January

A month of crispness. Hoare frosts encrusting the leaves and branches of the hedgerows. The sound of crunching grass under foot. The rasping warmth of wool against a freezing neck and a huff of steam as every breath escapes. The sun, rarer than blue sea glass, bursting through a dense cloud to remind us of its white beauty low in the sky.

A month of darkness. Grass sodden. Water pooling on the lawn. The pavements a dark mood and the roads merely islands surrounded by mirrors of the sky and the starkness of trees. Days short like tempers and the nights too long for comfort when alone with our thoughts.


Time up.

Inspiration: the dream and reality of January as we come to the end of it. But I had to think today and that means less writing.

Hot skin

She rounded the corner and immediately wished she could jump back the way she'd come. It was too late, though, she'd already taken a few paces round the shop door on the corner of the high street and, although the group on the bench weren't aware of her yet, she knew a flustered retreat would have drawn more attention to her than just keeping her head down and shuffling on. She felt the blush riding up her neck, clawing at her cheeks.

She tried not to look at them and made a effort to look absorbed in the passing shop windows. Her pace increased but she could still see their reflections blurred in the dark glass. All the popular girls from school were there. They seemed so much more knowing, so much more mature than her, that she would have done anything to avoid their notice; she feared them too: They were loud, they showed no respect for their elders, authority, the rules and she couldn't understand why or indeed how young women could be so lawless, so wild. They revolted her with their coarseness and yet there was something strangely attractive about them. Why did she long for their approval? Why did she want to be part of their tribe? Was it because, deep down, she longed to be free from the constraints of her own safe upbringing? Perhaps it was merely the vaguest atavistic stirrings in their last throws before the responsibilities of adulthood eclipsed them completely.

Solitude

Solitude doesn't mean loneliness to me.  It is something craved - because a mind never seems still, nor the body.  Even when at rest there is always some movement, some thought that means almost constant alertness or tension that never quite relinquishes it's grip.

I'm thinking of that desire, a yearning wish: your mind singing out for the moment when it can release all the thoughts, memories, the hurts and confusions and for a while just tick over, like a clock in an empty room. Your body longs for a moment when your hands are at rest and your muscles melt into soft grass and feel the sun ooze onto your flesh or wind whip your flesh into a natural flush.  When the crushing talons of life release you for just a short while and you forgot to think.  That is what I long for.  Not love, not excitement, not adventure.  Just peace.

Time up

Inspiration today was the prospect of a retreat.  Merely the idea of what it could be like.

She was all bosom.

You know the kind of woman I mean, like the Queen, they have a mono-bosom.  The Queen or Ida and Cissy (Les Dawson's immortal alter-ego).  They have a bosom that stretches the entire length of their, usually heavily rectangular, torsos making them like a perambulating sleeping-policeman. Following me yet? Oh, good.

Well, she was one of those.  The worst colleague you could possibly imagine.  She wouldn't never have thought of herself as your equal you understand.  She would have said colleague with the same intonation that The Duchess of Kent would say staff.  She wasn't the gossipy kind or the maternal kind.  She was the triple-thick-skinned-bitch-from-Hell dressed in Hobbs and Marks and Spencer.

She had the most winning smile, when you first met her, and she would make her middle-middle-class drawl lift slightly to a welcoming purr for the first five minutes worth of judgement until she'd summed up how profitable it would be for her to be seen talking to you.  If her assessment was favourable, you would be treated to distain with snatches of condescension; if not the claws started to protrude from the fur and she would make it her sport to needle you with them, interminably.

Secretly, we called her Delores Umbridge.

Yes, we hated her but we feared her, too, exactly like she wanted.


Time well up.
Inspiration: I was reminded  about an old colleague, tonight.  This was a portrait of her.  More fact that fiction! 

Friends

They had grown up together. They knew almost everything about each other save the innermost workings of their minds. But everyone is a stranger to our secret thoughts.

When Anne's mock results were not as good as Harriet's she coached her until Jane went into the exam hall feeling as though she could have solved the meaning of life. When Harriet's heart was broken for the fifth time in a year, Jane took round chocolate, tissues and her best non-verbal responses. When Jane was sick after their Fresher's ball, Harriet held her hair and stayed up until she was sure she wouldn't choke in her sleep. They worked in the same cafes, bars and hotels and later they would call each other after work to mutually moan about their hideous bosses. They talked about the children they wanted, the homes they would have, holidays, clothes and who would provide them.

Jane married first. Martin was something in the city, had connections, parents with houses in town and in the counties. She no longer needed to work. She had her children, clothes and took wonderful holidays. It was with utter bewilderment, shock and grief that after five years Martin took Harriet and never brought her back.


Time up.

Inspiration: rather obscure today. I saw the word twins and thought I'd write about that but then it lead me thinking about friends and how to turn the idea of friendship inside out. Not sure I totally accomplished what I had in my head within the ten mins, though.

White sky

What could possibly be in that white cloud, whiter than the underneath of a seagull's wing, as pale as sea froth, delicate like morning breath on a winter's day, as impenetrable as the mind? Why does it draw you and scare you all at once?

Is it like death: The promise of perfection, everlasting love, all peace, no pain, as yet unknown and unknowable? Is it the mystery of what could be beneath, behind, within?

A childlike wonder, our imaginations running wild through a summer meadow of cornflowers, roses, dew, rainbows, wild horses.

Or is it merely mist before our eyes, designed to confuse, loose us? Or to make us trust the inner compass and walk on through holding our fingers out to caress the whiteness that envelops us?

Time up.

Inspiration: on my walk today I could see a really white, dense mist around the cliffs. It hid them from and made me think: what COULD be in there.

Roses

There were roses in the bouquet he bought her for their first evening walking out. He called for her in his serge suit and her father, an enormous man whose shirt gaped between the buttons exposing dark hairs on white flesh, grunted an acknowledgment before she squeezed past him to meet him in the evening air. She was flushed and lovely just like the promise of spring. He was coy and awkward but he could see in her eyes that his love was returned and that made him a little bolder, enough to reach for her hand when her house was out of sight. She dutifully put the pink, tightly curled buds to her nose and breathed in their musky scent and the tiny burst of gypsophila danced around her cheeks.

There were roses in her bouquet, as her enormous smiling father, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, passed her arm to his as he waited at the end of the aisle. He wasn't nervous like they warned him he'd be, just filled with calmness and peace and love.

There were roses around the door of the house they shared that sent their heavy perfume through the door as they reclined, loosely embraced, watching their children crawl and stumble, then walk, skip and run out of the door.

It was only right that he lay a single rose on her coffin when he said his last goodbye. The scent was gone or he was no longer aware of it. He did not see the blush of colour that could only match her cheeks but saw too clearly the browning edge of the petal and the thorn on the stem.

Time up.

Inspiration: I've got a box of Roses left from Christmas. You get the connection...

The silence of a bird's wing

Although I am behind glass and metal, and I am moving at forty miles an hour, I am struck dumb and deaf for a moment that's lasts for the three beats of a buzzard's wing.

I saw it gripping the frail twigs of a hedge, the flimsy branch bowing under the weight of this creature of dark nights and fallen leaves, scanning the field for prey. It turned at the noise of the moving metal beast that hurtled towards it and for a moment I was close enough for our eyes to lock; it's golden, mine the colour of mud. For the briefest second it saw me. It looked into my eyes. What it saw there, I do not know but it did not make it stay. The bird didn't seem threatened, just disdained my proximity, even for the time that it would take for me to pass. It lurched its body upwards and proudly turned its head away as if I no longer held it's interest. It launched itself languidly into the grey sky, allowing me the merest flash of brown-speckled white of its underwing which it beat three times before drifting out of sight.

Broken

She had just looked round for a moment. A moment was all it took.

Her foot was down on the accelerator. She just wanted to get home. Work had been murder and she had been late again to pick up Josh from his after school club. The apologies pouring out of her mouth did nothing to thaw the frosty glares of the assistants who were used to her lateness and now seemingly empty promises that it would never happen again.

Josh was in the back messing about with her phone, he always asked for it in the car and she gave it to him, it generally stopped him kicking her seat. She had been on the motorway for twenty minutes, planning their evening meal in her head, when she felt the first thump from behind. She warned him, angrily, she'd had just about enough today. The lights from other cars were making her eyes smart and she passed the back of her hand across them, little relief there.

Another thump and that was it. She sat up in her seat, whipped her head around and began to yell. Then it was noise, lights, metal scrapping, dizzying spinning and then nothing. Only a small, grubby trainer abandoned against the curb.

Time up.
Inspiration today was via Rusty Magee on Twitter who gave me the prompt of the trainer on a motorway.

Do you know who I am?

I'm a straight-talking, hard-nosed bitch and everyone knows it. I like a drink. I'll smoke a cigar in the club with the chaps but just because I wear a dress, don't try to mess with me if you want to come away with your balls and dignity intact.

I like myself this way. It's got me this far in a man's world and I plan to get a lot further. I haven't got time for sentiment or love or care; I haven't got time for anything for that matter, except, of course, spitting my thoughts onto an electronic page and hitting send. No time for revising, no time for regrets. That's how I make my living but really there's not much else to living except work. I'm a hack. God, I love that word, it's so hard and it's damned hard profession. A man's word for a man's job? Men, pah! Do they still really believe they run things? Are they still perpetuating the myth that they are anything but tragic parodies of their ancestors? Isn't obvious that men are just raging hormones on stick and pathetically easy to manipulate. We let them believe what we like. Let them parade, let them try to 'drink me under the table', I'll be the one at the head of it in the board room tomorrow.

Time's up
Inspiration: @AlexLSpeed responded to my plaintive request for inspiration.
He said pseudo-celebs on Twitter. This is how I imagine Fleet Street Fox.

Paint and death

There was once a painter. He was not a Royal Acamedian or a painter of the lofty-garret-in-Paris type. He painted people's houses. He considered it an art. He drank tea while at work, thirstily, more in the morning when he could never seem to satiate his thirst even with the bucket loads he drank.

He worked intermittently because he didn't always need the money. He other half had plenty and she kept him, mostly comfortably, most of the time. His wants were simple. He wanted no one to tell him what to do or how to behave. He wanted to be free from virtually all responsibility. He wanted to drink beer as much as he liked, without anyone questioning him. He always said he didn't need to drink but he enjoyed it. He actually enjoyed the release from the crushing sense of his lack of ambition, of wasting his life and never reaching his potential. He din't know what his potential was, but he knew he would never reach it, so he never tried. He just drank.

One day he drank. It was after work. He went home from the pub and drank some more. He sat in the sofa and watched the football. The football finished but he was no longer watching, he was no longer going to do anything.

Time up

I took inspiration from the Writing inspiration tumbler blog: 'Write about paint. Fresh paint, dry paint, really hideous colour paint, peeling paint on your grandma’s rocking chair.'

What makes a soul?

What is a soul? How is it different to thoughts and feelings? How can we tell what will damage our souls and what it can live through unscathed? What makes someone's soul black and another's white?

Does ours sparkle when our mind is darkened and clouded, preoccupied with thoughts of ourselves? Or does it diminish when our thoughts dim? Is it a lifebelt when our emotions are sinking? Or can it, too, not breath underwater? If it lives on after our body clicks off, what will it take from our small life? Will it take our loves big and small? Will it have room for memories, laughter, hands held, the softness of skin, tears brushed away? Will it carry our essence or will it become a blend?

In the meantime, how can with live without the other half of ours when that other half doesn't feel part of the whole any longer?

Charity

The old lady, not so little, sat behind the glass counter like Mrs Slocombe's older sister. Her pink lipstick had feathered, bleeding into the puckered wrinkles around her mouth. She smelt of Tweed and gin. It was a dark day outside and when the bell of the shop chimed to admit a fresh customer her voice rasped, 'Hello there, dear.' in tones that would have suited the phrase, 'What the hell do you want?' much more.

She wore a grey dress with a nylon blouse underneath, the colour of which was probably invented purely for I-tell-it-like-it-is brigade. She had a on a home knit cardi, of a similar hue to the blouse, slung around her shoulders with one button done up at the neck, over which the golden beads from her glasses' chain dangled and swing when she moved.

Her kind are passing. I wonder if I will miss them? If anyone will?

Time up.

Inspiration:The kind of ladies who volunteer for charity shop work, to 'do their bit'. I saw a couple today. Why do they really do it?

Snow

Look outside. See. It's snowing!

Peering out of the frosted window glass. Snow on the ledge outside, to see a dark and white world. The sky lightening behind the low grey cloud enough to bring a sense of day but no light is needed to bring joy. Snow brings its own lightness.

Watching your boots make dents in a soft carpet and listening to snow drop from branches; listening to the silence in-between. Aware of your body inside its snug layers but your face slapped red by the cold. Breath billowing in front of you.

Looking. Looking around. Watching the tiny movements in the hedges, the odd chirrup or click of a bird. Watching smoke start to curl reluctantly from chimneys. Listening for the first shouts of joy from children in the quiet air.


Time up.
Inspiration: It snowed today. Could you tell? Just some thoughts and images as I walked out in it this morning.

Static travel.

There was a piece of music that I recall was called 'travelling without moving', I can't remember who by. I don't often connect with lyrics, really, my mind is taken up with a melody. But it was when you see something, an image in this case, that reminds you of a lyric or title or quote and then you start to reflect on its possibilities.

At first I thought about how, when you are a passenger in a car, you are sitting in the seat of the car and no actually moving yourself but the car is moving you. My mind dwelt for a time on the loss of control and freedom that this could suggest or conversely that it could mean that you have great faith or trust in your pilot or indeed in the conveyance itself. But I didn't dwell on this for long.

It came to me that the most important idea about travelling without moving is the idea or possibly the 'fashion' of going travelling. These days a person's education isn't deemed complete unless they have 'travelled'. I was struck by the idea that travel is supposed to enlighten, to widen the mind and create a greater bond between people and cultures. Often, is has very little effect except to reinforce the self-importance or smugness of the person who considers themselves well travelled and therefore enlightened. They fool only themselves and others like them. They have travelled but not moved.

Time up.
Inspiration: I was really struggling tonight. I'm tired and so went back to the tumblr blog, writer's inspiration and the prompt for today is the following picture.

The smell of smoke

She trudged up the steps to the door of her flat. The expanse of black window above stared impassively back at her and she let the straining plastic bag drop onto the door mat while she fumbled underneath her many clothing layers for the key.

The door swung back and although the air that drifted from within was warm and thawed her numb face, the loneliness seeped from the shadows to chill her heart. She felt desperately bleak. She had never had the warmth of a close family, jumbling on top of one another, shouting at each other, jostling for space. She told herself that it would be anathema to her anyway but she wasn't sure she believed it. What she really just wanted was to hear a voice, one voice, calling her name, asking her how she was, how had her day been, the usual fatuous nothings that make life. She wanted the light to be on once, just once, a welcoming beam behind the glass and the joy of seeing a smile behind the light. If she could, for a moment, smell woodsmoke she might know that inner lightness that the fire meant home.

But the longer it went, the more cold she became or seemed, more acerbic, bitter, and thus she remained, with the darkness behind the door.


Time up.

I was thinking about what to write tonight when I was out on my walk this evening. I smelt woodsmoke and I thought I'd write about that. But then I saw something from a twitter post about 'not having a shoulder to cry on' and I thought about the feeling one might have it one were lonely. In my existence, I've never been alone and I often think how lovely it would be to have total freedom. Then I see things like that and it gives me pause, enough to appreciate the noise and madness that surrounds me.

The north wind

It hasn't been bright for a while. By that I mean there has been absolutely no sun for weeks. In fact, when I saw some tentative brightness from behind the cloud I was almost shocked; it brought a sound of appreciative surprise to my lips, in any case. What is so lovely about extended periods of greyness is the euphoria that comes when they they are broken by glorious sun. Everyone trudging around through damp and muddy ground, head's lowered, every thought turning inwards, as if minds hibernate even when we force our bodies out into the chill, can look up for moment, their worries disperse while an involuntary smile is raised and it's as if their soul takes a fresh breath.

I was drawn outside. I just went. No coat, scarf or gloves. Just as I was. It wasn't in a trance-like state, it was just a determination to out, to give that burst of light my undivided attention with no barriers to keep us apart. And it was wonderful. It did not warm me, the north wind was blowing hard enough to chill my very marrow, but it did unburden me, unwind me and lighten me and for much more than a moment.

Time up.

Inspiration:
Today, I just took inspiration from something that happened today. I wanted just my voice, as honest as possible.

Outside

He woke with a start. His neck was wet with sweat dispute the chill that could be felt on his forehead. His mind fell slowly into place and he delved his memory to pin-point the dream that he assumed had woken him. It was then that the noise became apparent. It sounded mechanical and close at hand but it was high-pitched and he really couldn't recognise it. He tried to establish possibilities. His mind, coming more awake, made a more accurate appraisal of the direction; not inside, most definitely outside, but what was it?

His interest was piqued but he felt mildly disturbed that he wasn't hearing a familiar sound that came from either his own house and garden or that of his neighbours. The whirling continued as his mind coolly cross-reference the possible sources of the kind of whine that sounded like something metallic rotating- a wind turbine or a microscopic engine, perhaps? The less rational part of his brain cursed his neighbours. If he found out that his precious sleep had been interrupted by their fecklessness...

No, it was no good. He would have to get out of bed and go and see. He swung his legs out onto the floor and reluctantly and impatiently forced himself out of the embrace if his duvet and lumbered to the window. He brushed the curtain to one side and was met by the most blinding beam of light which stunned him instantly.

Time up
It's interesting where your mind takes you in the middle of the night. I woke last night and had the most wild thoughts about the sounds outside my window. I thought what if these ridiculous fantasies turned out to be real. So tonight, I tried to imply just that.

Weary or grateful? Day 13 -365 writing challenge

There are some times that your body aches even when you are at rest after a strenuous day and won't let you relax. And there are some days when your mind has been so busy trying organise and summarise and process endless amounts of data and complete tasks that even when you are at home it buzzes away like a dodgy plug. Today was both of those days. Your mind is screaming for relief from the worry of the countless jobs you didn't get round to despite ten hours work; stacking up the tasks that you have to prioritise for tomorrow because you just didn't quite have the staying power to work past ten at night and complete five different tasks competing for your attention.

But then you remember that you are going to bed in a warm room, with a full belly. You have no children to add to their burden to yours. You have health. You have freedom. You have safety. You have love.
How many people can say the same?

Time up.
I worked hard today doing a back breaking job with some limestone for my parents this morning and then started my lesson planning and marking for my new school after. I only just finished at just after ten and thought 'poor me'. A spoilt thought. So I thought I'd write about it.

Stars

When you look up into a sky and you see that is the darkest, deepest blue and that it is freckled with white glittering spots, what does it make you feel? Do you feel, like me, that no person could imitate such beauty in art? That a painting could never recreate the flickering of stars as their beams reach out to you in one moment and then recede the next? Do you think that no piece of music, however exquisite, could ever compare to the beautiful essence of silence that the stars bring to your soul? Do you believe that a photograph could capture the complexity, the constant shifting movement or the sense of timelessness of a star? No, neither do I.


Time is up.
I took my inspiration today from the photograph below.
Time flew but I tried to think about what I wanted to say and saying right took more thinking time than I thought.

Ghost

It started with the wind. It was the sound like the sea makes in rough weather. But there was something metallic to the sound, something man made, yet at distance. It didn't get closer, though, like she expected it to. Something large, a lorry perhaps, moving along the lane to drop off a shipment of something to one of the houses further down than her's. It never came closer and that's what made her wonder more.

Then it changed to shapes and shadows in the gloom outside her window, when the night wasn't dark enough for black but the day not light enough for clarity and they moved, the shapes. She assumed at first that it was the shadows of clouds. Then that is was some atmospheric quirk but somewhere, deep inside herself, her soul groaned with dread because she knew it wasn't natural and that this wouldn't be then end.

Time is up.
I left it late tonight and therefore it was harder and I wrote less and thought about the structure and words less.
The inspiration came from the sight of book near my bed called, The Penguin Book of Ghosts, so I thought ghost story. Didn't turn into much, though did it? The merest sigh of a story.

Rain

Streaming down in ribbons it was, the rain. Gushing and spraying like someone suddenly amused whilst drinking. It blistered on the ground for a millisecond and then pooled creating a tiny mirrors for the nettles and long fronds of fern.

It fell, not from a dark sky, but one that was a uniform light grey; a librarian's cardigan, a collared dove's wing, a pulped newspaper. It was drab but encouraged the green of the grass to glow, the brown of the trees to darkened in paths down its trunk like the skin of a snake and made the noises of man recede whilst the drips turned into a roar from above.

Wayward spray clung to windows in little balls only releasing when they encouraged themselves on each other to tear down the pane, recklessly exhausting themselves on the ground beneath, their destination reached at last.

Time up.
My inspiration today came from the weather outside yesterday evening and was meant as a descriptive piece only.

N.B. I couldn't post this yesterday as my Internet was down. How reliant we are...

Sitting alone

It was always a still place, that's why he chose it. He didn't like crowds. He was certainly never one of the lads - heaven forfend. He always enjoyed simple pleasures: the sun creating flashes on the canal as he sat next to it with a book; watching the stars at night, way out in the country where there was no orange haze to dim their beauty; listening to the football results on a Saturday, something that always relaxed him and so many other things, nothing that costs much and nothing that involved a commotion. That's why he liked the bench.

He would use it every single lunch time to eat his homemade sandwiches in peace and quiet, away from the telephones and latterly the hum of computers and, if he was honest, the vulgarity of his colleagues.

It was at the bench that he first saw her. He had never seen such beauty. She had auburn hair that was brushed into thick waves that hugged her shoulders and neck. Her checks were flushed with the fresh breeze that blew that day, highlighting the purity of her glowing skin. He couldn't see the colour of her eyes, she was too far away but he could she was lithe and elegant and, more wonderfully, that she was unaware of her magnificence.

She had walked closer to him as he sat, his sandwich paused half way to his mouth. He knew this was his moment; what would he, could he say to make her stop, notice him, stay with him? He was suddenly aware if himself, how awkward he must look with his gaping mouth and his sagging sandwich. He hastily turned to his picnic box and delved within for the foil wrapper he had discarded there. He made his trembling fingers work quickly to open the foil to place his sandwich inside, he closed the foil over the flaccid bread and wilted lettuce and twisted back to feel a breath of displaced air as her green felt coat passed in a blur in front of his startled eyes. He opened his mouth, but nothing came.

Every lunch time, he returned to the bench for the next thirty years. He didn't mind cold or blistering sun. In rain, he was hastier and more awkward with his umbrella. He waited, though, for her. Just one more glimpse would have been enough.


O.K. Today was actually 20 mins but my idea wasn't completed after the ten minute mark so I went on through, which is good practise.

The inspiration came from the tumblr blog - writer's inspiration and I just hit the random generator. Today came up with a picture.

Inspiration from a quote - day 8 365 writing challenge

'If an idea is worth having once, it's worth having twice.'
Tom Stoppard

Harvey sat there with his pen in his mouth idly copying figures onto his computer.  But it was an automatic action as is mind wasn't there.  He was thinking of his wife. He was thinking about what a sour-faced old hag she'd become over the past year or two. 

They used to be such a tactile couple, always holding hands as they walked along the crowded pavements of town on brisk Saturday mornings in Winter, sneaking kisses whenever they passed each other in the hall.  They once would lounge over each other while watching something rubbish on television while their feet mingled and he could be gently taken into the soft arms of sleep. 

Now things were different, they no longer spooned in bed.  In fact, there was always a frosty resistance to his questing hand under the eiderdown even if it was for nothing more that a basic connection of his hand on her skin. She would shift away minutely but noticeably.  They greeted each other like strangers from different ends of the room, even the house on occasion, there voices drifting briefly through the barren rooms between. They might not even see each other until bed and sometimes not even then if she sneaked in after he was asleep.  He would be left to sidle out of the room and look blankly and the rise and fall of her covered back as she slept on.

It wasn't his idea that had got together in the first place. It was his mate Ben's.  He had fancied her, loved her and he had definitely wanted to marry her but now...
Perhaps Ben had some more bright ideas.

Time up.
I decided to get a quote, randomly from the Internet, today and take inspiration from that. 
I have to say that starting a new job at the same time as tasking myself to do this challenge isn't easy but at least I AM writing despite my semi-conscious brain.

What does the universe taste like? -Day 7 - ten minute writing challenge.

What does the universe taste like?

Have you every had popping candy? I hate the word 'candy', but have you? It's little bits of sweet dust that you got, when young, from your local newsagent or sweetie shop, in a slim and shiny navy packet. It had a carton with a wide-mouthed child on it which only slightly made me turn my nose up at it, then. See, even as a child I had my own view of aesthetics.

I found the packet itself quite sophisticated as you had to rip the top open and silver paper shone through from beneath the wound. You'd make the packet gape and tip some of the contents into your mouth. Or, sometimes, you might slip your tongue in and let its tip touch the grains of pink rubble inside.

The anticipation was the best thing. That's something that hasn't change over time: the expectation. Waiting for the explosion in your mouth. It wasn't a long wait even in a child's sense. It would be a breath of time only and then the tiniest explosions would start. It was always gentle - depending, of course, on how much you imbibed. You might get a furious eruption in your mouth if you tipped too much in or were all for the excitement of the thing. You might even get the shock pop of a mine going off between two recently clenched teeth. Those kinds of blasts were my favourite because they were unexpected. The only kind of surprises I've ever liked, really.

So, for me, the universe tastes of popping candy, in a blue foil packet, containing all kinds of furious excitement and fun.


Time up.

Another task from the tumblr site - writer's inspiration.
The task was simply the title of this post.
i found it a little bit more manageable this time. I'll try them again, sometime.

Greed

She watched him. From the corner of her eye, from underneath veiled eyes, she always watched him. It might happen that she followed his car into work. It wouldn't be intentional, merely a coincidence. His sleek car that his father had bought him for his birthday would roar past her own second hand saloon. She might follow him through the lobby in the wake of his cologne as the receptionist dropped whatever she was doing to straighten, flick her hair and bid him as sultry a hello as she could muster at eight thirty in the morning after her toddler had kept her up half the night. He looked sharp, there was no doubt. He didn't wear designer clothes, not recognisable ones that is. She suspected that his outfits were bespoke, made by a tailor in Bond street, no doubt. It wasn't just the accoutrements, though, the gloss, he was incredibly handsome - film worthy. Good genes. His chin was chiseled beneath a Romanesque nose and dedicatedly tousled hair. Oh, yes he was handsome. But her fascination wasn't with him. She just felt an aching, desperate longing for his money.


Time up.
Tonight's inspiration came from the Fiction Writer's Workbook. Which was definitely more manageable: take a common emotion and create a character around it.

Shit pit.

Yeah, that's right wanker, you heard me, it's a shit pit in here.

If only she could hear me, eh Larry?

God, do you remember Larry when we had that high, pristine shelf and all the passers by used to admire us? Back in the seventies that was or was it early eighties? Could've been either. We used to dream about who we'd picked by and wonder how much we'd be adored. Yeah, I suppose you could say we had that for a while, there, but you know, it goes by so fast and then were are we? Forgotten. Collecting dust. Having to look out at the shadows moving across The gap in the door. Eh, what's that Larry? Huh, yeah, you're right. If you can see it through all that muck. What else is there but memories of the good old days. She's barely here these days. No stories being read aloud, no warm glow of a night light, no more smothering embraces. All that promise she had, back then. She was such a lovely child, weren't she? Now what have we got? This grotty shelf in her cupboard so her callers can't see us. What don't she want to show? That she was once a child? That her childhood was a painful and precious memory? That she's as vulnerable as egg shell underneath all that slap and cheap, perfume.

I've had it up to here, Larry, with sitting behind this door listening to her being grunted over by someone different every night. I want the child that she still has inside, locked so deep she daren't delve there. What can we do to get her back, Larry, me old son?

Time up.
I've been using some online writer's prompts and tonight I used a random generator through Tumbler. But they throw up really obscure stuff - still it's a challenge I suppose.

Tonight's was: describe your bedroom thought the eyes of a stuffed toy.
The person is a persona, by the way.

Humorous Quest

His armour rattled and clanked as his horse made a slow progress through the pass. Sir Oswald knew that he should have used the tallow to grease the hinges and joins but he had forgotten to rifle through his page's belongings after the ambush. Geoffrey had been an honourable, if somewhat simple, man but he has known his job inside out and his duty, by God. Oswald would never forget the loyalty of such a faithful servant who had laid down his life for his master. It was only right, of course, that he should do so but such actions must be sung to the rest of the ignoble rabble back at camp to remind of them of the loyalty expected of them.

He had been travelling now for days, alone, expecting another attack. The bandits must have sent out a search party for their dead comrades but, as yet, Oswald had travelled without further molestation. A blessing for which he would give dutiful thanks at the chapel of Mont Clair when he made it back to the camp, even thought the priest was a French dog.

The mission may have had it's ups and downs but it had been ultimately successful. The Earl of Dismoore would be impressed enough to grant him lands, riches, even the hand of his beautiful daughter, Aethelfled. It filled him with joy and anticipation to be bringing home such a holy relic. He grabbed the handle of the leather bag in which the saintly artefact was securely wrapped. It felt strangely soft but Geoffrey must have wrapped it well, and Oswald had made such a risk grasping it from wreckage of their cart before more vandals came from the hills that he felt a glow of pride at his valour. He would enjoy unwrapping it slowly from the bag and telling the tale of his fingers grasping the holy handle from amongst their baggage strewn across the road as the assassins swung at him with their swords.

A midst the awed silence of the clustered knights back at camp he carefully opened the bag, basking in the expected glory that was to be his, until the flap flew back to expose Geoffrey's spotty pyjamas and teddy that he always kept in his overnight bag.


Time well up.

Damn you website which generates ideas for writers! Make it easier next time, you bastards.

Put on the light.

She looked up the stairs from below. The light receding into gloom. It was always another world, upstairs, at night. She dreaded it like any child dreads something: Not from the moment her eyes opened or throughout her day looking at colours that surrounded her, smelling crayons, chewing the wood on her pencil and tasting its bitterness and sweetness, not at home with the excitement of a story on the screen, not at dinner with the noise and doughy smells and laughter but when the windows showed a somber look and the bath water was being run and the nightclothes laid out on the bed.
The flannelette made her pause and then she remembered her fear. Placing moist feet into slippers she let her damp hair fall against her neck, trying to be small and inconspicuous, maybe they wouldn't notice her and she wouldn't have to ascend then, maybe later when a larger hand would take hers and she would not be alone when she went into that all-enveloping gloom.

Time's up.

Finding inspiration is hard and I want to try different was to inspire myself but finding a title was making me prevaricate tonight so I just looked at the dark lamp and switched it on and then I had my title.

And I think to myself...

a great deal. Perhaps too much, quite often. I remember saying to my mum once, "I wish I was like Paul because he's so thick and he just goes through life reacting to stuff rather than worrying about things that might happen, like I do." I'm totally aware of how arrogant that sounds but I am arrogant sometimes (for no real reason-I'm not that bright.) And my mum replied that I was wrong. He would worry about things too but he just responded to his worries more practically than I did. It was a lesson to me to try to see things from different perspectives. I wouldn't say it made me less arrogant sadly but it did make me aware of my arrogance and then at least to try to be less so. I'm still trying.

Humility is something I wish I had but I think humility only comes with total self-confidence.


Time up.
The inspiration today was from the first phrase in the first tweet I looked at when I turned my phone on just now. BBC Naturewatch.

Ten minutes a day challenge

365 projects are all over the wonderful world wide web but do you know what? So what. I want to do one of my own, so I'm going to.

I intend to write a short story or at least something structured and preferably lucid in ten minutes every day. This is in the hope that my writing improves. Or, failing that, at least I will have stopped prevaricating about writing and actually be writing.

I have thought about inspiration for the stories and ideally I would like people who read this blog to suggest things and then critique my writing but, as I don't like to self-promote, there is
no one to do that at the moment: I like to think of it as if my voice was echoing across a vast and empty but highly picturesque chasm. In the meantime i'm just going to take inspiration from wherever i find it - i'll let you know where.

However, if anyone DOES stop by this blog please leave a comment with a character, thought, word or scenario that you think might challenge and inspire me. It would be to be lovely to thing there was someone at the other end of the chasm.

That's my first ten minutes up, so here goes...

Tinkety tonk