Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.
Continuing the opening from The Long Dark. Although it's been drawn out in time by the weekly snippets, the chapter as a whole is quite short. To conclude the chapter, we switch back to Anna's point of view. Anna is driving a massive surface vehicle and is aiming to retrieve a hard-to-reach navigation beacon before winter closes in.
Unhurried, Anna reviewed the crawler’s controls, checking the giant vehicle was safely immobilized. She grabbed her mask from a hook on the back of her seat, and pulled it over her head as she descended a narrow stairway to the cramped equipment bay beneath the drive deck. She paused to settle the mask properly in place and pull a strand of hair out from under the edge seal, then she hauled a pair of two-wheeled dollies and a tool belt from the neatly-stacked storage racks.
Through the crawler cab’s lower airlock, Anna climbed a ladder to the ground. Hints of over-ripe fruit in the air reminded her that the mask’s filters would need cleaning when she reached home. Her unfastened jacket flapped around her thighs in fitful squalls. She ignored an icy chill working its way around her waist through gaps in her clothing, and lowered the dollies to the ground.
She knelt and pulled off a glove to test the plant’s surface. Tight-knit matting and whorls of stringy fibers yielded to her touch. They felt dry, scratchy, but still held firm when she tugged on a handful.
And (making use of the new rules) this scene continues ...
Seasonal changes were coming on fast, but maybe she’d arrived in time in this case. She suppressed a shiver of unease as she peered at the ground between her and the beacon. She had a job to do.
That big heap of firewood you saw last week is almost all gone, but it's been unusually hard work this year. Some years we get lucky, and most of it is the right size for our stove. It just needs to be barrowed around to the carport and stacked neatly ready for the winter.
This year, probably around 80% of it was in chunks that needed splitting down a bit. To make things harder, this load is mostly maple and is very dense. Some pieces split easily, but some put up a fight. And there's a small-ish pile left that we couldn't touch with the axe, so today we're renting a log splitter for the day to tackle those last bits.
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13 comments:
She's almost there. I hope she makes it without any problems.
At last, a snippet with proper social distancing.
That's a lot of cutting and work for that firewood.
The little details make this scene come alive in a BIG way. Really enjoyed it. A lot more than I'd enjoy wrangling a wood pile!
I'm always so impressed by your writing, the unique sentence structures, the cadence. Very well done! Also, good luck finishing up with the wood pile!
Jessica, she will, this time, but problems aren't far away.
Ed, someone who takes masks seriously, at least :)
Alex, it was a lot of hard work, but we're there now.
Nancy, glad you enjoyed it.
Julie, the pile is gone and the driveway swept. Job done for another year.
Enjoyed the snippet very much - she's so capable, which is terrific. And the world building details you include along the way add a lot to the story...
This world building is amazing. I love this story! :-)
Good luck with the woodpile. I enjoyed the snippet. Very atmospheric.
I love the world building it brings the story alive. I do hope she makes it to where she's going without any snags.
The world building is amazing! The details really pull you in. I even like how she keeps her rig organized and knows exactly where everything is.
Hi Ian - well done on getting those logs sorted and stacked.
Anna's job is just about to begin - good luck to her ... hope that fruity misty dust doesn't affect the mask or drive too much ... take care - Hilary
Your descriptions make for great worldbuilding.
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