stories

Twelve Short Stories of Christmas 4: Frozen Rose

To read day three click here.

The rose was kept in a perfect temperature controlled climate, watered on a schedule and kept safe from insects by a glass case that surrounded it. In this way the rose could never die and would stay in bloom forever.

Mandy went into work in the morning, taking off her gloves as she came from the cold winter air to what she hoped was the warm air of the laboratory, but inside she could still see her breath in the air. Puzzled, she switched on the laboratory light and gasped. All the plants were dead. The only plant that had survived what must have been a power outage overnight, was the rose. It was still encased in its glass case, but even so there were small droplets of water that had frozen into ice on the petals.

She carefully lifted the glass dome and picked up the frozen rose, carefully brushing the ice off the petals. One of the thorns pricked her finger, but as the blood welled up from the cut she could see that her blood was already starting to freeze in the cold.

 

 

 

 

stories

Twelve Short Stories of Christmas 3: Goblin King

Yesterday’s story can be read here.

Today’s story is inspired by Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak

Saida just wanted the baby to go to sleep. He had been crying all night and most of the day. She had tried walking him round the block and up and down the stairs. She had tried rocking him, telling him stories about goblin kings and fairy queens but he still kept crying. She was singing to him now. She decided she was going to let him try and calm himself down. She finished the lullaby she was making up as she went along as she backed slowly out through the nursery door, “I’ll be sure to serve you, when you’re goblin king, but for now I hope they hear what I sing,” and she clicked the door shut behind her.
The crying stopped instantly. She was so relieved she sat down in the hallway, but she wanted to check if he had gone to sleep or was just sitting calmly in his cot. She opened the door and went back over to the cot. The ice baby left by the goblins was already starting to melt.

 

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NaNoWriMo Week 0

NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month to give it its full title is where people can try to write 60,000 words of a novel during the 30 days of November which works out at around 1,667 words per day.

This will be my 6th time participating in NaNoWriMo and so far I haven’t lost.

The book I am writing this year is called The Fire at Sandleigh Manor – in 1911 the Manor House at Sandleigh caught fire and although there were two survivors they refused to ever speak of the house or the fire for the rest of their lives meaning the cause of the fire remains unknown. In the present day the house is being renovated as part of a television programme that is hoping to uncover the cause of the fire and determine whether anyone managed to survive all those years ago.

I will be updating this blog once a week over November and hopefully the sixth year won’t be the first time I fail to finish!

NaNoWriMo page: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/juliet-stubborn