Big grin

I'm both delighted and relieved by today's news from Lily Childs' Feardom  - delighted to have been awarded winner for last week's Prediction Challenge and relieved that, following Lily's decision to spend more time taking up the challenge of her own writing, Phil Ambler will be continuing what she had built - I trust it will continue to be as absorbing, entetaining and supportive a community in his world.

Continuing episodes of The blacksmith's wife can be read on the Friday Predictions page at the top of this blog.

The blacksmith’s wife [part 6]

‘Jenever,’ he said, ‘from sloes, not Amsterdam.   You’re not enough a mother to be ruined.’
He tipped the glass, watched me drink, sloe-eyed himself, inscrutable, all personal emotion hidden, yet knowledge of the hurt I’d dealt caused blood to hammer in my head, tears to flow for what I’d lost.

Not the child, that never had existed, but his belief in me.

Another touch upon my back, forewarning.  ‘Charcoal, to mark the placing of the letters.’  
But gin-loosed tongue took me past sanity;  contemptuously ‘Can you spell?’  
His face hardened.  ‘Trollop, wanton, Jezebel, jade – there’s space to write them all.’

Parts 8 and 9  on this weeks Friday Predictions

Some nine moons wasted [Book Blurb Friday #60]

Married too young, to a man too importunate, Eliza McCleary was certain she’d made a mistake.

Four months into the marriage she ran away, leaving no note, partly to ensure she was not followed, partly to allow him to change his mind.

But freedom was not all it was cracked up to be – freedom from routine meant directionless, freedom from sharing meant she owned nothing worth having and freedom from his caring and  unquestioning love meant … a sort of living hell.   And eventually she realised that more than missing the material comforts he’d provided she loved him too.

But the journey back was a bitter one – she had her pride to overcome, her fear of his rejection, and would have to tell him of all the other mistakes she’d made along the way.   Would he still want her now, when he knew, when he saw the baggage she’d acquired?

Week #60’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and a beautiful photograph provided by Christina Claro
Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”

N.B. - 'some nine moons wasted' is from Shakespeare's 'Othello' - when faced with  a blank photo and mind I refer to my Dictionary of Quotations for inspiration.

Playing with covers again

Having almost completed the first draft of last November's NaNoWriMo novel, and had extremely useful advice from the Blurb Help Team, I'm shortly going to upload this as a proof copy.   It'll be a 6" x 9" Trade book, running to some 360 pages, and at £11+P&P (~£7) it's not a cheap way of producing books but such is vanity.
The final background colour of the cover might change - this worked as a mock up and I quite like it but other colours might, with experiment, look better (and the ships will be the same size ...)

Friday the thirteenth [Book blurb Friday #59]

Originally commissioned by Melanie Middleton, enterprising manageress of Blackwood Orphanage, as a fund-raising venture, these tales were written and illustrated by the children who live there, for the entertainment of their peers.
A strong believer in allowing children editorial freedom, Melanie Middleton insisted that the only adult input be to ensure that the sense of each story was clear; spelling and grammar has been retained as the original, and in some cases the stories have been printed using the original handwriting.
As a social record of the lives of children deprived of their natural parents it cannot be bettered, but it is as a record of what children really think it gives an honest – and truly terrifying – glimpse into the future – no-one who anticipates staying alive for the next twenty years should fail to read it.

Week #59’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and an intriguing  photograph provided by Sioux Roslawski.
Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Images for Blacksmith's wife

Having a yen to perhaps produce an illlustrated version of my Blacksmith's wife serial - currently to be found on the Friday Predictions page and running to six parts - I have been playing with imagery.

This idea is a mixture of original collagraph and carborundum prints, digitally combined with drawing.
I had originally visualised something strongly black and white but it would be a pity to lose the idea of the flames of the forge.

The eleven labours of Clancy Thorpe [Book Blurb Friday #58]

Clancy Thorpe should have been born a boy.

But her mother died in childbirth and her father could find no-one to match the one love of his life so failed to produce a son and heir.

On the eve of Clancy’s fifteenth birthday her father persuaded the Regional Vampire Council to accept primogeniture, which they did reluctantly, but on condition that she fulfil eleven tasks during the next twelve months to establish her Vampire credentials.

Within ten days a rival appeared – likely spurious but possessing all the necessary qualities of leadership, except that he is five days younger.   With the backing of the majority of the council he sets out to sabotage Clancy’s succession.

Clancy has support  – and weapons of her own  – but will they be good enough to vanquish Vlad Stoker?

Week #58’s response to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday challenge and a photograph provided by Kathy Mattews (with apologies for snipping off the end of her name – more haste less speed!) 
Each week Lisa posts a photograph which represents a book cover.   Participants are challenged to “Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book”  http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html

Live traffic feeds

Are totally unreliable - I have been cited as 'a reader from', Newcastle, Glasgow and Monmouth, all on same site - where do they get their data from?

Twitching towards the studio?

When I was last seriously printmaking I didn't have a blog, but now occasionally visit those of other printmakers.   Possibly the desire to begin again is stirring because on seeing the barbed wire on my way down to the river yesterday, I immediately thought of drypoint and the burrs that are scratched up and possess that beguiling ragged edge when inked and printed.   The randomness of line also appeals.

Unshed shed memories

A comment in answer to mine, on The domesticated bohemian’s site http://domesticatedbohemian.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/train-journeys.html regarding something along the lines of “Shed that I have known” resulted in this melange of memories.

My grandfather’s at the far end of the garden, black painted, backing onto the lane, and tall from a four-year-old perspective.  Remembering, I hear an echo of fond and undiluted Yorkshire, see dusty string-tied wooden-handled tools as he extricates bleached-canvas, finger-trapping, wooden framed and notched deckchairs.

Later, at eight or thereabouts, my father using one of a nail-hung bunting line of saws, to create piles of warmly golden sawdust which I yearned to somehow find a way to keep forever, to bottle or preserve the friendly smell, perhaps in one of the several ‘Four Square’ tobacco tins piled on the scarred ad paint-stained bench.

A boyfriend’s, built of railway sleepers, which contained a family heirloom glass-domed clock and where I heard tales of a pig escaping and rampaging from the field behind.   Boyfriend became husband, and for a while our first house-shed housed his pride and joy:  a brand new, bright blue, Royal Star motorbike.   Then children, and for a while boring domestic, garden tools and lawnmowers, plastic chairs and children’s bikes.

‘Til they left home and he retired, since when bikes have multiplied from nought to ten and sheds increased in size and number to accommodate the more-than-overflow from the garage.   No more sawdust and all the tools leave grease-stains on one’s fingers, hence the over-flowing bag of ex-T shirts, now rags.