I read two novels yesterday and will do reviews on them shortly. I was disappointed at the number of grammatical errors overlooked in both published works. Things such as 'then' when it should be 'than' or dialogue attributed to the wrong character. Writers are expected to edit their own work but then they need fresh eyes to pick up on those things they can no longer see after the tenth edit. Then a good editor should have picked up such glaring problems so I wonder how so many books make it to print with spelling and grammar errors. We have programs now that should pick up spelling mistakes quickly but they will miss grammar problems. I am so worried about sending outwork with mistakes that I have my two best beta readers look over the things that need a keen eye for mistakes and good grammatical skills. They are my insurance against readers who will pick me to bits if I mess up.
These first three days of May have been quiet so that I can take a breath and a rest after my hectic April. I have been writing every day but not as intensely as I was and I am not writing so much here on my blog just yet but I will. I have been writing small pieces for the story a day challenge and thought I would share my first piece or two here.
Day 1: The Prompt from Neil Gaiman ‘Getting Home’ wc aim 1200
story a day in May
It’s a long, long way and it feels further by the day. Home
is over twenty years back and a lifetime of misadventures but the yearning goes
deep. I see the trees in my dreams waving their leaves in silver coated rustles
under a clear blue sky. If I try hard I can almost feel the wind moving air
against my cheek. I haven’t felt air move like that in too long.
Nothing moves that isn’t programmed to move in these bucket
of bolts that gets us from one sector to another. I stretch out as far as my limited bunk space
will allow. A fella like me can never get enough stretch space on route. That’s
why they mostly hire short arses. I used to hit my head on stuff so often that
now I have a permanent hunch to me shoulders. One day I am gonna hang upside
down from a tree branch and let my spine stretch right out. That’s my dream.
I’ll go home one day. I’m getting’ there slowly. Been working long shifts,
storing away the credits, taking routes no one else will take so’s I get the
danger money to add to me stockpile.
“Hey 487, boss wants ya.” They do that out here, use our
employee number instead of our names. I look at the shortie poking his head
through the door and nod. The head disappears and I listen to the soft shuffle
as he goes back where he came from. Probably the mess. I drop my legs over the
edge of the bunk. I was enjoying that bit of dream and don’t want to let it go.
I fold the bunk up against the wall and secure it but my mind is thinking about
blue to the horizon. There is only one view port and it shows a lot of nothing
and nothing is not blue.
“You wanted me Boss?” I lean on the console and she frowns.
She always pretends there is some kind of protocol. I shrug and stand away.
“You know I still had fifteen minutes of down time.” She frowns again. I have a
bit of fun making her turn it off and on like the lights, she hasn’t figured
that out yet.
“I have an extra contract here.” She taps the console. “Big
danger money, plenty of excitement and you would probably get back to that dirt
ball you hanker for so much, if you survive it. You want it?” I pretend to consider it. The yearning has
been eating me guts these past months and I figure I’ll do just about anything
to get home but I don’t need her or the others thinking I have a weakness.
“What’re the details? Can’t make rash decisions now and I
don’t hanker for anything so much as a Rentillian cider and I need all the
credits I can get to buy me one of those.”
She frowns again and reads the screen and tells me the
details. I can feel the hairs sticking up on the back of my neck but I smooth
them down with the calluses on me palms.
“Big money is right. We could be on a suicide mission with
that deal. No one else wants it?” I’m not sure even the lure of home is enough
to get me to agree to it.
“No one and its pretty urgent if we can do it.” She watches
me intently. She won’t make the decision by herself. She trusts my gut
instincts. The same instincts that pulled us through dozens of tight places.
She waits and I watch the frown forming again. It makes me chuckle.
“Okay let’s do it. Where do we pick up the goods?” The frown disappears and she smiles her usual
efficient use of face muscles. She keys in the coordinates and we head in the
direction we need to go. It makes me wonder if I will recognise the wind when I
feel it. There is no sense of movement out here, nothing to judge out position
in space and time we just hang suspended in a huge bowl of nothing between
landings and take offs. Then we feel something but not here. There is nothing
to feel the friction of movement against. I jog around the miniscule walkways
to get some exercise and feel some shift but I can’t move fast enough to move
the air against my face. I do sit ups instead and grab an overhead girder to
pull myself up until my muscles start to heat up and my heart rate elevates
then I cool off and eat something to kill time.
I do a routine maintenance and wander between stations to check on the
shorties then find my bunk again and let myself drift into a daydream….to be
continued
Day 2 The Prompt by Therese Walsh
Imagine your protagonist has just opened a large magnetic
poetry kit. Which words call to him/her? Will s/he put these words on the
refrigerator in a random scattering or compose a sentence? Share your words and
sentences here. Wc aim 100
He glanced at the office fridge. The message was clear. The
little magnets they all played with lined up and she had been in there last. He
felt his face warm and flicked an impatient look at the clock on the wall. It
felt redundant to check an analogue clock, they all had time on their consoles
but he liked clocks especially this one ticking away the minutes until the
rendezvous. The moving hand made the shift in time more real than a flicking
digital display. He smiled as he finalised documents, closed files and folders
and turned off his computer. He rearranged the magnets. 105
I am off to write to the Day 3 prompt and my 500 word piece for the 38 week challenge the theme of which is 'plucky'. :) enjoy your Saturday,
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Thank you for taking the time to read my chatter and look at my pictures. I hope you found something to brighten your day. <3