Cheryl Burman's Blog: Blog posts for readers and writers, page 12

Escaping kite

It was all about half an orange at the end of the day.

‘A kite race.’

Joe swung his legs through the air, perched with Jill and Jan on the tree branch too high above the autumn leaf litter. Speckles of sunlight dodged between the few leaves clinging tenaciously to life, wrinkled and withered, long past their best before date. The sun lit Jill’s red hair, making it sparkle to match the sunset above the forested hills.

‘A kite race?’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ Jo twisted on the branch, too quickl...

She was hungry

She was hungry – is today’s writing prompt. Interpret widely … love to see what you come up with. Here’s mine.

The train was late. Despite this being a usual occurrence, passengers peered at the station clock, checked their watches to ensure their irritation was justified, strained towards the line to peer up the disappointingly empty track, and tutted loudly.

She stood stiffly on the platform. Not resigned, not exactly. Unhappy, certainly. She hefted the supermarket bag in her hand, tes...

The raven

St Kevin knew a thing or two about ravens. His prophetic doom saying, preached up and down the land, earned him the name Raven-dark.

The people would shudder at the sight of the tall cloaked figure, making his way along the track into the village, his staff thumping into the mud in time with his heavy, stolid tread.

The square was his destination. He would stand there, waiting.
The ravens swooped, gathering about him, the whirr of feathers and their harsh croaking filling the cold air.

Th...

Tea cup and saucer picture prompt

The garden beds were a tangled mess of weeds with what might have been once planted there struggling through years of neglect. The house bore the same stigmata, much of it also organic – mould, decaying wood, rust. I should have been inside ripping out old tiles from the dank bathroom, but the May day tempted me out.

The garden tools we’d brought with us were piled in the slanting garden shed, barely any shelter at all with holes in the roof and glassless windows, the door missing. Another pr...

An interview with a fictional character – Alice

”Thank you for being here today, Miss Alice. Our readers will be delighted to hear from you given so many of them feel like they have known you for years.’

‘A pleasure.’ Alice blushes pink and adjusts her white pinny.

‘Let’s get stuck straight on, shall we?’

Alice nods, pulls at her blue sleeve.

‘What did it actually feel like, falling down the rabbit hole?’

‘A surprise, to be honest. There was this rabbit you see.’

‘Yes, a white rabbit.’

‘Yes, white.’ Alice pauses, raises a finger to her lips. Hm...

Murdered by the Books Jodi Casstevens Short

A debut which leaves you waiting eagerly for the next in series!

Jillian’s dream of opening her own children’s book store in her home town of Willow Springs is finally achieved. It’s opening night, the party’s been great, and there’s everything to look forward to when the shop is open for business the next day.

But then her friend Maggie is knocked down and killed by a hit and run driver right outside her door, setting in motion a quest for the murderer, and the motive. Jilly’s search for the...

A figure from childhood memory

From workshop writing prompt, and a true story.

My memory is vivid after more than 65 years. A large woman, dark hair piled in braids on the top of her head. She’s wearing a dress. I can’t remember the colour or pattern only that it strained tight across her broad bosom, and pale. Yes, I think it was pale. She’s sitting stiffly in a wooden chair against a wall. There are people – vague, washed out figures – either side of her. Her hands rest on her big knees and she stares into the room, unsm...

She watched as he ran his fingers along the blade

It had been his idea to move to the country.

‘Fresh air,’ he said. ‘Good for the kids.’

She’d resisted initially, disliking the idea of leaving friends behind. Also, ‘What about our jobs?’ she asked. ‘How will we live?’

‘Cheap in the country.’ He grinned, full of confidence. ‘We’ll grow our own food. What we get for this place-‘ he waved a hand at the not-so-long ago refurbished kitchen ‘-will more than pay for a country cottage and a year to get settled.’

‘We can’t come back if it doesn’t...

The yellow-lensed glasses

The yellow-lensed glasses lifted her mood. In the dank, dark days of January they were her life-saving ‘go to’. First thing, when she woke, she would scrabble for them on her bedside table, slip them on, and tread lightly down the stairs with energy to face the dreary world.

Bert would follow her down soon after, enticed by the smell of frying bacon. Bert didn’t approve the yellow-lensed glasses. ‘Keeps you from reality,’ he grumbled. ‘Rose-tinted glasses and all that.’

And she grinned, an...

Blood thumps in her ears

The storm drives rain against the window, turns to hail cracking against the glass, elbowing its noisy rudeness into her sleep. Waking her, befuddled, drowsed.

She rolls over, into the empty space beside her. Fingers gently claw the still warm sheet. Dragging herself upright, she reaches for the bedside lamp. Click. Nothing. The darkness is absolute. She slips from the bed to feel her way to the window, stumbling over discarded clothes, banging against the dresser, cursing the blackness, swearin...