Cheryl Burman's Blog: Blog posts for readers and writers, page 40

Where did Jamie go? final bit!

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

A picture prompt today – it’s there in the story

‘This is who we need to call.’ Mrs Wilson waved the business card for PE Snoop, Private Investigator, under Suzie’s mum’s nose. She realised she didn’t know the woman’s name, only ‘Suzie’s mum.’ What a bad neighbour she’d been all these years.

But Suzie’s mum wasn’t interested in the card. She grabbed Mrs Wilson’s arm as they stood in the hall, the contents of the handbag spilled about their feet. ‘Fair...

FORTUNE SPIDER MONEY

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

FORTUNE SPIDER MONEY – Use these three words!

Suzie had never been so cold in her life. The Fairy Queen had come as promised, in the winter dusk, and magicked Suzie away. Not in a golden coach or some glittering whirlwind which transported them instantly. Not, it was in an old car, where Suzie was pushed into the back seat, told to stay quiet, and the doors locked with their childproof locks. Suzie had comforted herself. It would be okay when they re...

She opened her handbag …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

She opened her handbag and tipped the contents onto the floor

Mrs Wilson was worried.

Where had Jamie gone? He hadn’t been home for three days and nights. She had tried calling his phone, only to hear it ringing in his room. Yes, he had snuck off on the odd occasion before, coming home at dawn with leaves in his hair and smears of mud on his clothes, for which she had given him a good tanning of his hide.

But three nights? Her initial desire to beat hi...

Writing prompt: The wind howled …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

The wind howled through the trees while inside the old woman’s fire was nearly out

The pile of wood which once pressed against the eaves was reduced to scraps of kindling, wet with snow. The old woman tightened the blanket around her shoulders and shifted her stool closer to the greying ashes. Her mind went to the man who had come by – how many days, weeks ago? When the leaves were golden.

‘Mother,’ he had said, gently embracing her thin shoulders.

She...

Writing prompt: The old house …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

The old house, with its wildly overgrown garden, was silent, secretive

Jamie didn’t like it, not one bit. No one would find him here.

It was so far from anywhere that She had allowed him to ‘escape’ outside. He was sure She watched him, from the peeling door or through the cracked dirt-streaked glass of a downstairs window.

Watched or not, perhaps there was a way out. He explored the grounds as far as the high brick wall which surrounded the gard...

Writing prompt: Where did Jamie go?

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

Where did Jamie go?

‘Always missing, that kid.’  Mrs Wilson grumbled her way to the front door, pulled it open and shouted into the darkening street.

‘Jamie! Get in here so I can tan your hide, again.’

I sat on the kitchen bar stool, dangling my short legs towards the floor, elbows on the bench.

It was all I could do not to giggle out loud. I knew where Jamie had gone, but I had promised, crossed my heart and hoped to die, never to tell.

The Fairy ...

Writing prompt: As he flicked through …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

As he flicked through the letters, a small, handwritten envelope caught his attention. His heart began to thump…

It was impossible.

He knew that writing but it had been twenty years since he last saw it. And he expected never to see it again. His name and address were written neatly, but in letters more spidery, less firm, than in the past.

How had it reached him? He had moved here – yet another move – from the other side of the country less than two m...

A dress to remember KL Small

Princess Zarina learns some life lessons the hard way, and with the help of a dress which is at first a great disappointment to her. She wasn’t going to wear black – black! – to her Royal Advancement Ceremony. No way! Where was the gold dress she wanted?

This pacy tale could sit with the Brothers Grimm, including its non-avoidance of the not so pleasant aspects of life. We have heroes and traitorous villains, death and ‘resurrection’ of a sort, witches, magic aplenty, castles, moats, an...

Writing prompt: a picture …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

A picture prompt today.

Somehow, along the hippy trail of the 70s, he found he’d been left behind. Or maybe he let the others go on without him, a deliberate choice. For decades he didn’t think about the hows and whys. He was content here, surrounded by the tallest mountains in the world, giving the illusion of an impregnable city. Perhaps from humans. Not from nature. He closes his mind against those memories, those losses.

When tourist business ...

Writing prompt: She hadn’t meant …

Today’s writing prompt and my response.

She hadn’t meant to scare the child

The mother had led the crying child from the café, glaring at us, muttering unseasonal comments about our futures. I couldn’t blame her. I raised my eyebrows at my teenage daughter.

‘Sometimes kids need to learn the truth.’ She leaned over the café table, earnest written all over her beautiful face.

‘Hmm.’ I kind of agreed with this, but it depended.

‘What do you mean, Hmm?’

‘I mean …’ Why are daughters so serious abou...