All posts tagged: prompt

October Speculative Fiction Prompt

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Well September is over and October is here in full force. Leaves are on the turn, England has turned grey and rainy (well even more so than usually) and everywhere you look people are prepping for Halloween (or in some cases Christmas). This is the second month that I’ve had the honour of hosting the Speculative Fiction Prompt  and hopefully this month’s image inspires as much as last month’s. If you want to read the stories for last month then you can check them out at the September Speculative Fiction Prompt. The guidelines for those of you who are new are as follows: Speculative Fiction: a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements. [Oxford Dictionary] Use the image below to write a story, poem, perhaps even a script. There are no rules about form or style. If you would like to create a piece of art in response that is also welcome. This prompt is about being artistic and …

September Speculative Fiction Prompt

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Earlier this year a new speculative fiction prompt was kicked of by D Wallace Peach on her sight Myths Of The Mirror. Unfortunately she had to set this fantastic prompt aside due to personal matters after only a few months, despite the fantastic success and take up that it was met with. After asking for her blessing, I decided that I would pick up where she left off and host the prompt here on Writing and Works. It will follow much the same format, publishing on the 1st of each month, using imagery from Pixabay, and focusing on the speculative fiction genre. Speculative Fiction: a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements Oxford Dictionary Our September image is the one directly below. For any visually impaired writers, it is a black and white image showing a young woman with a septum piercing, wearing a scarf or hood which casts her face into shadow. Post your response to your site …

Lost: One Bench #Throwback Thursday

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‘How can you forget where you left it?’ Samantha demanded, shooting Michael a withering look before closing her eyes and counting to ten. In a moment she would let out a deep sighing breath and give Michael her best, why do you insist on embarrassing me stare before ordering another drink from the bar and forgetting the subject altogether. 1,2,3,4- ‘I mean really Michael!’ Michael blinked, confused as to where the last 6 seconds had gone and why she hadn’t ordered a large glass of red wine. She wasn’t following the natural order. ‘It’s a bench!’ Samantha spluttered. ‘You cannot misplace a bench! Especially not one of yours! They’re massive and made of wood. WOOD MICHAEL! WOOD!’ Everyone else in the pub had fallen silent now, the hum of conversation dying as all eyes turned to stare at the couple having the argument. Or rather, Samantha yelling at her bemused husband since Michael rarely said two words to anyone about anything. ‘I could understand a nail or two, perhaps even your level metre, but misplacing …

A Poem And A Blog Party All In One!

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Dream State Darkening “Slowly we slept into our fears” Ritwik Some nights the dreams slip past like minnow, dark and shadowy in the water. I am frozen, mud stuck and slow with limbs like old trophies bent, broken, scratched, the polish flaking like old paint till the wooden skeleton is left with all its pitted fragility, no more than a twig shivering in the storm. When I wake, I am still the scarecrow. Clothes tacked on in mockery of skin. Here I know the birds do not fear me. Instead they will come in flocks to peck at what is left when the last of me is withered and gone to dust. Some nights the dreams slip past like minnow, dark and shadowy in the water, and dawn is brought on by blinking, slow and succulent it bleeds through the glass, an orange splitting from its skin. In an echo of better days the dreams swim deeper, far enough that I can pretend to forget. These are the moments of peace between the nightmares. We’re …

Erosion

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I imagined that she was some great coastal cliff. Stone strong for thousands of years, but now the sea has managed to find a way between the cracks and it’s taking her apart in chunks. It doesn’t sound like a landslide though. She doesn’t shriek and splinter as pieces of her sheer away from herself. There’s only silence as another memory, another name, another face, slips beneath the waves and into darkness where it can’t be reached. There are still pieces of her left. Like fossils, preserved inside the depths of the cliff face. On days where it seems like everything has crumbled, they can find a way to the light. The willow withered its roots turned to dust and ash but it kindles still.  

NaPoWriMo – Day Three: SHEEP ARE VERY IMPORTANT!

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My Grandfather’s biography would be called ‘I’m sure a bit of string would fix it’. The cover held together with bailer twine splint ended and bright orange beside the tight, crisp pages of neatly suited companions, with their dapper dressed poses, and carefully choreographed covers.     It would be part of the collection. A Night Away For The Nile, Never Going Back To The Bog, Butchers Bike To Farmer’s Wife, Livestock Before Children. A Gate To The Face Or Three, Tales From The Garden Path. Down Drainpipes Up Ladders. Sheep Are Very Important! How To Escape The Country. How To Escape Back To The Country. Why Mad Families Are Worth It. Are You Really Going To Read This? SHEEP ARE VERY IMPORTANT!   It’s almost enough to fill a library. NaPoWriMo Prompt Day Three: A list poems about items with made up names.

Shoreline

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Barefoot I followed you across the shoreline. My feet shy of sharp things, I squinted in the darkness for warnings before edging my toes closer to the water not quite prepared for the bite brought about by the sunset three hours before when this had seemed like a good idea and I’d taken little convincing.   While you waded in hip height I lingered in the shallows tide around my ankles, cold fingers creeping up my calves and a knot in my stomach that wouldn’t let me go any deeper. When I asked you to drive me home, you didn’t ask why.   Daily Prompt: Dim  

Beneath The Geraniums

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The map had been tucked inside the cover of an old Beano annual and still smelt faintly of coffee. The kids, well they thought it was real and suddenly her borders were on the lawn and the geraniums were roots over leaves with the dog chipping in to help with the carnage. All for the sake of plastic lunchbox. ‘But mum! X marks the spot!’ She couldn’t argue. Not when she’d been the one twenty years beforehand, digging up the same borders and tossing out plants without a care for what her mother would say. The photo though… she must have forgotten she buried it. Strange that. ‘Who’s that?’ He’d hated photographs. Never wanted to stand still with the rest of them. ‘Mum, look.’ For this one he’d been sandwiched in place. Her on one side, her mother on the other. Bookends to stop him toppling over and out of the frame. ‘There’s another one. Hey, it’s Granny. Mum! Granny’s photo is in the buried treasure.’ He was smiling. She’d forgotten how he could smile, …

Love

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For the twenty-three year old with the widow’s peak, and freshly shaved cheeks, currently on the other side of the crack between office door and door jam, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. These are the moment when I am the most in love with you. That silly, childish quirkiness that tickles the grump out of my limbs and forces me to chuckle into folded arms, head down against the desk, aware that I should be writing but in all reality, I’m struggling to do so much as turn away from you. I flirted shamelessly for three years, until timings and courage were aligned enough that we ended up somewhere other than the shop you worked in and I, carrying something other than a so-called broken laptop, was trying to make sure that you realised that it was defiantly a date before somehow loosing my footing and almost falling straight on my arse. We’ve always found it easy to laugh. I come home to you, not the house or the things …

Lost In A Storm

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We sat alone and watched the rain, examined how is sliced diagonally past the windows and saw it exploding off the tarmac like flowers bursting open.   We did not see the other along the road, did not notice the other’s face behind a coat collar, or spare a glance for the blown out umbrella tossed into the gutter.   I do not think we would have liked each other much anyway.