Tuesday and a secret

So I’ll take this unexpected blogging schedule break to tell you a secret.

This week’s photo prompt is going to be difficult for some of you. It’s difficult for me, too. If you panic when you see it, take a deep breath and look at other things in the picture – if the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to a story for you, consider the mood, the time of day, the feelings and just write from there. The story doesn’t have to be about the things you *see* with your eyes when you look at it. But that’s not the secret.

There’s a sneak preview to it on my FB page. That’s the secret. When I have the photo picked out early, from now on, I’ll use it for the header photo on my regular account and my page. If you have a FB account, you can find my link in the side-bar on this blog. I believe you can see the profile even if you don’t do the FB thing.

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No guest for today. I’ll have to do some more digging around the internet for future invitees, but I have the next few weeks lined up. If you know someone with an interesting story to tell or has a writerly, readerly business to promote, feel free to suggest a candidate.

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I’ve been editing and researching some details in Symbiosis this morning about the island of Thera. It disappeared in a volcanic explosion about 3500 years ago and quite possibly is the origin of the Atlantis theories. It’s also the first safe haven Ki knew after she was rescued from the destruction Neti wrought on the temple where she was born. Seems that destruction followed her wherever she went from there…so it’s probably a good thing she doesn’t stay in one place too long anymore. There’s only one place safe for her to go and only one person who knows she needs to be there. Now if he could just convince her to agree…

Sunday Musings

So my entry in the 4th quarter of the Writers of the Future Contest didn’t fly, but I’ve already sent it out the door again. Hopefully it’ll find a home soon because until I finish editing Symbiosis I’m not going to look at the shorts again. Both the one I just finished and that one in submission again already will be on a revolving door protocol until then.

Prior to that on Monday last week I did get word that my other short story out on submission was accepted, so the news was balanced this week, at least. One rejection, one acceptance. One just finished and almost ready to submit. Heh. I can live with those stats.

On non-writerly news, my horse stepped on a nail either Monday or Tuesday and is now lame. Pulled the nail on Tuesday and on Wednesday gave her a tetanus and antibiotic shot. She still is on antibiotics. Hope she feels better soon. Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day scrubbing her hoof, drying the hoof, soaking the hoof, and then wrapping the hoof. For one hoof, it sure took up a lot of time!

So after a busy day I got in bed. Then as my eyes closed and I felt myself drifting into a blissful state, the bed started shaking. At first I thought it was Yogi, the dachshund, scratching either in or under my bed. That alarmed me because I knew I’d shut the door to my bedroom so he couldn’t have been in there. Got out of bed, looked outside, yes the wind was howling and blowing but it’s never shaken the house like that before. Went downstairs to see if Garrison had loaded the washing machine for some reason at that time of night, but no clothes were spinning. Then my oldest son called wanting to know if we’d just felt an earthquake because he felt it at his house, too.

Sure enough, a 5.6 registered near Sparks, OK. I’m surprised we felt it so distinctly this far east and through so much rock.

On other writerly news, my author friend K.D. McCrite tipped me off to a write-up about our Friday Fictioneers over at Bar JD Communication:

http://www.barjdcommunications.com/blog/fictioneers-are-swept-up-in-tales-tall-true-or-tantalizing/

It’s an awesome tribute to the benefits we’re seeing from our fun on Fridays. I hope you’ll read it and comment, and if you haven’t already joined us, please do!

#teasertuesday – Flash #2, thank God no picture

It’s 11 pm here, but I think for some reason my blog thinks it’s midnight now, so my teaser might not show up on Tuesday for that reason.

This week’s teaser could almost be considered horrific. It’s from a scene that doesn’t have a home yet.

Sometimes I’ll get an idea for a scene out of sequence with whatever else I’m working on, and this is one of those kinds.

I’m not posting it here on this page because I know some people will be sensitive to its content (I know, it’s only a 100 words, how bad could it get?). If you love kittens or probably baby animals in general, you might find it disturbing. So if you read it, you’ve been warned… click here to see this week’s 100 word flash teaser.

After this, every week’s teaser is going to be added to the page titled 100 Word Flash Teasers. That will make it easier to find them if you’re wanting to read them all. If you want to post one to my page, too, send it to me and I’ll put it up there with your byline.

Almost no post

If I get a chance to do a #teasertuesday post today, it’ll be later and then only if on my drive home I get some flash fiction inspiration.

Did any of you get one posted? I forgot to Tweet about it this morning too, and haven’t had a chance to check the hashtag to see if there’s any to be read.

Heading over to the #teasertuesday list now to check and RT any that are there.

Flash fiction #teasertuesday

Today’s teaser is in response to yesterday’s blog post over at Strangling my Muse. I reblogged it yesterday here. 100 words was my target for a flash fiction using Sandy’s picture prompt for inspiration.

 Ava hugged herself and faced the moon as it rose over the rugged peaks. She should have grabbed her cloak, but when she woke and noticed the moonlight streaming, she didn’t think of the cold. How much longer? More than a whole year had passed and still no word. Maybe the pass was blocked. Water lapped the shore a little harder than a calm night should cause . Shadows cast by the mountains stretched across the lake, blocking her view. Music to her ears, she heard the sound of wood drawing over hull and knew he’d pulled in the paddle.

Visual Inspiration—Photo Prompt #20 (via Strangling My Muse)

For today’s post, I’m going to reblog this photo and see if anyone else wants to come up with a super short story about it. I’ll post mine as tomorrow’s #teasertuesday… I am setting 100 words as the target. If you do it, post a link to yours over on Sandy’s comment section by following the ‘read more’ link here to go to her website.

Let this image engage your muse. Write a paragraph, a short story, a poem, a memory, a journal entry…or whatever you feel inspired to create. And share your creations in the comments if you’d like! … Read More

via Strangling My Muse

Daily blog posts

It may be my imagination, but beginning on the last day of November, which marked the first month I’d ever made daily posts for an entire month, I received more visits to my blog than ever before on an ordinary day.

I’m not talking thousands of hits. An ordinary day lately had been 10 -20. Then the counts doubled with no effort, and sustained for three days now, though, and that’s what seems significant. (Pathetic figures, I know, hahaha, but at least manageable to study while I’m not doing more important things.)

Sometimes I get more visits when I’m pushing a post via Twitter, but yesterday and the day before were ordinary days and the daily post wasn’t even spectacular.

Maybe there’s something to the daily effort. Combined with the keywords in the title and tags, I might have stumbled upon a good mix.

Or was something going on yesterday or Tuesday I didn’t know about? Other than a #teasertuesday I didn’t get to participate in, I mean…

#teasertuesday – last snippet from The Calling

This will be the last teaser from this WIP, since this last snippet will mean I’ve posted about a chapter or so of it already. Next week will be from something new.

Tonight I’m heading out of town, so the posts from this point until Sunday’s will all be pre-scheduled and it might seem like I’ve dropped off the earth for a little while again.

The look in her eyes was worried, and the smile was gone.

                “What is it?” I asked.

                “The sleeper. He’s waking.”

            It was as if she’d suddenly reverted to wild, and her edgy behavior gave me pause.

            “Who is this ‘sleeper’? You’ve mentioned him before,” I said.

            “When all else fails, he will wake. Our cries – oh Mother of All, it must have been our cries. Our blood must have reached his depth.” She shook her head slowly side to side and moaned. “It was not our wish to wake him.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The sleeper wakens,” she said, then moaned again.

            “But what IS the sleeper?”

            “This is bad, very bad,” she said from between fingers pressed to her face. Her color faded in places as she de-materialized before me. I grabbed her arm, knowing it wouldn’t do any good if she dissipated, but that knowing didn’t stop the reflex.

            “Dammit – tell me what’s going on. Tell me now!”

She looked at me with despair, lips a thin line across her face, but her hair still floated in static repel, hovering around her head in an auburn glow.

            “The seed you carry is the last hope for your kind now. Blood from the offspring of the tree of life will cause him to sleep again.”

I clutched my belly. Never. No way I’d let harm come to this child. Whatever kind of child it turned out to be.

Another short #teasertuesday from WIP #2

This picks up from where the last part left off, in the logged area that was once a great forest:

              She put the acorn back down, nestled it under some leaves and pressed her hand to the ground. It was still moist from a rain two days earlier.

                “Feel this,” she said. When she looked up at me, the smile she wore was strained.  I noticed the waver of her lips as I crouched beside her and placed my hand upon the earth.

                “What am I feeling for?”

                “A heartbeat.” She put her hand over mine and splayed my fingers a little more while pressing firmly downward. “Now?”

                I did feel something. As I focused on the sensation, more of a sound than a feeling, it became stronger.

                “Yes, I feel it,” I said. She nodded.

                “Now, feel deeper.”

                I closed my eyes and sought deeper for more. Beyond the leaf mold, beneath the deepest roots and even deeper still my thoughts envisioned the deepest roots of the oldest oaks in the forest that once stood in this place. Much deeper than that. Close to the inner heat, I felt another, stronger and more regular rhythm. When I opened my eyes, she nodded, acknowledging what she already knew was there.

                “That is the heartbeat of the Earth,” she said. “Now feel again, not quite so far.”

It didn’t take so long to reach the one I felt next. This one was unsteady, slow for the most part but racing and then returning to baseline, so slow as to be almost undetectable without knowing it was there. It didn’t feel right and when I opened my eyes again, she was watching. The look in her eyes was worried, wild and the smile was gone.

                “What is it?” I asked.

                “The sleeper. He’s waking.”

#teasertuesday

Today’s #teasertuesday, but I can’t get on Twitter to see if anyone has anything posted. Maybe later tonight it will let me on. And maybe by then, I’ll have something to post, too, haha.