Tag: creative writing

Friday Fictioneers

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, short story, WritingTagged , , , , , , , 18 Comments

Madison has posted a challenging photo prompt this week and this is my contribution. If you would like to visit her to read the other entries go to http://madison-woods.com/photo-prompt-for-the-fridayfictioneers-5/

Running Water

‘There you go my dear, now all you have to do is turn on the tap and you can have running water whenever you want.’

‘Turn it on whenever I want? That’s lovely.’

‘Now how do you manage about baths? You’d qualify for a council grant at your age.’

‘Oh I just fill the copper up in July, that’s my birthday I’ll be ninety two you know, and it doesn’t take long to fill my hip bath. Now lad I’m going down the garden to get some water from the well, so I’ll show you out at the same time.’

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week# 51

Posted on Posted in Poetry, WritingTagged , , , 25 Comments

We have one hundred words plus these  four the line was drawn … for Julia’s challenge over at http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week51/ why not give it a go? The prompt is announced every Monday. Here is my attempt for the week, it seems to have turned into one of those poemy things.

Demarcation

Between those that have

and those that have not

between those that can

 and those that cannot

winners and losers

the line was drawn.

Between day and night

earth and sky

desert and ocean

between dark and light

the line was drawn.

Between leisured or laboured

able or challenged

 between freedom and imprisonment

the line was drawn.

Between childhood and cronedom

innocence and guilt

lost and found

joy and sorrow

between crowd or solitude

the line was drawn.

Between having a voice

 or condemned to silence

between discord and harmony

pleasure and pain

between ignorance and knowledge

the line was drawn.

Friday Fictioneers: Grapevine

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, WritingTagged , , , , , 15 Comments

I’ve missed Madison’s 100 word Friday photo prompt                                      http://madison-woods.com/2012/07/18/ for a couple of weeks but this time I’ve made it. This maybe a little dark, so I’m sorry, I don’t wish to offend. The photo seems innocent enough, but look closely, see how the tendrils can wrap around and strangle.

grapevine

Riesling

The vine, its naked now, stripped of its treasures, its small Riesling bullets. The master likes to watch while we crush them in the old way; it’s his tradition to make something special for himself. And as he watches, he finishes last year’s reserve.

It started off well, he was in good humour, but as always, it turned to bad. I thought I would die last night; drown on crushed grapes, I prayed to the Lord to take me. Grapes filled my nose, ears, eyes and mouth, while he filled me.

He doesn’t know where I emptied his night water today.

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week# 49

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, Games, WritingTagged , , , , , 12 Comments

‘This week is another simple prompt but please forgive me for making it topical to us here in the UK.

….Murray was just about to serve for the Championship when…’

says Julia, over at http://jfb57.wordpress.com/ pop across to join in!

Schizoid Match

Murray was just about to serve for the Championship when they arrived. The voices. All three this time and they were arguing like mad.

‘He has to have new tennis shoes; he’s going through the toes of last year’s.’ Tut.

‘I need shin pads, for Saturday, we’re playing Westchester.’ Get out of my head Aidan.

‘Listen, listen, no-one ever needed this stuff, need is about hunger, a roof over our heads.’ Dad shut up.

‘Murray will put the roof over our heads one day, the boy is gifted.’ No pressure then mum.

‘Ha, even he doesn’t believe that.’

The racquet thudded to the ground. You’re right dad I don’t.

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups # Week 48

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, WritingTagged , , , , 10 Comments

I missed last weeks challenge. I used the excuse of being away, but actually it was just too difficult. This week Julia has returned to her more usual prompt of a few words . . . I blamed it on the dog  . . . much more my scene. If you would like to join in, or read some of the other entries, pop across to http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week-48/

Meanwhile here is my entry.

A Bit of a Tickle

‘Forty years, that’s how long I’ve known her. I never thought she’d leave me. There’s not a day we’ve been apart. We never wanted kids – decided it would be just the two of us.’

‘Sorry mate, I’m not one for weeping, never had cause, we’ve always been so happy.’ The man, who looked far too young for that kind of work averted his eyes and muttered ‘No worries.’

‘She had a bit of a tickle, touch of allergy she said. I think I’ll be following her; I can’t live with this guilt you see. Passive smoking causes cancer. That cough, I blamed it on the dog.’

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, 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?’

 

 

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.

One Year and Twenty Five Thousand for Lucid Gypsy

Posted on Posted in WritingTagged , , , , 40 Comments

A year ago today I very tentatively started a blog and Lucid Gypsy was born. I had no idea where we were taking each other and if anyone would visit, just a vague plan to write travel and short fiction. It was a very slow start; I had to learn the techy stuff and kept it very simple for the first few days. Then I kind of worked out how to post photos and published Nest of Primates my first travel piece, which I still think is one of my best posts, but hasn’t had that many reads. (Interestingly, I’ve wondered for ages how to change the words on a link and have finally done it – WordPress has forced me to learn!) I posted five times last May and then disappeared for a while to Turkey, returning with a head stuffed with stories and a couple thousand photos.

I was stumbling though with no clue what to write or how to be seen. A turning point came when I discovered the Weekly Photo Challenge and was able to indulge my other passion, photography. Finding out how to tag and categorise well, made all the difference and eventually in November I had more than a thousand views. You may wonder why it took me so long; instructions are there to be read of course. Trouble is I can’t do instructions books for anything. I try to read how, but don’t get it and have to muddle my way through.

Slowly a following came and I began to meet some interesting people around the world. Does anyone remember having a pen friend as a child? Usually one foisted on you by school? Well the blogosphere is like having hundreds of pen friends, a fascinating way of learning about other cultures, and seeing photos of places taken by real people in everyday places as well as the grand tourist destinations.

Being a Gemini and a writer I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and each time I look at someone’s blog I am transported to another person’s world, be it in the next county or a garden in the southern hemisphere. Lovely people I can’t thank you enough for your support, inspiration, laughter and tears.

At some point in the remaining four hours of today one of my five hundred plus followers will become the twenty five thousandth hit on Lucid Gypsy, how amazing that I should reach that number today!

Thank you so much.

A Sequel to Short Listing

Posted on Posted in Creative writing, flash fiction, short story, WritingTagged , , , , , , , 28 Comments

This is the logo for Flash Fiction South West and I am proud and excited to be part of the very first published anthology, Kissing Frankenstein and Other Stories. Not only is it a first for FFSW, it’s a first for me! My very first time  in print.

I know that lots of you are published writers, do you remember the feeling you had when you first held a book with your name inside? I’ve been bouncing for twenty four hours now!

May 16th is National flash Fiction Day, perhaps you will be inspired to write something on that day. If not, check out the talent that the West Country has to offer,

http://flashfictionsw.co.uk/ and it’s even better to run your hands over the sleek cover and inhale the fresh, gorgeousness of new book.