Busy Creating

We have launched a new writing group for Castlecroft, to find other word-addicts in the locality and share ideas.  It is so exciting! I'm Chair <preens> and Em is the secretary, organising online presence and all the clever stuff.  T'will be brill.

Follow us on twitter @CastlecroftWrit

and if you're local, come on by.*









*there is sure to be cake, maybe even port. 

Wild Bytes Cafe Experience

Today my fellow local writer Emma Finlayson-Palmer and I trekked into the big city (Wolverhampton) to visit Wild Bytes café and see our work in the Black Country Writers project.

We were too early though...so wound up visiting Nero's for a caffeine fix while we waited.
It did not start well.  The assistant dropped my chocolate twist (the last one) and Emma's choice of red velvet cake was bizarrely still defrosting. (at 10.15am? Really?!)

We scored a good table; in the window.  The baby got to work demolishing my chocolate muffin.  Emma noticed there wasn't a spoon to be seen... so we improvised with a straw.  Which filled up with hot tea and burned Emma's leg.

Next, baby decided he was thirsty so I pulled out his sippy cup.  While chatting away, I flipped the lid...which spurted a waterfall of cold water straight into my contact lenses and up the window.  It amused the hell out of the morning clientele.  Soaking wet, I dried off on the inside of the baby's hood.

At last Wild Bytes opened and we wandered in...ready to drink yet more coffee.
The welcome was warm and the coffee was hot.  We read the excellent stories and poetry as baby head-butted Emma and tried to steal her pin badge.

It's a great café with a huge menu. Baby beat Emma with his shoe while I admired the art.
Hooray for encouraging local creativity.  Meant a lot that they were very child-friendly too.

check out @WildBytesCafe or https://www.facebook.com/WildBytesCafeAndLounge?fref=ts

and follow @FinlaysonPalmer as well as @Viking_Ma

Short Story of The Week - Express and Star

My story 'The Walkers'  got chosen this week!
Here it is:

 

The Walkers by Carolyn Ward

There were nine members of the Wild Walkers club.  They met twice a week in the Musty Armpit’s car park, dressed up in the latest walking gear.  Hi-tech boots, waterproof Therm-A-Down coats, Kill-Chill sharkskin gloves, Merino wool socks, whatever was recommended by the walking websites.

For the bored retirees, the walks were the highlight of their week.  Martha, Hilda, Bob and Gerry were eager twitchers, looking out for anything feathered: raptors, lesser-spotted woodpeckers, greater crested warblers and the like.  Marina was a squirrel fanatic, who carefully tally-charted every sight of the cheeky grey creature.  The fact that she had never seen a wild red made her moody and jealous of her squirreling pen pal, Scottish Lisa.

Bethan, Victor and Oskar came as they particularly loved the botany of the local hedgerows.  Bethan walked at the back, quietly and illegally picking any rare flowers Victor had admiringly pointed out.  He would be flattered, possibly alarmed by the fact that she adored him so much that she pressed them all in a huge secret tome worshipping him as her ‘God of Flora.’

Oskar made up the third point of the flower-lovers’ triangle, admiring Bethan enormously but far too shy to ever meet her eyes, let alone ask her round for a small sherry.

The newest member of the gang was Pete Rowd.  He was tall, and heavily built.  His wife had forced him into the walking club by working in cahoots with his doctor, worried that he was ripe for a heart attack.  Initially scornful, to his surprise and his wife’s delight, Pete had actually enjoyed his first walk.  He had chatted to Oskar about weed killer, and Hilda about the pigeons in the town centre. 

Not an admirer of beautiful Mother Nature, Pete adopted the role of joker, talking and laughing uproariously at his own jokes.  The rest of the group started to become a little irritated, as his ruckus frightened the birds and animals away.

Martha and Gerry were particularly peeved.  That very morning they had both received an e-mail from Twitching.net to say that a pair of rare Whinchats were in the south Midlands area, spottable over waterways.  Thrilled, they had been texting since the break of dawn, planning what kind of binocular and camera lens to select for today’s walk, which was following the canal tow-path.  Since setting out, however, Pete had kept up such a boorish monotone about his timeshare in Marbella, that there was not even a crow within five miles.

‘It’s too bad!’ said Gerry.  ‘That idiot wants shutting up.’

Martha pursed her thin lips and nodded. ‘Who let him join, for heaven’s sake?’

The walk meandered around the nature valley, with all interesting wildlife frightened into the next county by Pete and his rubbish jokes.

‘I say,’ hissed Victor, frowning.  ‘Can’t you hush it down, old fellow?’

Pete pointed at him and laughed.

‘I’m here to make you all have a good time! He boomed.  What a load of miserable old farts you were before I joined this group!’

Mouths dropped open and foreheads creased into scowls.

Oskar smiled coldly, and grabbed a few arms towards the back of the group.  ‘Don’t worry, folks,’ he whispered.  ’I still have some tools of the trade,’ he looked at their faces one by one. ‘If you’ll help me, we can sort him.’

They nodded grimly.

Reaching the car park again, most of them declined their usual pint and packet of crisps, so eager were they to say goodbye to Pete.

‘Next time, then, gang,’ he roared, jauntily waving and marching into the pub.

The days that followed were wet and rainy, perfect conditions for the Whinchats.  The twitchers of the group rubbed their hands.  The next walk was planned to circuit the lake behind the pub, where there were a big group of herons, and often fat fish squirming in the muddy water.

The morning of the walk dawned fine, and again they met in the car park.  Oskar winked at the others, and they grinned conspiratorially.

Pete was last to arrive, annoyingly holding them all up, and clapping his hands together noisily. ’Great day for it!’ he yelled across to them as he locked his Rover.

Oskar checked his pocket for the hundredth time, ensuring that he had everything.

Off they set, taking in the sights and breathing deeply of the sweet country air.

‘Smells of dog poo!’ howled Pete, setting everyone’s teeth on edge.

They reached a shady copse, and Oskar checked there was nobody else around, before snarling ‘Now!’ from between clenched teeth.

In a whirl of crunching leaves, they were all around Pete, pushing him to the floor on his back.  They knelt on his shoulders and sat on his legs, holding him prone for Oskar.

‘Eh? What the hell’s this!’ he blustered, alarmed now.

‘You make so much ruddy noise that you scare the birds away!’  In frustration, Gerry grabbed a handful of mud and shoved it into Pete’s gaping mouth.  He coughed and spluttered, his eyes watering.

‘And my squirrels! I’ve not seen a one since you joined!’ said Marina, kicking him in the ribs.

‘Hold still please,’ said Oskar cheerfully, whipping out a strange silver implement.  In a trice he had slipped it into Pete’s throat, and he began moving it gently from side to side.

Pete gave out a gurgled scream, his big eyes open wide and bulging in horror.

‘Hang on now,’ said Oskar, giving a deft twist of his dainty wrist. ‘There we go, all done.’

‘Oh well done, Oskar dear,’ said Martha admiringly, as Bob and Gerry patted him on the back.  Marina giggled. ‘Great work. Just as good as before your cataract!’

Pete sat up slowly, clutching his throat and gargling.  He spat a few globs of blood and saliva into the mud, and then, shakily got to his feet.

‘Well!’ he wheezed. ‘What…’ he turned purple with astonishment as his mouth gasped like a goldfish but his voice faded away to nothing.  His meaty hand rose slowly to his throat, where he stroked it gently.

‘A complete success,’ declared Oskar proudly.  ‘The procedure was never legal in England, but we used it a lot in my country.  Severing of the vocal chords.’  He nodded.  ‘Rendering noisy people completely silent.’

Martha and Gerry began scanning the sky with their binoculars, as Bob pointed over the lake.  Bethan followed Oskar and Victor toward a patch of unusual purple flowers, admiring their bright colour against the damp green.  There was so much to see in the beautiful Midlands’ countryside, and what better way to enjoy it than on a lovely walk with friends.

Suddenly, Martha let out a low whistle.

‘Look everyone!’ she whispered. ’It’s the Whinchats!  Do you see them Pete?’

They all looked back at him.  He nodded, miserably.

 

This story has changed and changed again.  My sweet little mother wanted there to be an entirely different ending... which I will put on here soon.

JUMP! Magazine

Brilliant Lynn Schreiber at JUMP! Magazine has sorted out the writing team's pages, and here is mine <proud face>

http://jumpmag.co.uk/author/carolyn-ward/

I wrote a series of short articles about psychology for kids, and also a set of 'Stories from the Stables' about my escapades as a stable hand in the 1990s.

Lynn is always on the look out for interesting articles for JUMP! so have a browse of this excellent magazine and maybe have a go?


So.... a short story in a café...6th place in a December 2014 competition <Creative Ink>...2nd place in January for 99 words...now my work listed on JUMP! magazine.  I actually feel like a 'Writer' now!

99 words reserve for January 2015

Yes! Got reserve (2nd place) for 99fiction's monthly competition for January 2015.

I had the idea for a while of a story of people being trafficked, full of hope and then that awful realisation that they are not where they paid to be.

It's a desperately sad world, sometimes.


However, what really gets me about 99 words is the differing interpretations.  99 words read by different minds can give wildly alternative conclusions!
My mum thought the protagonist had murdered her father for the money...
My sister thought she was a criminal literally arriving in hell with the real devil.
I love a little ambiguity in writing.

Here is 'Hope'

Hope by Carolyn Ward

She sat quietly, wringing her hands.  The others were asleep, some snoring.  She felt for her hair with cautious fingers, and patted the blonde strands neatly back into the chignon.  Her family would be so proud that she was here!  It was so exciting.  An escape, a fresh start.  She thought anxiously of the huge fee, and was so grateful to her dear father for scraping together the funds.  Suddenly the van’s doors creaked open.  A torch flickered over their faces.  In a Yankees cap, the Devil himself yelled at her.  ‘Bitch, get here now!’
Make friends with Carolyn http://99fiction.net/profile/CarolynWard

Upcoming

Ideas...
a new project with my writer-down-the-road Emma Finlayson-Palmer could be coming soon.

Half term is a great week for taking the kids out and about and looking for weird things that inspire.
Fun writing rude poems with my niece too... ''Now write one about poo!''

It's February

Am currently in the writer's no-man's land of waiting.

Waiting on several competitions being judged... and a few BIG bits away at agents.

It gets to a point where you just need to know if it's a yes or no so you can move forward!


Anyhoo, am up to 22k on second novel; it is a bit of a 'first person' experiment.