Category: Creative writing

100 Word Challenge For Grown Ups Week# 46

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, Mental health, Poetry, WritingTagged , , , , 30 Comments

Julia http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week46/ thinks her prompt  . . . in the dark recess of my mind . . . is straightforward this week, well not for my impoverished mind! Equally challenging will be making this page line up as I want it to but here goes.

Electric Recess

In the dark recess of my mind, drowning, overwrought and burdened

            a brand new demon idles there but

The memory cannot linger forever. Forks of light slash through clouds with

            intent to throw open the path

Dark as the night once shared. Storms resounded in those arteries that                                           now are scoured of plaque.

Recess littered with nightmares, fossil formed, now queuing to

            be purged, volted electrically

Of hallucinatory dervish spinning a reel, reaching a hand to heaven, stabbing

            a hand to earth, relentless chaotic earth.

My sanguine fluid put on hold, damned and damned forever to ease my tormented

Mind.

Friday Fictioneers, On the Nose

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, Wildlife, WritingTagged , , , , , , 44 Comments

Madison’s  challenge has this photo today http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/flash-fiction/pathways/ joining in is fun, lots of great flash fiction to read. Here is mine.

woods

On the Nose

‘She has the scent already,’ the sow pulled Emil sharply right, nearly pulling him over.

‘Ouch, why can’t you stay on the path in the light?’Jean-Francois followed laughing, as the pig thrust her snout into the leaf mould, her tail corkscrewing frantically.

‘I can’t smell a thing, but I can see something black down there.’  The boys rummaged in beside her and didn’t hear the footsteps back on the path, but a resounding snort registered. They turned and faced the biggest wild boar ever.

‘It’s old Napoleon, he thinks these are his truffles . . . run for your life.’

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week# 44

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, Poetry, WritingTagged , , , , , , 24 Comments

Once again it’s time for the 100 word challenge and this weeks theme is the passing of time – sixty years to be precise and a poem! If you would like to join in pop over to http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week44/

Stash Sixty

Sixty a time for six diamonds

uncut but too late for us

diamonds for a daughter

and a daughters daughter

celebrating sixty years

that have passed

Daughter may travel

on her diamonds and back

before we become dust

sixty a time for six diamonds

uncut but too late for us

Daughter’s daughter may plant

roots with her diamonds

a home across town from us

Daughter’s daughter will you

raise an empire

founded on a name

and legacy

of sixty years to trust

Sixty was a time for six diamonds

too late for them

but a future for daughters and sons

Friday Fictioneers, Beautiful and Grey

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, short story, WritingTagged , , , , 25 Comments

http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/ has a weekly challenge with a photo this time,

This is my 100 words, maybe you would like to pop across and join in?

‘Look, there’s a lovely green butterfly and an ugly grey moth’ Beth tugged on her grandmother’s sleeve and led her along the path.

‘I can’t see no ugly moth honey, only a pretty butterfly and a beautiful moth.’

‘It’s dull Grandma’

‘Look real close; see the lovely patterns and different shades of grey?’

‘Uh huh,’ Beth screwed up her eyes.

‘See honey, God made lots of creatures that are beautiful in different ways, green, red,  grey, in all shapes and sizes.’

‘Grandma, your hair is all sorts of pretty grey,’ she reached to feel a curl, ‘did God make it?’

 

 

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week# 43

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, short story, WritingTagged , , , 37 Comments

Pop over to Julia’s if you would like to try the weekly 100 word challenge http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week43/

The prompt this week is ‘The flame flickered before . . .’ and here are my 100 words,

A Cautionary Tale

‘The Flame Flickered Before Her Eyes and Other Stories’ by Randy Walton, ‘What? That’s weird Sal, look. I’m going in.’

‘It’s just a coincidence honey.’

‘But it looks like my photo as well.’

The bell above the door made the shopkeeper briefly raise his head from his own reading, then he tutted when Margi stood over him.

‘This book, it’s self published right?’

‘Yeah and it’s very successful, been at the top of the short fiction charts for weeks. Everyone’s reading short stuff these days.’

Margi turned to the contents page. Twelve short stories. Her short stories, all of them.

#Friday Fictioneers

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, short story, WritingTagged , , , 23 Comments

I know it isn’t Friday now, I’ve been away so I’m late.

But, Madison’s  http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/photo-prompt-for-100-word-flash-fridayfictioneers-30/  photo kept popping into my head so I wrote this.

Going home is copacetic but the journey from my daughter lacks the joy of the one towards. In the bus someone plays a line from the carnival is over on a tinny echoing phone.

I recline and check the double deck view, a twin chakra of rainbows, moments from the M27 with its pylons and industrial units, on a bench that feels like bone on bone to my spine. Hawthorn next and cemetery birds in a corridor called Wellow.

Disgorge at Salisbury, grateful for a wait uninterrupted by a questioning Mancunian, grasping for minutiae from a trapped, hungover, hen party goer.

Puffins, Lottery Tickets and the Crazy Polish Woman

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, Humour, WritingTagged , , , , 11 Comments

Lucid Gypsy and the Crazy Polish Woman went for a lunchtime stroll and as usual we tried to put the world to rights, quite a task in half an hour and we soon got bored with trying! We moved on to the lottery, her desire to win, combined with the impossibility of that, when she doesn’t buy a ticket. She has bought a little globe and wants to go to as many places as possible in the world. Nothing unusual about that is there? Except that when she wins, she will spend the first £5000 visiting Iceland. Again not particularly unusual, I wouldn’t mind myself as long as it was in midsummer. She has a mission though. Puffins. She loves them, and has come across a fact that I for one did not know.

So she wants to travel to Iceland to warn them to leave. Ideally she will speak to each of them individually. Of course we debated whether these conversations should be carried out in English, Polish or Squawk (something she does when she gets excited, angry or just plain Crazy). It has to be Squawk, I don’t think there are many Puffins in Poland – but will be happy to be proved wrong – and they tend to avoid people in England, choosing instead to hang around on Lundy or the Scilly’s.

Aside from getting close enough in Iceland to have a conversation with them, of course there is the problem of recognising which ones you have warned already. Unless you are a Puffin they all look pretty much the same. So if they aren’t prepared to leave immediately, then some sort of label would be needed. Perhaps the ones that CPW has enlightened can be persuaded to spread the word in Puffin speak, and then she may be able to see some geysers and glaciers, in the day long day with the left over money.

She really is very worried about them and a world without Puffins would of course be terrible. If you are a follower of some of the celebrity chefs, you may already know what her fears are. If not, well please stop reading if you are of a sensitive disposition. You see it’s because they are eaten. Icelanders consider raw Puffin heart to be a delicacy.

I am going to buy CPW a lottery ticket.

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week #42

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, WritingTagged , , , , , 33 Comments

This week’s 100 word challenge over at Julia’s http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week-42/

has five words for the prompt. They are LIBERTY, APPLE, YELLOW, ENORMOUS AND EMPIRE. I’m told my attempt is too cryptic this time so you may not get it 😦

Speed Date

It took me all night to make this. I’m so out of practice, haven’t cut a pattern for years. Enormous amount of fabric, Liberty print the length of the hall. Thank goodness it’s bright yellow; you can’t really see where I spilt the apple juice.

Hooray for chicken fillets, I’ve always wanted to wear an Empire line dress. A bonnet would be too much, but my hair’s up. I feel like a bride, perhaps that’s a good omen.

Speed dating with an Austen theme, only in Winchester eh? Is this the right room?

Oh my God.

Austen.

Powers.

Not Jane.

# Friday Fictioneers – Lunacy

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, short story, WritingTagged , , , 52 Comments

This is my first Friday Fictioneers 100 word post. The photo below is the prompt for this week.

moon

Here is the link if you would like to join in. http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/photo-prompt-for-100-word-flash-fridayfictioneers-29/ and my story.

Lunacy

‘Daughter, at last it is favourable. Yesterday’s rains have made the earth soft, and moist. Now, the moon is shining her benevolence.’

‘This is a good time mummy? What makes it so?’

‘She is waning and her energy draws into the soil, she makes roots grow strong, it is time to sow our yam seed.’ They bent to dig and plant the seed together.

‘Wife what is this crazy woman talk you put in the child’s head? Plants need sun and water, not this lunacy. Tell me when you’ve finished and I will slaughter the goat and sprinkle its blood.’

100 Word Challenge Week # 41

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, Photography, WritingTagged , , , , , , 41 Comments

Julia at http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week41/ has created a new challenge for this week. The prompt is a photo and the words ‘A pile of bones’.

This is my response.

A Rainbow of Wings

Grandfather’s shell reached the cliff of passing

 each pressed mahogany hands to their heart.

A fleece bag at his waist

 they filled with gold.

‘Grandfather, descend the chasm

  rejoin the earth of our fathers.

Ancient ones, welcome the flesh of your son.

Take his earthly remains

 and breathe his soul

into the child that waits.’

 

The old being fell, shattered, into the abyss

 where a haunting of vultures

created a  pile of bones

dotted with precious element.

A rainbow of wings rose to sing

welcome to the new life,

as the spirit heralded the grandchild

flourishing forth with first breath.