Christmas is twirling around the corner, and it’s time for a blog break to enjoy family, friends, food, and festivities.
I leave you with some silliness, a version of Jingle Bells by ShittyFluted that I heard on Rob’s blog: Friends without Borders.
I dare you to keep a straight face while listening to this.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year filled with much laughter, love, kindness, gratitude, and peace.
❤ See you in 2018 ❤
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The winner of the Carrot Ranch challenge #7 was announced this morning. A little murderous musing before the holiday cheer sets in.
Challenge #7: Murderous Musings. Write a flash fiction in 109 words, no more, no less and weave a murderous vibe through an every-day setting, either in thought or deed.
Murder Mysteries
Margaret loved murder mysteries, anything with forensics, cops making sense of clues, how the most minute residue or oversight unlocked a case. Recently published books served her best, ones scribed by someone in the “industry.” Those pages taught her about poisons, carbon monoxide, overdoses, DNA, sanitation, those darn receipts that could follow you forever, surveillance cameras on every corner… At times, it overwhelmed her.
Herbert didn’t understand the fascination. He insisted real life wasn’t like books, and murders frequently went unsolved. Well, that depressed her. The whole point was creating a finely tuned reality. When she finally got around to murdering herself, she wanted Herbert to take the fall.
***
To read a fabulous winning story by Marje Mallon and the judge’s picks, click here: Carrot Ranch
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Carrot Ranch has selected the winner of the Rodeo Flashfiction challenge #6. This prompt was a doozy!
Challenge #6: First we had to sign up to receive a real US Rodeo bull’s name from the snickering, evil competition designers…. I received “Voodoo Child” (oh, great).
Then:
Voodoo Child
Cici done hate hospitals, but Miss Clara drug her there on account of her drowned daughter, wee girl fixing to die.
“Can you help her?” Miss Clara say, crying and wringing her fingers like washday linens. “Do your… voodoo?”
Cici take no offense, for Miss Clara’s hurt so raw and deep it reach between them like they share a heart. Mothers do when they lose a child. Cici know it a grief to swallow the world.
Cradling the child’s doll, Cici chant some mumbo-jumbo over it like she made of magic. She coo, longing to believe, and pass it to Miss Clara like it a newborn soul.
***
To read Kerry E.B. Black’s winning submission and other judge favorites, click here: Carrot Ranch
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It’s been a busy autumn as I scribble away on my first draft and I’m almost there! In fact, I’m finishing it up today! So bear with me.
I haven’t shared a piece of beautiful writing from a blogger in a while. What better way to break the dry spell than with a piece from Steven Baird.
Chicken Scratch
by Steven Baird
It’s the same, every night. I reach for the dream, and I’m grabby-fingered, grievous.
The dream– no, she — is my beautiful. The woman, alone, in front of a barn, tossing scratch to the chickens. She wears a faded bluey sundress, and it is judiciously short, judicious sassy, cut just above the knees, threadbare and very old. It is 1960’s Flower-Power aphrodisia. She doesn’t care. She loves who she is, and I’m a bystander. I see her from profile: the tilt of her hips, the slow current of her arms, the equid arch of neck. Her hair is long, and it flows like the fire beside a curved river. This is her, and this is her’s.
The light captures every grain…
via Chicken scratch
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The Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo turns to Twitter. I gave it a go…
The Challenge #5: #Twitterflash. In this challenge, you are tasked with writing a complete 99-word story using Twitter. The story can be on any topic and in any genre, as long as it is exactly 99 words. Easy peasy, right? Not so fast…
-Every story must be made up of 11 sentences of exactly 9 words each.
-Each individual sentence should be tweeted, one at a time, for a total of 11 tweets
-Individual sentences are tweet-worthy and contribute to the story as a whole in a meaningful way.
The Seamaid
A mermaid’s sequined tail lures me to the sea
Gulls shrill a warning, I’m headed to a drowning
Lulled by a siren’s song, footprints forsake the sand
Wash away my castles when love sings me home
She is my nixie, nymph of an airless death
Bare toes sink, swallowed by the sea’s lapping tongue
Fingers caress my ankles, beckoning me farther from shore
Entangled am I in floating whorls of unbound hair
Her silver arms are the surge embracing my surrender
A life forlorn abandoned for her wild blue beauty
Yielding to the tides, breathless in my seamaid’s kiss
***
To read D. Avery’s winning Twitterflash, click here: Carrot Ranch
This fantasy tale hasn’t received a lot of press lately, so when a review showed up on fantasy author K. D. Dowdall’s site, I was more than delighted. Many thanks to Karen for her thoughtful comments. If you head over to read, take a gander at her books, and I hope you enjoy her review!
❤ ❤ ❤
In the story of The Sorcerer’s Garden by D. Wallace Peach, we see the overall story as fascinating and rich in details that excite our need for fantasy and storytelling. At first glimpse, it is a story about dragons, courage, adventure, war, soul-thieves, and the good versus the bad in people.
The story is really two stories, that in the end, become one where fantasy and reality merge. The main characters, Madlyn, Cody, Dustin, and Lillian, each have different world views that conflict with each other, but all are necessary for everyone to cope with the approaching sense of loss that is meaningful to each one, a natural human response to things out of our control…
Myths of the Mirror 