family
Fixing Dad's Shed Roof. Top Story - December 2025.
Simon, Thank you for coming over. A few words to the wise from your mother (I shall keep it brief). 1. Your Dad has not slept since the roof blew off his shed. He may keep going for a lie down, but this is different to sleep. Do not poke the bear.
By Caroline Jane24 days ago in Fiction
The Work is Received
As I wake and feel the sun has not forgotten me, I rise and meditate, trepidate. I let the brightness cast shadows against the wall behind my bed as I reflect. Another day. Another chance. I take my leave from the bed and prepare a soothing balm. I apply it daily, morning, noon, and night, using the preserving solution I was taught to prepare, along with cleansers of aloe vera and coconut oil. I tend the flesh to keep it lean, to keep it fresh.
By Paul Stewart24 days ago in Fiction
A Prompt To Complete a Previous Unfinished Storyline
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What If? Writing Exercise for Fiction Writers prompts The Exercise — Pull out one of your stories that doesn't feel finished. Have your main character do the following exercises - as if he had his own notebook. For example, maybe you write with a number 2 pencil, but your character prefers to use a Rapidograph pen. Go with the pen. Remember, your character is doing this exercise - not you, the author! So, as your main character: * make a diary entry for the time of the story * make a diary entry for the time preceding the story * write a letter to someone not in the story about what is happening in the story * write a letter to someone in the story Or you might explore places in the story that you haven't either dramatized or summarized. Examples: * Have your characters avoided a confrontation? (This is a natural reaction - we are all nonconfrontational and, therefore, we often allow our characters to avoid the very scenes and confrontations that we would avoid.) Does your story have missing scenes? * What events happened before the beginning of the story? Before page one? Try writing scenes of those events that most affected the beginning of the story. Maybe you started the story later than you should have. * Write past the ending. Maybe your story isn't really finished. Perhaps you are avoiding the confrontation scene because you aren't really sure what your characters would say to each other. The Objective - To explore aspects of a story that may seem, at first, to be on the periphery, but at a closer look can deepen or open it up. Nothing is ever lost by more fully knowing the individual world of each story. And it's better to let your characters speak for themselves.
By Denise E Lindquist25 days ago in Fiction
How We Stay Lit
Winter arrives without apology. It closes its hands around the hours, tightens the air until even silence shivers. The world grows careful. Footsteps soften. Voices lower. Everything essential learns how to last. In this season, warmth is no longer loud. It does not roar or demand attention. It survives in fragments— a candle steady on the sill, its flame no bigger than a thought, yet brave enough to stand against the dark. That small light gathers the room gently, pulling shadows closer, teaching them how to rest. It does not banish the cold. It negotiates with it. Small heat lives in the pause between breaths fogging the window, in the way hands linger around a cup long after the tea has cooled. It hums quietly in wool scarves, in coats that still remember yesterday’s body. There is warmth in presence, too— a shoulder leaned into at a bus stop, a shared silence that does not need words. Two breaths syncing, creating a fragile pocket of mercy inside the frost. Winter compresses the world, but small heat resists by expanding inward. It teaches patience. It teaches listening. It teaches that survival is not always grand— sometimes it is careful and deliberate, a decision made again and again to stay lit. A lamp left on in an empty room becomes a promise. A quiet reminder that someone will return, that absence is temporary, that darkness does not own the final word. How we stay lit is not by overpowering the cold, but by softening its edges. By holding space for gentleness when the season insists on hardness. And when spring finally loosens winter’s grip, it will not remember the storms first. It will remember the lights that stayed on. The hands that held. The flames that refused to go out.
By Awa Nyassi25 days ago in Fiction
CRIMSON VOW
The first thing she heard was laughter deep slow and cruel echoing through concrete walls while cold water dripped on her face and the smell of iron and blood filled her lungs when Lyra Hale opened her eyes she realized she was tied to a chair in a dark warehouse surrounded by men who carried guns like toys and scars like trophies she did not scream because fear had already burned her voice away and when the footsteps approached her heart stopped because she knew that sound belonged to him Roman Vale the king of the Crimson Syndicate the man whose name ended lives without bullets the man she hated before she ever saw his face he stopped in front of her studying her like a broken weapon worth fixing or discarding and instead of threatening her he smiled and said she was not supposed to be there and that single sentence terrified her more than any knife because it meant she was now part of his world a world where people disappeared and love was a weakness Roman ordered his men to untie her not to free her but to see if she would run and Lyra stood on shaking legs staring into the eyes of the man who ruled the city through fear and silence and in that moment something dangerous sparked between hatred and curiosity because Roman Vale did not look at her like prey he looked at her like a challenge
By Diab the story maker 27 days ago in Fiction
