Cheryl Burman's Blog: Blog posts for readers and writers, page 37

Why had no-one ever …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

Day six and the last of this week’s challenge. The story starts here.
Why had no-one ever mentioned Mum’s twin?

Dirk and Hilary talked late into the night. Dirk didn’t understand why the police or any other authorities, hadn’t become involved, or why the press hadn’t turned up.

‘I guess no one knows, with no one leaving or arriving.’

‘Except me, and that was only through sheer dogged persistence.’ Dirk grimaced and Hilary laughed.

Her laughter nagged...

Challenge Flat Glistening

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

Day five of this week’s challenge. The story starts here.
Challenge Flat Glistening: use these three words

Hilary held her stare, a challenge to the snooty woman to clamber off her perch and act like a human being. Assuming she was a human being. The thought sneaked into Hilary’s tired brain. She squashed it. If there was hot water and food, she could wait to discover the truth.

The woman sniffed. ‘We’re not daft,’ she snapped. Her eyes roved up an...

‘How dare you …’

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

Day four of this week’s challenge. The story starts here.
‘How dare you look down your nose at me like that.’

Although Dirk wanted to ask about Hilary’s fixation with curtains, the unwelcoming sight in front of him took priority.

‘Has it always looked like this?’ he said.

Hilary turned her stare on him. ‘No. Last time I saw it, it was an ivy-covered stone hotel. Posh, the kind that serves organic local produce.’

‘What the site said.’ Dirk opened his ...

A nursery rhyme boot …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

Day three of this week’s challenge and it’s a picture prompt today.
The story starts here.
A nursery rhyme boot … picture prompt

It was the attempt at the neatly combed hair that worked on Dirk’s sympathy. He leaned down, catching a whiff of unwashed body.

‘What’s happened here? What’s going on?’

Hilary closed her eyes, opened them. ‘The curtains.’

‘Curtains?’

Her eyes implored him. ‘Get me out of here? Please?’

Poor woman. She didn’t appear crazy, d...

The Accidental Time Travelers Collective

The Accidental Time Travelers Collective is an entertaining and well written book of short stories with a wide ranging take on time travel.

My favourite was K.L. Small’s The Dark Horse even tho it ripped my heart to shreds, based as it is on the realities of the time.

Different worlds, future worlds, past worlds all work their time travel magic here. Highly recommended.

Find The Accidental Time Travelers Collective on Goodreads, with links to buy, here.

My monthly newsletter book revie...

… so many homeless people …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

The second day of this week’s challenge. The story starts here.
He had never seen so many homeless people in one place

Dirk often decided he should never have taken this job. It involved too much travel, and to non-exotic places. Not even the occasional jaunt to Europe. Today, he was driving to Landharwich, a small town way off any motorway, simply to introduce himself to a new client who had insisted on face to face contact before signing his po...

When she arrived home …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

The first day of this week’s challenge. Let’s see how it goes.
When she arrived home, she noticed …

When she arrived home, she noticed that the curtains were closed. Again.

Hilary stood on the footpath and squinted at the sight. She was positive she had opened them before leaving for work. Today, she’d taken a photograph to prove it to herself. She pulled out her phone, scrolled for the proof. And scrolled again. She was certain she’d taken the pho...

Girl in dark forest: picture prompt

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

The last day of this week’s challenge. The story starts here.
Girl in dark forest: picture prompt

Granddad gestured, whispering, ‘Careful now.’

The old man had a gleam in his eyes, which Robert recognised as mischief. He was certain there wasn’t much to be happily mischievous about. It was the way Minna held her knife high, and the care with which she disappeared into whatever was beyond.

When Robert stepped through, he wasn’t surprised to find he ...

Mad Gondola Knife

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

Day five of this week’s challenge. The story starts here.
Mad Gondola Knife: use these three words

He’d gone mad, Robert’s rational mind screamed. But he knew, some core of him understood, that the old man behind him was his grandfather.

The girl grinned and stroked the sleeping cat.

Robert turned, and found himself in a bear hug. When he could breathe, he managed a muttered, ‘How? Or don’t I want to know?’

Granddad laughed his big booming laugh. ‘Yo...

Women Talking Marian Toews

Who would have thought a book set entirely in a loft where eight women are meeting in secret would be so compulsive? I bought this almost by accident, and wondered if I had done the right thing. But I read it quickly, enthralled not just with the conversation of these women but the way their different personalities, their own moral ground, came through as they argued their course of action.

And a fine balancing act they did too. Some might argue (and it crossed my mind) that these are women...