Category: Writing Updates (Page 1 of 4)

Last week, WordPress wouldn’t let me post and I gave up. This week, WP finally let me make multiple updates that I’ve been trying to get done for two months. I am both happy and annoyed. I don’t know what that means for this story. Let’s find out.

“Last night’s storm was quite the rager,” Tabitha ventured, having come to the end of her morning news feed. She set her phone on the table, glad of the sunlight coming through the porthole. “More tea, love?”

“Please.” Bert absently pushed air until his hand knocked over his nearly empty teacup. Cold liquid spilled over his fingers and onto the reclaimed driftwood table. “Ah, blast.”

Straightening the cup, she poured a fresh batch in while snagging a towel with her other. “We’d best check the storm damage after brekkie.”

“Saw a lot in the news about strange damage.” Bert shoved his phone out of harm’s way and started sopping up the mess – and the one he’d made of his water glass as well. At least he’d managed the runny eggs and toast before getting the clumsies. Still, it wouldn’t do; he’d need to pay attention to any repairs.

“Oh?” Tabitha returned the kettle to the tiny stove and quirked an eyebrow. “Glad we battened the hatches.” She snickered. “I still love that we can say that.”

He smiled indulgently, knowing most women would have run at the bare suggestion of moving onto a restored pirate ship. His wife, however, promptly bought a hat with a giant feather and learned how to fire the cannon.

“Yes, if you read between the lines, it’s a lot of unusual things. Dismissed, of course. Unreliable witnesses. An awful lot of them, though.”

“Waves of frogs and raining fish and the like, is it then?” She snagged the last toast corner and waved it, leaning against the counter. “Mind?”

“Have at it, darling.” He pushed the marmalade pot in her direction. “One person swore there was a unicorn in the midst of a panicked sheep herd.”

Marmalade acquired, Tabitha poked a corner into her mouth and chewed the honey-wheat slice she’d made just yesterday. Swallowing, she wiped her hands to make sure any lingering stickiness was gone and tugged on the porthole curtain. “Well, I…hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Where would you say we anchored last night?”

“Off the coast of Cornwall.” Bert sighed. “I supposed we should’ve properly found a port, but it blew in so fast, and anchoring seemed the right choice at the time.”

“And where would you say we are now?”

He joined her, head tucking close to hers as he wrapped an arm around her waist.

Silence filled the galley.

“I s’pose…” Bert cleared his throat. “Well, it does appear to look like every movie scene that’s been filmed in Central Park, now doesn’t it?”

They both stared in more silence for a few minutes.

Eventually, Tabitha realized the pirate ship was drawing a crowd of onlookers, most pointing cameras toward them. “Can’t avoid it, even in New York City, I expect.”

“What may or may not be New York City,” Bert corrected, pushing his glasses up his nose firmly. “They don’t seem jaded enough.”

“I’m more worried about how we’ll get a pirate ship out of a pond,” Tabitha said drily. “Or if we’ll need to use the cannon to blast our way out.”

“Or where we resupply for the journey back to Cornwall.” Bert wandered toward his laptop, fingers already twitching.

She sighed, knowing she’d be lucky to pull him away from his research now, and prepared to handle the three uniformed policemen cautiously heading toward the ship.

***

This week’s prompt was from nother Mike: When the storm was over, they found themselves floating in a pond in Central Park…

My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel: A rose by any other name will stab with wick’d thorns just the same.

“The funny thing is,” Ezra said slow, twirling a simple gold band on a chain between his hands. “I found her wedding ring in my coffee cup at a café we’d never visited together.”

His sister smiled from the perch on her barstool, catlike in her satisfaction. “Grams.”

“Yep.” He gave Sophia sad eyes and dangled the ring from its chain. It bobbed, gleaming, above the amber liquid in a heavy glass. “Grams. She popped in, dropped it in the cup, and asked what I was waiting for. It was her seal of approval.”

She leaned forward. “It matches yours. I never noticed.”

“I never figured out how Grams found me. I’d gone there to think, someplace different, to think it over and make sure Aliss was really the one.”

She thought he’d ignored her comment, but he continued after a too-careful sip of whiskey that belied how much he’d already had.

“However she found me, she had Gramps’ ring handy as well. That’s what she wore around her neck after he passed.” He swallowed, hard, and clenched the chain between white-knuckled fingers. “On this chain.”

Ezra drained the glass, then snapped his wrist. Glass shattered against the wall. Shards twinkled under the family bar’s string of fairy lights.

She found herself with a hand outstretched and absolutely no idea to say as he mangled her fingers.

His words were a whisper. “And now I’ve lost all three of them.”

***

Thanks to Parrish Baker for the prompt! He found her wedding ring in his coffee cup at a café they’d never visited together.

My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel: “It’s only an invasion if you don’t want to be inundated with puppies.”

Want to play along or read more? Head on over to More Odds Than Ends – and don’t forget to send in your prompt submission!

Peter felt his temples pulse and held his fingertips to the sides of his head. It did absolutely nothing to stop the throbbing.

“That won’t help,” a slightly tinny voice said through his laptop’s speakers. A two-dimensional version of June tilted her head. “Try at least little circles.” She motioned, nearly spilling the coffee still in hand across her blazer. “Oh, blast.”

“Blasting might help,” he said, hope lifting his spirits, if not the headache. “As would a stroke. I really don’t believe this.”

“Your minion claimed doesn’t just have a wild imagination, I assume?”

“Intern,” he corrected absently. “The same one, I suspect, who caused the feckin’ problem to start.”

“Your Irish is showing.”

He grinned, and managed an exhausted wink. “Aye, lass, and innit a shame you’re two hundred klicks away?”

“Professional continuing education is important,” virtual June said primly. “This conference is great, actually. You can show me how much you missed me later. Now, show me the closet?”

“Server room,” he muttered with a sigh, and felt the throbbing return with a vengeance. Peter hefted the laptop to his chest and turned toward the closet on his left.

“Is that our connection?”

He caught a glimpse of a frown as she twisted her head, clearly hoping he’d turn the camera toward the door.

“No, lass, that’s the cloud storage having thunderstorms.” He set the laptop on a printer that had been disconnected so long it carried a thick layer of dust. “Bit tense to open the door, really.”

“Well,” June said, biting her lip. “What’d the minion say he did before he reported this problem?”

“He didn’t.” Peter’s words were sour as he contemplated the door, with its flashes of lights and soft booms of thunder escaping through the inch-high crack at the bottom of the door, exactly as if the server farm now had its own thunderstorm. “He also ran away. His latest project was setting up a mythology database, though, if it helps any.”

“Mythology,” June said slowly.

“That’s your thinking voice, love.”

“Mmm-hmm. Why don’t you come and join me for the rest of this conference?”

“Can’t,” he said. “I’m the only mage with the right skill set around. Whatever’s in there will eat everyone else alive.”

“It might also eat you alive.” Virtual June had lost all semblance of teasing, now, and despite the connection being worse than usual, he thought she’d also gotten paler. “Because after whatever your intern downloaded for that project, my best guess is that those are the thunder gods duking it out in there.”

***

I picked up a spare this week: When the cloud storage started having thunder storms…

Check out more – or play along – over at MOTE!