Tag Archives: writing

Five Sentence Fiction: Medicine

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“It’s bad…” the Sage grimaced, his brow creasing and his head slowly shaking, “I’m losing her.”
He glanced down at her pale features; her forehead was dusted with perspiration glittering in the moonlight and her hands lay limp on the cotton coverlet, and he pre-empted the question with a prolonged sigh, “There is something, it’s a long shot, might not even work…but,” he gestured vaguely beyond the window, “up there, high on the peak, is the montis bellis perennis…the mountain daisy…” his voice trailed and disappeared along with the lad’s hopes. 
But, within moments, the lad had vanished out into the shadowy night, trekking far across muddy fields, weaving through distant forest, cutting a path through murky swamps and climbing through ominous veils of meandering mists up, up and up…fingers blistering as he grasped splintering rock and eyes smarting from the violent, howling winds. 
Nights passed, days passed, and her fading breath passed weakly through her dry and chapped lips; then the lad crashed through the door, disturbing the Sage and the peace, clutching a daisy, a single daisy, petals lost, petals crumpled and petals sticking to his exhausted fingers…he dropped the crushed and broken daisy into the mystic’s open hands. “Use the flower and heal her!” he demanded through his haze of delirium, “Heal her!”
“I can’t,” said the Sage, “there’s nothing left of the flower, nothing…” he watched the weary lad fall to the floor and stroked the remains of the daisy across her ashen face; she stirred, just a tiny movement, but enough, “I can’t heal her, nor can the daisy, but you have…it’s not the daisy, but the journey you were willing to make, your faith and love have healed her…see her eyes flutter open…for you, for love…”

Photograph by Lisa Shambrook

Forbidden Love – Call of the Dark

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This is my entry into the Forbidden Love Blog Hop hosted by Lillie, Ruth and Janelle…
These are my star-crossed lovers…

Call of the Dark

She waited as he closed the door, his passion glinting in his eyes. She leaned against the wall, her heart pounding wildly and her soul yearning like she’d never before known.  Her ivory veil rippled in the breeze seeking entry through the open window and he was at her side tenderly cupping her face. Her eyelids fluttered and his breath caught as she bit her lip, not long and everything would be as it should…
Orange blossom and lonely birdsong wafted from below the balcony, sweet fragrance and refrain intoxicating the tower room, and she could barely wait. Leaves rustled from vines clothing the stone walls, and slender tendrils curled over the balustrade as she led him out into the balmy night.
Her tresses, pale as the midnight moon, cascaded and his fingers entwined as his lips finally touched hers.
Trembling she held him close but he pulled away. “You’re so beautiful…” he whispered. His breath rasped as he moved towards her and she caught him within her arms. This time his kiss was full and urgent, and she returned it with mad fervour and she drew him close.
As he buried himself within her embrace she threw back her head and let out a cry. He sprang away in astonishment as she vanished in a flurry of feathers.
“I needed your kiss,” birdsong echoed, “but only in marriage…”
And before his eyes she was gone. She fluttered her ivory wings and sang out, and the answering call came from the forest below. He stared in disbelief as his bride launched away from the balcony and out into the indigo sky…and she danced through the deepening night as her beau, the blackest of all ravens, met her and her enchantment was gone, vanquished beneath the glistening moonlight.
(297 Words)


Five Sentence Fiction: Lost

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The music faded and the gramophone’s needle scratched the inner vinyl waiting patiently to be lifted and placed in its cradle, its scratching annoyed the woman who sighed over by the French windows.
She leaned on her walker and stared out beyond the lawns at the dappled shade beneath the beech tree; the wind sighed with her and sent a flutter through the crispy autumn leaves.
A light breeze edged in past the sliding doors and tickled her calves, her nylon dress stretched over her hunched back exposing pale knees and wrinkled stockings as she moved to another place.
In her mind she leaned back, coquettishly, against another tree, a similar tree, and a man, clean-shaven and earnest, whispered in her ear his words wandering, even now, through her body and she exhaled noisily, her chest creaking and wheezy.
Her body, long past its best, gripped the plastic handles of her walking frame and her cardigan hung as loose as her sagging skin, but her mind, as bright as the proverbial button, lost itself amid an onslaught of memories…
Source: Wikipedia. Portable 78 rpm record player from British His Master’s Voice. Model 102, c. early 1930’s. Photographer: Fredrik Tersmeden

Five Sentence Fiction: Orange

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I’ve been here twenty minutes, sat staring at the screen and very nearly bored to tears, though the boards and dials surrounding the monitor are lit up like a fairground and amuse me as I pretend to know what everything does and means.
I’ve been ordered to “be quiet and don’t touch anything…not anything.” I sigh. I shouldn’t be here, but I’m  small enough to sit right out of the way and Pop says it’s okay.
It’s the orange button that intrigues me, not the red one or the green one, nor the dials and flashing yellow lights on the left hand display, it’s the orange one on the right that has my finger hovering.
When I finally press it there is no click, no flash, no beep or warning, nothing, only the pale and horrified stare that my father wears, the one that usually means I’ll get a thrashing…then all hell lets loose…
Source: wikipedia Control Panel

Faerytaleish: Waiting…

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Just couldn’t help myself…my second entry to #Faerypin: (300 words)

Waiting…
He’d promised to return. He’d left his gun and blade and she’d waited.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, tears of salt and ocean sparkles.
He’d not returned.
She touched her face, tracing the briny trail to her lips with the cold steel of his firearm, and allowed her head to swim in the misery of defeat.
She’d waited a week, two then three…
The gun, heavy in her tightly clenched fist, weighed as much as her heart and a useless sigh escaped disappearing on the wisp of a zephyr.
Three months, three years…or was it more?
She wandered, placing one foot exactly in the recently vacated imprint of her foot on the soft sand and the other in its neighbour. She walked the beach from one end to the other and back again.
When she gave up her water-born inheritance and lost her tail, he said he’d return.
And she still waited, staring across the bay from one rocky outcrop to its twin on the opposite end.
Just one last quest and he’d be back; one more adventure and he’d be hers.
His sword brushed her skirts as it hung at her side, tangled with corded dead man’s bootlaces, and streamers of broad leaf weed slapped her legs as she paced and the ocean snatched at her toes.
Oh how she’d loved toes, squidging them in the sand, and legs, twining hers with his…but now they walked day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, but still he was gone.
But this day, today, the sea urged her on and withdrew further, and her walk took her around the headland usually buried in the deep.
The ship…barely a ship, his ship…lay in the cove, lost and abandoned and she knew he could never return. And she returned…to the sea.

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Be Inspired

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I’ve been tagged by the wonderful Rowanwolf (check out her novel answers on her blog) in a new Blog Hop, which originated on Vicki Orians blog. The idea is to share our inspiration and hopefully inspire others! A great opportunity for us writer people to blog about our writing inspiration!

1. Answer the ten questions
2. Tag five other writers, link to them in your post so we can hop over and see their answers too.

The Questions:

1. What is the name of your book:
My current work in progress will be a fair time in edits…so I’m choosing to write about my last finished work called ‘Beneath the Rainbow’.

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
I was walking past the children’s swings in our local park, thinking how much I loved the swings when I was a little girl and the first line came to me: ‘Freya was seven years old when she got hit by the car, it was a 4×4 with a bull bar.’ I couldn’t shake the line and a heartbreaking premise was born…

3. In what genre would you classify your book?
When I wrote it I had no thought of genre, age range or how to pitch it…only after it was finished did these questions come about. That caused problems…I would class it as an older children’s book, but many adults have enjoyed it too. The main protagonist is seven as mentioned in the first sentence and you can’t get away from that! I discovered that publishers would want a main character as close to the age of the children reading it…so seven was young and would older children relate? You’ll have to read it to decide what range it fits!

4. If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?  
This is the hardest question…most of my characters (in all my writing) are gleaned from a mixture of my imagination and from characteristics attributed to my eclectic children, relatives and aquaintences. I find it hard to relate them to actors…though I will risk sounding really pretentious and admit my dream actor for frail Old Thomas would be Sir Ian McKellan. Freya would be an unknown, but have the presence of a young Dakota Fanning.
My own inspiration for Freya was my daughter who was just over seven when I wrote the book:

5. Give us a one sentence synopsis of your book:
‘In death, Freya knows she needs to move on, but is caught within her mother’s grief and the discovery of terminally ill Old Thomas…on earth her family discover a list of her wishes and determine to fulfil both hers and Thomas’s dreams.’

6. Is your book already published/represented?
I decided to self-publish and the book is available on Kindle at Amazon. I love this book, but I know my writing grows stronger and with advice have decided this is my practise book…with the issues surrounding genre and age range, I decided to leave it as it is and concentrate on other writing for more traditional publishing.

7. How long did it take to write your book?
I began in March 2009 and finished the first draft in October 2009, I then suffered a serious bout of depression and shelved the book, going back to it in 2011. About a year all in all.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours? 
If you like emotional, lyrical stories and don’t mind weeping a bit…you should like this!

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?
That’s easy…I read ‘Loser’ by Jerry Spinelli and adored it, and I love beautiful stories with a lot of heart and emotion. Aside from this book, I am inspired by the fantasy writing of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Garth Nix…

10. Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.

My blurb reads:

“It’s those silly dreams that keep us alive.”
Dreams define us, shape us and realise our potential…they make us who we are.
Freya won’t let death stand in her way.
When she dies Freya knows she needs to move on, but is caught within her mother’s grief and the discovery of a terminally ill old man. Finding she can affect the lives of those beyond her heaven she fights to reach her mother and wants to help old Thomas realise his final dream.
Meanwhile, her family finds her own list of goals and soon discovers that Old Thomas has a burning desire to ride a motorbike.
Freya intends to create a rainbow, the last item on her list, to reach her mother, but her pale arcs won’t achieve closure. She perseveres for scarlet like remembrance poppies then searches for sunset orange and sunflower yellow.  She recreates green like her willow and blue like daddy’s t-shirt.  Finally conjuring indigo, the shade of deepening night and lastly violet to match Purple Ted…
Beneath these colours will Freya reach her mother, wait for Old Thomas and be ready to move on?
 
Discover the importance of dreams and fulfilment in Freya’s heart-breaking and uplifting tale of grief, hope, triumph and joy.

These are my tags: (I know there are only supposed to be five, but I couldn’t help myself, so six it is…)
Jo-Anne @jtvancouver
Angela @Angela_Goff
Daniel @surlymuse
Angela @ang_writes
McKenzie @Love_Kenzie_
Cameron @CameronLawton

Fairytaleish: The Coat

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This is my story for a fairytaleish contest hosted by Anna over at Yearning for Wonderland so here’s my picture and story in 299 words:

Source: authenticfauxhemian.tumblr.com via Pinterest then tracked back to original photographer Loreta loretablog.blogspot.co.uk
The Coat

“Please…don’t hurt me!” she begged, her soft -grey eyes widening in fear.
Clutching her basket tightly in her red-gloved hands she pressed her spine into the tree, but the towering man still advanced.
“That’s my brother’s coat you’re wearing.” Bitterness coated his words.  “Where did you get it?”
She tensed, swallowing hard but not moving her eyes from his.
“I said, where’d you get it?” He repeated, venom spitting from his thin lips.
She shook her head.
“Answer me girl!” His voice rose booming through the silence of the wintry forest. “My brother’s gone…and you’ve got his coat! How did you get it?”
She licked her lips and spoke, almost inaudibly. “He…he gave it to me.”
“He what? He gave it to you! Foolish answer girl, he loved that coat!” He leered. “Spent many a night out with him and that coat…”
“It’s mine,” she began with defiance tinging her small voice.
“Yours? I don’t think so!” he barked at her.
She bent placing her basket on the floor and crossed her arms over the heavy, woollen coat, pulling its softness protectively around her tiny frame. A languid smile spread across his scarred face and he leaned in close. His breath, stinking of chewed tobacco, made her glare and he took a golden curl in his coarse fingers. “I think…I want that coat back.”
As he twirled her hair she met his lascivious gaze and smiled. “And I think I want yours.” Her voice was barely a whisper yet it chilled him and he tried to step back.
The altercation was skilled and quick, and not a moment later he lay dead and bloody, his brother’s grey, woollen coat his shroud. She pulled his leather jacket about her shoulders and replaced her scarlet gloves, deftly concealing her razor-sharp talons. 

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Five Sentence Fiction: Silence

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Nothing happened…
He kissed her again and waited…and waited some more, but her hand remained limp and her face still deathly pale. Silken locks spilled across her satin pillow entwined with paper-thin, fragile and brittle dried roses, nothing like the wicked tangle of vicious thorns and miles of malevolent briers that he’d fought to defeat.
His armour dripped with sweat and he was late.
His princess had slumbered within her royal bedchamber for one hundred years, one hundred years and…just one day. 

National Flash Fiction Day: Wicked

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Today is National Flash Fiction Day 2012 and I missed getting involved with their FlashFlood (must do better!)  but wanted to offer my own nod to the day. I went back to my Five Sentence Fiction and completed the story…

So for those of you who wanted to know if the little girl beneath the camellia was safe…read on:

Photograph from: http://images.mooseyscountrygarden.com/gardening-journals/garden-journal-04/60/

Flash Fiction: 
Wicked
Anna stared out of the window, with hands tightly clasped, and watched her little sister hurriedly push herself beneath the camellia. She knew the terror that filled Lottie’s trembling heart because the same bile rose in her own throat, and nausea washed over her as the back door slammed, and Lottie’s soft-pink shoes still remained peeping out from beneath the shrub’s protective canopy. Anna raised a useless warning hand as his heavy brogues made their way up the path. She could barely breathe, but Lottie’s Mary Janes disappeared beneath the waxy leaves.
     Her hands uncurled as he strode past the budding camellia, and she held her breath as he paused by the small, stone wall. He rested his hand and wiped his forehead. Anna smiled; a tiny, knowing curve of her lips. He didn’t look good.
He moved a step further and Anna noted his lethargy, the annoyance in his eyes as he glanced across the garden, and the way he clutched his abdomen after he wiped the sweat from his brow. Heavy drops of rain began to fall and her smile grew. He called and her little sister’s name rang out in the still evening air, a mixture of cajoling and pleading and Anna’s smile slid from her face.
But the camellia hid its treasure well.
Anna watched him move and begin searching behind the potting shed, and up towards the rhododendrons. Above him the laburnum, its golden racemes now faded and ugly, rippled in the slight breeze. He moaned, and the menacing sound carried through her closed window. She clenched her fists, it was fitting that he now gripped his stomach and collapsed beneath the tree.
She couldn’t help the surge of triumph and recalled the moment a few weeks ago when he’d asked what she was putting in his hot chocolate. “Vanilla,” she’d answered quickly and easily, “you’ll like it.” And she continued pounding away at the seed pods with the mortar and pestle. Vanilla essence flavoured his drink…and he liked it.
He was now retching and shaking like a dog, spittle hanging from his pale lips, and Anna watched as he buckled, and sank into the long grass behind the huge rhododendrons and beneath the laburnum’s veil of blackened pods.    
Both she and Lottie would sleep safe in their beds tonight. 

Five Sentence Fiction: Candy

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They say no good ever comes from eavesdropping, “Major Ingleby is quite fond of her…and Lord Farrell has made his partiality known…” but from behind the door Amelia Lockwood could bear the talk no more and charged, in a most unladylike way, into the drawing room.
“I will not be spoken of as if I am sweetmeats to be offered on a silver tray, like sugared mice at Christmas-time…” she paused trying to keep her fury neatly restrained beneath her tightly bound corset and skirts, her bosom heaved and fell within the confines of her bodice and she stepped towards the window overlooking the vast estate’s immaculate gardens.
“Both would be acceptable matches…” her mother began calmly patting her perfectly coiffured, icing sugar hair and raising one eyebrow at her wayward daughter.
Amelia placed her unsteady hand against the cold glass pane and stared across the manicured lawns; in an unusually wild stretch of bedding stood the gardener leaning on his spade and returning her gaze, she took in his unruly mop of hair and unbuttoned shirt and smiled. “The Major…and the Lord for that matter, have nothing on the raw, unrefined sweetness of nature…”

Photo by Lisa Shambrook