| |
Dec 03
Or, to name this post more accurately, ‘the edit as it will stand until I get the courage to scrap most of what I’ve written and do the show, not tell version…!!’
I have a bit of a story arc, a start and a conclusion, a nod towards what the prompt was. I have different characters and a background to most of them properly worked out. But…
Anyway, I’ll let you read it and see what you think. I know what needs changed and why I don’t like it, and that’s the main thing. There are still over 2,500 words that have been put down within a week on the same topic. This is awesome practice and a learning experience…and that is why I’m here. 😉
Thanks very much for the prompt, Sandy!!
The link below should take you to the PDF. See you tomorrow for the beginning of a new story!
Scary Visions in full
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Dec 01
Hello!
Again, today’s piece seems a little disjointed, but I am still skirting around the same subject and main character…
Tomorrow (Saturday) I am off out with Hubby for the day as part of my imminent birthday, leaving the kids at my parents’. I am hoping to thrash out the plot properly when we sit and write a little in a coffee shop as we like to do sometimes! I probably won’t get much time to write after I come back and get the kids settled etc tomorrow, but I will try my hardest to get a full an edited story up on the blog by the end of Sunday 😉
This challenge is not running as smoothly as I thought it would, but it is really making me think while examining my creative process, which is very useful as well as fascinating!
Her fingernails were ridiculously tiny, and scrabbled so urgently on Marilyn’s skin in the night, that it made anxiety spike. Would the baby be this frantic if Marilyn was fulfilling all her needs?
Would she not be content to lie away from her mother, in that contraption ‘the expectant couple’ built together (through a hail of crossed words, stopping once for Marilyn’s tears, and many times for declarations that the manufacturers were sadistic jokers)? It attached to the bed now. It had been set to the right height. Marilyn could still reach her arm over and offer a finger to hold or arm to caress…but the baby was not impressed.
The baby needed all of her mother. Not just the breast and the milk and the promise of clean clothes and nappies – the baby needed to be enveloped in her mother’s scent, peek under clothes; small digits in every fold of skin around an armpit. Tapping in a random sequence.
Those waving little arms when she did sleep were hoping to make contact with a warm patch of skin that was not her own, but still an extension of her. An anchor to the familiar, an assurance that all was well.
Those deep blue eyes saw things differently, could give Marilyn clarity if only she would take the time to look. In that young soul lay reality in all its permutations…but that was frightening, and Marilyn did not have the strength to face it all alone.
(246 words)
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Nov 30
HI 🙂
Woohoo! The last day of November!! It’s finally vamoosing for another year 😉
Youngest is also 4 years and 8 months old today…a tad close to school age for my liking. Why can’t I wish time away for the things I detest, but at the same time savour the things I love…?! *contemplates app ideas*
I was hit by some inspiration, I think I have a slight inkling where this story may go. Another character has appeared, and is conversing with Marylin; while being a bit rude. Always a good sign…
From yesterday, I liked:
Healthy plants did not festoon Marylin’s windowsills, no roses peeped in at her doors.
The family cat preferred to dine at the neighbours’ and the coffee mornings she hosted never seemed to get past the stilted stage.
One never knew how much was enough…when one’s spotlight was truly at rest.
Or when a critical review might ruin one’s whole week.
So I launched into today’s writing slot with:
“How far are you hoping to run with ol’ Shakespeare, then? He’s ancient, you know – he hasn’t got much mileage left”
“What…?”
“Your musings. You’re depressing me”
Marylin shifted in her seat, a little embarrassed that she’d actually articulated her thoughts. What would Suzy know about the trials of motherhood – in her kitten heels, on a freaking Tuesday?
Plus, Marylin had made a choice, hadn’t she? Better to suck it up and lie. That was what they expected, anyway, these non-kid-infested people.
It’s what Marylin had expected…
- Don’t gush unless I let you.
- Don’t show more than 3 pictures per outing.
- Don’t complain unless I do. (Oh, and you plan to go straight back to work. Like, in 3 days or something. Because that’s being a proper member of society, who contributes)
- Don’t make me feel like my taxes are paying for you to live.
- Don’t even suggest that your husband might be able to pay for your upkeep for more than a day or two. (Cos that makes you lucky and different and therefore cancels out your RIGHT to complain ever.)
- Don’t wear frumpy clothes.
- Don’t make out you are more tired than me…
Because then we’ll get in a big competition mode where I’ll make you feel incensed (without permission to vent here because I won’t understand anyway…)
(220 words)
See? That flowed better, as shown in the word count for the 20 minute stretch.
The well is sending me up a bucket or two…
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Nov 29
Hey there 🙂
How are we at Wednesday already?! Wrote this pretty late tonight as Youngest has been off all day with more rashy type stuff, and Hubby has been at work…so I’ve done less walking than a full school/nursery run, but more than I have since Friday (and pushing a grumpy 4.5 year old in a buggy the whole time) because the kids were off ill on Monday, too! Gotta love the winter viruses: you just think they’re better and some other random symptom pops up…
I think my subconscious has been whipping up wisps, rather than going at this week’s story in a linear fashion, so I reckon a lot of what I have written since Monday will be scrapped, or at the very least rehashed into the story I finish with. I like the character name I have (which Hubby gave me when I was struggling in the last few seconds of Monday’s scribblefest!) but I have lots of swirly ideas and plots in my skull…
I am trying to trust the process, it’s all part of growing into the writer I was born to be. She doesn’t like rules very much, it would seem 😛
Marylin often thought back to how her mother scolded her, realising now the fears the older woman was trying to supress. Hearing in the echoes of motherly admonishment the harsh truths that were being battled against, Marylin felt ashamed of her flippant remarks, or (worse) outright defiance. She could not remember her mother having many friends that stopped by, and certainly none she could definitely rely on, to leave her precious charge with. 
Maternity was bound up in fragrant sheets, gingham aprons and well-scrubbed pans of comforting food, in Marylin’s mind. It was an ideal she aspired to, but was always struggling to attain. There was never the right odour to her bedclothes, and her kitchen did not shimmer in the morning sun. Healthy plants did not festoon Marylin’s windows, no roses peeped in at her doors.
The family cat preferred to dine at the neighbours’ and the coffee mornings she hosted never seemed to get past the stilted stage. One never knew how much was enough, when one’s spotlight was truly at rest.
Or when a critical review might ruin one’s whole week…
(184 words)
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Nov 28
Hello 🙂
Hubby took Youngest on the nursery woodwalk today, and I wandered home – after waving Eldest into his classroom and being let into the nursery quickly, even though the bell had rung, so I could hug Youngest goodbye a second time 😉
The sun was out, cheering yet blinding at its late November height. I was thinking of my story, and about who would be most prone to scary visions or nightmares. Write what you know came into my head.
I do think in disastrous newspaper headlines a lot.
I got home, and folded clothes watching a Miss Marple episode on YouTube that had the fierce protective streak of mothers as one of the central themes. Later, when eating lunch with Hubby, these statistics about the mental health of women after having children were featured on the news.
The universe had spoken…
From the other side, motherhood was more frightening than any dream. One grew cloven feet just trying to sort out laundry; familiar landscapes could all at once become claustrophobic and fraught with danger.
Sometimes there was no safehouse, others everything seemed so perfect one entertained the nagging feeling a door would burst open and the grim reaper himself appear; to cut down all those one cared about with abandon.
But one survivor, alone to bear the sole responsibility of remorse and memory – a bereft mother sifting through happy faces in a merry-go-round of pain, trying to see which sign she missed. Confirm that their fate was indeed her fault.
Yet all this morbid musing must be pushed aside! A long succession of joy built up; cherished, carefully planned and implemented. They must not know how double-edged a mother’s love can be. They must not guess how many hours she sat there praying that she may trade [her] longevity for their continued happiness.
This is too great a burden, too onerous a knowledge to impart.
(173 words)
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Nov 27
Hello 🙂
I have a new title and theme, provided by Sandy!
*Monty does a happy dance*
Ideas about what I could do with “Scary Visions” and ‘Nightmares’ have been crowding my head for a day and a half now, but I have no concrete plan as yet!
I just set the timer and wrote for 20 minutes, and this is what I came up with:
She was trying to cool her coffee, but the fire came back again. Her gums ripped with the expanding fangs, and her black shoes changed into hooves.
There was no longer a café; the beverage had begun to stink of copper. Somewhere, a woman screamed…about toast going cold. It was urgent: chilled toast was outlawed in the kingdom of Breaking Fasts.
(What?)
Yes! There was to be a meeting at the town hall, because apparently someone had found schoolbags growing legs and skulking under furniture; awaiting their chance to bite unsuspecting ankles and spit impossible homework across freshly cleaned floors.
As she looked down at her hands, she realised they had also metamorphosised into giant claws that dropped balls at every opportunity because they never learned about discipline. The only thing they were good for now was painting with stolen varnish in a fetching shade of…
“So have you READ it?”
“What…?”
“The part of my contract that says I have to put up with your slovenly ways and sense of entitlement! Why the devil do I bother?!”
“No idea…” said Marilyn, stumbling out of bed and away from her mother’s wrath.
(192 words)
Nope, still no real clue…
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
|
|
Recent Comments