“she walks in beauty”

A couple of weeks ago, I was honoured to attend a Brave Writer conference in Austin, TX. Professional speaker and founder of Brave Writer, Julie Bogart, taught us so many great ways to incorporate creative writing in our homeschools, especially for the reluctant writers among us. I’ve always considered myself a writer, to some degree, but I haven’t exercised that particular muscle much in the past 3 years of homeschooling. So it was a bit of a stretch when Julie asked us to do an 8-minute free write, using only a line of a poem to kickstart our creative juices. Following is what came from my pen in 8 minutes. Absolutely no editing, this is exactly as I wrote it at the conference.

She walks in beauty like the night. Her gown is white, ethereal, flowing like a train behind her. Her pale skin glows in the moonlight and appears translucent. She gazes mildly out of pale icy blue eyes and her expression is blank, unreadable. She walks with bare feet upon the rocks along the shore, and her gait appears like she’s floating through the mist. From her head trails impossibly long braids of golden hue, soft and silky as cornsilk. She pauses, turns, and looks at me. My breath stops for a moment as though my lungs forgot their purpose. Her beauty is deep, haunting. I cannot forget her gaze. I turn, mesmerized, to follow her and I feel as though I may never return. Never be the same again. A breeze travels in from deep over the ocean and I feel as though my feet no longer contact the ground. We hover momentarily above those dark and treacherous rocks, then suddenly we ascend – up into the dark mist. We fly through the air together, as though bonded by invisible ropes. 

It certainly isn’t perfect and the “silky as cornsilk” in particular drives me a bit crazy. But as a whole, I was so proud of this piece. I can still hear and feel and smell where I went in those 8 short minutes. I’ve never explored fiction as an adult and certainly not fantasy. I was giddy with excitement and I’m looking forward to so many more fun writing experiments in the future!