Hi! on Sandbox

John Umland

July 24, 2014 5:34 PM

Hello! by John Umland

[OOC: Hi, Penelope, and welcome to Sonora! We’re glad to have you. Just a few reminders to help you get started:

1. On the OOC board, posts can be as long or as short as necessary, but if you’re writing about Penelope doing something at Sonora (I’m not sure if you were introducing yourself to us or trying out writing Penelope here; if you just want to introduce yourself, tell us a little about your character, and get to know other authors, drop into the OOC board or the Chatzy!), then posts should be at least 200 words/about two paragraphs long. To meet this limit, you can describe more things about Penelope – why her smile is distrustful, whether she is fidgeting with anything or sitting very calmly, any memories the situation brings back for her, what she’s wearing, etc. – in the narration.

2. If you were trying out writing Penelope and having a thread, remember that you and I (and everyone else with a first year) will get to start writing our new characters on August 3, 2014, but for Penelope and John and all their classmates, that date will be September 1, SA22. Time for our characters at Sonora isn’t the same as time for us authors, and real-life dates don’t affect what time, day, month, or year it is at Sonora because of something we call "fuzzy time." For example, I wrote this post from the point of view of John’s sister Julian in real-life June, but she and her friend Charlie are talking about winter fashions because in their world, it was January.

The Sandbox also isn’t a place Penelope the character could go – it’s just a place we pretend is other places (the Cascade Hall, the Potions lab) until we’re ‘officially’ characters next month. I’ll write an in-character post as John in the library here that you can respond to so we can practice threading if you like.

BIC (Back in Character):]

When John had explained to his Muggle friends back in Calgary that he wouldn’t be able to call or e-mail them for several months, they had all reacted with horror, first asking how that was even possible and then if he was going to reform school. He’d made up a weak story about his dad’s family having a tradition of always sending their kids to the same very old-fashioned school and joked about being smart enough to use these mysterious things called books, but had privately been little happier about the prospect of losing the ability to know exactly what he wanted to know as soon as he knew he wanted to know it than he thought they would have been.

He had consoled himself, though, with the knowledge that at least books should improve his ability to focus. When he was reading one book, he was in that book; there were no links for him to click to another subject every other sentence. He had, however, forgotten about the siren songs of the references in a paper encyclopedia. It was, John had discovered since he first came to the Sonora library, almost as quick to turn between sections, at least in the same volume, to follow cross-references as it was to click a link once he’d gotten the hang of it, and while he now had a lot of new facts to bring up at the dinner parties he was never going to be invited to and wouldn’t want to attend anyway, he was still behind on his first big piece of Transfiguration homework and knew he needed to do a good job with it. Professor Skies had impressed him very much in the short time he’d been at Sonora and he wanted to impress her in return.

As a result, on a sunny Saturday when he might have been looking for new birds and plants in the Gardens or writing his mother or even trying out throwing around a Quaffle on the Quidditch Pitch, he was behind a library table covered in books, some of which he had (once again) forgotten why he’d pulled from the shelves, and papers, some covered in writing and some which he’d only gotten a few words onto before he moved on to something else. His short brown hair was standing up from where he’d run his hands over it repeatedly; forgetting to put his pen down before at least one of those times was why he had a smear of Indian ink on his forehead to match the smudges on his fingers. He didn’t know it was there, though, and was still congratulating himself on not knocking over his ink bottle at any point so far.

If he squinted, he thought he could see something taking shape in the mess in front of him which might turn into a good essay. He guessed it was progress. He just wished he had another week, so maybe the novelty of having a big library and all the adventures promised on the grounds at his fingertips could finish wearing off and he could concentrate….

John dipped his pen to write another sentence, only to immediately look up when someone else stepped out from behind the next set of shelves. “Afternoon,” he said.

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Penelope. R. Calypso

Hi! by Penelope. R. Calypso

John Umland

Hello! by John Umland