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Drabbles Needed! Authors, have a go.
message 1051:
by
Richard
(new)
Apr 08, 2016 09:11AM
Thank you. I do my best to maintain the trivial end of the drabbling spectrum.
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Consider me hooked in to the whole spectrum - so I just had to have a go, even if it was only once! Deep breath:The Wheels of Justice
I accelerated through the fog, anticipating the dirty pleasures the ransom money would buy.
'Turn right now,' my accomplice said calmly. Her inside knowledge always allowed us to evade pursuit.
The ramp was a surprise.
The doors and wheels locked but the car still moved forward.
'What...?'
I heard the crusher start.
'You are a murderer.' She had never objected before.
'Not this time.' My voice was high with terror.
Then I remembered the fatal shot I had put into the mansion's main security panel at the start. It really didn't pay to upset the Internet of Things these days.
I like it. You ought to consider submitting the next one to Bookhippo and reaching a readership of 10,000+.
Thanks - but it took me a week to -ahem - fine tune this one...
...and now I have to start working on some amendments to the second book in my series which were suggested in the editor's report that I read yesterday...
I'm missing my drabble time at the moment :-( but I have been catching up with the great stuff on the hippo every day. I'm really enjoying them all and it's nice to see some new names!Good luck with the revisions, Elizabeth, I hope they're going well.
Thanks GJ - um, not totally though. And I need to be quick - current affairs in the form of nurdles are catching up with me...
Another overheard conversation from today's hippo:Dad
The shower passed, the sun re-emerged, steaming wetness off the pavement. White clouds swirled around us as we strolled, hand in hand, my little princess and I.
She: eyes bright with wonder, cheeks red with life, water droplets sparkling like diamonds in her hair. There is something innately graceful about five-year-old girls, a spiritual purity, a Fabergé egg-like delicacy so dismally absent in their grubby, snot-smeared male peers. If I could only preserve it – shield her from the indignities of coming years…
“Let’s play a game, Daddy.”
“Certainly, darling. What shall we play?”
“Who can stamp on the most snails!”
I saw this on Facebook earlier - excellent :-)
You recognise your younger self, Kath?
Cheeky! I used to have a wormery. I put them in a bucket of soil. Had to tip it all out to find them again. I loved small creatures!
BookHippo.uk has been low on drabbles lately. To encourage more participation, I've jazzed up the drabble section:http://bookhippo.uk/drabbles/
Drabblists now automatically get adverts for their books featured in the sidebar (or the footer on small screens) to say thank you.
You've published several of mine - thanks!And I finally figured out how to fill in the profile correctly, so the link to Amazon is working. Double thanks!
I like writing the little things. Will attempt more of them.
By a curious coincidence, I was just about to post a drabble here and remind people to vote for the ones they like in the Bookhippo moderation queue (there’s a couple awaiting approval at the moment). I decided against submitting this particular effort as I thought casual readers might not get the point, which is to break all ten of a certain author’s rules for writing.Elmore Leonard Be Damned
Impatient readers wanting to get to the main story should skip this prologue.
It was a cold and drizzly afternoon. Beckus Sidebottom, a stooping, wrinkled octogenarian with a veined nose, bloodshot grey eyes and five fingers on each hand, surveyed the serried rows of houses with their red roofs, white doors and identikit front gardens disapprovingly.
“Eeh, ba ’eck!!” he exclaimed querulously. “When I were lad, ’twere all fields ’ere! Far as eye could see!”
His whippet, a trembly grey creature with enormous dark eyes and a perpetual look of despair about it, whined agreeingly.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose.
Richard wrote: "By a curious coincidence, I was just about to post a drabble here and remind people to vote for the ones they like in the Bookhippo moderation queue (there’s a couple awaiting approval at the momen..."It's a writer's Drabble, for sure. I find it amusing. You can put it in the Drabble queue, and then publish it wherever you want. They request that you not publish elsewhere before that, but it's not a requirement.
Not sure it fulfills their other requirement - that it be a complete story, beginning to end.
Alicia wrote: "Not sure it fulfills their other requirement - that it be a complete story, beginning to end."I'm not sure even my novels fulfil that requirement.
Richard wrote: "Alicia wrote: "Not sure it fulfills their other requirement - that it be a complete story, beginning to end."I'm not sure even my novels fulfil that requirement."
Ack! Mine do. But I'm old-fashioned.
I didn't get your drabble, Richard. But then I had to Google 'Elmore Leonard', so I'm probably not your target audience.Re cross-publishing drabbles. We prefer drabblists to wait until their drabbles have been featured on BookHippo.uk before sharing them elsewhere. This is because the likes of Google and Amazon, who we rely upon to stay afloat, like to see a certain percentage of original content, and our book offers fight against that.
Alicia, I', just reviewing your drabble 'Medieval Sorcerers and Warrior Alien Demons trapped within the high-rise world of major foreign citi'.Has the title been cropped? If so, please could you let me know a shorter version?
Rosen wrote: "I didn't get your drabble, Richard. But then I had to Google 'Elmore Leonard', so I'm probably not your target audience."It wasn't submitted to the Hippo for precisely this reason, Rosen;) I'll endeavour to dream up something more appropriate in the coming weeks.
Posted by The Hippo today:Originally published by BookHippo.uk on 06/07/2016
"Penny for the Guy!" - They give to children burning effigies.
We arrived the same day, on the same boat. The stench of our bodies filled the rusty hold. Our first view of the city port held so much promise. She was vibrant then.
Later, as doors were closed in our faces, we huddled together for warmth, sharing the crusts you threw away, not giving up the hopes we had brought with us - everything else sold or burned on winter nights.
Now she will leave before me, on Charon's boat. If only someone kind would give me tuppence for her eyes.
It was nice to have the time to write again. With the holidays coming up, I hope I can get a few better drabbles out there. Really enjoyed reading some of the recent offers!
Posted on BookHippo.uk earlier:
Awakening
The rank stench of decay pervades the shifting mist. I glimpse vague forms, their movement creeping ever closer. Loathsome whispers torment my hearing with a hunger eager for satisfaction. Terror chokes me into silence, my scream a lump in my throat.
For the briefest moment their majestic horror is revealed. I behold creatures ancient while our universe was still young. The scream inside bursts free…
In a panic I awaken, sweat clammy on my skin. The relief is orgasmic as the fear fades. It returns in a heartbeat with the smell of corruption, and a shadow moves in the gloom.
Check out some of my other drabbles here: http://thecultofme.blogspot.co.uk/p/1...
Oh yeah, I forgot about my recent one. Ah well, next time.
I thought I'd upload an image to get the drabble juices flowing:
"Knife, Fork, Spoon"My spoon a shank. My shank a spoon. Sharpened. Honed sweet honed. Spoon as knife. Feel protected now. Able to cut any lairy fucker who tries it on. Funny how something that feeds you becomes a deliverer of death. I am nourished on into further life by striking blood. Stick 'em good to their guts. Yank it back out still with organs attached, then spoon-knife becomes a fork also. The full set. Prison wares. For eating your porridge. No honey or sugar to sweeten it. No salt to season. Just a blood glaze. For eating in the trough.
My one and only attempt at a Drabble.............I’m sure there’s someone following me, Marion’s fault, trotting off with Jeremy. Mind you, I didn’t fancy that bloke, or his friend - both a bit weird by my reckoning.
The footsteps are getting louder now and they sound heavy, like a man’s. I can’t run in these blooming heels. I turned round to face him, waving my hairspray, hoping he would think it was one of those gas things. “It’s okay” our local PCSO says, “I could see you were on your own and one murder tonight is quite enough, thank you. Lovely girl that Marion was too”
Holiday Dilemma. For 25 years they’d argued over the holidays. He liked the sea. She liked the mountains. Each year they went to the beach.
Now that the children were grown and had left home he decided it was time to holiday on a yacht. She didn’t argue. There were few passengers, but there was no privacy. The bunks were tiny and uncomfortable. The galley was crammed and awkward.
She went up on deck. He joined her. “How do you like sailing?” he eagerly asked. There was a splash and muffled shout.
Next year she would go to the mountains.
Inheritance“You look just like your father.”
“You take after your father.”
“Like father, like son.”
I grew up hearing it all the time. But I knew I could never become the calm, patient man who had raised me. Who had loved me even during my rebellious teen years when I’d hurled hurtful insults.
It was only after his funeral that I found the adoption papers. Everything fell into place. I finally understood that he had loved me for who I was, and not because he had spawned me. And I realised I loved him.
If only I had told him.
LOST AT SEAHe overheard his young wife and her lover planning his demise - and what they’d do with his money.
He changed his will and bequeathed everything to Douglas L. Bradshaw. He left a note instructing his executor: “If I should die in mysterious circumstances have the police investigate my wife and her lover.”
Then he took his wife on a cruise. Two weeks into the holiday he disappeared during the night, believed to have fallen overboard and drowned. Despite a search his body was never recovered.
Douglas L. Bradshaw was at the inquest. The plastic surgery scars were healing nicely.
HELLEN.“Why can’t you get a decent job?”
“You’re useless.”
“I don’t know why I married you,” she screamed endlessly.
Her name was Hellen and he called her Hell, because for 30 years that’s what she’d made his life.
She scoffed at his efforts to help cook and clean. “When will I ever please you?” he pleaded.
“When hell freezes over,” she sneered.
He bought her the new chest freezer she wanted, but she complained, “It’s not big enough.”
“Yes. It. Is,” he said, stuffing her body inside.
Smiling, he wondered how long it would take for Hell to freeze over.
The latest from me - Hair Care
‘Ladies!!! Gentlemen!!! Sick of paying £££ for products to give your hair volume? We have the answer. Did you know that some birds can raise their crest feathers at will? Imagine big hair, or an obedient quiff, at your command! One almost painless injection of our EFF (Extract of Feather Follicles) is your lifetime solution.’
The owners of the small clinic grew rich over-night as the beautiful people flocked to have the treatment. Celebrity endorsements flooded in and the sales increased exponentially. One day, the clinic closed. The owner flew abroad leaving no contact details.
Then the moulting season began.
Apoptosis - The webbing between our toes and our innate ability to swim as a neonate, swiftly disappear as we begin to ground ourselves in the world.
When our gullets are no longer reliant on being coated by our mother’s milk, the sounds shaping words can start to form, but in doing so we lose our singular pre-vocal communion.
And until our infant eyes and brain can attest to the material permanence of an object, babies are blessed by not being immured in fixed notions of reality.
And on entry into the world, we surrender our immortality and start approaching death.
BookHippo.uk is looking for more drabbles, please.http://bookhippo.uk/drabbles/
Drabbles are very important because they provide us with original content, that helps out search engine rank and relationship with eBook stores.
They also provide exposure for authors.
I haven't moderated any for a while because the current batch do nothing for me. Especially the 'Billy' ones. I shouldn't moan, I should write!
Eek! I forgot readers!Kath, yes, there is a bit of a pattern to be spotted amongst the current queue. They haven't been featured yet because we want some variety.
Rosen wrote: "Eek! I forgot readers!Kath, yes, there is a bit of a pattern to be spotted amongst the current queue. They haven't been featured yet because we want some variety."
No worries, Rosen. I'm happy to have your back. ;)
I keep thinking I ought to have a go at this.But then I forget.
Kath wrote: "It's your age, dear!"What is?
Shall we take turns sending David private messages to remind him until he coughs up?
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Shall we take turns sending David private messages to remind him until he coughs up?"That assumes he ever remembers to notice his private messages.
You're hard work, you are.
We could try the pointy stick...
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Or dragons."Do you have any lying around that you could use?
No. I've got a snorey Orc on the couch, though.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Lost Innocence: The Accused (other topics)Azazel (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Andrew K. Lawston (other topics)Andrew K. Lawston (other topics)
