Under Gallow's Veil

This poem won the UK's Writing Magazine's 'One Word Challenge' competition for August on its online forum Talkback.

The one-word theme was Shadow.

I hope you like it.
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Under Gallow's Veil
by Lily Childs

I bleed upon your shadow, hanging dark on winter’s ground.
Dip pale fingers into dirt,
cast edges round your form
shape so slim as skeletal,
your broken heart unbound.

The dule tree weeps cadaverous tears, a sycamore lament.
Triple bodies, pendulous
swing easy in the breeze
keeping time with coarse crow caws,
blue wings in bleak torment.

Out thieving with your brothers, courting death to counter life.
Love became our enemy,
a kiss so sweet and rare.
Vengeance swelled in bitter words
to spill from me, your wife.

They caught you trading booty, at the place I said you’d be.
No sooner out my mouth than
regret ate at my soul.
Now I pray, in deep remorse
below young brothers, three.

Night brings its own betrayal, stealing light from Old Man Sun.
Skin rips as I dig down deep,
your resting place to make.
We’ll share this bed forever.
There’s nowhere left to run.

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Lily's Friday Prediction

I've finally got online after four hours of erratic internet access, so will be brief in case the connection goes again.

Firstly, you'll be getting a whole two weeks to send in your Prediction entries! I am taking some time out to concentrate on writing as I've achieved zilch these last few months. I'll be keeping off the internet too - maybe popping in here and there to look at the Prediction and at Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers - but that'll be it. Going for a Twitter detox too.

Normal (?) service will be resumed around 5th September. I hope you understand.
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Congratulations go to Pixie for winning last week's Prediction challenge with Butterflies and Wolves, also to Erin Cole and Jenny Dreadful as runners-up with The Palm Tree and Jenny's untitled piece. Well done all.

Words for 26 August 2011

So, two weeks to wrap your pens around these new words:

• Pharaoh
• Fair
• Sweep

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have two weeks until 9pm UK time on Thursday 8th September to enter.

Winner will be announced next Thursday 8th or Friday 9th September. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

Now I must open a virgin Moleskine and sully its lined pages with words of darkness. Forgive me...

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Up the Downs

Magenta Shaman and latest on Episode 2

Very pleased to find sales of Magenta Shaman have recently increased in the US after a slump. Thank you to those who downloaded Magenta to your Kindle or app, she'll be your friend for a long time.

Some great 5*/4* new reviews too - from Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw at Goodreads, the very exquisite authors Jodi MacArthur and Chris Allinotte at Amazon.com and Jenny Francis at Amazon.co.uk. Much appreciated.

Episode 2 is on a major re-write. I'm halfway through so shouldn't be long now (apologies for the wait but I want it to be right).

I can, however reveal the title "Magenta Shaman Stones the Crow".

Download a free sample of  the first Magenta Shaman or buy the full novella at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com (where you can also 'Look inside').

Mr Col Bury of old Manchester City

Fellow Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers editor Col Bury (Jeez, is he inundated with class crime subs at the moment!) has posted his top 20 Best of Brit blogs list at Ashedit in the perfectly entitled Best of the Blogs by Col Bury—Brit Grit Part 5.

Check it out - if you're not there, find out where you should be.

Watch out too, for Col's upcoming chin wag with exquisitely articulate and poetic hard task-master Richard Godwin in the ultimate black seat at The Slaughterhouse. 

Erin Cole

Feardom Interviews

I am also pleased to announce a new short series of interviews at The Feardom. My first guest will be inspirational and beguiling wordsmith Erin Cole. Erin will visit The Feardom in the early weeks of September.

Lily Childs - Guest Writer at...

It may be that I have a Guest Write appearance in mid-September at... now that would be telling! The tale will be a little less horror - but no less nasty; details coming soon. 

What's more the story was inspired by a dream, and then after I'd finished writing it - I saw the exact location of the main 'event' on headline news. Did I make it happen? Nothing to do with me, Sarg.

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Prediction Winner

A big thank you to those who responded to my question about the Predicition Winner post - very much appreciated. It will business as usual for the moment then, though I might consider adding the summary/winner announcements to the bottom of the Comment thread in future.

Let's hope for some Blogging good behaviour today that will allow me to publish this very post...

My summary and comments herewith:

• Me, Watching Demelza. When those first two lines "She’s there. Under the oak." formed I had no idea who she would be. I still don't know where she came from but she was surely evil in priests' clothing.
  
• William, a cold and matter of fact message to this - don't mess with Malcolm. Steak Diane is one of those 1970's dishes where your starter would have been prawn cocktail or a very tiny glass of fruit juice. The other main course option - Chicken Kiev, and for pud Black Forest Gateaux or Banana Split. There is a warped nostalgia to Malc's Revenge that you've succinctly captured and delivered on a plate.
  
• Pixie, welcome back! Butterflies and Wolves is like opening a window onto carnage; a guilty peep at a scene that has been brewing for some time and I have arrived only for the final act. And that's why this works so well. I particularly love the concept of "vandalised my heart" which feels as physical as it does emotional.
  
• Chris, straight in with a hangover. Fizzing orange juice - I bloody hate that. Usually it's the final mouthful that sends your throat into spasms before lurching down into your body to deliver a wicked case of heartburn. Or is that just me? Hmmmnn... I'm liking Sam Collins, P.I.B. (Paranormal-Investigator-Bastard). What else does he have up his Californian sleeve - please?
  
• Erin, The Palm Tree is such an astounding vision of lumbering Gods silenced into solid palm trees, their limbs fodder for the creatures below. Gargle as a character is packed with intrigue - I see him as a stubby, semi-naked cave-trog with a shock of thick hair and muscles of rock. "Gargle stepped up on a knuckle, tugged a pear-shaped wish from the thumb of the palm..." - that's beautiful.
  
• Antonia, so many questions thrown up by the voluble Connoisseur in his self-debate on how to imbibe blood. I can imagine Frasier Crane narrating this; "The bitterness is not to be tolerated" especially. That the character then asks his audience why else would he want to drink blood makes me laugh - turning his argument around to reflect away any judgement on him for his actions/habit.
  
• Phil, two year old - it doesn't change much by the time they're seven mate. :-) I loved Tag's Gargle/Gargoyle play on words and didn't see it coming at all. Even within the joke you've painted an horrific picture -  two graffitiists at labour to complete their art; Chad's lifeforce blending with his masterpiece and a snarling protector in stone. That Hotel California - such a lovely place.
  
• AJ - please just excuse me whilst I phone to postpone this week's dentist appointment. Ahum. That's better. I reread Drill Bit once I knew for sure what it was about and felt even more horrified in that knowledge. You have described every bloody bubble, each stab of pain and all the mental scars with such alarming clarity that I feel sick to my stomach. Job done!
  
• Jenny, simply marvellous to hear from you again. Ooh, this untitled vignette of Vandal the Perfect is such a tease. I really do want to know what will happen to his parents and how he'll worm his way out of it. Then there'll be school, clubs, college, career, marriage - a lifetime of torture to play with. Very nasty.
  
• Aidan, Gaia Society Ball sees authorities spouting proclamations with hidden context on the state of the world. "...her hair burned while vandals humiliated her. She grows too fond of her inequalities." is chilling - very close to the knuckle. It leaves me feeling disturbed. Thought-provoking, this could be a comic strip in Private Eye.
  
• Kim, I had a good giggle at the double standards in Night Shift; maybe it's even triple standards, as I'm not convinced the coppers are just looking to id the corpse - maybe they consider a little reward is in order? I have to say, your opening line was a visual/aural delight.
  
• Veronica (do we call you Veronica or Veronica Marie, honey?) You really have got the zombie genre nailed. The horror of these deconstructed 'creatures' is chilling enough but your well-chosen words in Dinner Time "...hands cradling a boy’s crushed head… blood dripping from her chin… down the front of her I ♥ California t-shirt. She hissed…" made my skin crawl - especially the hiss. Uuuuurgh. Splendid!
  
• ttofee - I have tasted so many wines that taste like piss I can quite imagine someone being fooled (please save me from Pinot Grigio or grape left 'sur lie' for too long). I really enjoyed this suburban retaliation - nothing too menacing despite the distress the evening's victim had put your protag through, but a highly satisfying conclusion nonetheless to Taste of Revenge.

The winner - because I still feel as though I'm staring, shocked and uninvited through that window, is Pixie with Butterflies and Wolves. You've left something lingering for me here Pix... Congratulations!

Joint runners-up are Erin Cole's strange and beautiful world of The Palm Tree and Jenny Dreadful's macabre good boy/bad boy thriller. Well done both.

Tomorrow I'll post the new words and (I'll explain why in the morning) you'll have a whole two weeks to play with them.

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Lily's Friday Prediction

Good morning world! It's all sunshine and sea breezes in Eastbourne today - which is how it should be in the middle of August. I'm off work next week so am hoping the weather will treat us kindly; if not I'll lock myself in a café somewhere and scribble the days away.

Congratulations to AJ Humpage for winning last week's Prediction Challenge with the stirring and poetic Resurrection. And well done to Tony Cowin, runner-up for his fairy-tale horror In Crystal Vapours. Both chilling in totally different ways.

A Question...

Before I post this week's words - a question. Does anyone read my Prediction Winner posts that go out after the challenge closes, or do you wait until the Friday to see who has 'won'? I'm just intrigued as there are often not many comments on the Winner post - and I wondered if everyone even realised it was there?

It takes a lot of effort to assess the entries and write up the Winner post, so I'm quite happy to drop it - or post it in the comments box on the Challenge beneath all the entries instead. Do let me know - I do it for you so want to make sure I am getting it right. Thank you.

Words for 19 August 2011

Note: the challenge will close on Wednesday 24th August (not Thursday)

• Gargle
• California
• Vandal (Vandalise is fine)

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have all week until 9pm UK time on Wednesday (not Thursday) 24th August to enter.

Winner will be announced next Wednesday or Thursday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

Suppose I'd better get up and go to work. Unless you can give me a reason to stay abed...?

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Prediction Winner

So glad everyone has been posting and commenting without me - what a great bunch of writing comrades you all are. x

I shall summarise by way of comments below:

• Sue, Books to the Future is an adventuresome delight. I have had some VERY important books fall at my feet from unlikely shelves in old bookshops. They do have lives of their own - or maybe a part of their author's soul lives on within the pages? I love what you have evoked here - and it needs to run, run, run into a full scale volume. 
• Chris, firstly let me apologise for unwittingly hijacking part of your title, Maman and in a roundabout way - some of your story. I must have subconsciously picked it up. Sorry my dear. Chercher le Futur - a spectacular image of pentagrams and mirrors against a desert background. What choice did Legris have? Tell, or be damned. Mon dieu indeed.
• David, Mr Cheeky Barber is back. Have you ever considered doing Spooky Stand-Up? I really liked how you turned A Watery Grave from a tale of concern to a wicked little murder.
• Aidan, Jailbird's Song is freakin' freaky. Your narrator's snarling voice growls in my ear, making me nervous, causing me to look for him over my shoulder. Gripping, and terrifying,
• Antonia, all the best for the counselling session. I do hope you will be on the way to recovery soon. Boudicca’s Last Stand chilled me to the bone, not least because I felt I was staring back from the scrying bowl (one of my preferred methods after the mirror). This is haunting.
• Phil, Oh knock me down and make me fear for my life! Beware the Soldiers - that would be enough to scare a man; you'd fear war, terrorism, a coup d'etat... but ants? Very, very clever. Lesson: never take a prediction at face value.
• AJ, an emotional discovery, poetically performed. My feeling is this is the result of a search for a near-ancestor, that the MC has taken a cruel journey to locate this man and incite his Resurrection. We need - on behalf of all the family - to know more about what really happened; why he was there, and why he joined the Legion in the first place.
• Kim, that told him. And what he doesn't know is that beneath every 'old hag' is a soul harbouring a beautiful and terrible wisdom. More fool him. I liked this atmospheric arrival in our mystical lands of a people who still occupy the heaths and mists. For the Romans, it was ultimately a Gloomy Ending.
• Anthony, I felt a very non-spiritual sense of satisfaction at Jess's revenge. As children we are entitled to believe in fairy-tale castles, though if we ever knew the original stories we'd never want to be mixed up in such horror. Maybe In Crystal Vapours represents the modern day reality of ancient myth. Chilling.
• Me, A la Recherche d'un Homme Perdu speaks of a woman who can't bear that her man chose The Legion over her, and her family. Papa's letter proves it was all for their sake, not his.
• Reba, so glad you're back. "The media was the polar opposite of scrying – only able to see the future in retrospect." is a fabulously innovative - and insightful line. What You Sow questions law, legislation, government... It's the way it should be. This is a conspiracy theory with legs.
• William, a beautiful gothic feel to Non Lossless Depression. A poem? Prose? I can't work out if the narrator is desperate for Love, or Death - because the subjects twist, and twist about. And I like that - a lot.

The entries are so diverse; the standard of writing excellent. I haven't been very good at making decisions this week but the entry that stayed with me, and is therefore the winner is AJ Humpage's Resurrection, closely followed by Tony Cowin's In Crystal Vapours as runner-up. Congratulations both.

I'm going to bed. In the morning I will be a different person - by a few skin cells only. But who knows the memories the new cells I've caught might hold; perhaps I'll be Cleopatra - like everyone else. Or maybe not - maybe I'll be your grandmother. Have you exfoliated lately? Maybe I'll be you - sssshhhhhhh.

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Goodbye, dear friend

Tonight I heard the enormously sad news that an on old friend has passed away. Catherine Evans was one of life's one-offs, an artist who excelled at St. Martins in the 1940s, friend of some terribly dodgy and exciting characters, a highly articulate storyteller, a disarmingly accurate psychic/astrologer and a sublime cook.

Catherine - Laurence and I will miss you so much, but we know you've found yourself the best seat wherever you've moved on to and have probably decided on your next adventure. We have no doubt that you're already organising an extraordinary party that every single 'guest' will enjoy - as is your style.

This isn't a post for people to comment on; it's an open dedication. Catherine, I love you, and I'll miss you very much. Be happy. xx