Pages of Tales for The Prediction

This week I posted episode 112 of John Pettinger's 'A change of focus' and episode 49 of 'Threshold' on the http://predictionfiction.blogspot.co.uk/   Each can be read in their entirety in the tagged the pages above.

'The blacksmith's wife' - published with illustrations - was the first serial I attempted and 'From Rhodes' a 58 episode sequel, dealing with the blacksmith's brother.

Can't say enough how much this weekly exercise has help in the honing of my craft as a writer - particularly now that I'm trying to reduce 'Step so grave' from ~135K words to nearer 90K.

The blacksmith's wife

Now avalable from Lulu - this forty-one episode illustrated tale which was generated from weekly three word prompts appearing on the Friday Prediction [which will on 1st February relocate to http://predictionfiction.blogspot.co.uk/]

Progress report - week 46

It's ages since I updated my progress on Write 1 Sub 1, but since my last Progress report was for week 18 I think it's time for an update.

'Damage limitation' (114k words/281 pages)  - the fourth in the story of Bridie Burdock and Sean Donovan, is published and available from Lulu in a 6" x 9" format, as are its predecessors, 'Theme for a summer / Reunion' (now combined in one volume 32K words/99 pages) and 'Holding steady' (67K words/159 pages).   All are also available as ebooks, see http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SandraDavies

'Making Good' - the follow up to 'Damage limitation', is 'written' but needs to sit for a bit, before I re-read.   Currently wordcount is 124K and is unlikely to decrease. 

'Not wanted on voyage' (128K words/369 pages) - Yes, well, all the things I had my doubts about were pointed out as Big Mistakes by my daughter, which means that the first thirty-one chapters need more or less re-writing and the information therein absorbing to some extent in the following twenty-five.   Plus the activities of the main characters needs to be much more strongly written.    So it is likely to finish up shorter but better.   A start has aready been made and I am optimistic that I can do it, eventually.

'The blacksmith's wife'  finished after forty-one hundred word episodes.   I am in the process of illustrating it via my 100 day endings blog - another nineteen to do, after which I shall publish it on Lulu. 

'The longest shadows' - not at all sure about this as a title, especially as it is lifted from a poem for which I  haven't permission to quote, and also because I'd forgotten I'd thought of that, so I'll continue to file it under 'Susannah Elphinstone' a story spurred into being at the beginning of February by one of Lisa Ricard Claro's Book Blurb Friday photographs, further inspired by the discovery of a photograph of a house from my own past.  Untouched since June - wordcount currently 49K.

Plus I have begun, and temporarily abandoned one  serial on Thinking Ten (Colin and Daisy's 'Just cause'), have edited the book for the third House of Writers gathering in Kansas last July, and have begun another serial on Friday Prediction, but am less certain of its staying power. (A change of focus)

The blacksmith's wife [part 41] (prompts: hip, owl, burst)

Now-completed story can be accessed from the tab at the top of this blog

Prediction prompt : 'post', 'shield' and 'immoral'

A forge-like image created for 100 Orkney Days of Summer and this week's post on Phil Ambler's 'Friday Prediction'

The blacksmith's wife [part 34]

Gabriel’s ever-fluctuating sense of filiality returned him to accusative.

‘Your callous immorality shocks me,’ he complained, days after he’d willingly posted his limp and green-shit-leaking brother through the side-slats of the dead-dog cart while I shielded him by offering soup to its malodorous driver.

My own concerns were several:   I was with child to a man I’d wed most willingly but now wondered if I should have second thoughts; the Earl was like to demand both letters and retribution for my alleged releasing of Mathias, and now approaching with a needing-shod stallion was the speedwell-eyed youth I’d once lain with.

The blacksmith's wife [part 33]

Post his immoral interlude with the tavern-doxy, how would Gabriel now view my past philanderings?   Given that he’d also seen me taken by his brother, he surely couldn’t now complain?

The boy was beautiful, which was why I’d wanted him.  Finger to my lips I directed him to the meadow behind the forge, trusting that the meadowsweet would shield us.  

Led the horse to Gabriel, smiled sweet and said ‘No hurry.’

But I was mistook to think that all was fair, that because there was no danger of foisting onto Gabriel a bastard brat, he would not mind.

He did.

101 Fiction: Forge

A more polished first episode of 'The blacksmith's wife' has been accepted by John Xero for his 101 Fiction.   Little did I know when I began that I'd  be about to wrestle with 'ration', flatter' and 'squid' from which to wrench episode 32 this week ...

101 Fiction: Forge: by Sandra Davies Caged by guilt and shadowed bars of branding irons, breasts and belly besmirched by centuries of soot from the roof-supp...

The blacksmith’s wife [part 29] - runner up for last week!

Written (I think) in Pueblo, or maybe Fort Collins, Colarado, this was declared a runner up by Phil Ambler over at his Prediction page today - thank you for that,  Phil! - but less so for next week's words which are vaccine, ground and address 

The blacksmith’s wife [part 29]

Fearing malevolence, and assuming I could thwart it, the earl insisted on my presence at the birth.

His lady gave no flicker of acknowledgement, too sharp-speared with labour pain, the like of which, before winter, would be mine to suffer too, but I trusted my son would not appear so goblin-like as this wizened little red-haired gnome, the image of its father.  

Having been three days away I hastened home, to find Gabriel speared between the goblin-gnarled, lard-flickered thighs of the tavern-keeper’s wife, but could not judge who screamed loudest from the bucketful of still-hot cinders I emptied over them.

The blacksmith’s wife [part 24]

‘Bewitching?  Is that something you can do?’

‘If necessary, aye, but it’s a skill I rarely use … my mother said it’d more likely end in death than in a pension, given Hopkin's witch-burnings in Bury.’

‘And did you use such tricks on me?’

‘Nay,’ I smiled. ‘T’was never needed, the honey of my body was sufficient tacky for you to stay adhered …’

‘As it was for others, among whom was my brother.   Despite all, I cannot forget he shares my blood …’

‘And lets it too!’

‘Enough.   Time to re-build and ensure you’re kept from vengeful harm.’ 

[Despite the difficult words this week, this one sprung into being almost unaided, except for the need to check facts about witch-burning in Bury St. Edmunds, which took place in 1645, when 120 women were brought to trial]

The blacksmiths wife [part 23]

Despite three  truly difficult words thrown up by Phil Ambler's book - tacky, pension and bewitch -  I managed to continue this serial:

‘For all he’s a one-legged, pensioned-off foot-soldier, the Constable knew what best to do, organised a line of buckets to the pump.   It’s better than it looks.’

Gabriel had been relieved to see me, I at his survival.   Brick fireplace and chimney were undamaged, the rest a blackened lath-and-plaster-tacky, straw-strewn mess.

‘Your tools?’

‘Mostly salvaged.’

‘Mathias?’

‘Taken.   This’ (he gestured) ‘revenge for what they saw as sanctuary.’

‘They?’

‘Impossible to know.   The message?’

‘Not delivered.’

‘Then his life is forfeit.’

‘As mine when, finding letters missing, they return for me.’

‘He’ll likely claim bewitchment.’

‘Then I must make it so.’

The blacksmith’s wife [part 22]

What if Gabriel’s consanguineous concern was counterfeit, a facet of his love for me, callous-skewed for my protection?   I’d swear his anguish genuine. 

Did he believe killing his brother would jeopardise his own immortal soul?  

Or was it Mathias who yet pulled the strings?

At whose instigation had I set forth?   How urgent this message?

Did Gabriel mean to prevent me witnessing his revenge?   Or was  his perfidious sibling plotting murder prior to my pursuit?

Suspicion’s wings dispersed my fury – I turned back, electing to save Gabriel rather than the country from invasion.

And arrived to find the forge ablaze.

This week's continuation - 100 words incorporating 'wing', 'immortal' and 'facet' - of the tale which can be read in its entirety on the page above

The blacksmith’s wife

Parts 20 and 21 - 100 words using 'supervise', 'cash' and 'mare' - at the The Blacksmith's wife page above

Friday Predictions / The blacksmith's wife / winner!

A big thank you to Phil Ambler who had adjudged my episode 17 of The blacksmith's wife as last week's winner.   The words to incorporate were averse, ink and trunk and were used as follows:

I’d extricated sovereigns and well-hid papers, ink damp-smudged, before Gabriel returned home with his brother, his arms and trunk blood-bruised from more than falling off a horse. Face less pretty too.

Unaverse to slander, he’d implied I’d satisfied until Gabriel threatened branding. He confined him tight-bound in the cellar, asking only ‘Did he lie?’ before we finally slept.

To be hauled awake too soon to harsh-grained hands at throat and thigh and Gabriel’s eyes near-blind with blood, stifled roaring from behind the cloth which gagged him.

But not so blind he did not see what his brother did to me.

This week's words - labyrinth, twin and churn -  have already been incorporated into part 18 which is on the Friday Prediction page

The blacksmith’s wife

Now up to episode seventeen on the Friday prediction / Blacksmith's wife page above.

This week's words were ink, averse and trunk - check out Phil Ambler's site to see what a dozen or so other Predictioneers make of them between now and 9 p.m. next Thursday.

The blacksmith’s wife [part 13]

Slipping from his grasp I swam away then surfaced, shaking water from eyes which pleaded a repeat performance;   speedily, satisfyingly supplied.   As reward I promised to renounce all stripling lads, but no sooner spoke than from the trees emerged, moonlit, a veritable full-grown lusty man who’d been spying on us from the bank.  

More than just my conscience pricked, but he surprised me, shouting  ‘Gabriel, if that’s your wife, I vow you did not over-paint this lily – remember, Brother, share and share alike!’

Gabriel’s fury roared:   ‘By Christ, I swear you’ll try cockles if you lay a hand on her!’

Friday's Prediction is now hosted by Phil Ambler over at Phlambler's world    Phil's first three words were shake (all variations), lily and cockle and I was delighted to discover, from Brewer's Phrase and Fable, that 'to try cockles' meant to be hanged.

Isn't the brain a wonderful thing!

No I'm not boasting but intrigued and impressed, having picked up today's words from Lily Child's Feardom's final hosting of the Friday Prediction, which are impersonate, elegant and shovel

Last week's eleventh episode of 'The blacksmith's wife' ended "We entered the river, clinging." and my first thought was 'oh damn I'll have to get him back to his forge if I'm going to be able to use shovel and how the hell do I fit the other two in?'

But I typed the words, put brain in gear, got one sentence written, two words used - and I still have another seventy-five words to play with!

Practice has a LOT to do with it - and I shall continue to practice over at Phil Ambler's site from next week.

[The picture is a part-finished illustration for for episode three which can be read on the Friday Predctions page at the top of this blog]

Friday prediction - update

This the illustration for part 2 of The blacksmith's wife, once again a digital combination of print and plate and drawing (ten layers of them!)

Part 11 - 100 words incorporating psycho, belt and purgatory -  which can be read on the above Friday Predictions page - was added yesterday to what is Lily's penultimate week.   Thereafter Phil Ambler will be hosting the show and the saga will, hopefully, continue.   (It almost ended here but I could not bear to have it finished yet ...)

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

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.

Lily Childs' Feardom

If you like reading or writing horror or chilling flash fiction you could give yourself a treat by visiting Lily Childs' Friday Prediction Challenge

Each week Lily posts three words and challenges participants to use them in a piece not exceeding 100 words and then post their entry as a comment on her page.  Comments are generous almost to a fault;  Lily picks a winner and (surprise, surprise - no point in hiding my light under a bushel) last week's winner was ME, as she says herself:

Winner of Last Week's Prediction Challenge
Every week many of you say, how does Lily choose a winner when the quality is so high? Well, it's always hard but this week - hell has erupted from the frozen lakes of my chambers and stumped me. However - it must be done. There will be just one winner, and no runner-up... because every single entry is a runner-up. Well done, one and all.
My winner is Sandra Davies with the second part of her harrowing series The Blacksmith's Wife. This tale is screaming to be told and I cannot even begin to anticipate what will happen next. Many congratulations Sandra - don't leave us dangling!

The story so far can be found on my Friday prediction page - next week's words are curdle, cherub and rip and I shall do my best to continue the tale.