Once upon a time (because that’s how these things start), there was a wealthy merchant, with a healthy wife and a single, beloved daughter. The daughter, Eleanor, wasn’t the prettiest girl in the town of Gandry, but she was pretty enough for mothers and fathers of local sons to paint over her fierce intelligence with …
Thrushbeard was the first full story I actually finished. It's a bit under 32,000 words, so novella length. When I went to write the second draft, I decided to turn it into a full-length novel. Which means draft two isn't a revision, it's a total re-write. Even the names of the main characters have changed. …
The promised heatwave hit this morning. I opened the windows in shade, shuttered the ones in sun, and decided to spend the day indoors, digging through my old junk chest. It was less of a chest and more of a pocket dimension if I’m honest, and I never knew what would come out of it. …
Jax sipped her coffee and looked out of the kitchen window at the frost-covered world outside. She’d brought warm clothes for a country walk. She wondered if Sebastian had, or if he’d planned to spend the whole weekend indoors. He was tired, that much was clear. At his parents’ home, he was usually up at …
It’s morning, a nice one from the look of it, still cool from a bit of overnight rain but blue sky is greeting me from the windows. I putter through my usual morning routines, wash, breakfast, tidy. It’s best to tidy as you go, otherwise things pile up, then multiply when you’re not looking and …
It was getting close to dusk, and Mara had been able to bathe, change and enjoy a very belated lunch while waiting for her failed stalker to turn up. That the only place to bathe was the pool in the centre of the clearing mattered not at all. In her true form, clothing was an …
The house stood on a slope, the wide stone balcony commanding a wide view of the surrounding lands, now shadowed and silvered under the full moon. Near the house, the white gravel paths of the formal gardens glowed in the moonlight, surrounding dark flowerbeds, forming strange patterns. Runes perhaps, surrounding the house in a protective …
If only the strangest thing I had to deal with today was an argument between the cauldron of plenty and my singing tea kettle. The kettle was an earlier gift (I use the term loosely) from the double rainbow and has settled in surprisingly well. It sings as it boils its water and the melodies …
Scheherazade straightened her spine and moved down the corridor pretending confidence. It was the only weapon she had and she would hold onto it for as long as possible. At the end, she paused, took a breath, then pushed the curtain aside and entered the room. She curtseyed. “My Lord.” The figure at the window, …
On work-from-home days, Halley spent her lunch breaks in the park. Unless it was raining or otherwise evil weather – then she’d go to a café. It got her away from the computer, away from her flatmates’ work vents, away from the ‘could you justs’ and ‘if you have a moments’. It was her time …
The DNA of Stories 