And so begins another year ... two short
stories submitted; a beta-read novel revised and I’m back to plot-wrestling #4
in my Luke Darbyshere series. Question is, is 2017 the year I get them up and available on
Lulu? Answer, as ever, who knows?
But today, for Prediction, a delicious double helping of entries!
I declare the winner of the final post for 2016 to be Patricia for her ‘One of these nights’ - a perfect example of tight, intriguing writing which leaves the reader to do much of the work.
And the first for 2017 is a joint award to the Owens family. The hard-boiled of Bill’s ‘Simply a beastly evening’ such a delicious contrast to Rosie’s perfectly-titled ‘Look, a Shiny!’
But today, for Prediction, a delicious double helping of entries!
I declare the winner of the final post for 2016 to be Patricia for her ‘One of these nights’ - a perfect example of tight, intriguing writing which leaves the reader to do much of the work.
And the first for 2017 is a joint award to the Owens family. The hard-boiled of Bill’s ‘Simply a beastly evening’ such a delicious contrast to Rosie’s perfectly-titled ‘Look, a Shiny!’
My thanks, as ever, to each of you
for your contributions and your comments – I sincerely hope you’ll keep them
coming in 2017.
Words
for next week: chary, float, torch
Entries
by midnight Thursday 12th January, new
words posted on Friday 13th
Change of focus [217]
ReplyDeleteAs anticipated, Teodor was initially chary when Pettinger, echoing, more diplomatically Elinka’s scornful impatient sons (‘Teodor holds a torch for other men, he’ll never produce an heir!’) floated the suggestion he exchange the role of ruler for ambassador. Eventual acceptance was grudging.
More pressing was the need to secure Valdeta’s immediate future. Elinka herself suggested a solution: ‘Take one of my grandsons when you return.’
‘As hostage? You think that necessary?’
‘While they learn to curb their instincts –’
‘And Aleks?’
‘Leave him here. Support, company for his mother.’
‘They’ll eventually be allowed to leave?’
‘If that’s what she wants.’
All I see is the cobra negotiating with the mongoose, and I enjoyed it.
DeleteI'm curious as to how the group got its name?
Deletelong ago, in the mists of time, Lily Child, extraordinary horror writer, was experimenting with firms of divination, choosing words at random from a dictionary. She wrote about this, at the same time as thinking aloud about a weekly challenge. The Prediction Challenge sort of fell into place and we've held the name ever since. At least, that's my memory of it. Anyone else got a fuller memory of it?
DeleteFor Sandra, eft wide open, challenging us to work out what's going to happen next, much as you do every week and I know from experience it isn't easy to do...
DeleteWill Aleks be left behind? If I had to lay odds, I don't think Pettinger is going to be willing to go for that. But with Sandra, you just never know what's coming up next!
DeleteAs always I'm amazed by how quickly your plot progresses in so few words. I'm not always sure I can follow along that speedy path, but I keep trying ;)
DeleteAnother effortless installment of this fascinating story. Dialogue always flows so naturally.
DeleteCongrats Patricia, Bill & Rosie!
ReplyDeleteWell done job and congrats to Patricia, Bill and Rosie.
ReplyDeletecongrats Patricia, Bill and Rosie - outstanding writing. Sandra, how do you choose????????????
ReplyDeleteAntonia - in the usual way: 'with difficulty'! Each week a different challenge to rank some sort of order from ever-changing criteria.
DeleteJeffrey here;
ReplyDeleteI'd say she goes to the local pub, gets a fush and chips, a pint and plays darts, with our names on the board.��
My first offer for this week.
ReplyDeleteUXBEX 4
"Mother Zubroc, can you hear me?"
"Yes, Tyroc, I hear you. You know the evil one has found us."
"Yes, I'd love to see Uxbex as a cheery float, outside our prison."
"You still hold a torch for the love he stole from you, even after all these cycles. Be that as it may, your rashness in sending Uxbex a challenge was most unchary."
"Those infernally created masks, protect him from our wrath."
"Yes, dear one, the torcher will face torture."
"Okay, so fun we will have, he cares nothing for those who live here."
"The game's a foot.
And so we wait with bated breath for next week ...
Deleteindeed we do. Sharp dialogue here, Jeffrey
DeleteSo interesting. Told entirely in dialogue and yet managing to convey the meaning of the installment. How very nicely done.
DeleteI'm a fan of stories in dialog (as you can see from what I wrote this week) and you're doing a great job here...
DeleteAn excellent use of dialogue driving the story along. Love the element of masks in this world.
DeleteBusy weekend so here is my second, a non-poetic offering.
ReplyDeleteA Gift Wrapped Meal
The new dinner, an old Routmaster with an open top, it’s sign:
The Torch Wood Eatery: Where Time Holds Still
“Well Mike, I never seen a dinner with that name, what do ya think,” said Jamie.
“It’s got to be dedicated to that TV show. See how the windows look like call boxes. Let’s have a seat and I’ll buy us two coke floats,” Jamie replied.
The menus they were given had three sections; past, present and chary.
“Now what the heck does that mean,” Mike asked the man behind the counter, wearing an apricot scarf.
Nicely unsettling and bizarre.
Deletesome good imagery here, conjured with a few words. I knew you could do it...
DeleteThis was quite otherworldly and, as Antonia noted, filled with intriguing imagery. This is a very interesting form of writing.
DeleteOh, dear. Distressing choices, I think.
DeleteA very curious world and a potentially dangerous place to eat.
DeleteRoyal Treatment
ReplyDeleteThe torchlight of the Imperial Ballroom only served to accentuate hair of spun gold and alabaster complexion. Her graceful movements were beguiling -- romantic waltz, lively polka -- and she floated on slippers of mirrored glass. Enamoured suitors were never chary about retrieving the one she always left behind either.
She would not have to wait long. Soon, he would seek her out and she would welcome him in her scullery, eager for his arrival.
There was nothing like the sweet flavour of blue blood.
Cinders in a new and wicked light! And lightly-applied the prompts too.
Deletenice one!
DeleteAlabaster complexion, mysterious past, only goes out at night, hmmm.
DeleteLove this retelling and the description of her dancing and glass shoes!
DeleteSuch description of the scene, beautiful and enticing.
ReplyDelete‘It is ended.’ [Threshold 146]
ReplyDeleteI was uncertain what, exactly, Raven referred to. His grandmother’s life? Her influence on him? Until recently I’d’ve been chary of suggesting any such, but she malign as torch to thatch (and he cindered and scarred in evidence).
Hesitant, ‘Her body? What –‘
‘Oh, she’ll have to be given the whole palaver! Floated down the bloody river –‘
‘As it will be unless –‘
Interrupted by a slurping, we both looked to where Cathra lapped around the splintered shards of skull.
Appalled, I called her off. She checked with him before doing so.
He grinned, ’Desist. You,come with me.’
some lovely gruesome images here too, a good week for them, it seems!
DeleteTo echo Antonia, "gruesome" indeed. Love that "torch to thatch" inclusion and the word "palaver," which is always a special treat when used in proper fashion, as it is here.
DeleteJeffrey here:
DeleteI'm not sure I see gruesome, but spiritual and blood magic. To consume parts of the slain, is to gain part of them. Blood is one of the more powerful and positive aspects of a body, after heart and brain.
A powerful, striking scene to be sure. I also considered the spiritual meaning of consuming the fallen. Lovely phrasing throughout.
DeleteFestival
ReplyDelete‘Ooh, whatever floats your boat, Magnus!’
If she says that once more, with that silly giggle, I swear I’ll be incapable of waiting.
Erlend knew me well enough to warn. Caught my eye. Muttered ‘Easy, mate. God obviously chary when allocating intelligence, but the Guizer Jarl chose her for her Viking-proportioned bosom, not her brains.’
Which, since this was Shetland’s annual Up Helly Aa, was important. As was her flowing flaxen hair.
But at the end of the night, at the end of the torch-lit parade, I knew it wouldn’t only be the Viking boat that went up in flames.
oh ice cold, this one. Nicely done.
DeleteThe highlight of this piece comes with its atmospheric influences and inferences. Such imagination!
DeleteJeffrey here:
DeleteSo the giezer jarl, nice word play, chose the buxom blonde. Now, who elses boat was being referred to? Nice skullduggery.
The Viking bosom made me laugh out loud, and love the final line.
DeleteCripplegate Junction/Part 78-Taking Advantage
ReplyDeleteBefore Hamnet could retrieve the sepia photograph aeroplane, the Rook, never chary regarding potential treasurable opportunities, carried it aloft. Snagging a convenient wind current, the bird floated beyond the Arches toward the Sanitarium Garden. A pale face, anxious and fretful, watched the aerial junket from a second storey window.
Arriving at his nookery, the Rook deposited the prize amid other recently acquired valuables, including a miniature brass bell from the reins of a hobby horse and metallic gray torch flame lighter engraved with a military emblem.
Nearby, eyes glinting speckled gold, Marmalade assessed the growing cache and purred his approval.
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To read the earlier installments (a suggestion only) which led to this point in the tale please visit:
http://www.novareinna.com/cripplegate.html
A link to return to "The Prediction" can be found on the site. Thank you.
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Lovely vignette - so beautifully written.
Deletewatch out, world, Marmaduke is prowling... such a casual piece ending with the hinted at menace of Marmaduke - having watched my cats, I know what you mean...
DeleteThe cat and the rook, co-conspirators. Partners in... something?
DeleteMarmalade, yet Antonia said Marmaduke? Yes, the crime family is forming; a crow and a feline queen. The small items are the last ones missed. Very nice descriptions.
Delete... and thank you for 'junket'!
Deleteyes, he's Marmalade but I had the mother of all migraines that night... and I still think of ginger cats as Marmaduke -
DeleteIt's Marmalade. The mention of "Marmaduke" is in error and one I often make myself when writing Cripplegate Junction installments. The fingers frequently want to wander along the incorrect keys and I'm always having to double check the name.
DeleteLove Marmalade and intrigued by this possible alliance. What is he planning?
DeleteI should be out tomorrow evening, so here goes...
ReplyDeletePennywise
‘We all float down here…’ Pennywise, character in IT, made many chary of clowns but it’s just a book and a film and now a way of life being afraid of them. The hospice’s Festival of Light parade, torchlit and all, featured clowns on stilts. A clown on stilts? Added a whole new dimension to my phobia, so it did.
I haven’t slept properly since they walked by my window – on the first floor. I haven’t had a peaceful dream since, either. Well, if you can’t beat them, join them. I’ll find out how many do float down drains…
Clowns!!! The stuff of my personal nightmares from the fictional Pennywise to the all too chilling evil incarnate known as John Wayne Gacy. Ye Gods, how I hate clowns!!!
DeleteHad me shuddering so much, I forgot to comment. Brilliant and mind-invasive and I am now going to try and forget I ever read this.
DeleteI've seen a clip or two of that film, and strictly avoided watching it. For just this reason...
DeleteDon't know the film but this was a combination of a carnival procession I saw as a 4 year-old in which 'Big Heads' - men on stilts wearing huge clown-faced heads - took part and a nightmare experience when I was 2/3 years older of such heads forming shadows on my upstairs bedroom curtains.
DeleteSuperb writing - too much so!
Well it's being remade, release is September this year. Tim Curry played Pennywise and Bill Skarsgard will in the remake.
DeleteNow, what a thoughtful(some how nice just didn't seem right) We may not like being scared but we sure do pay for it. A surprising topic for a submission, good job.
Oh, please say it isn't true. I don't think my life can handle more than one Pennywise. I will say, however, the ending of "IT" is one terrific disappointment in my opinion.
DeleteI hope they come up with a half decent ending this time, the original one is such a let down. Otherwise I quite liked the film, but - I have now read the book three times and find more in it every time. Very much a word person, me, rather than a moving picture one. The Green Mile made a good film, as did The Shawshank Redemption but on the whole, (The Tommyknockers, for example) the films just don't work for me.
DeleteFunny how many of us find clowns creepy! Loved the imagery of the stilted clowns passing by the window, and what a chilling promise at the end.
DeleteInfinity 181
ReplyDeleteEvery day I grow more chary of the new cook, more determined to set the Creature on him and be done with it. My ship is afloat with over-stuffed crew that sits around with torches and drink grog and disobeys orders up to the moment of sullen submission and then tis done. I will stand just so much of this mutinous behaviour and then I will act. We must catch the southerly winds coming to drive us onward to those idyllic islands. Then they can romp as they wish but will find a new regime when they board Infinity again.
I do believe this installment might be smacking of mutiny perhaps. However, I believe the Captain is more than capable of quelling any such uprising and is fully aware of the proposition.
DeleteKursaal (Episode Fifty Three) -- "Minders"
DeleteArchon needed no torch in the darkness to guide him to his mistress. The asp instinctively knew Manasa's location and never chary in responding to her innermost desires.
From the caravan steps, floating within the euphoric haze spiraling from her cigarillo, the snake-charmer awaited Archon's return. He had not been gone long. Just long enough.
She contemplated recent events. Maximillian Corviday and his assistant, the stunning Alexis Champagne, had become increasingly cozy of late. Manasa felt snubbed, rebuffed...even scorned.
Regardless, she was a compassionate and forgiving soul. Maximillian would need comforting in the morning when he realized Alexis was gone.
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To read the earlier installments (a suggestion only) which led to this point in the tale, please visit: http://www.novareinna.com/kursaal.html
A link to return to "The Prediction" can be found on the site. Thank you.
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Antonia: I'm sorry the Captain is finding his cook too good to be true, but this seems a sound plan. Want to get off the islands? Better get ship shape again...
DeletePatricia: A woman scorned is bad enough; a snake-charmer with a well-trained pet is quite terrifying.
Antonia, the description of the sullen crewmen is superb indeed, and the Captain's tone spot-on. Leaves me impatient for the next episode.
DeletePatricia, such a treat to be returned to Archon and Manasa, Alex and Maximillian.
it is indeed a treat and snake charmers make for good chilling stories. Like this one.
DeleteJeffrey here;
DeleteAt least the problem isn't strawberries.
The captain knows the beast. Makes sense but it didn't occur to me. Then again, what then is the cook?
Does sound like a powder keg about to go off. What is the cook, I wonder?
DeleteBe careful of the snake's mistress! Another vivid piece dripping with meaning. This world continues to fascinate!
DeleteTreasure, Discovered
ReplyDelete"You smell that?"
(Something carried on the cold whisper that floated out of the cave mouth.)
"Probably some animal shat in there. Or some other explorer."
"Or they died in there, maybe."
"Ehh, you're not going to go back now, are you? You heard what they said in the village."
"Nah, but, you know, I'm a bit chary to go in at night."
"That's what the torches are for. C'mon."
The listener nodded with satisfaction. His associates down in the valley were telling their stories with skill. And his family would dine well tonight.
As always, your writing is tight, concise and pokes at the imagination. Your dialogue entries are a constant delight. So, how does one get to this new project of yours? I'm a bit challenged when it comes to this type of thing at times. Is it: wordsahundred.blogspot.co.uk ?????
DeleteA sharp dialogue tale that sets the reader up in anticipation, only to be uncomfortably turned upside down.
Deleteclever writing, building a scenario and then dropping us in at the gory end.
DeleteJeffrey here;
DeleteThe listener is the dweller in the cave, whose assiciates tell such stories to entice the meal to come to him/it. A well done submission. Nice dialog and setting with it.
Love a good cave story, mysteries and dangers always lurk within. An excellent build with a lingering promise at the end.
DeleteOne non-story comment this week: I'm an avid listener to a British photography podcast called Sunny 16, and the hosts have challenged their listeners to start year-long projects for 2017. Mine is to combine my love of film photography with short fiction, and so I've started a blog called wordsahundred (also at blogspot.com) with a weekly story prompted by a photo I've recently taken. My goal is to be near 100 words, rather than the strict rule we follow here, but I think the stories have a similar flavor. If you're so inclined I'd love to know your opinions.
ReplyDeleteLooks good Bill - I've added the link to the 'Blogs we like' column - and am delighted by the opportunity to read more of your writing.
DeleteLove the idea! I've used images as prompts a few times myself.
DeleteJeffrey, for some reason the word 'float' lodged itself in my head and all I could think of was Pennywise and that leering grin of the clown when he says 'we all float down here'... so it had to be him. I don't have a fear of clowns but I know others do, I used that to create two anthologies devoted to clown horror stories. The first was Here Be Clowns, the second was White Face Death. I had a good cover on the second one but the Slipknot type clown on the first one nearly pushed my daughter to leave home... she has a serious fear of clowns. It's fun, pushing horror buttons.
ReplyDeleteThe Adventures of Rosebud, Pirate Princess #59
ReplyDeleteHydrophobia
Natasha does not float. She is chary of even touching water-salt or fresh. She’s never told me why. I suspect she’s not as waterproof as she appears, she is part ship and part yurt with wings and/or sails depending on the day. She’s willing to hover barely a meter above the water, but she flat out refuses to go any nearer. Maybe she was a cat in a past life. Maybe she was the animated torch of a carriage runner.
Absolutely enchanting. I really have nothing more to add.
DeleteJeffrey here;
DeleteJust thought I'd mention I posted my first ever erotic story at literotica.com
Titled: Prima Nocte.
Sometimes in life, the shock isn't what we do, it's who we tell. Pelwrath is the pen name.
Enchanted to the point of floating, like Natasha, then absolutely blown away by the final line. Wonderfully skillful writing, Rosie.
DeleteI'm sorry for the belated comments I really loved the imagery, a cat avoiding water and a carriage driving through a driving rain, at night. Very well done.
DeleteLove the feel of this piece. Definitely enchanting.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBait [4]
ReplyDelete“I don’t play nursemaid,” Callon said. His lip curled, as a memory drove a spike through his stomach. “Besides, isn’t that what she pays you for?” An irreverent smile formed. “Or do you simply like to sleep at her feet like a good dog.”
Jaen snarled, the woman gone from her fierce green eyes. She floated a hand above her knee, nails extending with a soft snicking sound.
Callon continued smiling. “Won’t matter to me none, if you torch the place. Not mine anyway.” No point being chary with Jaen. Best never to offer your throat. More fun to bait.
Aww might have missed the deadline. Posting at 10:46 PST. Wrote this as fast as I could so wouldn't miss another week haha. :)
DeleteMissed it you did, but this is so lovely I'll post a pointer so no-one misses reading this.
DeleteYes, well done indeed. Somehow Callon offering , even a mock surrender, seems illogical.
Delete