Here we go again!
This is posting number 212.
These weeks come and go in what seems to be a good seven days.
There are some things that I miss as they aren’t done anymore. (Having a life, being bothered and reasons for living have always been debatable so I am ignoring them!)
Continue reading “Week 212 – Questionable Stains, Underlying Secrets And Drinking Chemicals”
The scene is set on the top floor of an old greystone apartment in Chicago’s North Side, the windows of which look out to a black Lake Michigan. Two plates sit on a pub table. One is cleaned and on the other half a pasta portion remains. The diners have taken the wine to the couch, where they are presently reposed; John with his feet up on the coffee table, Lauren with her legs across his lap, her head on a pillow on the far side. Sinatra plays faintly from a speaker, about the same volume as the crackling fire across them. John reads and Lauren thinks. But then….
Well now here’s a favourite – Leila has been hi-jacked by Nik’s wonderful character Stormcrow – I reckon he either sweet-talked her or knocked her over with a feather – anyway this is what she said.
Here we are at Week 211.
I have had a bit of inspiration on my topics for this post.
Instead of me spouting my usual inane shite, I do have some more technical aspects to discuss.
Continue reading “Week 211 – Second Person, Tense Picking And Unforgivable Lines.”
There is no such thing as mundane disbelief on the wretched, glittering streets of New Orleans. No doubt lives among the connoisseurs of gin and light. No hesitation hides behind distorted Mardi Gras masks, only creatures moving lithely through the crowd of wayward travelers. The city breathes in a cacophony of sound. Even the steel factory rattles distantly, like a drum beat. Yet, as Thomas O’Clery stood in the braking trolley car, inhaling the piss and bourbon stench of the city, he felt only a cold numbness. Neither the driverless carriages, or the preternatural weight of hot summer jazz, like a voodoo queen’s curse, could frighten or arouse him. Not anymore.
Continue reading “The Tale of Thomas O’Clery by Jessica Powers”
Lelia Allison reckons she has found a cure for melancholy of huge proportions with this story. This is what she said:
Continue reading “Literally Reruns – the Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine by Mitchell Toews”
Here we are at week 210.
I don’t know about anyone reading this but there is a tradition in Ayr that showcases all that is bad with writing. It is the weekly release of the local newspaper.
My promotional Facebook ad campaign is far from ready. An upside down, high resolution, Marlene Dietrich holding my self-published book awaits my intervention. I hesitate before choosing the rotate option or is it the flip? Marlene looks regal, confident in her fur coat. What would Marlene think of a book starting with:
She loved lemons and would squirt them on everything, their yellow rind reminding him of her sunshine. Lemons never tasted sweeter. Without her, his heart wouldn’t beat right.
The Mooney woman taught him how to do it. She was forbidden to be on the premises, but she called Alfie over one day when he was playing near the fence that bordered the lane. The call was a high fluttering whistle, dancing like a mountain stream. He had been building a den from old branches and bracken when he heard, and though he knew from whence came the sound, he was drawn there as though to a trove of sweets.
A small bird lands at the roadside, scuffing the hot dust, and she asks the tour guide what it is.
“Zebra finch,” he says. “They’re what you wanna see if you’re lost out here.”
Eilidh watches the bird dab at the earth with its orange beak.
“Must be water somewhere close,” the guide says. “They never stray far from it.”
“I wouldn’t either,” she says.
literally stories 