If it's the 17th, that can only mean a WRITING CHALLENGE!

[in_the_blue]

Third month in a row. Ready, set, get out those pens and/or fingers to the keyboard...

Here's this month's loosely-defined DRABBLE challenge and the guidelines.

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Rules (remember, they're more like guidelines):

• Fandom: any, so long as it's one you know well.


• Word count: 300 or less


• Main theme: the concept of empty or emptiness.


• Ratings: No restrictions.


• Duration: Challenge opens today and closes at 11:59 p.m. Saturday, June 25. Just for fun.

Post your drabbles as comments to this entry. And yes, please comment on other peoples' work. Feedback is a reader's gift to a writer.

On your mark, get set... go.

Comments

[balletrat]

Fandom: Phantom of the Opera.
Character: Meg. Surprise!

It’s odd, really.

You’d think she’d look happy when she danced – she says, after all, that it’s the thing that matters most, and there’s no reason to doubt it. She does it for hours and hours on end, and when she goes too long without it, she gets fidgety, snappish. Like a caffeine addict denied coffee, or a man cheating on his lover, nervous of being caught.

You’d think, then, that there’d never be a time when she would look happier, and yet when you look at her – look past the swirling movement, the elegant leaps and graceful limbs, to her eyes – it’s not joy that you see in them, nor anything else, for that matter. They’re as blank and sightless as those on the tiny dancing figures on a music box.

If she stumbles and falls, the blue paint flashes angrily and comes alive, a spark of humanity that stares at its feet and curses its clumsiness and occasionally throws things across the room to soothe its temper. But when the footwork is perfect, when the steps go right –

Emotion trickles down to the feet, to the arms, as they convey whatever they’re meant to convey, and the eyes are echoingly empty.

If you love her, as some do, you’d do best, when she’s dancing, not to look at her eyes.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I love how much thought you put into Meg.

This just shows more of it.