@sandradavies
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I remember …
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …
except it wasn’t the wood that was yellow but the fallen leaves, many of which were tinged with gingerbread brown. And it wasn’t a road they covered but a track. At least, one was a track. Green grass centred and, from the narrowness of the wet mud indentations, cartwheeled. Which thought took me, in my mind, further down that track, to the dark forge; the glow of the coals in the furnace and the black silhouette of the horned anvil. As a child, I’d watched sparks fly as rims were hammered thin. Watched them, while pliable, laid round the horizontal wheel. Each spoke shaped as an hour glass. I used to wish they could be made of glass. Filled with different coloured grains so as to spin as the wheels went round.
A magical, travelling kaleidoscope.Then one day I was told never to take that road again. Even though it was no longer yellow. Even though I’d been the first that winter to see it white. The first to see not a double line of cart tracks but hurrying black footprints.
And a spotted scattering of red.[203 words including title – an enjoyable opportunity for a brief stream of consciousness, thanks Seagreen ]
@Seagreen, the ‘lightweight’ of your entry was in the well-chosen words; that they so well-expressed the solidity, the impact of that moment was the really clever bit. Thank you for this explanation.
Brilliantly well done Seagreen, and thank you Libby for the challenge, your insightful comments and for picking my favourite as winner, though all were enjoyable variations on the theme.
@ Libby – I confess I never print off an MS even for my own novels, but I do, when I’m feeling confident that the end is nigh, order it as a paperback book from Blurb.
@ Richard – thank you for that description ‘instinctive writer’ which very accurately describes my creative approach (and as an artist too) It may sound like a talent but the effect is that not consciously knowing what I’ve done or how I got there means I am equally incapable of seeing how or why it hasn’t worked. (Which may be one explanation for why I am still gratefully working through the feedback returned in March, much to the novel’s benefit.)
I’d also suggest it may be unhelpful to have too many beta readers, especially once you’ve found three or four who ‘get’ what you are doing and like it. (but only use two at a time).
WHOOPS and apologies – I missed this, through being away and then returning with much to catch up with.
I’ve many, many reasons to be immeasurably grateful for the careful reading, insight and sensible, sensitive suggestions put forward by several beta readers of my novels while being aware that I am likely a poor beta reader, partly because I lack much in the way of analytical ability (a houseful of scientists hammered that home!) and partly because I am a passive reader, i.e. I accept what and how the writer tells me as their intent and adjust my expectations accordingly. That said, I do read just short of 200 books per year, so it’s not that I lack experience, just that anyone asking will get more of a reader’s response than that of a writer. And it’s no good asking me to read something from a genre I dislike.I’ve not properly read through all of this absorbing topic but will return to do so ASAP – thank you Jane for starting it.
Sorry Ath, but I didn’t reply to your “images have always been here, just not uploading images” because I wasn’t sure what you were getting at.
I do think Bella’s beta readers might be an idea, but perhaps, at least to start with, omit the financial bit and just set up a register of those willing and those wanting, with some detail of genre, etc and the willingness to send a sample chapter to see if they’re compatible.
And the possibility of uploading pictures, I’d say Handle With Care, because I’ve seen them very quickly replace words the less-inclined writers.
“Above the tideline”
first line provided by Thomas A ClarkeAbove the tideline, an old blue rope is entangled in a bramble bush. I gaze at it while retying my hair, turning to face into the wind, risking the scratch of sand beneath my already sore eyelids; its crunching against my teeth.
Sand, salt and shell fragments speckle the twists of it, a spicing of orange and white, black-peppered with spiky-tailed globes, snapped brittle from bladder wrack.
Its fading, from a vivid turquoise – a Sagittarian promise to heal – and it’s imprisonment, in once-fruitful but now sere and dusty brown branches, sharp-thorned and twisted, offers a too-vivid metaphor, reminding me I’m here to make a decision as to whether or not I intend to end our sabulous, crumbling marriage.[This is a version of a challenge set for the SE2014 group. Apologies for re-use, but I’m away next week and this might be all I’ve time for]
Yes indeed, Well done Libby – such beautiful writing. [And well done Ath for getting it right ;-)] Also for the theme of the competition which chimed with the greater degree of looking back I occasionally do these days.
Site was ‘murdered’ because owner decided to shut it down then did so, Telling no-one and refusing to answer all communications thereafter.
I do think we that were there were lucky, insofar as it was a chatty, supportive active group, probably at the peak of its activity, which made the death of it al the more tragic,
Read this, Ath, and will ponder (not that I think I’ve any answers.) but a year in which to turn around is an excellent idea.
Another thought, along the lines of ‘if you pay for it you make sure you get your money’s worth; would be more convincing were this as lively and well-functioning as we’d like it to be.
But, The site I cut my writing teeth on in 2010 – successful enough to get me to travel to America seven times to meet up – was murdered, revived then died again a couple of times. Earlier this year it was kick-started again. Format is better than some but not perfect, and many folk cheered and signed up. yet DO NOT AND HAVE NOT CONTRIBUTDE A SINGLE THING. So … good luck with that. I’ll do my best, but …Another fairy tale
Was it when, age three or maybe four and my mother, part way through their evening meal, seated at the table with husband, husband’s sister and husband’s parents, met my bad dream request for comfort with a withering ‘Why should I help you when this morning you said you didn’t love me?’. I knew then the rest of them didn’t think she’d got there yet. Because she was behaving badly. Behaving like a child.
Or was it when, age eight, when I ran away from home, then felt my confidence wane and spent ages thinking up a reasonable reason to return: ‘Pip (our cat) will miss me’, that I knew I wasn’t there yet?
Later and more consciously, smoothing skirt and regarding my plain, National Health bespectacled face in the mirror on a Saturday when my Dad took me into the County Library to explore the storage for the Children’s Section while he did his work, I did think it might be approaching …
Then … then teenage years. Stroppy sixteen when I never even had to think about it (because it was so obvious I was).
Motherhood (at twenty-four) when, given the choice between banging my head or new baby’s against the wall just so it would END and let me sleep … I knew I’d made the right decision, (but also that it might not last)
Finally an answer, when my Dad, age 71, said even while he bought and paid for shirts he didn’t like, he knew he’d be returning them in the morning, just didn’t have the whatever it took to do it that same day. That told me, and I knew, and found it hugely comforting. A release from an occasionally nagging thought.
There really is no such thing as ‘grown up’ (and now twenty or so years further on, I’m content I’ll never reach it. [308 words]
Thanks Gail, for your kind words and well done Ath! I had such high hopes of myself with this theme, having had several ancient, (I was 8 years old) nut-brown men in a Hertfordshire village to base a tale upon but strive as I might, (and I DID) it would not come right and each time I read it I knew that I’d missed the hoped-for essence.
The Urban McGonagall [one expletive]
Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. I’m a poet.
Not that many folk, to look at me, would know it.
(Part because they look but never see beyond the Council-issued uniform: pea-green.Mostly I’m invisible. Indivisible, from barrow, brush and bucket. And yes of course, when drunks stumble, trip and tumble over my broom, uttering the inevitable ‘Fuck-it’ with lugubrious gloom …
Besides, I’m not one of your moon, June, greeting card toon writers of rhyme. I’ve learnt too much about the shit side of life in my time. Am less a lover than I am a fighter which blinds me to the brighter side since years of picking litter from the gutter (without thanks) can make a man’s mind bitter.
No, my writing holds more of an urban tone, though more stone, more setts than architect. I’m paid to sweep in strynds and wynds and snickets, to gather gum, fag ends and railway tickets from narrow alleys, step-impeded closes; where cobble-stones work loose beneath high-pressure power hoses.
But what pisses me off more than the rubbish discarded,
the spunk-leaking condoms, cans and triangular cardboard; the needles and knickers, poly-bags and ‘Green’ stickers, is no-one’s been taught to see it as mess; uneducated, ignorant, they couldn’t care less.So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, amid the grime, I concentrate more on the writing – and practice – of crime.
[225 words]
Good heavens!! What happened to April? I completely forgot I’d set a competition, was somewhat startled to discover it was May, but I do like this – rings some bells since, apart from invisible, April seems to have been a retrospective month, for more than me.
So without further ado, I’m handing the baton for May’s competition to you – and thank you!!
Thank you @Athelstone and @seagreen. Also thanks @Janette for a prompt which enabled me to try out a reason for a murder.
April’s competition might do the same for someone else …
Wow. Thank you Janette, I’d relaxed, confident of having been entertainingly pipped at the post. Will drag myself from editing and see what I can come up with.
Thank you Jane – and Kate and Raine – it’s always good to get positive feedback, and Carol’s was more incisive that I could have managed. (I’m still grinning)
If anyone is wondering about splashing out on a print version of any of the ‘Love triangles with murder’ series, Blurb has a SHIP4FREE offer – at their usual rate of £6.99 for one book this is of considerable value, but offer ends 30th March
h t t p s://w w w.blurb.co.uk/user/SandraDavies…
Use the code SHIP4FREEThanks, Ath. I bought a copy of Carol’s novel, but as it only arrived yesterday I haven’t begun it yet.
With crime fiction, it seems that the ‘THIS IS WHAT THIS IS signifier is a silhouetted man walking down a tunnel or over a bridge or along a lonely road BUT IT IS ALWAYS THE SAME BLINKING MAN!!! and I wonder authors don’t put their foot down. Even more so when I see what can be done by a small company with ‘This is our undoing’
Our local indie bookshop – https://www.drakethebookshop.co.uk/ – is doing a brilliant job of keeping us stocked up with books – and says he has deliveries of stock arriving daily for click and collect. I’ve already spent £100 with him this year – and my ‘need’ list grows ever longer.
Catalyst
Despite the haste of his extreme, and unavoidably, late arrival – ‘Sorry, sorry, bastards took my phone so no way to warn. I’ll be fine, just need to wash the blood off … nose, yeah. Not broken. No, it’s fine, Alix paid my cab off at the door. And yeah, the police took witness statements.’ – he’d caught a glimpse of her as he hurried past the half-open door. Knew her straight off, even though, visually, she nothing like … like how he remembered.
No surprise there. Especially as the last time had been … necessary to forget.What was surprising, least at first and speedy glance, impossible to say whether change for better or worse. (Change since the first time, of course; anything would’ve been better than the last.) God’s sake, it was years! – How many? He’d have to count.
Uni they’d met. Both first year. Which would’ve been October ’77. She’d been … he’d noticed her, straight away. (Wanted her, intended to have her, soon as he laid eyes on her.)
‘Gamine’ a much-bandied word at the time. Long-legged and impish certainly applied. That witchy cloud of black hair. (That obviously much changed. He now wanted to say spindrift except that applied to sea-spray whereas the whiteness of it fresh-fallen snow. Snow drift of course.It had been thirty years.
But what was she doing here?
Same as him, she must’ve been invited.
Same as him, she’d must’ve changed her name. Otherwise the invitation would’ve given warning.
And, similarly warned, she’d not’ve come within a hundred miles. But why was she here? Attending his publisher’s literary event?
As one of five short-listers?Quietly returning, he slipped in to stand at the nearest end of the announcement-poised line. She at the far end. Relief across the face of the compere, envelope in hand, ready to pull out the list and do the dramatic thing of opening and acting surprised even though he must know the name of the winner.
That they’d waited … could it be it was him?
No.
It was her.
Stepping forward. Long sleeved, scarlet linen dress. Scarlet as the blood he’d just washed off his face. As the blood she’d last time lain in … Sleeves still necessary to hid the scars?
Blue eyes as remembered. As was the transformation from gratified to gut-sick horror as she turned to congratulate her fellow contenders. Saw and recognised him.[400 words excluding title]
Having heard of someone else’s concern about the danger of overusing ‘I’ I am more sensitive, and have seen writing where it becomes a pain, but it’s hard to cut beyond a certain point. As for contractions – sometimes NOT to use them adds an unnatural stiltedness; like Jane says, their use needs tailoring to what’s being written.
“Then gently scan your brother man” (Robbie Burns)
‘Hipbones,’ she said. ‘They’ll disappear. Never to be seen again.’
That was early on. After forcing her to admit it. Persuading her it’d change nothing between us. When I’d arranged my physio appointments to coincide with her off-duty; to give us some pressure-free hours at home. When the missionary position seemed more exotic for its recent impossibility; belief in the healed strength of a humerus being fragile. As was my confidence she’d come to see it my way. Start rejoicing.Her mid-January prophecy came true within the week. Another two and even lying down, belly yeast-risen. Much more so than the only other pregnant woman I’d (not) slept with. When I commented: ‘Everybody’s different.’ Defensive, despite it being just a passing remark.
Week later, one of my gloomy days – I’d not glorify it with a PTSD tag – coinciding with one of her periods of resentment, it was the defensiveness I recalled. ‘How many weeks are you?’
‘I don’t know. I said –’
‘Because of the missed pills. Yeah. And you’ve a scan in a fortnight, which they do at –’
‘Eleven weeks –’
‘Eleven to fourteen weeks. Which would take it back to November. The week in November we slept apart.’
She spun round to face me at a speed which sent pink raspberry tea arcing from the mug she held over the white sleeve of the sweatshirt she was wearing. One of mine.
I’d seen this brand of cold contemptuous challenge before. Then, the occasion professional; less so the half-hid guilt. Which is how I recognised it now.
‘You’re saying this is not your child?’
‘Not saying. Wondering –’ Then ducked as mug became missile; its shattering a signal we’d entered unknown territory. ‘You said yourself you shared a bed –’
‘And that it was innocent –’
‘– And that you were naked –’
‘And that it was innocent. You believed me then –’
‘And do now. I’m sorry love.’I’m sorry love.
I lost count of how many more times I said that.
Meaning it.
Even when it wasn’t my behaviour I apologised for. Even when I knew she’d sinned. Knew. Because the man I held more closely to my heart than I did her was avoiding me.
And I’d intercepted – interfuckingterpretated – a glance of guilt and complicity between him and her. Since when the freezing of my brain has made sluggish my every attempt to apportion blame.[400 words plus title]
