Oh, Yawn, Yawn, Yawn

Posted on June 17, 2019 by crispina kemp

Image by Bryan Hermans on Google Maps

I am bored, said Tal-a-pus, and stretched and yawned and farted and grumped. Nothing to do but to watch people cavort in the calm rolling waves beneath me. Morning till night, night till dawn, day after day, year after year. Oh, yawn, yawn, yawn. Tal-a-pus grunted and scratched at his pits.

Then, one day, he had an idea.

Atop the mountain beside the calm sea, he created a fire. And into the fire he plonked plenty of rocks and waited till they glowed fiercely red.

Then he laughed and clapped. What fun to hurl the rocks into the sea, to hear them sizzle, to see the sea thrash. Such fun to turn the placid blue sea – oh yawn, yawn, yawn – into great heaving waves that played catch-me all day.

Word count: 129

Unfortunately, Google features no photos of waves playing catch-me.

An old Nehalem legend, retold; written for What Pegman Saw: Cape Disappointment, Washington State, USA

[see Claire Warner Churchill, Slave Wives of Nehalem, Metropolitan Press, Portland, OR, 1933. P. 32]

The Nehalem were part of the Tillamook tribe who traded along the Oregon Coast.

 

Posted in Mostly Micro | Tagged , | 24 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Big and Bold

Posted on June 16, 2019 by crispina kemp

Some wild flowers shout of their presence from a great distance.

Ox-eyed Daisies: 4th June 2019

The Poppy: 4th June 2019

Alas, this has been a week of almost continual rain. So the camera stayed in. These were taken the previous week

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 47 Comments

The Yellow Flag

Posted on June 15, 2019 by crispina kemp

I look at the list of titles Maria has given me for the #2019picoftheweek challenge. Which to use this week?

The Yellow Flag lost amid greenery: 4th June 2019

Pick a Colour

Though, is the colour green? Of which there are many shades here. Or is it yellow?

You might know the yellow flag under its other name. The iris.

For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia

Posted in Photos | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Whisper it Loudly

Posted on June 14, 2019 by crispina kemp

image by meinTal on pixabay

Wow! Good news! For the second time in my life, I’ve had a poem accepted for publication. Well, four actually.

Whispers and Echoes, an online journal celebrating short writing and poems, have accepted the four poems I submitted at the beginning of June. These will go out over the next few weeks; the first TODAY!!!

For Sophia

I discarded riches, discarded clothes
Discarded flesh from off my bones …

See Whispers and Echoes for the full poem

For Sophia was written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #103 *Vulnerable* and posted on crimsonprose 30th April 2019

Whispers and Echoes is chiefly edited by Sammi Cox, well-known and loved for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompts where she punishes us with impossible targets, and thus pushes us through the gates of inspiration.

Whispers and Echoes publish flash-fiction of up to 100 words, and poems up to 10 lines (excluding blanks); see here to submit.

Earlier issues of Whispers and Echoes can be seen on the Dreaming Spirit website.

BTW, that first poem I had accepted? It was in a publication called Motorcycle Mechanics. Yea, well, a 15-year-old girl, and such a macho magazine, my unsolicited poem was bound to be published (we were just into the Women’s Lib years)

Posted in On Writing, Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , , | 42 Comments

CCC#31: Blast me boy …

Posted on June 13, 2019 by crispina kemp

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #31

I made a boat
It stayed afloat
I sailed it up by Cromer way

But how to moor it, wondered I
When there isn’t a jetty anyplace nigh

I hauled it up that long pebbly beach
But, blast me boy, that’s a lesson to teach
If you haven’t a back like Terminator’s actor
Like everyone else, best use a tractor

Written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Photo taken at Cromer last year

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #31

Posted on June 12, 2019 by crispina kemp

CCC#31

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge | Tagged , , | 37 Comments

Camelot

Posted on June 11, 2019 by crispina kemp

Image by enrique lopez garre on pixabay (slightly altered by yours truly)

I dream, I dream of Camelot
Of summers when I had your love
Of days when with my knights I jested
Of nights when in my arms you rested

I dream, I dream of Camelot
And of the lady of Shallot
Of fays who from a lake did rise
Of you before you caught his eyes

I dream, I dream of Camelot
Before that demon Lancelot
Took and sullied my pure love
O how I dream of Camelot
Of Camelot, where this idyll lies

84 words

Written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt

Posted in Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

What Pegman Saw: My Destination

Posted on June 10, 2019 by crispina kemp

Photo by Jennifer Lim on Google Maps

Up early, a last double-check of the pack. Everything in, nothing forgotten?

The taxi toots. We bundle in. ‘Coach station please.’

Saturday, turnaround day, the holidaymakers go home.

The driver calls, ‘London Victoria.’ That’s ours.

The coach is crowded, multi-ethnic skins and loud London voices. They soon settle down.

Tightly squeezed through Suffolk towns, already congested when coaches used horses, the last pick-up done, and like a bird from a cage, the coach escapes onto the motorway.

Now we’re freewheeling, next stop London.

Soon after, we’re under that whopping circular flyover. We groan. Beyond here the chug-chug begins … past shop fronts bright with cheap clothes and sarees, past street-markets, synagogues and temples. Past Big Ben and Buck House until disgorged at ARRIVALS.

Packs reclaimed, we hurry across the road to DEPARTURES and check out the boards. For London is never our destination.

Wordcount 143

Written for What Pegman Saw: London

Posted in Mostly Micro, Thoughts | Tagged , , | 24 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Briar Rose and Elder Flower

Posted on June 9, 2019 by crispina kemp

Two flowering bushes of the byways …

Dog Rose

The dog rose: 4th June 2019

Nothing to do with dogs, of course. Dog, here, means common. Yet how can such a delicate beauty be called common?

Flowering in abundance: 4th June 2019

The elder in flower, and a promise of juicy berries to come: 4th June 2019

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 22 Comments

The Spinner’s Game (Asaric Tales) e-book Update #19

Posted on June 9, 2019 by crispina kemp

June: eighteen months into the project, and … to summarise:

Book One: The Spinner’s Child

Front matter and back cover blurb are still outstanding. Lauren has one more illustration to deliver.

Chapter Art

 

 

 

 

Otherwise, it’s ready to go.

Book Two: Lake of Dreams

Apart from front matter and back cover blurb, here’s another of the quint ready to go.

Bs 1 and 2 and 3 cpBook Three: The Pole That Threads

The third book too is merely in want of front matter and back blurb.

Book Four: Lady of First Making (working title Asaric Sons)

And I am pleased to report that all beta readers have now returned their completed questionnaires, with additional comments. Although there are no major changes required, attention is needed in the final chapter and in a few places prior to that. It’s now on hold until Book Five goes out to the beta readers.

Book Five: (working title Asaric Sins)

Last month I said I’d been looking at ways to improve this last book of the quint. I had made notes, replotted, cut, pasted and deleted—and left huge gaps. I am now midway through the rewrite. With seven weeks to go to my self-imposed deadline at the end of July, and the bulk of the new material written, I might just make it. So watch this space for my next call for beta readers.

The next e-book update will be … Sunday 7th July.

As ever, my thanks to my faithful beta readers, and to Lauren for providing such inspired artwork. One more to go; I’ve seen the first sketches. My spine tingles.

Posted in On Writing, The Spinner's Game | Tagged , , | 30 Comments