Ashes

My story 'And, the Bride Wore Ashes' is now available to read at Phantasmacore.

It's a tale of a jilted Buster Keatonesque groom, a wedding dress made of moths and a snow globe.

I hope you like it and I also hope you'll comment over at the site if you do (or don't). It's my first story available to read online since last September. I need to pull my socks up.

WIP Wednesday - Cream Tea, Ashes and Shipwrecks

I'm certain today is Tuesday. I think I have sugar brain due to cake consumption--my friend's birthday; she is now very old as I told her many times during the day. I think she hates me a little now but then she did feed me cake and we all know that is a bad thing to do. I think I have whipped cream oozing from my ears.

So if it is Wednesday, then I should tell you all the wonderful things about my WIP - Of Wrecks, White Noise and Abandoned Beaches. It's a short story. It has a complete first draft that needs an injection of subplot. There are lots of seashells. There are not so many people. It is not as cool as the picture to the right. I must work to make it cooler. Is that even possible?

In other news, my short story 'And, the Bride Wore Ashes' has sold to Phantasmacore. Bride takes place inside a snowglobe (as all good stories must) and is populated by a girl, a jilted Buster Keatonesque groom and a wedding dress made of moths. It should be online in March.

WIP Wednesday: It's the 1920s in my Head

Thanks to a thunderstorm - I swear, I haven't seen rain like that all year - I've just finished the first draft of a Fantastical Fifty story - And the bride wore ashes. I'm going to start another draft later this evening and when that's done, I'll let it stew for a few weeks. Looks like my fifty first sentences experiment is a win--even if I only end up with two stories from it. But of course, I want more. *Stomps feet* (Finished first story at the weekend - Kodak Dragons and had to send it out after only a little sleep because a deadline was looming -  looks over shoulder and hopes editor isn't reading).

Fantastical Fifty first line: Maud pulled a snow globe out of the dead man’s suitcase and shook it.
Acutal (first draft) first line: The snow globe offered a flurry of ashes.
Resemblance to original idea: 10%*

Current Word Count: 2,374 words
Things Found Here: Empty graves, a wedding dress made of moths, a Buster Keaton lookalike groom and a church made of ice lolly sticks.

I'm also compiling ideas etc for my next book. I have my title - and I love, love, love it - but I'm not revealing it yet because its brilliance will blind you...

*Percentage figures are not acurate, get over it.