Have you noticed that widget on the left? It's NaNoWriMo time. That's National Novel Writing Month. Every November writers and potential writers all over the world agree to produce a novel in 30 days. I'm told it's a tough challenge, though I've completed it twice before. (Nobody said they were GOOD novels, but I did it!)
So we sign up to a website and pledge to write our socks off. 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30. It works out at 1667 words a day. And theoretically no cheating. You can't go beyond the end of the month because you have to validate your contribution by uploading it before midnight on the day. You shouldn't start in advance. But some people do. Forward planning is allowed, but actual writing is frowned upon.
Why National, when it's international? Like a lot of things it started in the States and grew.
So. At this stage I have a working title - If Wishes Were Horses - and a start idea. But you know that saying about if you have a start and an end, the middle looks after itself? I just wish I had an ending - except, there's another saying about being careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
Watch this space.
Monday 26 October 2015
Saturday 10 October 2015
Spelunking
"I just don't understand the attraction. Why would you travel half way
around the world, to a beautiful country, then spend your time
underground?" It was clear that my opinion depressed her.
"Because it's beautiful underground too," she said, with a hint of wistfulness and her eyes not quite focussed, as though she was already there. "Besides, it's the largest known cave in the world."
"But underground is just rocks. Nothing but rocks."
"It has the tallest known stalagmites in the world too."
"So they're big rocks."
She huffed at me and brought her focus back to give me a hard stare. "I suppose there's no point in telling you there's an underground river as well?"
I shook my head. I was never going to feel her attraction to caves and caving. It's not that I don't like rocks and rivers. I'm actually fond of limestone country. But I think it's much better in sunshine.
************************
October 2014. A writing challenge.
"Because it's beautiful underground too," she said, with a hint of wistfulness and her eyes not quite focussed, as though she was already there. "Besides, it's the largest known cave in the world."
"But underground is just rocks. Nothing but rocks."
"It has the tallest known stalagmites in the world too."
"So they're big rocks."
She huffed at me and brought her focus back to give me a hard stare. "I suppose there's no point in telling you there's an underground river as well?"
I shook my head. I was never going to feel her attraction to caves and caving. It's not that I don't like rocks and rivers. I'm actually fond of limestone country. But I think it's much better in sunshine.
************************
October 2014. A writing challenge.
American bar
I remember a night in a bar, far away
A stop on a road-trip in East USA.
A group of musicians arrayed to one side -
an eclectic group my companion decried.
A piano, a drum kit, guitar with a slide:
Their music was homely, a country-based thing.
But the lyrics familiar meant I too could sing,
so I had a great evening (my friend went to bed
and spent her time reading a novel instead)
I formed a fun memory, where sometimes I stray
in my mind to that night in a bar, far away.
And when I hear bluegrass with twanging guitars,
see a real country singer with rhinestones like stars,
I'm immediately back to that music-filled place -
totally happy with a smile on my face!
***********************
October 2014
A stop on a road-trip in East USA.
A group of musicians arrayed to one side -
an eclectic group my companion decried.
A piano, a drum kit, guitar with a slide:
Their music was homely, a country-based thing.
But the lyrics familiar meant I too could sing,
so I had a great evening (my friend went to bed
and spent her time reading a novel instead)
I formed a fun memory, where sometimes I stray
in my mind to that night in a bar, far away.
And when I hear bluegrass with twanging guitars,
see a real country singer with rhinestones like stars,
I'm immediately back to that music-filled place -
totally happy with a smile on my face!
***********************
October 2014
Dear Mr Birkin
Dear Mr Birkin
Did you know all those years ago how much I hated coming to see you? You represented a lot of pain and suffering in my childhood. Because of what you did to me and inflicted on me I became a victim in almost every area of my life. You made me look different, so I was the target of teasing and bullying from practically every kid in school. (Except Brian, but his sister was one of your patients too, so he understood.)
Let's face it, what you had to do to me was awful. You encased me in a metal frame that forced my spine to stay straight and I had to wear it night and day for years. I could only take it off when I had a bath, then it was back on before bed. Sleeping in it was hard. It was so uncomfortable with its wide leather belt around my middle from hips to ribs, buckled in tight so it wouldn't slip.
Then the metal bars that held up the headrest. They had sliding bars that were held up with screws and bolts. The screws ripped the sheets and my clothes and sometimes they ripped me if I tried to stretch across my front to reach something I wanted.
Yes, coming to see you was always a low point in my life and sometimes we had to do it every two weeks and that was dreadful because it was 60 miles away. People today don't realise how far away 60 miles was back then. You couldn't do it in less than a couple of hours and we always got appointments for early in the morning so we had to set off when it was still dark to be there on time. But when we arrived we were all called in what seemed like a random order, so sometimes we sat in that boring waiting room for another two hours before I was sent for X rays, then another hour before we finally got to see you and whichever medical students you had with you that day.
Do you have any idea what it does to a child to stand, half naked, while total strangers prod and poke you and treat you like a piece of meat? I was never asked if I minded being on show; never asked if it was OK to pull and push me around and stare at my half-naked and probably very cold body.
Three operations and years of X-rays and scans and photos and prodding and poking and being ignored when I asked questions. It went on till I was 21, remember? I was still standing half-naked in front of total strangers when I was 21! Then you said ' Right, OK. I don't need to see you again.' and that was it. No fanfare. No fireworks. No real goodbye. Nothing.
The one thing in my life that I had looked forward to for as long as I can remember was handed to me and then nothing. 21 and nothing left to look forward to. Why, among all the years of treatment, hadn't you warned me that I would need something afterwards? That there would be an afterwards? I had to rebuild my life from scratch and it's not been easy.
So why, all these years later, do I remember you fondly? You made my life hell. But the thing is, you made my life. Without your treatments I'd have died years ago, my internal organs crushed within my failing skeleton. So thank you for everything you did. Even though I hated every minute of it.
***********************
Response to a writing challenge January 2015
Did you know all those years ago how much I hated coming to see you? You represented a lot of pain and suffering in my childhood. Because of what you did to me and inflicted on me I became a victim in almost every area of my life. You made me look different, so I was the target of teasing and bullying from practically every kid in school. (Except Brian, but his sister was one of your patients too, so he understood.)
Let's face it, what you had to do to me was awful. You encased me in a metal frame that forced my spine to stay straight and I had to wear it night and day for years. I could only take it off when I had a bath, then it was back on before bed. Sleeping in it was hard. It was so uncomfortable with its wide leather belt around my middle from hips to ribs, buckled in tight so it wouldn't slip.
Then the metal bars that held up the headrest. They had sliding bars that were held up with screws and bolts. The screws ripped the sheets and my clothes and sometimes they ripped me if I tried to stretch across my front to reach something I wanted.
Yes, coming to see you was always a low point in my life and sometimes we had to do it every two weeks and that was dreadful because it was 60 miles away. People today don't realise how far away 60 miles was back then. You couldn't do it in less than a couple of hours and we always got appointments for early in the morning so we had to set off when it was still dark to be there on time. But when we arrived we were all called in what seemed like a random order, so sometimes we sat in that boring waiting room for another two hours before I was sent for X rays, then another hour before we finally got to see you and whichever medical students you had with you that day.
Do you have any idea what it does to a child to stand, half naked, while total strangers prod and poke you and treat you like a piece of meat? I was never asked if I minded being on show; never asked if it was OK to pull and push me around and stare at my half-naked and probably very cold body.
Three operations and years of X-rays and scans and photos and prodding and poking and being ignored when I asked questions. It went on till I was 21, remember? I was still standing half-naked in front of total strangers when I was 21! Then you said ' Right, OK. I don't need to see you again.' and that was it. No fanfare. No fireworks. No real goodbye. Nothing.
The one thing in my life that I had looked forward to for as long as I can remember was handed to me and then nothing. 21 and nothing left to look forward to. Why, among all the years of treatment, hadn't you warned me that I would need something afterwards? That there would be an afterwards? I had to rebuild my life from scratch and it's not been easy.
So why, all these years later, do I remember you fondly? You made my life hell. But the thing is, you made my life. Without your treatments I'd have died years ago, my internal organs crushed within my failing skeleton. So thank you for everything you did. Even though I hated every minute of it.
***********************
Response to a writing challenge January 2015
Thursday 8 October 2015
Falling Star
Dirk Blaise looked hard into the mirror to check the crow's feet around his eyes. "Time for another tuck, Dirk baby," he muttered, as he continued to brush dye onto the canescent patches around his temples. "Or they won't be casting you as the varlet much longer."
He smiled his youngest-looking grin, revealing his newly re-whitened teeth.
"You CAN still pass as the juvenile lead," he asseverated, at the face that grimaced back at him.
But his reflection looked unconvinced.
*************
February 2011. Originally written as part of the Three Word Wednesday challenge that featured on the Reading and Writing by Pub Light blog. (You're given three words that you have to incorporate into short story) Later included in Microstory a Week.
He smiled his youngest-looking grin, revealing his newly re-whitened teeth.
"You CAN still pass as the juvenile lead," he asseverated, at the face that grimaced back at him.
But his reflection looked unconvinced.
*************
February 2011. Originally written as part of the Three Word Wednesday challenge that featured on the Reading and Writing by Pub Light blog. (You're given three words that you have to incorporate into short story) Later included in Microstory a Week.
Invention
He knew as soon as his boss told him the plan that it was a bad idea. Yes, the device needed to be revealed to the world, but this was not the way to do it. They wouldn’t understand the importance of the find. Thanks to some incontrovertible evidence in the tomb, it was possible to date the parts very accurately, and they proved that mankind invented clockwork millennia earlier than was previously thought. This was big stuff; but would the uninitiated grasp the significance? Of course not – and he knew he’d be the fall guy.
Dennis had spent two years painstakingly copying each of the cogs and wheels and creating a working model. It had been in a woebegone state when it first arrived at his workshop. The rest of the team of archaeological investigators had carried out all of the tests they could on the bits and pieces and then brought him the remains to interpret. Luckily, many of the sections were still intact, thanks to the lack of rain at the dig site, but connecting up all the Heath Robinson gearing had given him a few challenges.
The work had been tough, but the finished article was a triumph. The key mechanism had been the trickiest: making sure it connected all of the rotors so that, when the brake disengaged, the whole apparatus danced majestically. Ratchets engaged, spheres spun, pivots balanced and the two flagellate arms swept delicate arcs around each other, making a soft swishing sound.
It was inevitable that the museum director wanted to make a show and so a press conference was duly called. Dennis was given his orders to set up the machine prominently so that, at the right moment it could be switched on for the crowd to admire. After a gushing introduction, the director handed over to him to explain how it all fitted together. The journalists made suitably admiring noises and Dennis tried to give them every possible fact he could so that he could avoid the one question he dreaded: the one thing he could not answer.
As he reached the end of his talk and applied the brake to bring the mechanism to a controlled halt he hoped he had got away with it, but he should have known better. Just as the gentle machine hum ended a voice spoke up: “But what does it do?”
***************************
This story featured on the Microstory a Week blog in 2012
Dennis had spent two years painstakingly copying each of the cogs and wheels and creating a working model. It had been in a woebegone state when it first arrived at his workshop. The rest of the team of archaeological investigators had carried out all of the tests they could on the bits and pieces and then brought him the remains to interpret. Luckily, many of the sections were still intact, thanks to the lack of rain at the dig site, but connecting up all the Heath Robinson gearing had given him a few challenges.
The work had been tough, but the finished article was a triumph. The key mechanism had been the trickiest: making sure it connected all of the rotors so that, when the brake disengaged, the whole apparatus danced majestically. Ratchets engaged, spheres spun, pivots balanced and the two flagellate arms swept delicate arcs around each other, making a soft swishing sound.
It was inevitable that the museum director wanted to make a show and so a press conference was duly called. Dennis was given his orders to set up the machine prominently so that, at the right moment it could be switched on for the crowd to admire. After a gushing introduction, the director handed over to him to explain how it all fitted together. The journalists made suitably admiring noises and Dennis tried to give them every possible fact he could so that he could avoid the one question he dreaded: the one thing he could not answer.
As he reached the end of his talk and applied the brake to bring the mechanism to a controlled halt he hoped he had got away with it, but he should have known better. Just as the gentle machine hum ended a voice spoke up: “But what does it do?”
***************************
This story featured on the Microstory a Week blog in 2012
More 55s
When I was young I used to ask: “How do you know if you’re in love?” And they answered: “If you aren’t sure, you’re not.”
I didn’t understand. Not then. But I do now. Every moment of every day I understand and know I am in love. And even better, I know I am loved.
13 April 2012
***********************
“Hand it over and tell me where you got it, please.”
“Shan’t.”
“I’m asking nicely. Please let me see it.”
“It’s mine!”
“I really need to look at it, young man. Now!”
“Officer, leave my son alone. He’s only playing marbles. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, Ma’am. That’s not a marble, it’s a glass eye.”
April 6, 2012
*****************************
There’s something about the eventual arrival of Spring weather after a long and miserable winter that brings out the best and the worst in people. I’ve seen how everyone has a happier expression and they are smiling at each other again. But have you noticed how awful their pasty skin looks in such bright light?
March 30, 2012
**************************************
Signs of Spring
Wood pigeon.
Magpie. (Morning Sir.)
Blackbirds.
Some sort of crow.
Unidentified, large, brown, bird of prey.
(Must look that up when I get home.)
Pied wagtail.
Collared dove.
Another magpie. Two for joy!
Lots of small twittering things in a tree.
More blackbirds.
A second crow, carrying a twig.
Squirrel!
Sparrow.
Robin.
Squashed young badger.
March 23 2012
*******************************************
February 17, 2012
‘So, traditional tales are too scary for children,?’ Brian queried after gathering his family in the kitchen. His young sons looked on, fascinated.
‘No more Brothers Grimm. No more Fee Fi Fo Fum.
‘Maybe we should show them a slice of real life, then,’ he sneered, and plunged the bread knife into his wife’s chest.
#Inspired by a news story. Are fairytales too frightening for children?
I didn’t understand. Not then. But I do now. Every moment of every day I understand and know I am in love. And even better, I know I am loved.
13 April 2012
***********************
“Hand it over and tell me where you got it, please.”
“Shan’t.”
“I’m asking nicely. Please let me see it.”
“It’s mine!”
“I really need to look at it, young man. Now!”
“Officer, leave my son alone. He’s only playing marbles. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, Ma’am. That’s not a marble, it’s a glass eye.”
April 6, 2012
*****************************
There’s something about the eventual arrival of Spring weather after a long and miserable winter that brings out the best and the worst in people. I’ve seen how everyone has a happier expression and they are smiling at each other again. But have you noticed how awful their pasty skin looks in such bright light?
March 30, 2012
**************************************
Signs of Spring
Wood pigeon.
Magpie. (Morning Sir.)
Blackbirds.
Some sort of crow.
Unidentified, large, brown, bird of prey.
(Must look that up when I get home.)
Pied wagtail.
Collared dove.
Another magpie. Two for joy!
Lots of small twittering things in a tree.
More blackbirds.
A second crow, carrying a twig.
Squirrel!
Sparrow.
Robin.
Squashed young badger.
March 23 2012
*******************************************
February 17, 2012
‘So, traditional tales are too scary for children,?’ Brian queried after gathering his family in the kitchen. His young sons looked on, fascinated.
‘No more Brothers Grimm. No more Fee Fi Fo Fum.
‘Maybe we should show them a slice of real life, then,’ he sneered, and plunged the bread knife into his wife’s chest.
#Inspired by a news story. Are fairytales too frightening for children?
The tale of the Lancashire witches (in 55 words)
Fear and superstition were rife in early 17th century England so it was all too easy to misinterpret a glance, and link it to later misfortune. And that’s why ten people of Pendle were hanged for witchcraft. Device, Chattox, Demdike, Whittle and Co. No black cats, no pointy hats; just accusations and misdirected religious fervour.
*********
The Lancashire (or Pendle) Witches are among the most famous in England. Like their US counterparts in Salem, Mass., the group were victims of over zealous neighbours who were quick to accuse at the first sign of trouble. Alizon Device was called witch after she had dealings with a peddlar who refused to give her some pins. He collapsed, paralysed, and later died (probably of a stroke) and Alizon was blamed. She was said to have cursed him, with the help of her large black dog familiar. Friends and neighbours were soon rounded up and branded as a coven, who were said to meet for Sabbats at the home of Anne Whittle, known as Old Chattox.
In spite of common belief, witches were not burned at the stake in England. That treatment was reserved for heretics, and the fires wee kept alight by throwing on homosexual 'faggots' (which actually means a bundle of sticks).
*********
The Lancashire (or Pendle) Witches are among the most famous in England. Like their US counterparts in Salem, Mass., the group were victims of over zealous neighbours who were quick to accuse at the first sign of trouble. Alizon Device was called witch after she had dealings with a peddlar who refused to give her some pins. He collapsed, paralysed, and later died (probably of a stroke) and Alizon was blamed. She was said to have cursed him, with the help of her large black dog familiar. Friends and neighbours were soon rounded up and branded as a coven, who were said to meet for Sabbats at the home of Anne Whittle, known as Old Chattox.
In spite of common belief, witches were not burned at the stake in England. That treatment was reserved for heretics, and the fires wee kept alight by throwing on homosexual 'faggots' (which actually means a bundle of sticks).
Victorian philanthropy
Since the earliest days of industrialisation, factory owners created communities for their work forces, based around a centre of production. Their apparent generosity earned them the title of philanthropist. In truth they were just maximising performance. A healthy workforce is a productive one, so looking after staff meant individuals worked harder and longer, increasing profits.
Billy's challenge
Big Mike Bigelow stared at Billy’s offering for half a minute that seemed to stretch for hours. If Mr Big accepted the gift, Billy knew he’d be accepted into the gang. This was his only chance. The big man opened a cigar box and proffered it, nodding a direction to drop the severed finger in.
10 August 2012
10 August 2012
Blind faith
She was almost blind and her limbs trembled constantly, but she knew she was doing holy work. She knew her god would guide her hand if she was weak, so she continued with her mission. But gradually she began to doubt. Perhaps trying to restore the church fresco wasn’t such a great idea after all.
An 80-year-old Spanish woman has ruined a painting of Christ on the wall of her local church by attempting some 'restoration' work. The image by painter Elias Garcia Martinez now looks more like "a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic" according to one observer. More details here.
*********
16 august 2012An 80-year-old Spanish woman has ruined a painting of Christ on the wall of her local church by attempting some 'restoration' work. The image by painter Elias Garcia Martinez now looks more like "a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic" according to one observer. More details here.
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