The Forward Motion for Writers site has a members-only area called Zette's Gym. Today I tried out a challenge (about writing a realistic spellcasting scene) to flex my flabby muscles. This is how my posted attempt turned out:

Head... heart... hands.

Betony’s hands trembled as she traced the symbols for each point of focus across her skin. A single misplaced threading could strip her own weave and leave her lifeless-- or worse, mindless.

Thread warp and weft.

Her head ached from the effort of holding her loom’s image in her mind. She fumbled in her apron for the woolen threads she had braided together.

Nothing.

Fear pounding in her throat, she turned the pockets inside out. She fell to her knees, scrabbling in the grass to find the tricolored braid. When had it fallen out? While she held Alphebe through her last convulsions? When she had stumbled in her flight from the sight of the Wards buckling in spite of the chanting of the other Adepts?

Howls of victory rose from the compound behind her. The seals had failed. They would break free of the fortress soon. And no help would be forthcoming if she failed in her Summoning.

Green for life, red to call, white for alliance. Tears blurred her vision as she dug her fingers into the moist soil to coax a slender weed free of its moorings and denude it of all but its bright green stem. She unwound the tangle of discarded roots to pull the longest root free, hastily brushing the soil from the fragile white strand. Her own hair would have to do for red; she raked her fingers through it, yanking free a strand that reflected enough copper to fit her need.

She knotted the elements together at one end and swiftly braided them into a single patterned cord. Winding the cord through her fingers, she Reached into the bones of the earth and called to the ley lines, using the pattern she’d woven in this world to draw the threads of energy she needed into her grasp. Her fingers twitched as she wove the shining strands into a tapestry behind her mind’s eye, not daring to pause until she could knot the ends of warp and weft together.

She released the weave back into the earth and felt a flash of triumph as it was accepted, sinking into the rich soil until she could no longer even picture it in her mind. She had done it! She, a mere acolyte, had completed a Summoning!

Her vision blurred. Not from tears this time. No figure rising before her, either. Just the feel of heat intensifying through the soles of her feet, of energy rising within her until her limbs felt leaden and her breath was wrung from her chest.

Alphebe’s voice teased at her memory, whispering, Never weave yourself into your Working.

Ah, gods, what had she done?