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where_no_woman2009-10-05 07:20 am
igrockspock.livejournal.com) wrote in where_no_woman2009-10-05 07:20 am
On the drabble fest again
What better way to celebrate our adventurous women than with a selection of quotations about travel? These are all the quotes I wrote for inspiration on the inside covers of my very first travel journal, and I hope they are equally inspiring for you. As always, take them in whatever way interests you - not every story you write has to be about travel.
The rules are probably quite familiar by now, but here they are anyway:
1) Prompts are not exclusive. There is no limit on the number of people who may write about a prompt, and there is no need to claim prompts.
2) Post responses in the comments and include the lead character and your prompt in the subject line. If you choose a long prompt, you may use just the first few words.
3) Responses may be any length from a proper 100-word drabble to a multi-chapter epic. If the story is too long for comments, you may post it elsewhere and comment with the link.
4) There is no time limit for this challenge. I will return to index the responses in a week or so.
5) Please leave feedback, respond to feedback, and pimp this post around.
6) If your response is rated NC-17 or would require a content warning (for rape, graphic violence, etc.), you may post it in the comments here but you must include the relevant rating or warning in the subject line.
ETA: Responses indexed as of 10/18/09
1. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon, our ears don't hear the sounds around us...we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.
--Kent Nerburn
Yeoman Rand by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
venomlaced
Winona byagirlnamedskip
2. Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
--Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3. Of course world travel isn't as good as it seems, it's only after you've come back from all the heat and horror that you forget to get bugged and remember all the weird scenes you saw.
--Jack Kerouac
Number One byhelividia_p
4. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
--Douglas Adams
Gaila byrubynye
5. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.
--Mark Twain
Winona byyeomanrand
Valeris (ST VI: The Undiscovered Country) bymerisunshine36
6. There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
7. It's a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door. You step out onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
--J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock.
--Charles Lindbergh
9. I saved every cent and then suddenly I blew it all on a big glorious trip to Europe or anywhere...
--Jack Kerouac
10. For myself, indeed, I know now that I have traveled so much because travel has enabled me to arrive at new, unknown places within my own clouded self.
--Lauren Van Der Post
11. You lose sight of things....and when you travel, everything balances out.
--Daranna Gidel
12. Eat dessert first, Life is uncertain
--Anonymous
13. The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality.
--Samuel Johnson
Ziyal, DS9 byriviyan_questa
14. Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
--Aldous Huxley
15. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
--Marcel Proust
16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.
--Sidonie Gabrielle
Romulan Commander from TOS byhelvidia_p
Gaila bypossibly_thrice
Winona byninhursag
17. I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
--Mark Twain
18. . . .the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.
--Paul Theroux
19. I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.
--Caskie Stinnett
20. We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.
--Hilaire Belloc
21. Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
--Jack Kerouac
22. A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
--John Steinbeck
23. All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
--Martin Buber
24. It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.
--Paul Theroux
Number One byboosette
25. The Germans have a word to describe the chronic affliction many of us suffer from, that insistent urge to be somewhere out there and not here: "Fernweh". It's the opposite of being homesick; instead, it's a pining to be not-home, to be away, way away, because that's where you feel at home.
--Joe Robinson
Winona byframlingem
26. I realized I had a choice: I could stay...and gorge myself on all that lay piled on my plate, or I could leave hungry with the desire to return.
--Victoria Abbot Ricardi
27. When you see someone putting their big boots on, you know it's time for an adventure.
--Winnie the Pooh
28. All those shining stars in the firmament you have touched with the intention of holding, you now find your grasp releasing and they are gone, existing only in your memory -- and theirs.
--Jan Haag
29. Many of the most terrifying moments of my life never happened.
--Jan Haag
Ezri Dax (DS9) byjncar
Saavik in the Reboot-verse bysaavikam77
30. Go alone. Go alone. Go alone.
--Jan Haag
(All the Jan Haag ones are from this article about traveling alone if anyone is curious)
The rules are probably quite familiar by now, but here they are anyway:
1) Prompts are not exclusive. There is no limit on the number of people who may write about a prompt, and there is no need to claim prompts.
2) Post responses in the comments and include the lead character and your prompt in the subject line. If you choose a long prompt, you may use just the first few words.
3) Responses may be any length from a proper 100-word drabble to a multi-chapter epic. If the story is too long for comments, you may post it elsewhere and comment with the link.
4) There is no time limit for this challenge. I will return to index the responses in a week or so.
5) Please leave feedback, respond to feedback, and pimp this post around.
6) If your response is rated NC-17 or would require a content warning (for rape, graphic violence, etc.), you may post it in the comments here but you must include the relevant rating or warning in the subject line.
ETA: Responses indexed as of 10/18/09
1. If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon, our ears don't hear the sounds around us...we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.
--Kent Nerburn
Yeoman Rand by
venomlacedWinona by
agirlnamedskip2. Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
--Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3. Of course world travel isn't as good as it seems, it's only after you've come back from all the heat and horror that you forget to get bugged and remember all the weird scenes you saw.
--Jack Kerouac
Number One by
helividia_p4. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
--Douglas Adams
Gaila by
rubynye5. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.
--Mark Twain
Winona by
yeomanrandValeris (ST VI: The Undiscovered Country) by
merisunshine366. There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
7. It's a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door. You step out onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
--J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock.
--Charles Lindbergh
9. I saved every cent and then suddenly I blew it all on a big glorious trip to Europe or anywhere...
--Jack Kerouac
10. For myself, indeed, I know now that I have traveled so much because travel has enabled me to arrive at new, unknown places within my own clouded self.
--Lauren Van Der Post
11. You lose sight of things....and when you travel, everything balances out.
--Daranna Gidel
12. Eat dessert first, Life is uncertain
--Anonymous
13. The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality.
--Samuel Johnson
Ziyal, DS9 by
riviyan_questa14. Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
--Aldous Huxley
15. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
--Marcel Proust
16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.
--Sidonie Gabrielle
Romulan Commander from TOS by
helvidia_pGaila by
possibly_thriceWinona by
ninhursag17. I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
--Mark Twain
18. . . .the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.
--Paul Theroux
19. I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.
--Caskie Stinnett
20. We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.
--Hilaire Belloc
21. Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
--Jack Kerouac
22. A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
--John Steinbeck
23. All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
--Martin Buber
24. It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.
--Paul Theroux
Number One by
boosette25. The Germans have a word to describe the chronic affliction many of us suffer from, that insistent urge to be somewhere out there and not here: "Fernweh". It's the opposite of being homesick; instead, it's a pining to be not-home, to be away, way away, because that's where you feel at home.
--Joe Robinson
Winona by
framlingem26. I realized I had a choice: I could stay...and gorge myself on all that lay piled on my plate, or I could leave hungry with the desire to return.
--Victoria Abbot Ricardi
27. When you see someone putting their big boots on, you know it's time for an adventure.
--Winnie the Pooh
28. All those shining stars in the firmament you have touched with the intention of holding, you now find your grasp releasing and they are gone, existing only in your memory -- and theirs.
--Jan Haag
29. Many of the most terrifying moments of my life never happened.
--Jan Haag
Ezri Dax (DS9) by
jncarSaavik in the Reboot-verse by
saavikam7730. Go alone. Go alone. Go alone.
--Jan Haag
(All the Jan Haag ones are from this article about traveling alone if anyone is curious)
16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2/2)
She knows, she thinks, too much. It was never supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be a beautiful vessel, washed clean of sordid details at every debrief, and free to luxuriate in her memories of alien skies and alien hands without a thought for the shady deals wrapped like plastic webbing around the neutral zone, or for what, in fact, she is. She did not expect self-awareness. But her skull aches long after the Mother leaves and the more useful she is, the more important, the more the Mother says, and the clearer and crueler Gaila's understanding.
And she begins to pay attention to that tremor in Mother's hands for other reasons. She may not like control, but she does have a talent for it. And.
And.
Old dreams unfolding. The midnight conferences become frequent. The possibilities become impossible to ignore. Gaila wants out. She wants to be what she was promised: a pure thing, all joy. Something new. Something glorious. And if there's a way to not want but have? For she is an expert, they've given her the tools, and although she does not know it, Gaila is brilliant, too. In the moments between, so slowly that the thinking burns her insides, she conceives of algorithms constructed entirely of endorphins and gustatory perceptions and broken skin; the right reactions, the right compounds, put together, ready to pry open the universe like an oyster. The Mother's hands shake every night she comes, almost upon entering the room, and the Mother's mouth is curled over pain so gradually instilled she never notices its presence. Gaila doesn't breathe much any more, but that doesn't matter, not when she is finally forgetting, lost in her desperate scheme.
And:
"Something has changed," the Mother says, aloud, hands several inches away from Gaila's slick poisonous skin, and she crumples to her knees, dazed, hopelessly drunk on echoes of hatred she's been absorbing for months.
Everything is about to, Gaila replies, silently, an exhalation on the Mother's too-close, monstrous face, which has twisted into a flower, an abstraction. She raises herself up on her elbows from the mattress while the Mother stares, and she takes the Mother's soft jaw in her hands, and she pinches the double chin, translating as best she can. She says, I am going, by breaking the Mother's neck.
She kneels. She stands.
*
A/N: In which I try to figure out my position on ENT canon, basically. *sigh*
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
like blood soaking through a woman's skirts
and in the truly, gorgeously alien...
In the moments between, so slowly that the thinking burns her insides, she conceives of algorithms constructed entirely of endorphins and gustatory perceptions and broken skin; the right reactions, the right compounds, put together, ready to pry open the universe like an oyster.
and not least in your sheer creativity. I found the Enterprise canon annoying and ignored it; you grappled with it and spun it in splendid manner.
(To say nothing of the gorgeousness of your prose. OMG.)
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
This was really, really hard to write, and I only decided like halfway through which parts of which canons I was really going to use, and god, the fact it works so well for you, MORE GRATIFYING THAN YOU WOULD BELIEVE.
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
Re: 16. I am going away...to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name... (Gaila) (2
Neither did I. XD I just read about it. Thank you very much!