Heading Off Into The Woods (Blogwalk)

The climb down from the Oak went fine, despite the increasing cold and the ice coating some of the limbs and branches. You step down onto the snow with a satisfying crunch. The light is different down here, less silvery, more murky. Things are a bit looser, diffuser, almost smoky.

Wolves howl in the distance. This is wilderness. You can smell the rawness on the wind that carries snow in through the few gaps between the undergrowth and the tall trees. There is a slumbering vitality to this place. It feels like you're stepping across the spine of an immense sleeping dragon.

Looking around you can spot two decent-seeming options; either strike off to the left and follow what appears to be a game trail that runs uphill towards a very dense cluster of trees brooding darkly, or you might head off at a slightly crooked angle, crossing three fallen trees, and head for what appears to be a clearing of sorts. The moonlight washes this clearing in soft silver luminosity. Those trees huddled together along the other path look dark and slightly foreboding, but then you notice an owl perched in one of those trees. A large owl. It is watching you.

Do you...

Take the path towards the cluster of trees and the owl?
Blog One     Blog Two    Blog Three

Go along the other path toward the clearing?
Blog One     Blog Two    Blog Three

Look for a third alternative path?
Blog One     Blog Two    Blog Three

Ask the owl for some advice?
Blog One     Blog Two    Blog Three

This is a continuation of Porky's Fantasy Blogwalk, a collaborative cross-blog Choose Your Own Adventure narrative that begins at The Oak and expands outwards across the blog-o-sphere as explained by the prime instigator and friendly coordinator of this online collaborative narrative, Porky himself in his 'Blogging Our Adventures' post.

If you have an idea for a scene that might come before, during or after this one, write it, post it on your blog, and link to this post as one of the choices/options available from your scene's post. It's okay to present more options even if those scenes haven't been written just yet. There's plenty of room for everyone and alternative paths are much appreciated and encouraged. If you do write a scene that links to any of the ones at this blog, please leave a link in the comments here so that we can add your scene into the link options here. Everyone is welcome. Make sure you check out some of the other paths that are already available—you might get some ideas for thing to add that none of us have gotten to yet!

To begin your own Blogwalk as a reader-explorer, we suggest going back to the BEGINNING.

If you'd be interested in participating by contributing your own scenes as a Blogwalk writer-blogger then read the Summary and Guidelines at Porky's blog.

Return to the Tree (Blogwalk)

You head back toward the Oak Tree. Greens fade into browns and grays as you walk along. Leaves flutter to the ground in a cascade of orange, red and brown. Rain starts to fall and it quickly turns to sleet then snow. The air takes on a crispness almost an emptiness as many of the smells you never realized you were taking for granted suddenly are absent. Ice crunches underfoot. The mud left behind by the previous rain is frozen into peculiar shapes.

At the Oak Tree you find a series of tracks leading every which way. If you pause and hold your position, just for a little while, you can hear the sounds of little things scampering about in the underbrush.

Do you...

Climb back up the Tree?    Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Look for another path to go explore?   Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Wait quietly to see if you can spot one of the little creatures?   Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three

This is a continuation of Porky's Fantasy Blogwalk, a collaborative cross-blog Choose Your Own Adventure narrative that begins at The Oak and expands outwards across the blog-o-sphere as explained by the prime instigator and friendly coordinator of this online collaborative narrative, Porky himself in his 'Blogging Our Adventures' post.

If you have an idea for a scene that might come before, during or after this one, write it, post it on your blog, and link to this post as one of the choices/options available from your scene's post. It's okay to present more options even if those scenes haven't been written just yet. There's plenty of room for everyone and alternative paths are much appreciated and encouraged. If you do write a scene that links to any of the ones at this blog, please leave a link in the comments here so that we can add your scene into the link options here. Everyone is welcome. Make sure you check out some of the other paths that are already available—you might get some ideas for thing to add that none of us have gotten to yet!

To begin your own Blogwalk as a reader-explorer, we suggest going back to the BEGINNING.

If you'd be interested in participating by contributing your own scenes as a Blogwalk writer-blogger then read the Summary and Guidelines at Porky's blog.

Blogwalk: Down To the Roots

You begin to make your way back down the Tree. At least you start climbing downwards, but you notice something very, very odd as you move from branch to branch. When you move one way there seems to be a clearing or meadow below you, but when you go the other way there seems to be a thick, fern-choked hollow in purple twilight. How very strange. When you go a bit farther you see a frozen expanse beneath a gibbous moon grown huge and swollen in the cold black night of a desolate winterscape. A bit farther around the trunk of the tree and you spot a distant rocky desert. Clearly, the Tree is at the center of a number of different locations that seem to all overlap somehow.

Whichever way you go, there seems to be another option...

So where do you want to go?

Do you...

Climb down to the roots of the Tree  Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Climb out on a limb   Blog One   Blog Two
Go to the Clearing   Blog One    Blog Two
Go to the Fern-Choked Hollow   Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three

Go into that Cold, Dark Winter's Night    Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three

Go towards the Rocky Desert    Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three

Explore the Tree itself a bit more    Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Perhaps you'd like to look for a bird's nest?   Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Change your mind and go back up  Blog One   Blog Two Blog Three
Pause for a bit and just listen   Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Take That Leap...  Blog One   Blog Two

This is a continuation of Porky's Fantasy Blogwalk, a collaborative cross-blog Choose Your Own Adventure narrative that begins at The Oak and expands outwards across the blog-o-sphere as explained by the prime instigator and friendly coordinator of this online collaborative narrative, Porky himself in his 'Blogging Our Adventures' post.


If you have an idea for a scene that might come before, during or after this one, write it, post it on your blog, and link to this post as one of the choices/options available from your scene's post. It's okay to present more options even if those scenes haven't been written just yet. There's plenty of room for everyone and alternative paths are much appreciated and encouraged. If you do write a scene that links to any of the ones at this blog, please leave a link in the comments here so that we can add your scene into the link options here. Everyone is welcome. Make sure you check out some of the other paths that are already available—you might get some ideas for thing to add that none of us have gotten to yet!

To begin your own Blogwalk as a reader-explorer, we suggest going back to the BEGINNING.

If you'd be interested in participating by contributing your own scenes as a Blogwalk writer-blogger then read the Summary and Guidelines at Porky's blog.

Blogwalk: Up In the Branches

Poised between the cold, empty sky and the hard, dark ground you hold tight to a thick, gnarled branch of a great old oak. There is rain coming. You can feel it on the wind. The boughs of the tree are beginning to sway gently. You consider climbing further upwards. You contemplate making your way back down the tree, down to the earth, to the roots down below your precarious perch.

For a fleeting moment you wonder what it would be like to hurl yourself outwards onto the swirling unseen currents of the wind. Would you find yourself possessed of wings or would you plummet to the rocky forest floor and whatever awaited at the end of such an abrupt and pointless journey? Or would it be so pointless? Perhaps this is all a dream. Maybe you would find yourself with a pair of wings...

It is a seductive thought. But in the end you know in your heart that there is a nagging doubt, a remorseful sense of loss that would have you admit that you do not have wings. To fall from this height would almost certainly be fatal. Do you have the courage to make the leap? Do you have enough faith -- is there ever enough of such a thing --  to tempt fate and to see if you might just have wings?

A cold gust of wind ruffles your clothes. You shiver in the dubious shelter of the swaying branches.

Perhaps it is time to head back down to the ground...

Do you...

Climb back down to the base of the Tree  Blog One   Blog Two   Blog Three
Change your mind and climb on bit farther...  Blog One    Blog Two   Blog Three
Take That Leap...  Blog One   Blog Two

This is a continuation of Porky's Fantasy Blogwalk, a collaborative cross-blog Choose Your Own Adventure narrative that begins at The Oak and expands outwards across the blog-o-sphere as explained by the prime instigator and friendly coordinator of this online collaborative narrative, Porky himself in his 'Blogging Our Adventures' post.


If you have an idea for a scene that might come before, during or after this one, write it, post it on your blog, and link to this post as one of the choices/options available from your scene's post. It's okay to present more options even if those scenes haven't been written just yet. There's plenty of room for everyone and alternative paths are much appreciated and encouraged. If you do write a scene that links to any of the ones at this blog, please leave a link in the comments here so that we can add your scene into the link options here. Everyone is welcome. Make sure you check out some of the other paths that are already available—you might get some ideas for thing to add that none of us have gotten to yet!

To begin your own Blogwalk as a reader-explorer, we suggest going back to the BEGINNING.

If you'd be interested in participating by contributing your own scenes as a Blogwalk writer-blogger then read the Summary and Guidelines at Porky's blog.