want to upgrade them.  And are at war with said country.  That can make gallivanting around trying to find a mercenary camp exciting.  But I digress.

The villages seem a little nicer, the buildings are a little more spread out, and the addition of gates that you can actually open are a neat little addition.  I’ve always thought that the in-combat scenery is nice.  Nothing spectacular, but then again, there’s something about a whole horde of cavalry galloping over a hill back-lit by the setting sun that just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside…

Wait… who developed this game again?

This is something that’s confused me to no end.  Steam says With Fire & Sword‘s developer is TaleWorlds but on the forums I kept hearing that it wasn’t TaleWorlds that physically developed the game.  According to the forums, a reliable source, I know, TaleWorlds just designed it and then another company, SiCh Studio to be precise, actually implemented it.  This is not uncommon, to my understanding, in the game development world (but again, I’m no expert).  However, as it often happens when a third party steps into a franchise, somebody (namely many fans) feel butted out.  Here are some other sequels where this has happened: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic developed by BioWare whereas Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II was developed by Obsidian.   Same thing, same companies with Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights II: BioWare handed off the sequel to Obsidian.  Another example: Fallout and Fallout 2 were both developed by Black Isle Studios, Fallout 3 by Bethesda Softworks, and Fallout 3: New Vegas by Obsidian.  So needless to say, it happens.  And it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Reflections

It’s not what I expected.  That doesn’t mean it’s bad.  Not at all.  I think that people who are just getting in on the Mount & Blade series will enjoy it, though they might have a hard time with the quirkily realistic combat and the tedious quests, and long travel times (wow, that was a long list of negatives).  The game has it’s good sides!  I swear.  Because for some reason I keep playing it.  Maybe it’s the hope that that one village over there might have my extra bag of salt. Or the promise of fresh new villages for me to run through at full tilt, stopping only for the Village Elder. Or maybe it’s the new semi-historical factions that I am curious to learn more about.  I don’t know.

I would recommend playing Warband first, if you haven’t and are interested in a medieval action-RPG or mounted combat.  The additional RPG elements are a major selling point to me (for Warband).  Right now, I haven’t found much in With Fire and Sword that is going to keep me away from Warband for very much longer.  But I applaud TaleWorlds (and SiCh Studios – though I don’t know how much of a say they had) for making the leap and moving to a new land, factions and storyline, as well as  trying out the additional quest types and political intrigue (both of which I have yet to encounter — a major reason I haven’t stopped playing) .

There’s a lot wrong with Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword and I worry that I have focused a little too much on these negative aspects of the game in this post, but I want to stress that I still really enjoy the game.  It has it’s flaws and it still feels very rough.  But the thing is… I still like it.  It’s one of a kind.

Ender: FML, my wife’s a nun.

Gotta feel for the guy. His life sucks.  (I KNOW I have some sketches out there on this subject… must find them…)

Anyway, my mental image of Novinha has evolved quite a bit. First, I imagined her very old and tired looking. Haha. Then — not so much. I’ll try and scrounge up my different versions, but here is one of the “not so much” quick sketches:

P.S. I keep trying to find a way to sneak her into my bigger Enderverse piece… but she’s just not cooperating.

Not really much of a blog post, but I’m focusing more on the drawing bit right now. Sorry!

Ender’s Game (C) Orson Scott Card
Art (?) by me

Here is one (along with a bit of background information) I have posted elsewhere already, but it’s a funny little hello.

“]

Cover Art for Speaker for the Dead Issue #1. *1

So a couple days ago I got the first issue of the new comic book adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about: heard of Ender’s Game?  No?  Stop reading this and go read it.  It’s an awesome book.  Assuming you like science fiction.  And if you’ve read Ender’s Game and haven’t read Speaker for the Dead – that’s okay.  They’re very different books but you might appreciate this anyway since you know who Ender is.

Back to the point: My initial reaction to the cover of the first issue of Speaker for the Dead was: oh my God, Ender Wiggin has a beard. He has a beard. For some reason, it kind of blew my mind.  Now here we get into the part where a reader’s mental image and an artist’s mental image don’t always coincide.  In fact, they usually don’t.  Personally, I always imagined Ender as being very young looking, clean cut, straight edge and what not, even into his older years.  Maybe a little bit of scruff or something when he was much older, but certainly not the full blown beard he’s got here!

Anyway, I was remarking how odd it seemed to me – the fact that Ender Wiggin had facial hair (yes, I’m going to keep saying it – maybe if I keep saying it I will desensitize myself to it) – to a friend.  And finally I linked him the image to your left.  His response, and I quote, “Ender is quite stubbly. Can I call him Captain Stubbles?”  And I definitely could not read the next couple panels where Ender was talking because I kept looking at the text, and then looking at his face and bursting out into a fit of giggles.

And so, Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead became Captain Stubbles.  See image below to witness what happens when I get “inspired” nowadays.

CAPTAIN STUBBLES!

I am currently working on a larger piece of… floating heads of characters spanning across the Ender and Shadow series.   Thanks for reading and I post again soon.

*1. By Giuseppe Camuncoli, Danny Miki and Brad Anderson. Image source from TFAW.com (Proper citation coming soon)

Oh, we’ve had some good times. We’ve surfed so much I can barely stand the sound of the waves of information anymore. The ocean of knowledge, common, eccentric, and just downright wrong greets us every day. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a part of the vast wealth of data, the bits lapping at the edges of my memory. But I digress… However, this ocean is not without its sharks. I swear, I’ve never seen someone so angry when told their partner has a virus. It’s not my fault, it just happened! After all, I didn’t go surfing alone, now did I?

She was all fun and games before then, and I don’t think she’s forgiven me yet. She just turns me on and leaves me hanging. Sure, we go surfing but it’s not the same. She found this other guy, Norton. He follows us everywhere and asks us a ton of questions. Sometimes she answers him faster than I can even recognize what he’s asking.

She does spend a lot of time with me though. We sit in front of each other a lot, even if she doesn’t ask me to do anything. She sits quietly and all I can do is whir, bemused, content and eager, waiting for something, anything from her.

But alas, she leaves me again, too often, and without a goodbye. Leaving me here sighing, spinning, and thinking. Unable to function without her touch.

- Ode to an Electronic Companion

The air outside crept through the doorway as my grandfather closed the sliding screen door behind him. He took out his simple white handkerchief and swatted his face with it once, twice, and then rubbed the back of his neck as he walked around the kitchen table, his off white dusty sneakers squeaking with every step on the tile. He moved to the obsidian black refrigerator and pulled out a plastic half gallon of two percent. Shuffling around the island, he reached up and grabbed a glass.

Pouring himself an ample glass (and spilling some on the granite tabletops as well, his aim skewed a bit thanks to the cataracts), he spoke. “You going to stay inside all day?” he asked and put away the milk, taking a seat at the head of the table. “It’s hot as blazes out, but the sun’s nice,” he said with a lopsided smile before taking a long gulp of the cold milk. I put my own glass on top of my plate; it was decorated with painted flowers, swirling vines and leaves, and the long Latin name of whatever flower it was on the plate typed or painted by hand, I couldn’t tell, in pink. “I think your brother and his friends are outside on the deck,” my grandfather said. I got up and brought my plates to the sink.

My brother was back from his first year at a boarding school, complete with monks that swatted your knuckles with rulers. His big black drum set, which had drowned the house in its cymbals and it’s tat-tat-tatting of the different drums, was now stuffed away in the attic section of the storage room, suffocating in the slanted ceilinged, non-air-conditioned cave. His more prized possession, the electric drum set, was gone – sold to someone I can’t remember. The storage room overflowed and my mother didn’t want the expensive instrument neglected for the long months my brother at school.

“Okay, I’ll see if they want anything,” I said, walking around my grandfather and hooking my thumb in the latch to the sliding screen door, and waving it open. As I stepped out onto the patio, the new cement deck, I heard my grandfather push his chair back and get up, immediately he started singing some old love ballad, probably from his days in the navy, maybe from his days as a choir boy at his church. I never really listened to the words he sang, I just enjoyed how his sonorous tenor voice filled the kitchen and drifted its way through the open doors and rose to the rafters of our living room, soaring skywards with the chimney, passing the balcony that was the second floor hallway and disappearing up in the rafters.

My brother and his friend Kyle leaned over the black iron fence that lined the terrace, as my mother called it. The patio-terrace consisted of cement slabs decorated with brick edges and patterns and stemmed out from the first floor of the back of our house. The patio-terrace looked out over the pool, a full story below the cement lip of the terrace. Brother and Kyle leaned out over the fence leering at the clear water tinted blue by the pebble-printed lining. Laurie, Kyle’s twin sister, sat behind the boys on the fake marbled brown leather top of the Jacuzzi. She looked over at me as I approached them and she smiled, her pancake makeup seamless and her lip gloss sparkling. Her opaque, rhinestone encrusted sunglasses perched atop her curly blonde hair like a crown caught the sunlight as she turned back to watching the boys at the fence.

“Hi y’all,” I called when I was close enough. Brother and Kyle looked over at me, Kyle straightening up and Brother remaining hunched over the railing. Both of them wore sunglasses down over their eyes, shielding them from the bright sunlight bearing down on them through the branches of the trees near the edges of the terrace. “D’y'all need anything?” I asked. Brother looked at Kyle and Laurie, his eyebrows perpetually furrowed in an attempt to lessen the amount of sunlight assaulting his senses, even with the sunglasses.

“I could use another coke,” Laurie said in her high voice, shaking a near empty bottle so the remaining liquid swirled about the tinted glass.

“Would you get us some popcorn?” Brother asked after looking at Kyle, who nodded, his shaggy brown hair brushing the lenses of the sunglasses. “Please?” Brother added, tilting his head to the side a bit like his dog, the golden retriever Blazer, who panted in the heat, lying out on the brick wall surrounding the stairs down to the pool.

“Okay.” It got me inside, away from the searing heat and buzzing red wasps that lurked in the bushes on the other side of the tall walls lining the stairs that Blazer used as a throne. The kitchen was empty but the sounds of the television filled the room. My grandfather reclined in his leather chair with his feet propped up in the living room, snoring away in front of his television while John Wayne broke an especially uncooperative horse. I pulled out a packet of popcorn kernels and threw it in the microwave, hitting the popcorn button, and walked around the island to pull out a large bowl. The two large bowls we used for popcorn were nearly identical, only the scratches marring the clear plastic walls separating the two bowls. Both were clean and sleeping readily in the cupboard in the underside of the island in the kitchen.

I pulled out both bowls and lined them up. The microwave beeped and the door popped open; I took out the packet of steaming, smoking popcorn, and put in a second pack. Dumping out the popcorn into one of the bowls, and careful not to put my arms or hands directly above the steam, I reached for the salt and parmesan cheese. I added both ingredients, measuring by how many times I circled the bowl as I poured. Shaking the bowl to stir the salt, cheese and hot popcorn, a few popped kernels leapt over the wall of the bowl, and I plucked them from the counter, popping them into my mouth as I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a coke for Laurie.

Opening the screen door with my elbow, I brought out the popcorn and coke to the group of teenagers seven years my senior. “Thanks,” Laurie said as she took the coke from my hand. “Yes,” hissed Kyle as he grabbed the bowl of popcorn. I looked down at their feet and saw a piece of plywood protruding from the edge of the terrace. Kyle must have seen me staring because he looked back at me, smirking between mouthfuls of popcorn: “D’you like it? It’s a diving board.”

“You should try it,” Brother said; both he and Kyle had a foot on the end of the story and a half high diving board. There was probably five feet of cement sidewalk between the base of the terrace and the closest edge of the pool. The plywood board extended maybe a foot. It didn’t take me long to reply with a polite no, thanks. “It’s totally safe. Kyle did it, and he’s fine, see?” Brother said with a nod at his accomplice. I only shook my head and turned back to the house.

“Hey, thanks for getting us the popcorn!” Kyle called as I left. “It’s real good,” he said. “We should keep her around,” he remarked with a laugh to Brother. The aroma of the melted butter escaping the packet in the microwave filled the kitchen. I pulled it out and did the same thing as with the bag for my brother and the twins. I grabbed another coke from the refrigerator and walked across the house to my mother’s bedroom. As expected, she lounged in her own leather chair with her feet, clad in white fuzzy slippers, resting on the matching footstool. She still wore her white nightgown with pastel colored floral prints, even though it was afternoon, and was reading an Anne McCaffrey book.

“I brought you some popcorn and coke,” I said, shaking the bowl and making the remaining kernels swirl about the bottom, sounding like small beads in a bucket. “I made some for everybody else, so I thought I might make us some too.”

“Thank you,” she said and put her book aside on the top of the two level dresser next to her. “What’s your brother doing?” she asked plainly enough as I clamored up onto her tall, king sized bed. The bed was higher than my hip so I had to jump myself onto it.

“Hanging out,” I replied evenly.

“Hanging out, huh?” she said and heaved herself out of her chair, the back straightening with a resounding snap. I pulled my lips tight but didn’t say anything as she walked to her own sliding glass door that opened out onto the terrace right behind the Jacuzzi. She pulled back the curtains and stood with her hand on the door. At first I couldn’t tell if she could see the plywood board from here: the Jacuzzi might have been in the way. But she stood quiet and still for a moment, and I knew she’d seen it. The heavy glass door unlocked with a hesitant click and slid open choppily, sticking in the track every few inches. All three teenagers turned around to face her, not smiling, only squinting. My mother closed the door behind her.

“What is that?” she asked.

“What?” Brother replied.

“That – that piece of wood there.” My brother only stared at the unassuming piece of wood he and Kyle had a foot on. “Have you – have you been jumping off that thing?” she asked. I don’t know how she knew. I relaxed my face and shifted my legs underneath me, hoping to appear innocent should my brother look in and see me. Maybe I should sit with my grampa, instead of sitting here, I thought with my brother on the other side of the glass. “You could break your neck! Get rid of that,” she exclaimed in a shrill voice. “Take it to the garage. Kyle, Laurie…” I didn’t hear the rest. My mother, still in her floral nightgown, ushered my brother and his friends out of sight in the steamy Texas summer heat.

I could see the two bowls of popcorn, the one I’d brought out to my brother sat nearly empty, resting haphazardly on the top of the Jacuzzi cover, next to Laurie’s two bottles of coke, the empty one lying on its side, the other only a few sips lighter. The bowl I’d brought to my mother rested on her dresser, next to her untouched drink and the book she’d been reading, a pen substituting for a bookmark. I slid off the bed, grabbed a handful of the popcorn, and moved across the house. My brother and mother remained absent from the air conditioned cold as I joined my grandfather in watching John Wayne saving a woman and her child from some Comanche raiders she swore would never hurt her.

The walls around me are polished rock, the scintillating colors of minerals interrupted only by the rusting steel bars that held up the tunnel. My dog Sunny, a petite Golden Retriever, licks my hand and weaves around me. I take a few steps farther than the last time. I glance back to make sure no one followed us and hold up a fist. Sunny sits and tilts her head. I latch my helmet into place, the air tank gasping as the bottom of my helmet seals with the collar at my neck. I go through the door; Sunny waits behind.

Goodbye Fredericksburg (1st Draft): a 30 line free verse

Inside Outside (5th draft): a sort-of-haiku

Midsummer Classic (2nd Draft): a sort-of-haiku

Coalesce (1st Draft): a sort-of-haiku

Choirs (3rd Draft)

What does it mean to live to work to try
I sat awake, I dream, at attention
Sat wondering why I wonder God, why?
The chill of echoes remains in motion
The prancing prairie dogs scramble and hide
From shadows o’er their heads that scream and cry
Tenors, basses, seraphim, Why God why?
Cold fires sing faults, sing flaws, taking their sides
Veiled eyes dance solo, spinning and crossing
And falling into place beside my throne
Towering higher and higher, feathers
Melting I cry no more, bereft, alone
But silence, he, though eternally near,
Replies, the wind banks darkly, far from here.

Goodbye Fredericksburg (1st Draft)

Goodbye molded bread
And burnt ramen noodles
Goodbye community fridges with Chinese food from
Midterms in exam week
Goodbye girl’s field hockey in pajamas and socks
The ball ricocheting off the RA’s door
Goodbye thunderous air conditioners
That billow winter winds into the summer heat
Goodbye silverfish; I will not miss you
You have so many legs, a ball of writhing needles
So long lack of parking spaces
The walk to my car half the commute to work
So long revving engines on College Avenue
Ambulance, fire trucks, and police sirens screaming
So long Carl’s Frozen Custard, standing solemn and rich
Fredericksburg gravitates round you
So long history
Girdles, corsets and bonnets run rampant
So long Fun Land, place of children and bored young adults
And college students in kilts spinning and dancing on the mats
Goodbye constant construction
The towering construct, the busiest building on campus removed
Goodbye horrendously slow internet
And suspiciously sectioned off bandwidth for academic prioritizing
Goodbye cops conveniently paused in the turn lanes
With their lights off, waiting at the bottom of the hill
Goodbye jaywalkers of William Street
A fence now robs them of reason
Good bye Fredericksburg, Virginia;
Second home uncontested.

Inside Outside (5th draft)

Midsummer thunder
A horse frolics in the field
He does not mind rain

Midsummer Classic (2nd Draft)

Flashbulbs all alight
Beads of sweat cling to skin
Players run ablaze

Coalesce (1st Draft)

Rifts in the body
Artificial light hides night
Chirps drown dogs afoot

Now, to business.  I am taking an introductory class to creative writing this summer.  I have produced some works, rough drafts mind you, and would like to publish them here.  I hope to get some good advice, and critiques.  At least, now I know I have a place to point my English teachers and all those people who go: “oh, you write?”.

Although I have just made this blog, I have to go and actually do some of that creative writing work I was mentioning.  Poems don’t write themselves.  Or do they?

Ioae