Lewis’s belated end-of-year (2010) note

Consider this an extended Author’s Note- although we’re not always calling it that here. 

When we started I think we hadn’t a lot of opportunities to share our writing with each other besides, and a writing blog sounded like a novel idea at the time. Looking back I still think it was.  

Frankly, I never thought I’d be capable of turning out the stories I did for Drawn in Words. When I started out with it, and while I was writing for it, there was mostly the thought of writing to meet the quota and trying to emanate the dream writer in my head who just put words on paper that fell perfectly into place. I’m so glad that we decided to make this blog, and proud of what we have on it. 

Have I improved? Or do I think I’ve improved? Well… the only big project I’d had- Dog Eat World for NaNoWriMo- was never finished. If I wanted to fish around for reasons this ended positively, I could say that I ended up with more writing than I’d ever done in a year.  But I think the thousands of words that were written for this story never held the kind of appeal to me that I’d imagined this story should have. So I think I’ll be coming back to it someday. Maybe not in the near future, but hopefully when I feel ready to write these characters better. They’ve really grown on me, and I still want to share them with the world.

This year I want to cover some new ground. I’ve made a few small forays into fanfiction, most of which are just barely over the 500 word limit. I’ll try writing romance. I’ve read so much of it (to top it off, so many titles of shojo manga with such bad plots and cliché setups you couldn’t imagine) that I think I should be able to pull something off. Maybe something else. Right now the projects that are just laying around to be done are 100 themes, Jacks (which is probably going to be entirely revamped), DEW, and this one where I’m trying to base all of the characters off tarot cards. That last thing is supposed to be similar to the way they design their characters in the Persona series, which I really love.  

(but I digress.) 

Thank you, Silver, for starting this blog with me and supporting me all throughout the year. Let’s keep writing. 

Word Count: 412

Post-script: also, thank you to any others who might be reading this. You’re a big part of the reason we’re still here. Keep checking up on us! ;) 

~Lewis Spiel

Not Doing Anything

Title: Not Doing Anything
Author: SilverInk
Writing: random short short story?
Word Count: 528

I’m not doing anything. 

“Yea, yea-yea-yea. “

Trumpets in the other room. Or clarinets. Maybe a little squeaky, either way. I can’t tell. 

“Nine plus ten…no.”

My backpack, leaning against my leg. My tarot card bag is on the top. I can see it in my peripheral vision. My right foot hurts because of the way I’m twisting it. 

“You’re the one that dealt me both jokers.”

“You’re the one that took both jokers.”

Come to think of it, my other foot is a bit sore as well. But not really. 

“Eight minus four is four!”

“…Take it, take it.”

“Do you need someone to help you in math?”

I ought to be doing something productive now, like homework. I want to have time to write and draw and what not later anyways. 

“Is it three times eight? Is it really? Today’s my lucky day!”

I’m afraid that I’ll be too lazy to do homework or write or draw or what not later.

“Twenty plus four.”

That’s been happening a lot lately. Being too lazy to do anything. I don’t want to do anything yet I want to do something. It’s really upsetting.

“…Meow…meow…”

I feel lonely, but it’s stupid to. Music coming from the other room, three friends sitting about a foot away, and I’m sure there are more people milling around just outside one of the doors. 

“Wait, wait—what just happened?”

The bell rings, but there’s no silence to shatter. 

“If she doesn’t call me, you call me.”

“Why?”

Why is it always “shatter” silence? Shatter is too special a word to use simply for breaking quiet. 

“Well I have to go—bye Ella!”

I leave too. I might as well. I’m walking home. I scamper out to where I meet my friend to walk home. My feet are numb, but just a bit. 

“Rose, do you know where Patrick is?”

I have an original character called Silence. Silence Winds. She’s a diviner. “Shatter” would be appropriate if she was broken. 

“Poncho! The poncho matches the bag!”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

“Touch. Touch touch Feel feel. 

I’m wearing a white ribbon in my hair. 

“Touch touch feel feel…”

Not many people—no, no one—has noticed. Well, noticed it’s white at least. I suppose that’s a good thing. White ribbons in hair aren’t a good thing. It’s a grave thing, very grave. I can feel a physical weight pulling on my hair because of it—extra gravity. 

“Hey, It’s Ella!”

“Don’t disturb her! She’s in the middle of an inspirational moment!”

“…Disturb! Disturb!”

My friend’s grandmother died yesterday. I don’t know how she’s taking it mentally, but she seems to be ok on the outside. I don’t exactly know how death is like—death of a close one, I mean. I don’t want to bring it up because I’m afraid it’ll make her miserable. Not to mention it would be very untactful. 

“Oh! Are you coming to see the play?”

Yet I want to support her and let her know we’re all with her if she needs us. 

“Yes, on Friday.”

White ribbons in the hair mean death and mourning.

Shatter death.

Artist's Note: Hi! I know this is ridiculously late...and that I haven't posted anything for a month...but..yea...X.X 

About this post: Most of it was written at the end of school on Tuesday (April 12, 2011) in a moment of inspiration and I expanded it a couple hundred words yesterday. All of the dialogue was actually said, except for the last two dialogue lines ("Oh! Are are you coming to see the play?" and "Yes, on Friday"). None of it was me speaking. The underlined names are the ones I changed....it's also underlined because I felt like underlining it....

And of course, I was wearing a white ribbon in my hair. I'm very wary of posting this, but I suppose it's all I can do. :( Rest in Peace.

~SilverInk

Leader

Title: Leader
Author: Lewis
Writing: Fanfiction (Katekyo Hitman Reborn)
Word Count: 553

For Tsuna, the month before finals is always wrought with a sense of foreboding. Of course, it’s a given that it will be a time eaten up by Reborn’s intensified Spartan teaching methods, and he can probably expect a score substantially higher than a 6% on all of his exams. His baffled classmates might still believe that he’s acquired a new brain, but Tsuna knows otherwise. It’s not necessarily that Reborn’s guidance has allowed him to finally grasp the concepts, but really that Reborn would have him strung from a very tall building if he failed. But it comes with being trained to succeed the Ninth of the Vongola mafia.

Tsuna’s a little worse for wear than usual. There’re Gokudera’s study sessions, where while it’s still apparent that Gokudera is still a genius and he is trying his hardest for Tsuna, the Tenth, he’s not the kind of genius capable of getting anything through the thick skulls of two incorrigible idiots (read: Yamamoto and Tsuna). Today Reborn is out of the house for once, so things start quietly. But the meeting erupts in an explosion of smoke as little Lambo finds his way into the room and (after loosing a couple of grenades out the window with his poor aim) lets fly with his bazooka. 10-year-older Lambo sits up with a sigh, dandy and lazy-eyed as usual, when the squabble starts up again.

This time Gokudera begins flailing and bawling something about a stupid cow and the baseball idiot while Tsuna cowers beneath a table. Yamamoto laughs again, carefree as usual amidst the chaos: “Is this a game?” Tsuna wishes he weren’t in this room. Somewhere far away would be nice.

Unable to handle himself as usual, the grown up Lambo promptly bursts into tears. Gokudera is still shouting and Yamamoto is still laughing and doing nothing to help the situation.

The door opens.

The room goes deathly quiet. It’s not Mama (thank god) but Reborn (even worse). The Arcobaleno slowly raises revolver-Leon to point at Tsuna, who blanches and begins to uncurl from the fetal position.

“I told you to finish those practice problems. Are they done yet?”

Yamamoto breaks the silence with ease, cheerfully replying that the study session’s been going well. Lambo’s sniffling quiets and with a poof the infant Lambo is back; the five minutes of time travel are up. Gokudera lurches forward and prostrates himself before Tsuna, spewing gibberish about how it’s all Yamamoto’s fault for spoiling the lesson and how he’s so sorry for failing the Tenth. And Tsuna reluctantly drags himself upright and sits at his spot at the table, hyper-aware of Reborn’s critical gaze.

They try again. Reborn has again somehow rigged the room without Tsuna’s notice so that each wrong answer ends with an explosion or a harsh blow, but within an hour or so they are getting through the study material at a steady pace. It’s not until Tsuna sees Gokudera and Yamamoto off at the door when he realizes how relieved he feels. Gokudera and Yamamoto are his friends as well as his right hand men- no matter what Gokudera might say about being the only one- but he still doesn’t feel like a leader worthy of them yet. When he doesn’t know what to do, he always turns to Reborn.

Artist's note: Sorry we haven't posted in so long. Things have been rough. I'm hoping to get to some semblance of posting regularly. Thanks for checking up on us! :)
~Lewis