Hersenskim: February 2015

Friday, February 27, 2015

Writing updates – articles and a blog tour!

This week has been quite busy, but I did get some writing done and some articles published.

I’ve also been invited to take part in the Writing Process Blog Tour! This post will be on the blog in a few weeks.

In the meantime, here are the links to my articles and to “Moonstruck”, a flash fiction piece I wrote last week.

I Love South Africa’s Diversity

How to Spring Clean Your House (seeing as how I’m busy with this anyway)

Record-setting Heatwaves in History (Also giving myself some perspective while it’s over 30 °C)

Moonstruck

Monday, February 23, 2015

Flash Fiction: Moonstruck

This piece was written for Flash!Friday with the photo and the setting “moon” as a prompt. Although my story for Warmup Wednesday also included the moon, I wanted to break away from that world and write a standalone piece.

Moonstruck

I was born on a Monday. People said my mother was moonstruck and had to go away after I was born. Father said mother was an elf and had to go back to the elf world.

Father showed me the giant mound where her world was hidden. He said when I turned sixteen I could go and see her. He said the roads there were secret. That there was a great palace of moonrocks where she lived, because elves love the moon. I collected all the moonrocks I could find. They looked like quartz filled with white moonlight.

The day after my twelfth birthday I heard the elves singing for the first time. The song came from inside the mound; melodies filled with strange words. I learnt them and sang to the elves even though I never saw them even when their voices followed me home.

People started calling me moonstruck because I sang to the elves.

People stopped talking to me.

Father gave me a suitcase for my sixteenth birthday. He cried when he said I was going to see the palace where the others like me lived. I went to the mound to tell them I’m coming. A few said they’ll go with me to keep me company.

Liverpool — Hope Street. CC photo by Harshil Shah. Sculpture “A Case History” by John King.

Click here to read the story I wrote forWarmup Wednesday.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Midweek fiction: A Song for the Moon

Written for “WarmupWednesday”, the prompt was the photo below and you had to include a word of gibberish.

A Song for the Moon

I played the moon a song to keep her from leaving.

People tell how the moon was the sun's lover in an age long forgotten. But their ways parted and the sun forsook the moon and left her to wander the paths of heaven alone. The stars took pity on her loneliness and played the music of lulurasetsin for her. She tarried in the sky, listening, never leaving earth’s side.

But the stars are dimming. And, with them, their music.

I will play star music for her, hoping that she will tarry here and not leave again to wander alone.

Harp. PD photo by Skitterphoto

Favourite Music Thursday: Stay On These Roads

“Stay On These Roads” (1988), by a-ha, remains one of my favourite songs. I grew up with a-ha and to still love a song after listening to it hundreds of times over more than twenty years goes to show what staying power it has. (The lyrics are below the video.)

The cold has a voice
It talks to me
Stillborn, by choice
It airs no need
To hold

Old man feels the cold
Oh baby don’t
‘Cause I’ve been told

Stay on these roads
We shall meet, I know
Stay on – my love
We shall meet, I know
I know

Where joy should reign
These skies restrain
‘Shadow your love’
The voice trails off again