More irresistible stuff

Saturday 30 July 2011

Playing Catch-up

What a whirl the last few months have been. The day job has required a somewhat sharper focus and that has meant emptying my head of the many worlds that filled it previously. We are not out of the woods just yet, but I am feeling encouraged to slowly ease myself back into the writing harness.

This has been prompted by a few things.

One is the wonderful news that the short story that I co-authored with Simon Kewin has been accepted by
for publication in October 2011.

This piece is around 8400 words and I am delighted that it has found such a great home.

I have also had a couple of micro-fictions published by Trapeze Magazine recently (see my Published Works page for links) and it is always encouraging to see your work recognised. It would be even more encouraging if you, my friends, felt like visiting Trapeze's website and perhaps leave a comment! :)



I was also delighted to receive an award from Catherine Ensley at Words World and Wings. Thank you so much Catherine, it was very sweet of you.

One last thing - if you read yesterdays post and didn't twig that it was a mickey-take, I'm obviously hopeless! Take a look at my comment yesterday!

Friday 29 July 2011

Book Blurb Friday - Spellbound

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The lovely Lisa at Writing in the Buff hosts Book Blurb Friday. Each week Lisa posts a pretend book cover to fire our imaginations. Our task is to write the book blurb for the back cover in 150 words or less.


Spellbound

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Life is not easy for Garin as a trainee mage, not when his father is the arch-mage himself. Magic is serious business under the bushy eye-browed glower of the patriarch. But life takes an unexpected turn when a friend teaches Garin the Book of Faces spell which transforms his spell tablet into a communication portal.

Scrolling through the faces the spell conjures up, Garin is captivated by a girl with startling blue eyes, who is apparently called Cami94. Garin is heartbroken to learn she lives a kingdom away, but when he learns that she is to be married off to some ancient grandee, he is determined to save her.

Aided by his friends and pursued by his father’s mages, Garin must face fire, bogs and arachnids to reach his heart’s desire.

But all is not as it seems in Ternet...




140 words

Saturday 23 July 2011

Book Blurb Friday - A Heart of Stone

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The lovely Lisa at Writing in the Buff hosts Book Blurb Friday. Each week Lisa posts a pretend book cover to fire our imaginations. Our task is to write the book blurb for the back cover in 150 words or less.


A Heart of Stone

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Abi had not always been made of stone. Once she had been a young woman with a bright future ahead of her, but like too many before her, she had vanished and in her place some sick person had left a perfect statue. Or so everyone thinks, including the police.

All too soon Abi is placed in a graveyard looking out over her own empty grave. From where she stands she can see a dozen or more victims, all frozen in a living death. Many friends come to Abi’s grave, but none break her heart more than Mike. She hadn’t even known he’d loved her.

When she realises that Mike could be the next victim, she is determined to find a way to warn him. Soon Mike is drawn into a world of impossibilities, but is too late to save himself? Is it too late to save Abi?




148 words

Sunday 17 July 2011

Succinctly Yours - Water performance

Many thanks to at Grandma's Goulash for running the Monday Microfiction Meme. Grandma posts a photo and invites us to write a caption or story in either under 140 characters (tweet-length) or under 140 words. As an extra challenge we are given a word to insinuate into our offering.

Todays word: Obscure

Today's inspiration:


Hank stared in horror at Cheri's transformation into the black creature from the lagoon, unaware the piranhas had eaten his leg. Cert 18

---o'O'o---

Hank didn't know the meaning of "a black look" until he told Cheri he'd left the picnic in the car.

---o'O'o---

Hiding from Voldemort, Harry and Hermione ended up in some obscure locations.
"Can't you just put your glasses back on?" Hermione moaned


Sunday Reflection - Wheat and Tares

The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

Today, I have the privilege of sharing a contemplative reflection on Matthew 13:24-30 36-43 at church, and thought I'd share it here.


Imagine, if you will, a field of wheat. Close your eyes if it helps. Perhaps you have stood in the past on the edge of a field and looked at acre after golden acre stretching out into the distance, waves of light and shadow chasing each other in the gentle breeze. But turn around in your mind's eye and look out at a different field. This one is not yet ready for harvest. It looks like any other field of young wheat, but actually it is full of tares, or Bearded Darnel. Looking at the field now, you wouldn’t know – wheat and Darnel are both grasses and look the same in the early stages. It is only when they are full grown and bear fruit that the difference is plain to see. For the seeds of the Darnel cause symptoms like drunkenness, and they are prone to corruption by a fungus, making them poisonous.

Standing nearby is the Landowner, and around him his slaves are looking at the field. They are saddened by the state of the crop, and urge their master to allow them to clear the field of the tares. But with the wheat and tares looking so similar, many tares would be missed and much wheat would be destroyed, so their master says no, leave them be until the harvest.

Look at the master’s face. You can see how much he cares for the crop. You can see his anger at the enemy for what has been done. You can see how much his heart grieves that crop must struggle for water, nutrients and light. And you can see his joy that despite everything the crop continues to grow.

So he tells his slaves to wait, because he knows that there is always a chance that the stalks his slaves had dismissed as tares might yet turn out to be wheat. The master is patient and always hopeful, and always gives a second chance.

Let us reflect on the fruit we bear, and let us look again at the field through our master’s eyes.

Friday 8 July 2011

Book Blurb Friday - Typecast

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The lovely Lisa at Writing in the Buff hosts Book Blurb Friday. Each week Lisa posts a pretend book cover to fire our imaginations. Our task is to write the book blurb for the back cover in 150 words or less.


Typecast

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When Cassie Drewe starts to decorate her dingy Victorian attic flat in Shoreditch, she is astonished to find a dusty old typewriter in a forgotten space, hidden behind decades of wallpaper.

She hadn’t meant to write a story, but as her fingers stroke the keys, it springs to life unbidden. Word by word it draws her in, grips her, demands to be written. In breathless excitement, she types the struggle of a young man caught in a clash between modern London and the demonic secret in the ancient heart of the city.

Listening to the news the next day, she is shocked to find it is all true. If her own, half written, story is to be believed, London is on the very brink of annihilation. Should she carry on typing, or enter the story and find the young man?

Write or be written?

London’s future is in her hands.



150 words exactly

Monday 4 July 2011

Succinctly Yours - On the Fly

Many thanks to at Grandma's Goulash for running the Monday Microfiction Meme. Grandma posts a photo and invites us to write a caption or story in either under 140 characters (tweet-length) or under 140 words. As an extra challenge we are given a word to insinuate into our offering.

Todays word: Expedient

Today's inspiration:


Tom's venture into fly-on-the-wall peeping failed 
to take account of the corresponding 
reduction in brain power.

---o'O'o---

Jane's 1960 copy of  the first spiderman comic
was the most expedient, but how was
Peter going to explain the messy cover?

---o'O'o---

"Pretty Fly!" exclaimed Joyce,
adjusting her pince-nez
"Why, thank you," replied Reggie,
smoothing down his remaining hair.


Friday 1 July 2011

Book Blurb Friday - Fatal Error

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The lovely Lisa at Writing in the Buff hosts Book Blurb Friday. Each week Lisa posts a pretend book cover to fire our imaginations. Our task is to write the book blurb for the back cover in 150 words or less.


Fatal Error

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06:44
August 6th
1945
724th iteration

*** DOES NOT COMPUTE ***
FATAL ERROR
*** RESTART ***

08:15
August 6th
2311
725th iteration

*** WARP DRIVE ENGAGED***
WARNING - FEED BACK CRITICAL
***FATAL ERROR***

Dr John Hayman, project manager and chief analyst on the Terran Warp Drive programme regains consciousness in a bedroom at 06:44 on August 6th 1945 in downtown Hiroshima. His last conscious act was hitting the abort button in the test flight command centre orbiting the earth.

Aki Yoshida energises her Marconi radiotelegraph on which she had been experimenting in her Hiroshima bedroom, and finds herself thrown across the deck of a space station 365 years later.

With the energy of the feedback loop increasing exponentially at every iteration, John has 91 minutes to break the loop before Hiroshima is destroyed and, sooner or later, the universe with it.



143 words