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Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
2000–8000
Writer's Block
I’ve always had a weird relationship with writing, you know? On one hoof, sometimes words come easily to me. I sit down at my typewriter and things start tumbling forth. It’s the getting started that’s the hard part. A thousand different ideas and none of them every seem good enough. Once a story really takes hold, though, it can come right out. But I at least need something to work with! I suppose that’s why the advice is so common among writers. ‘Write what you know.’ I’ve heard that repeated many times over the years. The first time? I was just a bumbling little thing too caught up in her childhood adventures to really sit down and put quill to ink well. Still, I can remember the scent of simmering vegetable stew, my mother’s overeager voice, the comfortable purr of Jasmine asleep on my bed...
I stare blankly at the sheet of paper in front of me. Then I groan. Stupid, stupid school assignments! Stupid day being so awesome I want to go out and play in the leaves before they all turn brown. And stupid Mom for being just close enough that I can’t possibly sneak away.
“Annie! Have you gotten started yet?”
I can hear her hoofsteps approaching, coming all the closer. I groan again.
“No, Mom! I don’t know what to write. And if you don’t stop asking me every five minutes, I’m never going to get anything written!” I wish she’d just leave me alone. And why can’t they at least give us a topic? I’m fine with a topic, but stupid Miss Cobble chose ‘I just want three pages on whatever you like’. And there’s so many possible topics, and I don’t know what book to crack, and -
“Dear, just write what you know.”
Great, real great, coming from her. “Mom, that doesn’t help! I know a lot of things. I know how to fly, I know all sorts of geography, I know all those books I’ve read, but I don’t know what to write!”
“Then write about yourself, dear. When all else fails, there’s always just telling the story of you.” Of course she’d say that. Mom’s always a pony for cliches. Comes from all those little books of wisdom she buries her muzzle in day in and day out. And yet, actually?
Huh. I guess that’s not so bad, as advice goes. My family is pretty great, after all. At the least, it’ll be somewhere to get started, and after that point maybe I’ll just make stuff up. Oh, I know - Hearth’s Warming last year when the hearth caught fire. Gosh, that was funny. A little scary, but funny. I guess I can tell that. It’s something, at the very least. And if Miss Cobble doesn’t like it, I know I tried. That’ll make Mom happy.
Heh. The teacher liked it well enough, as it turns out. But I suspect she was happy with any kid who made the effort. She probably got a heap of essays talking about favorite candie and why some kid deserved a puppy and all sorts of childish nonsense. We weren’t yet big enough that any form of quality was expected. That didn’t come till after grammar school was over, not till Mom and Dad had me sent up to that fancy boarding school near Manehattan. It was a long way from home, but they only wanted the best for me. And...well, school wasn’t that bad, you know? I’ve got fond memories, I suppose. Some. But a lot of ponies had their noses in the air, and far too many were competitive. You learned you could only really count on yourself in many areas. A true friend was few and far between, but everyone was united against certain teachers who laughed as often as Celestia failed to raise the sun.
Which was to say, close to never.
“‘Miss Antiquity! I say, I have never seen a mare more bedraggled make her way into my classroom! Sun above, child, what were you up to?!’”
I snorted at Amber’s impression of Ole Rockface. Not that we’d ever actually call him that within hearing range. That was a great way to end up with a multitude of demerits and a ticket to a double-load of after-school chores. Of course, in my case, it’d end up being a triple-load. I might have a bit of a troublemaking streak. I didn’t mean to, I just got bored! I wasn’t made to sit behind a desk and do nothing but study.
“Yea, well, he didn’t have to assign me a paper explaining just how I had failed to maintain ‘proper school standards of hygiene’,” I groused.
“Well, hey, that should be easy. I mean, you know, write what you know and all - and I’m pretty sure you know that mucky old cave well enough by now. I still don’t get why you’re so into it.”
“If you’d ever come with me, you’d see! It’s way more than a cave, there’s an entire maze down there! I think it’s an ancient Diamond Dog burrow, given what I’ve found, old broken tools and stuff. It’s totally awesome - I just want to know why they left!”
“Not all of us have your sense of direction, Annie,” Amber noted. “And some of us aren’t fans of being as muddy as an earth pony during plowing season.”
I snorted again. “It’s not that bad, and if you weren’t allergic to cold, there’s always the stream near school. Or just rustle up a rain cloud and give yourself a shower.”
Amber stared at me, then tapped her horn. Oh, right. Unicorn. Silly me. I did the mature thing and stuck my tongue out at her. She sighed, rolled her eyes, but at least smiled before speaking again.
“I’ll let you be, Annie. If you finish anytime before the dining hall closes let me know and we can get food together. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.” And I was alone. Pfeh.
The paper beckoned. Oh well, he wanted to know why I’d arrived covered in dust, I suppose it was only fair to start with the cave-in.
And that cave-in was what drew the attention of Manehattan U’s antiquities department, and where I first met Professor Scrolls. She took me under her wing, metaphorically speaking, since she was an earth pony and all. I spent less and less of my free time around the students my age, and more and more time helping her team out with excavating the soon confirmed ruins below. The rest of boarding school turned into a blur. Get through the boring classday, toss homework out of the way, zoom down to the caverns and get to exploring.
I’d have skipped out on the homework if the Professor hadn’t been so adamant about keeping my grades up. She had a point though. Every good explorer has a solid body of knowledge to draw on so they’re well-prepared for the unknown.
There’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart over the years.
Boarding school wrapped up and it was right to university. Classes were way more interesting when you got to pick exactly what you studied. Even more so when you’d known half your professors ahead of time. Professor Scrolls wasn’t the only one who’d taken interest in the caverns. We eventually had a name for the abandoned caverns, Obsidianite. Culture, history, all that slowly formed together. The dogs had left centuries ago, back when Manehattan was just a tiny trading post.
Bah! I shouldn’t be rambling on and on and losing myself in memory like this. I have a job to do and every moment spent staring at the paper before me is a moment wasted. This blasted contest cutoff is way too soon and I need the bits. Train tickets don’t pay for themselves. I can always stowaway, but I’d prefer to mingle safely in the lounge. Make some friends, get a drink or two, let tongues wag. Never know what you might pick up.
Still, the memories are a bit raw. The last time I wrote…
“Miss Key?”
“Annie’s fine.”
“Very well, ma’am. Is there anything else I can get for you at this time?” Formal, stiff. Like all butler-types, I suppose. Dignity to be found even in a hot, muggy motel in the middle of Saddle Arabia.
“No, thank you. I’m good.” A bowl of greens, tepid water. Hardly high society fare, but I’d wanted this, hadn’t I? I wasn’t content any longer to linger in lecture halls and do the same, steady bit by bit discovery I’d spent half a decade on. I wanted that thrill back. The same I’d felt as a kid just running through the woods, or those first few times sneaking past the school grounds.
I wanted to explore, and Obsidianite wouldn’t do it anymore.
And now I had to explain to the Professor why I wasn’t coming back. How was I going to tell her I was quitting?
I don’t know. There’s so much I want to say, and nowhere to say it all. Certainly not to her face, not after I left without so much as a goodbye.
But I only had so much time before the train left, and if this letter wasn’t on it, then I’d leave her not knowing.
Scrolls deserved more than that.
I sighed, and as I had so many times before, set my quill to ink.
Professor Scrolls,
I wish I could say I regret leaving, but there have never been any lies between us. I’ve treasured our time spent together, and wish it could continue.
It can’t. I need more. There is so little we truly know, and so much more out there beckoning. Somepony has to be first, and I want it to be me. I wish you could come with me, but I suppose I know you’re hardly a young mare anymore and I understand why you...do what you do.
But it’s not for me. The university life is just too dull. Too orderly. I hope to come back someday, and maybe we can share tea while talking of what I’ve seen and done. Thank you for teaching me so much these past five years. Without you I don’t think I’d ever have found my destiny. Someday, our paths will cross again.
Until then? May the wind favor you.
Yours,
Antiquity
I’ve yet to make it back for that tea. One expedition turned into two, then three, and I’ve found myself gallivanting all over the world. I still send her letters, but I doubt she believes them. They sound a bit too fantastic even to me, and I lived them.
Ugh, but I’ve spent way too much time ruminating! I need to get something out for this blasted magazine. Fifty bits isn’t a lot, but hey, they’re desperate, I’m desperate, seems a match made in Elysium to me.
That, at least, would have been one nice thing about finishing my degree. Having a bit of a salary to draw on. Find some way to get tenure and then justify why I never taught classes.
Nah. I prefer working alone. The last time I took a colt under my wing, turned out all he was in it for was the money, and I’m not getting burned again.
Alright. Alright. I’ve stared at this long enough. Nothing I can think of is working. But hey. Write what you know and all that, right? I’ve seen a doozy or two, and maybe that’ll be enough for the readers. If it’s not, at least it’ll get me my train ticket, and that puts me a short flight from the mountains, and if I’m lucky, the map will lead me right to the monastery.
Actually, this could be fun. I don’t have to embellish anything. Imagine the look on Scrolls’s face if I ever get to tell her every word is true. Right. Time to get started, then. Still, Antiquity Key isn’t a very vibrant name for an author. Everypony jazzes it up a bit these days...I’m sure something will come to me. For now, I have a story to write. They say they’ll accept serials, after all.
As Daring Do trekked through the tropical jungle, the wet heat sapped her energy and slowed her every step.
I stare blankly at the sheet of paper in front of me. Then I groan. Stupid, stupid school assignments! Stupid day being so awesome I want to go out and play in the leaves before they all turn brown. And stupid Mom for being just close enough that I can’t possibly sneak away.
“Annie! Have you gotten started yet?”
I can hear her hoofsteps approaching, coming all the closer. I groan again.
“No, Mom! I don’t know what to write. And if you don’t stop asking me every five minutes, I’m never going to get anything written!” I wish she’d just leave me alone. And why can’t they at least give us a topic? I’m fine with a topic, but stupid Miss Cobble chose ‘I just want three pages on whatever you like’. And there’s so many possible topics, and I don’t know what book to crack, and -
“Dear, just write what you know.”
Great, real great, coming from her. “Mom, that doesn’t help! I know a lot of things. I know how to fly, I know all sorts of geography, I know all those books I’ve read, but I don’t know what to write!”
“Then write about yourself, dear. When all else fails, there’s always just telling the story of you.” Of course she’d say that. Mom’s always a pony for cliches. Comes from all those little books of wisdom she buries her muzzle in day in and day out. And yet, actually?
Huh. I guess that’s not so bad, as advice goes. My family is pretty great, after all. At the least, it’ll be somewhere to get started, and after that point maybe I’ll just make stuff up. Oh, I know - Hearth’s Warming last year when the hearth caught fire. Gosh, that was funny. A little scary, but funny. I guess I can tell that. It’s something, at the very least. And if Miss Cobble doesn’t like it, I know I tried. That’ll make Mom happy.
Heh. The teacher liked it well enough, as it turns out. But I suspect she was happy with any kid who made the effort. She probably got a heap of essays talking about favorite candie and why some kid deserved a puppy and all sorts of childish nonsense. We weren’t yet big enough that any form of quality was expected. That didn’t come till after grammar school was over, not till Mom and Dad had me sent up to that fancy boarding school near Manehattan. It was a long way from home, but they only wanted the best for me. And...well, school wasn’t that bad, you know? I’ve got fond memories, I suppose. Some. But a lot of ponies had their noses in the air, and far too many were competitive. You learned you could only really count on yourself in many areas. A true friend was few and far between, but everyone was united against certain teachers who laughed as often as Celestia failed to raise the sun.
Which was to say, close to never.
“‘Miss Antiquity! I say, I have never seen a mare more bedraggled make her way into my classroom! Sun above, child, what were you up to?!’”
I snorted at Amber’s impression of Ole Rockface. Not that we’d ever actually call him that within hearing range. That was a great way to end up with a multitude of demerits and a ticket to a double-load of after-school chores. Of course, in my case, it’d end up being a triple-load. I might have a bit of a troublemaking streak. I didn’t mean to, I just got bored! I wasn’t made to sit behind a desk and do nothing but study.
“Yea, well, he didn’t have to assign me a paper explaining just how I had failed to maintain ‘proper school standards of hygiene’,” I groused.
“Well, hey, that should be easy. I mean, you know, write what you know and all - and I’m pretty sure you know that mucky old cave well enough by now. I still don’t get why you’re so into it.”
“If you’d ever come with me, you’d see! It’s way more than a cave, there’s an entire maze down there! I think it’s an ancient Diamond Dog burrow, given what I’ve found, old broken tools and stuff. It’s totally awesome - I just want to know why they left!”
“Not all of us have your sense of direction, Annie,” Amber noted. “And some of us aren’t fans of being as muddy as an earth pony during plowing season.”
I snorted again. “It’s not that bad, and if you weren’t allergic to cold, there’s always the stream near school. Or just rustle up a rain cloud and give yourself a shower.”
Amber stared at me, then tapped her horn. Oh, right. Unicorn. Silly me. I did the mature thing and stuck my tongue out at her. She sighed, rolled her eyes, but at least smiled before speaking again.
“I’ll let you be, Annie. If you finish anytime before the dining hall closes let me know and we can get food together. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.” And I was alone. Pfeh.
The paper beckoned. Oh well, he wanted to know why I’d arrived covered in dust, I suppose it was only fair to start with the cave-in.
And that cave-in was what drew the attention of Manehattan U’s antiquities department, and where I first met Professor Scrolls. She took me under her wing, metaphorically speaking, since she was an earth pony and all. I spent less and less of my free time around the students my age, and more and more time helping her team out with excavating the soon confirmed ruins below. The rest of boarding school turned into a blur. Get through the boring classday, toss homework out of the way, zoom down to the caverns and get to exploring.
I’d have skipped out on the homework if the Professor hadn’t been so adamant about keeping my grades up. She had a point though. Every good explorer has a solid body of knowledge to draw on so they’re well-prepared for the unknown.
There’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart over the years.
Boarding school wrapped up and it was right to university. Classes were way more interesting when you got to pick exactly what you studied. Even more so when you’d known half your professors ahead of time. Professor Scrolls wasn’t the only one who’d taken interest in the caverns. We eventually had a name for the abandoned caverns, Obsidianite. Culture, history, all that slowly formed together. The dogs had left centuries ago, back when Manehattan was just a tiny trading post.
Bah! I shouldn’t be rambling on and on and losing myself in memory like this. I have a job to do and every moment spent staring at the paper before me is a moment wasted. This blasted contest cutoff is way too soon and I need the bits. Train tickets don’t pay for themselves. I can always stowaway, but I’d prefer to mingle safely in the lounge. Make some friends, get a drink or two, let tongues wag. Never know what you might pick up.
Still, the memories are a bit raw. The last time I wrote…
“Miss Key?”
“Annie’s fine.”
“Very well, ma’am. Is there anything else I can get for you at this time?” Formal, stiff. Like all butler-types, I suppose. Dignity to be found even in a hot, muggy motel in the middle of Saddle Arabia.
“No, thank you. I’m good.” A bowl of greens, tepid water. Hardly high society fare, but I’d wanted this, hadn’t I? I wasn’t content any longer to linger in lecture halls and do the same, steady bit by bit discovery I’d spent half a decade on. I wanted that thrill back. The same I’d felt as a kid just running through the woods, or those first few times sneaking past the school grounds.
I wanted to explore, and Obsidianite wouldn’t do it anymore.
And now I had to explain to the Professor why I wasn’t coming back. How was I going to tell her I was quitting?
I don’t know. There’s so much I want to say, and nowhere to say it all. Certainly not to her face, not after I left without so much as a goodbye.
But I only had so much time before the train left, and if this letter wasn’t on it, then I’d leave her not knowing.
Scrolls deserved more than that.
I sighed, and as I had so many times before, set my quill to ink.
Professor Scrolls,
I wish I could say I regret leaving, but there have never been any lies between us. I’ve treasured our time spent together, and wish it could continue.
It can’t. I need more. There is so little we truly know, and so much more out there beckoning. Somepony has to be first, and I want it to be me. I wish you could come with me, but I suppose I know you’re hardly a young mare anymore and I understand why you...do what you do.
But it’s not for me. The university life is just too dull. Too orderly. I hope to come back someday, and maybe we can share tea while talking of what I’ve seen and done. Thank you for teaching me so much these past five years. Without you I don’t think I’d ever have found my destiny. Someday, our paths will cross again.
Until then? May the wind favor you.
Yours,
Antiquity
I’ve yet to make it back for that tea. One expedition turned into two, then three, and I’ve found myself gallivanting all over the world. I still send her letters, but I doubt she believes them. They sound a bit too fantastic even to me, and I lived them.
Ugh, but I’ve spent way too much time ruminating! I need to get something out for this blasted magazine. Fifty bits isn’t a lot, but hey, they’re desperate, I’m desperate, seems a match made in Elysium to me.
That, at least, would have been one nice thing about finishing my degree. Having a bit of a salary to draw on. Find some way to get tenure and then justify why I never taught classes.
Nah. I prefer working alone. The last time I took a colt under my wing, turned out all he was in it for was the money, and I’m not getting burned again.
Alright. Alright. I’ve stared at this long enough. Nothing I can think of is working. But hey. Write what you know and all that, right? I’ve seen a doozy or two, and maybe that’ll be enough for the readers. If it’s not, at least it’ll get me my train ticket, and that puts me a short flight from the mountains, and if I’m lucky, the map will lead me right to the monastery.
Actually, this could be fun. I don’t have to embellish anything. Imagine the look on Scrolls’s face if I ever get to tell her every word is true. Right. Time to get started, then. Still, Antiquity Key isn’t a very vibrant name for an author. Everypony jazzes it up a bit these days...I’m sure something will come to me. For now, I have a story to write. They say they’ll accept serials, after all.
As Daring Do trekked through the tropical jungle, the wet heat sapped her energy and slowed her every step.