christmas and flash and drabbles.

well...  it seems quite some time since i last blogged...  i suppose it is, since the last time i did, it was to crow about being a NaNoWriMo winner again...  nothing much has happened, since, anyway. 
Max The Literary Kitteh continues to be utterly, utterly gorgeous and adorable (apart from his breath...  eugh! :oP he needs his teeth cleaning, i think...) and to sit all over me and purr thunderously whenever i'm on the pooter.  or even just sat down, actually.  i'm better padded than hubby, you see...  also, i have a fondness for hot water bottles which he, being a cat, shares completely.  as we do the hot water bottles.


so...  like i said, not a lot's been going on.  apart from Christmas preperations, of course.  i have been unbelievably crap this year.  so many people are getting money or amazon vouchers, i'm just anticipating how many times i'll be repeating:


"No, we* weren't sure what to get you and we thought rather than get you something you might not need or like here's and essentially boring and unimagintive christmas present that just shows how utterly crap i am at this sort of thing apart from the odd genius flash of inspiration that happens about once every two ears and unfortunately that didn't happen for anyone this year...." 
*(n.b for "we" in this contex, read "me" - hubby doesn't really do the getting of presents in our house - no pressure at all... :-/)


would anyone care to open a sweepstake on it...?


hmph.  bah bloody humbug.  oh, well - at least we'll get to see friends we don't see nearly often enough.


although, to be fair to myself, i *did* in fact manage to aquire, wrap and post presents for my brother, sister-in-law and niece in astonishingly good time this year.  was actually quite proud of this achievement (despite the fact that the parcel also contained sis-in-law's birthday present which should have reached her by the 5th of november... *facepalm*)  and continuing the theme of being fair to myself, there were, in fact, lot of things that we (I) thought of that would make perfect presents.  but not being a Rothschild heiress or willing to go deeply into debt, i set a £20 limit on each person's gift.  i do not wish to start 2011 in hock, TVM...


in other (though related) news, last thursday evening, i was home alone for the one night a year that hubby sleeps elsewhere.  it was his christmas do at work and the tradition is that the boss takes everyone out for a meal, and then gets them all rat-arsed.  he hires rooms for those who do not live within walking distance, and they all get about four hours sleep and raging hangovers to go to work on the following day. since he works about 20 miles away, hubby is one of those put up in a B&B for the night.  so it was just me and teh kitteh.  having watched BBC4's adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (excellent, by the way - genius casting of Stephen Mangan as Dirk), at about 10:30, i got the urge to write a bit of flash fiction.  but having absolutely no idea of what to write, i turned to Twitter for a bit of inspiration.  asking for some random words, @eroticnotebook and @cha0tic obliged me very nicely (thanks, chaps!! :o)  here are the results, with the words that inspired them:


Stripes gloss tangle (via @eroticnotebook)

Is it the gloss of her oh-so-kissable lips? The sun-born stripes in her artful tangle of hair? Or is it the sparkle in her eyes behind those cute black-framed glasses? Haven't a clue. Nor do I know when it was I first looked at her and knew I had a crush. But I do.
Every day, I see her. She walks the halls looking so fey, as if she'd just stepped out of Tir-Na-Nog for a delighted wander through the heaviness of the mortal world The clothes she wears are of the fashion, but on her they somehow become... other. Nothing really floats, nothing is really rich, or diaphanous, or... or... well, anything, really. But - and yes, I know it's a cliché - somehow, the way she wears them... it makes me sigh. She inhabits the space around her as if the world was perfectly formed to fit her, and she moves through it on the lightest of feet encased in the most damnably sensible and masculine shoes I ever saw on such a creature of faerie. She sits in a throne and lights the people around her to a soft, golden glow. We've barely ever spoken but, even from a distance, she makes the day a somehow softer and more artistic space in time.
~ fin ~


Brick, Bandage, Pins, Backstage Pass, Pipe, Lighter fuel, Charger, Strobe, Watch (via @cha0tic)

The brick walls seep moisture. It's dank in here. It smells of clothes that have been left in the washing machine for a week, at the height of summer. A lone, miserable backstage pass lies in a corner, abandoned; still tangled in the lanyard that, in more energetic times, proudly displayed it around some young and fiery guitarist's neck. No energy left, now. Only lethargic inertia and decay. Congealed dust decorates every surface, clumping into weird shapes that tell the future more surely than any entrailed augury. They spell out the message, "The end is nigh." Rusted pins hold fragments of rotted paper to the oozing baize surface of a once-busy noticeboard. Random objects lie forgotten on odd surfaces. A smashed watch. A strobe that stopped working on the same long-distant night the club closed for the last time. An upended and useless tin of lighter fuel. A small plastic soldier, mounted on a white charger with only three legs. A length of bandage displaying brown smears on its wrinkled and greying surface.
The dripping of a cracked pipe on the sodden and sucking carpet is silenced forever as the wrecking ball obliterates the ghosts of glory days long gone.
~ fin ~


i was quite pleased that the results were at least readable. i tweeted them (with apologies for how depressing the second one was), and got some generous replies from some very nice people (if you're reading this, thank you all!).  also an injunction never to apologise for having created something.  which was lovely, and made me smile.


i enjoyed the exercise so much that, last night, i decided i'd like to repeat it. i asked for more words, and was deluged by my Twitterfriends.  here's what they gave me this time:


oblige /dedication / label /sliced /sticky / marmalade and orange jam / herring  / candle snuffers / Aliona Vilani's arse / stationary / propensity /constipation / germination / soft / effortless / heartache / dissolve / revolution /epiphany / revelation / exile / flood / depression / inquisition / debut / doubt / reason / tamales / books


all of these from @skypethis_24601, @DangerousSweets, @EbonyHampl, @thextraman, @TehAntiBubble, @DylynnDeSaint and @monkeystreehous.  an embarrassment of riches!  i decided i'd write some drabbles (for those who don't know, a drabble is a sort fiction of exactly 100 words - no easy task, but a delightful if, at times, frustrting thing to write).  i took all of the words and mixed them up as best i could, producing several groups of three (getting hubby to provide one more to make it all even - he gave me "honey"), and proceeded to drabble.  i only managed two last night, viz:


Label / sticky / marmalade
She never watched the show as a kid but, somehow, one episode stuck in her memory. The end of the world was coming, and there were these funny little creatures on a quest to save it. There was no rushing around, no panic - just a quiet dignity, and determination to get things done that stuck in her head; along with the sinister orange glow of a sun too large, old and swollen to care. She looked down, to where her ravaged fingernails picked at the label on a jar of marmalade. Outside, the sky was the same heavy, sticky colour.


and


germination / depression / herring
A depression in the soil may cradle a seed. The rain may fall, and the sun may shine. These, and countless other factors may, in time, lead to the germination of that seed, along with thousands of its siblings.
Likewise, a depression in life may cradle a seed, an idea. Into this life, the rain may fall, the sun may shine, and myriad other circumstances may lead to sprouting, flowering, the bearing of fruit. The cliché of the suffering artist is not so very far from the nature of the physical world. Or it could all be a red herring...


i'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into the rest, though, the next time i fancy a delicious writerly snack. :o)


here are the other trios i made - why don't you have a go yourself and send me the results?


effortless / doubt / propensity
dissolve / books / revolution
epiphany / sliced / inquisition
exile / constipation / dedication
reason / debut / tamales
candle snuffers / stationary / heartache
oblige / revelation / flood
soft / arse / honey


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added edit: this post did have a tag for the "general uselessness of me", but i was ordered to remove it by the delightful @TehAntiBubble - and you do not mess with Teh Bubbles.  ma'am, yes ma'am! *salutes* XXX


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