Small stone 11

Amazon boxes
Flattened for re-cycling
Promise extinguished

Small stone 10 - station barrier

'Customer Care' stuffed like a pillow into ill-fitting maroon.
Uniform too tight to move,
Lip-service pseudo-assistance,
Since clearly overwhelmed with ignorance.
While luggage toting passengers bustle and rush and flurry
Searching pockets, bags and wallets for orange edged tickets
All obviously headed somewhere.

Small stone 9 - too much imagination?

5 a.m.
Smile inside at solitary bird heard stuttering to greet the not yet dawn
Before I realise it is my husband’s nose
Whistling

Small stone 8 - heading north on the A1M

Double mould-edged motorway
Dense packed under dinge-dark sky
Reversal of normal traffic pattern occasioned by occasional drivers
Timidly travelling ten miles slower than the speed limit
Fearful of entrapment in the inside lane.

Small stone 7 - Role play

Son at home
And I revert
To mince-pie making mother

Solstice eclipse

Yesterday we had a grandstand view of the eclipse, watched from the comfort of an upstairs room, the radiator warming our knees.  Earlier I had seen the bright moon in a perfectly cloudless, near dark sky as I walked up a snowy road to buy a paper.    After breakfast, the gradual progression of the shadow across the face of the moon as the moon itself dimmed and declined into the 'V' between two houses, not disappearing altogether until there was no discernible light at all and only the barest slightly pink orange circle visible where I knew it should be.

Somehow, the shadow 'proved' Earth's - and therefore my - existence.

Small stone 6 - Cinnamon Room

Blue ceiling light
Pink linen flower

Yellow shadow on white tablecloth

Science of coloured light
The opera ‘Attila’

Small stone 5 - Morrisons carpark

Sleeping Beauty cobwebs
Sugar spun
From twig to drift.

Van back door
Finger writ in spray
"SNOW IS GAY"


[Waiting in the car for the door to unfreeze]

Seven scarves

The first much-wanted symbol of a status, a lowly small town college scarf, strips of blue and yellow woven wool stitched in stripes together, worn for warmth for years and still kept in the cupboard under the stairs.

A silken tie-dyed central soft-edged sunburst on gentle faded orange square, a treat for me, from me, now ragged, rolled edge ripped away, well-worn and screwed up in my motorcycle jacket pocket, fine enough to fit beneath the harsh-tight, high-zipped Velcro-gripping neck.

Argentinian alpaca, giant-sized, long-fringed and red for extreme weather, a souvenir, in part, of phone call from my elder son to say she’d Leap Year asked and he, delighted, had said ‘Yes!’

Plain black – my almost always chosen colour – a good and perfect black and softest cashmere, a birthday present from my second born, and equally beloved son.

And for another, later milestone birthday, the blue and blue and blue striped silk my daughter bought for me in Venice, its choosing time-consuming, its wrapping a tissued, multi-metal-threaded string performance in itself.

From me, for me, souvenir of Provençal awakening, jewel-like multi-coloured, loose and lacking certainty, laciness deceiving of its spread, its breadth and transient in quality.

Last and far from least material evidence from and of a virtual, sadly unmet friend, possessed of qualities unfound in the above:  hand made and sent and worn with friendship, warm and soft and comforting in times of loneliness or cold.

Small stone 4 - on an extinguished tealight

Persian grey
Stalk then curling blossom
Wisp then gone
Pungent, should be bottled.

Small stone 3 - boots

Boots squeaking
Hot sand digideroo
As I negotiate snow

Small stone 2 - pencils

I don't like small stubby pencils

So short my fingers grip tight

But I could do with a few,

Holes drilled at one end,

To fasten with string to my notebook

[and thank you to my dear husband whose response was "of course" when I asked him if it were possible]

Small stone 1 - raindrops

A dozen frozen raindrops
Sunlit from behind
Suspended from a yellow plastic line

Eventually ... a NaNo adjustment

Julia said it a while ago & I have been trying it on for size but only now have I a proper insight into the need to readjust the birth of Bridie's baby and put it at the crossing point of a figure of eight story.   And an idea of how to do it.
So I'll be writing today.

Slow, slow developer

I began re-reading John Fowles' 'The Magus' today, partly at the exhortation of my youngest son.

I see it was first published in 1966 and remember that my father, a librarian, brought it home for me to read that year.   I found it hard at the time - dense and without focus - although I think I did finish it eventually.   Earlier, in September, I realised that he had also introduced me to Henry Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' which I hated and abandoned, afterwards believing it to have been something written by James Joyce (!)   At the time, of course, the sex I knew was teenage, not for the elderly, and it is with shame that I realise how much I missed out on the opportunity to learn, to have been grateful for what he would have so willingly given me.

ugly vomit day

The road is grey and brown-white striped, the stain from the grit at the corner having spread this far up the road, the grass, wet and muddy from the snow-tamped stamping, just irregularly patched with white foam splashes from a wash of dirty dungarees.   Post-party detritus, ugly in the dingy Sunday morning grey.

Men? or just Davies man?

Yesterday I watched him go out and clear the snow off the roof of my car, not happily because I had already made the decision NOT to clear it, liking to use the length of the protruding aerial as a measure for the thaw.  Later he came upstairs and told me that he'd done it, adding "I know you didn't want me to."
"Then why do it? Why do something you know I don't want you to do?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."   End of discussion.

From 6S 'Pancakes not pockets'

 I have always viewed my inner self - brain? mind? - not so much as compartments as layers.
Something akin to a stack of pancakes.
This stack, capable of re-ordering itself, contains many reject pancakes, batter poured before the pan was hot enough, a scrunched up mess, soggy and raw.
Interleaving these are later ones, well-cooked on one side but charred on the other.
As time goes on, and because of insufficient batter, others are irregularly shaped and holed, allowing glimpses of what lies below.
And as I keep trying new recipes, different flours, the consistency changes, as does the seasoning, ranging from the sweetness of sugar to the bitterness of lemons

[This was prompted by Khaalidah's post on 6S  'A little mad' ]

Warped holiday tale - a 6S challenge

The idea is to add an episode onto a tale begun by someone else.  This is my response to Michael Brown's post yesterday, which is to be found here:

http://sixsentences.ning.com/profiles/blogs/warped-holiday-tale-35

“You must identify, and you must acknowledge” Clara continued, “and you must choose, for on this occasion you cannot return to your past. This time you must go forward, into the future – and it will be a future in which you inhabit the physical body of another.

"The choice of body is yours: Adam is intelligent and strong and handsome, but he carries within him the knowledge that he is capable of murder, Giselle has a life of pain before her, but on the way she will achieve intense happiness, the like of which is not granted to many, and finally, there is Mark – and Mark is your grandson, the grandson you have not yet met, for he has not yet been born.

"I ask you now - which of these three will you choose? – and I tell you that you must choose now – because you are due to die within the hour.”

Book covers

Christmas story, Bad sex, and Blurb

Went to 6S this morning in expectation of posting a nicely linked - and full of potential futures - Christmas story , following on from Bill Lapham's tale but found it abuzz with Bad Sex following Gita's  email and Khaalidah's  challenge.

However, I eventually recovered and spent the rest of the day more or less successfully uploading 'Reunion' and 'Theme for a Summer' to Blurb, having also finalised covered for these and for 'Holding steady.'   They come out at ~60 pages each, (18,000 and 15,000 words approximately).

Sooner or later I must think about Christmas preparations ...

.

One that got away - now revised and corrected

One that got away - now revised and corrected - next time I will do better ...

Do have to say I was impressed with the paper and quality of the printing and with the speed of delivery (printed in the Netherlands for the UK market)

Blurb - errors in 'One that got away'

Received this just now - hurrah!! - and it looks lovely at first glance but there are a number of errors, some my fault and some not.


Frequently I corrected places where apostrophe'd words such as don't and he'd at the ends of lines had been split, only for them to have been changed back.

Type size:  deceptive on screen as it is a lot larger in actuality, and there are some size changes which crept in as a result of me trying to avoid widows and orphans or better fit onto a page.

As soon as I can work out how to remove it from the published site without losing the whole thing I'll re-edit before publishing again.

Write1 Sub1 2011 - Another challenge - thanks Milo!!

Milo's helpful comment earlier today - and its intriguing 'Write1Sub1' signature sent me searching ... and now I've joined up.  

Makes me wonder if I have anything in the way of resistance, will power ...

I see that others intend to combine short pieces with longer - the idea of a 140 word story sounds a BIG challenge to me and perhaps that is one thing I should aim for on a regular basis.   Will give this some thought ...

And still ..

And still I edit - have resized, and am now resizing again - Maiandra GD 9 - on a re-sized page so it looks like the paperback it will end up as.   But each time I see words, phrases to improve too.


And still it snows too - no gym for a week now ... can't say I'm too sorry about that.

Last day of November

Apparently one person in the Darlington & Tees NaNo region has written 460,000 plus words .... and there's another I think with 150,000 plus.   It's something to do with World Wars but I can't find out more detail.

Ten o'clock and I have already done my T10 piece for today and posted a well-polished piece ('Cast list for a Play') on 6S.  This is the third in a newly focused series of Shenanigans which, among other things, will possibly give me some novel-writing practice.   I should like to dive in blindly for the NaNo next year.

Now back to 'Holding steady' - tightening and attempting to put more in for Sean.   Also intend to re-size the pages as Julia suggested for easier on-screen reading.

NaNoWriMo - verdict of daughter

Bless her - she read it all a second time, ignored the typos and made some very useful comments and suggestions (like "start again" and "change the ending" - no, I joke ...)

More, she highlighted the areas I was also having doubts about - Sean too insubstantial, too hasty an ending, which was deliberately happy but with room to change ...I've been caught out before by thinking I've got one couple living happily ever after only to find that something else happens and I'm wrong.

So.   I think I shall aim to emphasise and increase references to the loving interaction  between Bridie and Sean and reconsider how I play out the ending, hopefully before I send it elsewhere ...

NaNoWriMo - verdict of spouse

Hmmm ... underwhelmed I think.   I asked him to make notes as he went ... but received a list of typos.   And he returned the typed pages with a look of ... puzzled embarrassment?, underlining both the gulf between us and the necessity to me of my 6S like-minded friends.

But then no doubt I look as pitying when he spends what he claims is a pleasurable hour polishing the chrome on one or other of his bikes, or stays up past midnight to watch yet another game of football.

I suppose to say it still annoys, irritates and amazes after forty-plus years proves I am , at least, not dead.

NaNoWriMo Day 25

My husband has read as far as page 50, AND says he's enjoying it. 


Stopping writing NaNo has enabled me to do other useful things - as well as soaking the fruit for a Dundee cake and hand-washing some winter jumpers and paying the Visa bill I have published on Blurb 'One that got away' - see above.   Only ordered one copy to see what the quality etc is like, but there are books by others I shall order next time - up to three for £3.99 p&p

NaNoWriMo day 25 - and a story at Pygmy Giant

Uploaded and verified - and the official counter added 300 words to my total - but my final count was 62185.

Shall I do it next year? - definitely!

And 'Joan unknown' at Pygmy Giant - http://thepygmygiant.com/ - a UK writing site which, in this National Short Story week, has a story every day.