I’ve been nominated for this challenge a couple of times before so this time I’m going to have to bend the rules a little. I thought I’d share with you the first few opening lines of my WIP Prologue for my Crystal Cottage manuscript. By the way the title of the novel is still to be decided upon so more about that to come…… I started off with the intention of calling it The Crystal Cottage, but now I’m not so sure, I have other more exotic ideas buzzing around in my head!!
Here goes, a snippet of the Prologue:
Few smell the roses, and myrtle, or hear the distant cooing of doves. They cannot see the splendour of what lies below, as they walk on unaware, taking the muddy river pathway or walking by the meadow, they sense nothing, hear nothing, lost in their own footsteps. Others cast a shadow as they stand, longing for a welcome but never finding it. The chosen few hear silent whispers in the breeze, the trickle of water, and the vibrations of the earth below their feet. The cracks, and loosened stones are like a puzzle, a challenge, which shifts and changes with each passing day. Lingering because they cannot bear to pass by; they long to discover the nature of the hidden secret that awaits them.
I hope you enjoyed! I won’t be tagging individual people again. So I hope that’s okay Annika !
If anyone would like to share in this challenge please do feel free to join in. The more the merrier….
The Rules of the Challenge:
The 777 Challenge involves going to page 7 of your WIP, scrolling down to line 7 and from there share the next 7 sentences in a blog post. After that please tag 7 other bloggers to do the same with their WIP.
Well I’ve been nominated to do an unusual challenge from Colleen over at Silver Threading.
I’m not one for reading the rules too well, so I’ve just stumbled upon no. (3.) Do the challenge within 24 hours, EEK!!!! Anyway, why not? I’ll have a go. I’ve got a feeling that this will be a useful exercise, and I reckon that the end result might be ridiculous. But that’s okay I like ridiculous, so with that in mind I think I’ll just make it a monster story. Oh dear monster has an E in it, so does just about every other word too. Quick re-think? Me thinks. Giant perhaps? Yes Giant works.
Well starting this and my computer’s got other ideas it keeps on over heating. I reckon my husband has cast a spell on it, he gets a bit fed up when I spend too much time blogging! UGH!!!!
Here are the Rules: (Courtesy of Colleen at Silver Threading)
1) Write a whole paragraph (A WHOLE PARAGRAPH??) without any words containing the letter “e” (still easy?)
2) By reading this, you are already signed up.
3) Challenge at least five bloggers to do the challenge. They must do it within 24 hours or it is considered as failure.
4) If you fail or pass, suffer in the Page of Lame.
5) If you win, wallow in the Page of Fame.
My effort:
GRIT A GIANT QUANDARY
Grit A Giant only had a passion for words. Nothing could rock him. Only words. His passion for a,b,c,d.
“Oops what’s a wrong?” his giant pal Frank would say.
“I can’t find a way to go past D.”
His giant pal saw his chin drop as Grit had a hasty gulp, and a swallow.
Frank did a crack out grin. “How about a work past it pal, try a frightful F?”
“F stands for fail and I don’t want to, I’m grit, I’m in this until I crush that …..oh, I can’t say that word.”
His pal pat him on his back. It was all too much. Grit’s crying was not Giant protocol.
Grit would fizz and his brain would fog on its way past d. It was no good. What a bum job. How could Grit A Grizzly Giant show a chink of pitiful?
His rivals would find it so tantilising to taunt him.
This is what a rival bunch of giants would say, “Such a choking bumbling fool of a giant, Grit’s such a stupid git.”
Grit’s soul was bust.
That fifth word would always haunt him. Poor Old Grit. A giant fan of Sci-fi but no split infinity would cross his lips you know which s.i. I’m thinking of.
So his pal said, “Why don’t you a grab and shout out an X for that a word you can’t say?”
Grit found a grin in hiding, put it on, and said, “to boldly go whxrx no man has gonx bxforx.”
Grit was a happy, grinning giant. Still a git, but that’s not this story. All his Xmas’s had found a way to roll in right now!
Julia of My Red Page kindly linked me into a Free style Writing Challenge from mary tyas who has a very interesting blog about Bali: http://baliinfoblog.com/
My prompt from Julia is What Does Make You Smile, strangely enough I didn’t really focus on what makes you smile, I kind of looked beneath the layers of the smile to see something else. But that’s me always trying to complicate things and make them darker. I do like to contrast the lighter qualities of life with dark hidden meanings and it shows in some but not all of my writing.
But so that I don’t sound like a miserable git, here are some of the things that make me smile:
I looked out of my window today and I saw a squirrel whizzing across a fence, followed by a black cat doing acrobatics on a separate section of fencing. These kind of animal antics are quite common in our garden as we live by the country park. Our house is surrounded by trees and we often hear birds singing, their sweet birdsong is a delight. Unless it’s at the crack of dawn and then it’s not so welcome!
Unfortunately at night time the bats come out and they scare the living daylights out of me, as soon as I see a bat, I scream and run into the house and hide. So bats definitely don’t make me smile!
More things that make me happy, well I received two postcards from my daughter’s school saying she’s doing well in Science and English, that definitely made me break out into a smile. I text my eldest daughter on Saturday morning to see if she managed to get some sleep last night in her campus accommodation, (she had her exam on Saturday) and she replied, yes apart from someone maniacally laughing in the middle of the night. Maybe the maniac had an exam too!
Tasty food makes my lips form a greedy grin. I love to see the sun shine, children play, hear laughter, and see friends smile. I love to splash about in the water, especially on a hot, sunny day, that makes me grin insanely, because I’m a true water baby. I like to see my cactus form tiny buds of flowers, or my orchids bloom, that plants a happy smile on my face too. So lots of things make me smile but it is the simplest events that really make me smile, and then that smile can easily navigate its way to my eyes. Eyes smile much more than lips ever do. So yes, every moment can be a precious memory…..
So here’s my short snippet, which I have entitled: The Hurt Behind The Smile.
Timer set…READY…STEADY…WRITE:)
Wow, this is hard I’m not used to writing in a short timescale but here goes.
My topic is… WHAT DOES MAKE YOU SMILE?
(YOUR NEW TOPIC IS AT THE END OF THIS POST)
Title: The Hurt Behind The Smile
A smile, the simplest form of human expression but don’t let it fool you. Alana appeared happy but was she really? Was this an illusion to confuse you? Her lips formed a smile, but her face suggested pain and hurt. Louise’s smile began with her eyes. The secret of a true smile, the eyes cannot deceive. They say the eyes are a mirror to the soul and I guess it’s true. Louise’s eyes shone like twinkling diamonds of true forgiveness, whereas Alice’s still held sharp shards of pain. So next time you smile remember this tale and smile like you really mean it with your whole heart and soul, don’t leave anything behind, because it isn’t what makes you smile that really matters it’s the sentiments buried deep in your heart that will shine through.
1. Set a stop watch or your mobile to 5 minutes or 10 minutes whichever challenge you think you can beat.
2. Your topic is at the foot of this post BUT DO NOT SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IT UNTIL YOU ARE READY WITH A TIMER.
3. Fill the word doc with as many words as you want. Once you began writing do not stop even to turn.
4. Do not cheat by going back and correcting spellings and grammar with spell check in MS WORD (it is only meant for you to reflect on your own control of sensible thought flow and for you to reflect on your ability to write the right spelling and stick to grammar rules)
5. You may or may not pay attention to punctuation and capitals. However, if you do, it would be best.
6. At the end of your post write down ‘Word count =_____’ so that we would have an idea of how much you can write within the time frame.
7. Do not forget to copy paste the entire passage on your blog post with a new Topic for your nominees and copy paste these rules with your nominations (at least 5 bloggers).
So it’s my pleasure to nominate the following bloggers (I got carried away and nominated rather a lot of you peeps hope you don’t mind.)
Debra at Words Across The Oceans: “Lover of poetry, books, music, art & exploring of life!” http://debradml.com/
Raeven Wright. Raevenly Writes. A little about the process of writing, a lot about my adventures in self-publishing via blogs, and occasionally, some of my actual writing: https://raevenlywrites.wordpress.com/
Colleen at Silver Threading. Writer, Poet, Book Reviewer. Join Me, as I Look Back, Look Forward, Look Around, and Look Within: http://silverthreading.com/
