This is written for Business Card Fiction’s First Prompt: December:
Getting the hang of this now, and I like the PSD template. This one was in High Tower Font size 16.
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BCF: Tail Lights
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Visual Dare: Disobey
Anonymous Legacy’s Visual Dare #32
Disobey
It was her self-assured smile that caught me…
No one had ever caught more than a glimpse before, let alone actually snare me.
I, the elusive ghost of the night, the wild and dark spirit that troubled those who thought they saw me, those whose fear kept them trapped by their own limits.
It was a small girl, with power unseen and an indomitable belief in her dreams that tamed me.
She ignored every warning and waited in the snow, and when I was more than a shadow she smiled, and when winter’s icing sugar snow revealed me, I followed…
(100 Words)
Steampunk Christmas Tree Bauble
Photograph by Lisa Shambrook & Instagram
(If you use these pictures please link back to this post, thank you.)
Still enjoying a writing hiatus and catching up with some crafting ideas… Rather consumed with Steampunk right now, and wanted a steampunk bauble for the Christmas tree, but couldn’t find one, so made my own:
1. Find (or buy) a single Christmas Bauble. Mine was 49p for 3 at my local garden centre. Stick with gold, silver, chrome, brown or neutral colours.
2. Using tweezers and superglue or another strong glue (Glue gun is too messy) add cogs, gears etc. I bought a small packet of old watch mechanisms for a couple of pounds on Ebay.
3. It helps with precision to place the bauble in an egg cup as you work.
4. Add a ribbon to hang it with.
All Photos by Lisa Shambrook
(If you use these pictures please link back to this post, thank you)
And there you are, a Steampunk Christmas Tree bauble…
Steampunk Project… Top Hat
My daughters and I are currently collecting Steampunk…for a project. Our fashion sense is pretty Steampunk to begin with, so we’re already halfway there with skirts, military jackets, corsets, jewellery etc, but one thing we didn’t have was a Top Hat.
Pinterest came up with one… Duct Tape Steampunk Top Hat by cutoutandkeep.net and I had a go using this tutorial.
This is my attempt:
Photograph by Lisa Shambrook using Streamzoo Indutrial filter.
(Please do not use without permission)
to be continued…
NaNoWriMo Teaser: Oncoming Traffic
So it’s the final NaNoWriMo week…and here’s your last unedited snippet:
Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (please do not use without permission)
Once on the main road, Meg stared out of the window at the river running alongside, the sunshine glinting and sparkling across its surface, and Meg thought how inviting it looked. The she heard sniffles, just a little one then another. She squinted at Mum as the sun gleamed across the windscreen, and Mum choked back a sob. Meg wanted to say something, but nothing made it out of her throat.
“I don’t know why I bother!” wept Mum, “What’s the point, everything always goes wrong…”
Meg sat, her skin prickling and her fingers clenching.
“There really is no point. Did you know that Meg, there’s no point, no point to anything…”
“Mum…” squeaked Meg.
“Just know that now, before life decides to rip you apart with its dreams and promises. Know that nothing’s worth it!”
Meg’s eyes welled up too.
Mum turned her head to look at her daughter. “Meg, don’t cry, that’s not worth it either. Crying doesn’t do a damn thing!”
Tears began to slip down Meg’s face as she sat in silence.
Mum continued, as a car horn blared behind her. “Don’t cry, there’s nothing we can do, not a damn thing!” Mum released the steering wheel and Meg’s eyes widened. She cried out. “Mum!”
Mum’s hands were back on the wheel but she was staring rigidly at the road. Not at the road, thought Meg suddenly as she stared out of the windscreen, but at a lorry heading down the opposite side of the road. Her mum was staring at the lorry. Her mum was staring at the lorry!
“Mum!” Meg screamed, “Mum!”
The car began to veer across the double white lines, and Meg’s cries got desperate. “Mum, stop, Mum, stop!” Meg began to wail as they veered into the lorry’s lane. Meg grabbed at the wheel but Mum’s hands were too firm. Meg closed her eyes, her heart about to break through her chest and just as suddenly, the car swerved back onto the right side on the road, the lorry’s horn screaming as it passed.
Meg’s legs were jelly, her hands sweaty and shaking and she wanted to get out of the car. “Mum, stop the car, stop the car!”
Her mum, slowed the car down, but kept driving, a car horn sounded behind them and Meg begged her mum to stop again. Finally, as they approached a lay-by her mum slowed and pulled over. The car stopped and Meg scrambled out, slamming the door behind her and running to the hedge. She thought she was going to be sick, her head thumped, her stomach swam and her heart broke.
Five Sentence Fiction: Feast
Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (please do not use without permission)
There were no worries about walking on egg shells Mum had already broken all the eggs. Meg had painstakingly cleaned the walls and kitchen cabinets herself. Bright, sunshine yellow yolks had dripped down the tiles and sticky, gooey egg white had plastered the cabinets and floor. Following the eggs had been the plastic tub of butter, which had split upon hitting the wall and a huge smear of butter had spread, landing in a heap on the surface. Meg rued that day.
Written for Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction. I’m so caught up in the final week of NaNoWriMo, that you get another glimpse into Meg’s life… From next week, you should be getting more one off fiction again!
NaNoWriMo Teaser: Fault Lines
Our third NaNoWriMo week is upon us…therefore another snippet:
This one, again very unedited…is harder to give you. I make no apologies for the nature of the excerpt, I write what I know, but please bear in mind this is fiction.
You need to know that Meg is fourteen and troubled, her mother is depressive and Meg hadn’t realised how bad things had become. She sneaked upstairs to find her mum and saw her mother cut herself, through the door hinges. Meg was devastated, and in the following chapter tried it, but couldn’t do it, herself. The tension mounts:
Photograph by Lisa Shambrook and Instagram (Please do not use without permission)
While Dad sat at the desk checking emails, Meg disregarded the chair she usually sat in and took the empty seat beside Mum. Mum glanced at her daughter and a smile played on her lips. She rested her hand on Meg’s thigh and caught Meg’s eye, and her daughter leaned across to burrow close. Nobody spoke but mother and daughter felt familiar warmth. Meg placed her hand on Mum’s and felt emotion bubble in her throat; she couldn’t talk even if she wanted to.
They sat like that for a while, Meg’s head resting on her mother’s shoulder and their unusually tender affection soothed the crippling anguish in both of their hearts.
The clock ticked, the cat sat in the middle of the floor straining his neck to reach his hindquarters as he meticulously washed, and Meg’s mum closed her eyes as she relaxed.
Meg heard her mum sigh and her chest rose and fell with comforting regularity, Mum was in a good place and Meg allowed herself to breathe deeply. She stared at her mum’s hand, the one that lay on her lap, and gently stroked the back of it. She rubbed her fingers across the rings on Mum’s third finger. The smooth gold band and the perpetual circle of tiny diamonds circumnavigating her eternity ring. She lightly rotated the diamonds, letting them sparkle, then massaged Mum’s hand up to her wrist.
Mum’s breath was soft and tranquil and Meg softly pushed Mum’s sleeve up her arm in a gentle move to massage further. Her mum didn’t move, and Meg pushed it higher. The cut tapered below the furrowed sleeve, peering angrily at Meg. She massaged lightly and softly followed the cut, then ran her finger over the reddened, swollen ridge.
Her mum flinched and instinctively reached across and pulled the sleeve back down, covering any betrayal.
Meg bit her lip desperate to speak, her heart raced, thumping so loud she was sure Mum could hear it. Indy stopped licking himself and paused in an ungainly fashion mid-clean, he stared at Meg and Meg stared back. Mum sighed and Meg spoke, softly but firmly.
“Mum, how did you cut your arm?”
The silence was ear piercing for a split second, and Meg felt the tension pool into her mother. Her mum cleared her throat and nodded towards the cat gazing at them on the floor. “The cat scratched me.”
Nobody spoke; even Dad’s fingers hovered above his keyboard.
Then Mum cleared her throat again and despite the palpable tension she brushed her fingers across Meg’s arm. “And how did you get that scratch Meg?”
“The cat,” Meg’s answer was quick and precise. She was learning well.
Five Sentence Fiction: Business
Photograph by Bekah Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
She wandered through town, slinking between mothers and pushchairs, corporate men and women, and shoppers, all in a hurry to be finished in town before the mid-morning regulars appeared. Everybody minded their own business and Meg was nothing extraordinary, as usual she was invisible and that was just how she wanted it.
She flew from one shop to another, darting from one doorway to the next until she was clear of the town centre, unhindered by people and out on her own. Ghosts travelled amongst the living unseen, living out their haunted nightmares and Meg was no different to a phantom lost amid the sentient. In response her heart beat rapidly and as she slowed down again she was aware of the sound of her blood surging and pumping through her veins, she was alive, even though she barely felt it.
Written for Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction – Business. I am still pretty locked in to NaNoWriMo, so stuck with another five sentence excerpt.
NaNoWriMo Teaser: The Old Oak
Second week into NaNoWriMo and it’s time for another teaser, happier than the last two… again pretty much unedited, oh, how you notice excess words when your inner editor is locked away!
The oak tree is Meg’s escape, somewhere to go when it all gets too much…
Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
The tree looked perfectly normal, but Meg was far from anything resembling normal. She got to her feet and stepped forward, hoping to feel something more, but nothing, not even a shimmer, nothing, until she placed both hands directly back on the trunk.
Once more her hands smarted and she was drawn closer. She rested her cheek against the coarse bark and closed her eyes.
Images flooded her mind, hundreds, all at once…and laughter, and tears, and grief and joy. Impressions swamped her consciousness and emotions filled every fibre of her, until she again withdrew. Then she clamped her hands back onto the tree and allowed the sensations to bathe her for as long as she could. She tried to sort the images, but they flashed too fast, and the sounds all merged into one big noise.
Then an image leaped out at her, a boy’s excited face, a young boy, no more than seven or eight, scrambling through its branches, whooping in glee as he climbed. She grinned and watched him climb through the twisting branches to the delight of onlookers below. He didn’t get very far, but his exhilaration thrust through her as he crawled from branch to branch, and then swung on the furthest reaching bough to leap back down to the ground and his eager friends.
The image fizzled and Meg let go of the tree. Infused with excitement and before she knew it she was standing on the bulging root launching herself up onto the lowest branch. She grabbed at twigs and stems and pulled herself up, straddling the bough. Then she reached up to the next fork and clambered onto the higher branch. She settled in a nook, and swung her legs enjoying the new perspective from just a few feet up.
It was a while later as the sun rose higher in the sky that Meg checked her watch. Way past ten o’clock and panic struck, she’d been gone far too long, lost in this world of hers.
She shuffled on the branch and grabbed a gnarl and stuck her hand in a tiny hole to lower to the branch below. She carefully let herself down and felt her feet touch the bough. She released her sore hand and balanced before letting go with the other. It was then she realised boots were not the best footwear for climbing damp trees.
Her sole slipped and her leg jack-knifed beneath her, her hand ripped away from the tree and she tumbled past the branch she was trying to reach. As she hit the ground pain cleaved her head and she plunged into darkness.
BCF: Festival
Business Card Fiction is a new Flash Fiction Contest run by @JDWenzel, @bullishink and @LillieMcFerrin.
The contest asks us to create a piece of flash fiction from a prompt to fit a business card…and there will be prizes…
This is for their Beta Trial Event and I chose the prompt: FESTIVAL
I chose a font size 13 in Times New Roman, but I’m still thinking that’s quite small…lucky this is a beta event, next time: write less, bigger font!
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The Last Krystallos 