Barny

Hunting The Children of Electric

You may think we’ve harnessed electricity but don’t be fooled by its compliance, it’s merely an angry beast straining at its leash, longing to be free.

If you’ve stood watching for the crackle-flash of its untamed brother, then counted and listened for the rumble, you’ll know what I mean when I say, the effec…[Read more]

Thanks for the comp, Ath! Another opportunity to stretch myself ☺️

And congratulations to Libby for winning, and the rest of us for giving it a go ????

Thank you, Ath! That was a lovely surprise. The standard of the other entries was so high. Thank you to Terrie, Sandra and Seagreen for such evocative and immersive stories.

A most enjoyable writing challenge for May, Ath.
Well done Libby, Sandra and Sea for creating such powerfully expressive reading.
Looking forward to Libby’s June challenge.

Why do you always insist on making this difficult?

Terrie’s Plant Song is almost a poem to the language of flowers. Rich and ancient with a deadly heart. The melody, she writes, is intoxicating, and I can’t think of a better word for the whole piece. I said “anything floral” and it’s hard to imagine something more floral than this. A wonderfully…[Read more]

THE GATEKEEPER  

They closed the Winter Gardens. Lack of funding or resources or some other bullshit excuse. Redundancy notices for the gardeners who’d been there for years, and redeployment to grass-cutting duties for the young apprentices who still didn’t know their aquilegia from their allium. They stored the tools in the old stable buil…[Read more]

Phototropism

Suzy and I drank white wine while we sat in stiff, square garden chairs. I hadn’t met Suzy before and admired how she leant back, legs stretched out – lounging and confident. She wasn’t just overcoming the chair’s straight edges; she showed me she knew she had glamour. Her jeans and yellow cotton shirt were years old, threads loose…[Read more]

Plant-Song

Nepenthes, the watcher, teaches us to listen for murmurs along the grapevine because the scent of those words is strong and always carry seeds of the truth. They whisper tales of creation that began beneath woody crowns of ancient cycad trees and of cerebral vines, trailing and probing in thickly netted curls upon the loamy earth.

The…[Read more]

Thank you, Seagreen, for the competition. Great, enticing stories from Ath, Sandra and Terrie. I enjoyed them all.

Seagreen, thanks so much. A brilliant prompt for April. Thanks also to my co-authors. There were some great pieces of writing.

I love to plan. That’s why nothing ever gets written.

Honestly, I’m sorry this has taken me so long…

All the entries left me wishing I’d given you more words to play with since each of them teased with hidden depths.

Ath – so easy to read (as ever!) Engaging, apparently effortless writing, but so many questions! Who was this man? Where did he come from and where would he end up?  More importan…[Read more]

Sorry! I haven’t forgotten, just waiting for a break in the clouds.
If I don’t have time tonight, then results will definitely be posted tomorrow when I’m off.
Thank you for your patience.

To be fare, sometimes I don’t know the ending – or the story.

Stephen King, Ath? He’s said that he never knows what’s going to happen when he starts a novel, and he’s published nearly seventy of them.

Your method (if we can grace it with that name), Ath, sounds very much like mine: a rough idea of the story arc and the ending, and not much more. The nearest I ever got to planning was to write out the rather…[Read more]

I like the bugs analogy, Terrie.

Roughly I do something like this: I plan, though not in great detail – usually the ending and a couple of things along the way. When I start writing the plan doesn’t seem to work so I alter the order of events or cut events. After a bit I give up with the plan and hope the writing will suggest what I need to do…[Read more]