Liz Young's Blog, page 16

EARLY TO SCHOOL

 

EARLY TO SCHOOL

Sally’s hard-won custody battle came at a price – new name, different area, change of school, and a menial job that meant she had to drop Josie at school early, with only the janitor to watch her.

 Tired of waiting alone, Josie left her bag by the door while she used the toilets in the yard. Half an hour later the other kids lined up behind her bag, sliding it backwards as they shuffled along.

 It was still there at break time, and the teacher phoned Sally – an hour too late to follow the trail. Josie’s father had won after all.

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It's an unwritten rule, isn't it, that a bag, or a full trolley, marks a place in the queue - at least, in those countries where people queue rather than scramble for places. 

I missed last week, being unable to come up with a story that felt original enough. Well done to those of you who wrote one. Thanks to J Hardy Carroll for this week's photo and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog   https://rochellewisoff.com/

On the subject of writing, my 5 yr old granddaughter decided Sunday lunch at Nan's warranted a menu - here is the result. The phonetic spelling must be read aloud to get its full meaning!

NB - we made the lemn coocees to accompany the  I screem.

PS - click on the book cover (top right on this page) to buy the last book in my Living Rock series. The whole series would make a neat Christmas present for anyone - teen to adult - who enjoys stories where reality is slightly askew but the people, their hopes and fears, are as real as ever.

MARINA SAN MIGUEL

 

MARINA SAN MIGUEL

Craig rode past the security guard, ignoring his shout, and cycled through the marina, admiring the yachts with a connoisseur’s eye.

The A VENDE sign seemed to be aimed directly at him, but as he leaned his bike against the lamp-post a head popped out of the hatch. ‘You can’t leave that there.’

Craig grinned. ‘Not even if I’m a buyer?’

The man barked a laugh. ‘Oddest-looking sports car I’ve ever seen.’

‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ Craig said, pulling a supermarket bag full of cash from his basket. ‘I’ve just won the lottery – want to show me round?’

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There are many marinas in Tenerife, where we lived for fifteen years. Our friends owned a lovely old ocean-going boat, so this story is a tribute to Knotts Gypsy, in whom Dave sailed single-handed across the Atlantic. For 40 days we had no word - no indication whether he was alive or dead - then he came within mobile phone signal range and we watched from the beach in Las Galletas as he sailed past to San Miguel.

Thanks to CEAyr for the photo which prompted my memory and this story, and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers. If you want to read other stories, or even to join in, go to her blog and click on the frog.  https://rochellewisoff.com/

QUAY-SIDE CAFE - a story in 100 words

 

QUAY-SIDE CAFE

Lockdown hit our quay-side cafė hard – most of our regulars began making their coffee at home, and our usual lunch-time office workers simply vanished.

 When regulations eased we invested the last of our capital in outside tables and managed until the weather turned sour. Storm-force winds, waves crashing right over the sea-wall – we were lucky not to lose the hut.

 On the first calm, sunny day we put the tables back out and advertised on Facebook – ‘Meals Half Price’ – we couldn’t waste all the fish we'd found tangled in the seaweed, could we?

 It was all gone before the Health Inspectors arrived.

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I'm all in favour of entrepreneurs, even those who bend the rules a bit as long as they don't actually break the law!

Thanks to Sandra Crook for the photograph - I wonder where it was taken? - and to Rochelle for hosting us on her blog:- 

https://rochellewisoff.com/

I was interviewed this morning for an article called 'Village People' in a local magazine, and managed to mention my books a few times :) Have you bought yours yet? They're all on Amazon, and a link to the latest is at the top of this page. If you live in UK and would like the complete Living Rock series at the author's rate of £15, just contact me via FB. They would make great Christmas presents!

 

THREE DAYS - a 100 word story

 

T

THREE  DAYS

It was three days before I dared to move. Three days sweating in the heat, three nights trying to sleep in a space not built for bodies, even one as small as mine, three days without food or drink.

 The first kick scared the hell out of me, metallic echoes ringing in my ears, but when no-one came I kicked harder, over and over, until I was free.

 I burst out into blinding sunlight – my first in God-knows-how-long – stepped over his stinking body and raided the fridge.

 Now I must find out where I live – I want my mum.

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This is my 700th blog post!! Actually I'm surprised it's not more - certainly I feel like I've been blogging for ever and a day - but the stats on my page can't be gainsaid.

Thanks as ever to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog, which has been going for WAY longer than mine - I wonder what her score is? Also thanks to Rowena Curtin for the photo prompt. To read other interpretations of the image, go to  https://rochellewisoff.com/  and follow the Frog link.

PLEASE DON'T FORGET to leave a comment, and maybe also to check out my LIVING ROCK books on Amazon - a link to ROCK FESTIVAL, the fourth and final book in the series is at the top of this page.

THE NICHE - a story in 100 words

 

THE  NICHE

 The cottage was so cheap Auguste said there must be hidden faults, and he was proved right on our first night there.

Roof-joists groaned as if about to give way, but inspection proved them sound; pipes whistled and banged for no apparent reason.

The just-beneath-hearing whispers in the kitchen were the worst, and I tracked them down to a niche that resembled a walled-up window.

“Break it open,” I begged, “Something’s trapped in there.”

“And you want me to let it out? No way.”

So I hung garlic in front of it – a lot of garlic – and prayed.

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Of course it's only a niche built to hold an oil lamp, maybe - or is it?  Thanks to Dale for this week's image, and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers. 

How has your week been? I've been procrastinating, putting off the onerous task of learning how to publicise my books. It has to be done if I am to have any hope of people reading them, but I do wish there was an easier way :(  

If you haven't caught up with them yet, they are all available on Amazon - the link to my latest book is at the top of this page. Rock Festival is the final book in a series, which pulls together threads from the first three books - A Volcanic Race, Wolf Pack & Landslide. Buy the whole set to immerse yourself in another world - a world where the dangers are prehistoric and volcanic, not Covid-related!

MOVING HOME - a story in only one hundred words.

 

MOVING HOME

 Archie wouldn’t let me put him down – not surprising with all the upheaval – and I managed one-handed till Dad needed help with the sofa.

I thought his high-chair would be the safest place, and I was only gone a minute, two at the most, but when we came down Archie had gone.

 I knew who’d taken him – the bastard must have been watching us, waiting for his chance to snatch him.

 It was three days before he called, and I could hear Archie in the background. “My mother already loves him,” he said, “You won’t hear from us again.”

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Thanks to Roger Bultot for this photograph which instantly prompted a story, but Other Life in the shape of a friend for lunch got in the way and I've only just got round to writing it.  I was briefly tempted to write a different story, as the pile of rubbish is reminiscent of the state my garden has been in this week while a new kitchen was installed, but I resisted the temptation to burden you with my life story!

What I will do is ask you to buy my latest book by clicking on the link at the top of this page. ROCK FESTIVAL is the fourth and final book in my Living Rock series - the first three books, A VOLCANIC RACE, WOLF PACK & LANDSLIDE are also available on Amazon. The series is a fantasy - not everyone's cup of tea, I know - but Rochelle has read them and enjoyed them, so they must be worth a try!

NOT OPEN - a story in 44 words.

 

NOT OPEN

“How much did you take today, Joe?”

“Nothing, Ma – ain’t seen a customer all day.”

“What – not one?”

“Nope – can’t understand it – I made a new card for the door, an’ all.”

“Oh Joe! Your dyslexia will be the death of me!”

 

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With apologies to anyone who suffers from dyslexia - a condition that can impact on all aspects of life.

This week's short story is REALLY short because I couldn't see any way to pad it out without losing the impact of my first draft. To read stories of twice the length written by other Friday Fictioneers and prompted by Rochelle's photo, go to her blog at   https://rochellewisoff.com/

MEANWHILE - may I remind you that the fourth and final book in my LIVING ROCK series, ROCK FESTIVAL, is now available on Amazon, along with the first three - A VOLCANIC RACE, WOLF PACK & LANDSLIDE.  To read an extract, scroll down to my blog dated 28th August. And then buy a copy, read it, enjoy it and LEAVE A REVIEW!! PLEASE!!

BACK THEN - a story in 100 words

 

 BACK THEN

Grandma was always reminiscing about her youth.

Everything was better ‘back then’ – neighbours looked out for each other, you bought food locally and cooked it yourself, roads were safe to walk along, people read books instead of screens.

We’d smile indulgently and go home to order pizza and watch TV.

 Then the plague came. We helped our neighbours, discovering that the village greengrocer stocked more than we realised, and the corner shop always had toilet rolls. We took our exercise along undiscovered lanes, and someone set up a book swap in the bus-stop.

 We were almost sad when it ended.

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Just found ten minutes to write a story to go with CEAyr's image. Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioineers so diligently for so many years!   https://rochellewisoff.com

We are in the throes of buying a new kitchen. The one we inherited was installed by the previous tenants themselves, on the cheap, and after two years in this cottage we are still not happy with it. So the time has come - savings aren't earning anything anyway!  Next Monday the contractor moves in to make a proper mess, which in our tiny cottage means we will be eating out for a week, purely in self-defence, you understand.

And one more thing - I HAVE PUBLISHED THE FOURTH AND FINAL BOOK IN MY SERIES!! If you click on the LIVING ROCK blog entry for last week, you can read the prologue, which I hope will encourge you to buy my books, all of which are on Amazon. And if you have already read the first three, click on the book cover top right to buy ROCK FESTIVAL.

LIVING ROCK

 

LIVING ROCK series by LIZ YOUNG

PROLOGUE

Picture the scene – a world dotted with volcanoes and cut by rivers of fire that glow bright gold under a dark sky. Dinosaurs graze and hunt, tiny creatures scuttle, insects zip and pester.

Then a meteor the size of a small moon screams a fiery path through the fume-filled atmosphere and bombs a mile-deep hole into the earth’s surface. A billion tons of pulverized rock fountain skywards and the explosion flings an ellipse of mountains around the crater.

The impact creates a hair-line fissure that zigzags down the continent, and the land immediately spews lava in a frantic effort to weld itself back together. Burning vegetation pours smoke into the thickening atmosphere, the stars vanish, and morning never comes.

All grazing creatures starve and the predators follow them to a premature grave, insects eat their flesh until that, too, is gone, and there is no life left on the face of the earth.

For centuries the world is in darkness. The fissure scabs over in time, and the crater, two hundred miles long and girded by mountains high enough to be ice-clad even in summer, is gradually filled by rain, snow-melt and glaciers until it becomes a vast inland sea, from which three rivers spill south. The dust-cloud settles, and in this deep layer of fertile soil long-dormant seeds crack open, and the earth shines with new green.

Eventually a few fish crawl out of the sea on muscular fins and the slow process of evolution re-starts, but when water seeps into the underground lava-flows, the impatient earth mixes it with minerals to create instant life. Before apes learn to walk upright, a race formed of liquid rock has spread out to inhabit the lands divided by the three main rivers.

Near a tributary of the most easterly of those rivers stands a small mountain which, when viewed from the plain, resembles a recumbent giant. Half-way up its steep side, just where the giant’s mouth appears to be, is a cave...

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This photo of sea-polished pebbles proves there are many more rock colours than brown and grey, just like the Rockmen in my books. If this prologue has piqued your interest, you can buy all four books in the series from Amazon by clicking on these links:

A Volcanic Race: a novel: Volume 1 (Living Rock): Amazon.co.uk: Liz Young: 9781979086578: Books

WOLF PACK (LIVING ROCK): Amazon.co.uk: LIZ YOUNG: 9781790375080: Books

LANDSLIDE: a LIVING ROCK book: Amazon.co.uk: LIZ YOUNG: 9798618061049: Books

ROCK FESTIVAL: a LIVING ROCK BOOK: Amazon.co.uk: YOUNG, LIZ: 9798677548314: Books

I ALSO WRITE A PIECE OF FLASH FICTION EACH WEEK WHICH CAN BE READ FREE ON THIS BLOG. I WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO SEE YOU HERE, AND TO READ YOUR COMMENTS!

FELIPE'S TROUPE

 

FELIPE’S TROUPE

Total darkness in the Big Top – the audience holds its breath, hearts throbbing in time to a syncopated drum-beat.

 A single spotlight ignites a man dancing in a kaleidoscope of red and gold, a second figure leaps into weightless flight onto his shoulders, then a third flies through the air to land like a feather on the flaming tower. The semblance to fire is so vivid the Big Top appears to burn.

 Then the topmost figure somersaults once, twice and off, the stack tumbles and disintegrates gracefully, all three figures bow and the clowns come in.

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I hope you can see these acrobats as clearly as I can see them?  Thanks to J Hardy Carrroll for the image and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog.   https://rochellewisoff.com/

I am excited this week to announce that the fourth and last book in my LIVING ROCK series is now available on Amazon. ROCK FESTIVAL, in paperback or ebook format. Follow the link to get your copy.

ROCK FESTIVAL: a LIVING ROCK BOOK: Amazon.co.uk: YOUNG, LIZ: 9798677548314: Books