Jim is the host and gave us this picture and the word, cold. Here goes…
Poor, cold cat (Cat in the Hat fan fiction)
And now he was back. The Cat in the Hat And even though cold, he ne’r worried bought that He worried ‘bout green cheese and even green eggs He worried ‘bout spiders and all of their legs He came well prepared, that Cat in the Hat He came with some bug spray and his big baseball bat He told the kids stories that his pop told him Even ‘bout working, which sometimes were grim But he smiled and nodded to keep the mood light Or else these two kids would end up in a fight Then mom would be mad that the Cat came to call She’d make him leave quick with his stories and all She’d make him run far and tell him not to come back ‘Cause common sense manners their mom did not lack She’d tell him to stay away far from her house “I’ll call the police! You dirty old louse!” So the cat kept on walking, even now in the snow ‘Cause home was the only place he knew to go.
I was so excited when I saw this and could actually turn my camera on, while walking the dog and trying to get him to stand still for a minute. They go in order
Should people be honest and just say no when asked to do something they either don’t want to do or are uncomfortable about doing? For me it depends on what it is and who is asking. If it is something I am uncomfortable doing I have an easier time saying no. If it is something I don’t want to do then I question whether my motives are worth telling someone no. I wish people would say no to me if they don’t want to do something. I hate seeing that “look” like they can’t believe they are “having” to help. Funny aside: My son and I suppose my daughter too, used to always start a question with “Do you want to…” My son one time asked, “Do you want to loan me $5000 for a new bike?” I said no. Apparently, they got this from me because I say it too. For example, I might say, “David, do you want to let the dog out?” and he will say, “Are you asking me to do it or asking me if I want to?” I suppose there is a difference but I always say that I don’t want him to do it if he really doesn’t want to. I guess this is how I brought up my kids. My son isn’t with me anymore and my daughter lives far away, so I don’t hear it anymore, except when I ask the questions myself.
Why aren’t more people apt to tell the truth and save everyone involved a lot of time and aggravation? I think for many people it is just easier to say yes and suffer for a short time than to say no and disappoint the person asking for help. I get this. The one thing I don’t get is when someone says yes, they will help, and then they just avoid you until they know the time has passed. People disappear when they don’t want to help. That is fine, but please don’t say you will help and then expect me to hunt you down!
How comfortable are you with asking for help when the favor is something that will take a lot more time and work (and money with the gas price situation right now) than your relationship with the other party might warrant? I think it would depend on the favor. If it something that does not really need to be done then I wouldn’t ask. If it was something like a ride to a doctor or picking someone up, I have no problem asking for help. I learned many years ago, with a great team of teachers I worked with, that it is so much better to ask for help than to suffer alone.
If you like pirate action mixed in with your fantasy, you are going to want to read The Willows Weep by Alonna Williams, available for pre-order now!
The Willows Weep (Pirates of the Withering Deep #2)
Expected Publication Date: Coming Soon!
Genre: YA Fantasy/ Pirates
Publisher: Blue Gingham Publishing
The darkness lurks and smiles, beneath a weeping willow, a heart as pure as gold, can blacken as the night…
Now with stronger allies, Trevor is ready to tackle his biggest challenge yet, coming to terms with his Sirenhood.
While Labyrinth fears being at the forefront due to the constant dangers he faces in Human form, Trevor recognizes his need to understand his Siren side.
Further down the rabbit hole of his mystifying quest, Trevor begins to unravel the perilous truth about his childhood friend and savior, the one called: “the Willow”, who saved him from the jaws of death before he was even born.
Can he really be the paragon of purity? Or could it be that a black heart lingers suppressed under the goodness of the Pure Siren?
Coming Soon!
Excerpt
Trevor stepped back and looked down at the sand under his sock-covered feet.
“Sadness,” Arjan realized. He could sense that emotion anywhere. “Sadness…because of
me,” he continued. “If it is something you are wishing to say to me, use Insussurro. Your sadness will help you do so.”
Trevor stared at Arjan’s loose turquoise waves and furrowed his brow—trying to get in touch
with his feelings. “I think it all would have been easier if you didn’t leave,” he finally said through the use of his Siren ability.
Arjan watched as Trevor’s fists balled, and his lips formed a scowl, though they never opened
to form the words. They were just thoughts, his sadness transforming into anger.
“I bear great regrets for that, little one,” Arjan replied. “I cannot tell you how many. But if I
was having to do the same thing again, in much honesty I must tell you, I would.”
“I had no friends, Arjan. None. Not until Aldrich came along. They all thought I was weird,
and their parents told them stuff like that all the time because of…because of this!” he said through his lips as he pointed to one of his ears. Trevor then pointed to Arjan’s ears. “But you always had them. If I saw them on you, do you think I would have been bothered by them when they changed?
If I had the privilege of growing up with a Siren, do you think I would have cared about being an
Alonna Williams has been writing since she was a little girl. It started with a short story and soon progressed to novels. Aside from her debut novel, A Peculiar Royal, Alonna has worked on, Au Contraire, and grew up with a Pirate series entitled, Pirates of the Withering Coast, which is her favorite series of all. When she’s not writing you’ll most likely find her dancing, whether it be, Tap, Ballet, Jazz or Lyrical, or watching a good classic movie or of course, bingeing Disney+.
Christine aka Stine Writing is our host for the Simply 6 Minutes challenge.
You can find out more and join in here
Image: cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20170929/make_up_artist_07.jpg
Who sees the inner self?
The layer beneath the surface,
Or the layer beneath that?
Like an onion
They overlap and peel away,
To reveal the vulnerable
Whose tears are their only defense.
Looking out, the mind crumbles,
No-one understands
Each protective covering
Is as fragile as the one preceding it.
Look into my eyes.
Do you see a disjointed face
Or do these segments
Merge to form the whole?
*****For any participants that do NOT like restrictions, please feel free to participate in any way you would like. It is great to read the contributions!****
Set up a timer or sit near a clock so you can keep track of the six minutes you will be writing.
You can either use one of the prompts (photo or written) or you can free-write.
Get ready and write for 6 minutes, that is it! Can you write a complete story? Can you think of a new Sonnet? Can you write 400 words? 400? 500? There are no restrictions on what kind of writing you do, but you should try to be actively writing for six minutes.
After you are done writing, include your word count and then post back to this page #Simply6Minutes or include your link in the comments section. Pingbacks are enabled.
*Feel free to leave your work completely unedited. I believe it is good to see, especially for new writers, that even very seasoned writers don’t write a perfect first draft.*
Have fun, challenge yourself if you’d like, read and respond to others’ posts.
I may be broken as you see but you are just as broke as me you hide behind your fancy clothes you smile to hide your whines and woes but when you look at me you can think that I’m a lucky man for what you see is not real me What you see is what I want to be I’m hidden, cursed and forlorn I damn the day that I was born I can’t go on with thoughts like this I hope I’m a person people miss but I’m not selfish, no not I first I’ll stop to say goodbye I’ll hope that you will beg and plead That my hurt soul your words can feed I want to heal I want to live I must have more than this to give So I will wait for you my dear For my demise is drawing near Wish me luck or maybe not I’ll be gone from this here spot I’ll be gone and then you’ll see I’m not the man I used to be.
Literary Fiction/ Contemporary Literary Fiction/ Romantic Elements “Eternal Lovers”
We’re celebrating the release of Ferne Arfin’s novel, Tunnel of Mirrors this week! Read on for more details!
Tunnel of Mirrors
Publication Date: February 1st, 2022
Genre: Literary Fiction/ Contemporary Literary Fiction/ Romantic Elements “Eternal Lovers”
Publisher: Green River Press
Rachel Isaacson, spirited, otherworldly and haunted, is born into a rigidly Old World family in New York’s Lower East Side. Hungry for independence, Rachel enters a marriage of convenience with violent consequences.
Across the Atlantic, storyteller, fiddler and cliff climber Ciaran McMurrough is raised in pastoral innocence on Rathlin off the coast of Ulster. His upbringing in a tight-knit, isolated community leaves him unprepared for the subtle political passions following the Irish Civil War.
Outcasts-one by choice, one by chance-Rachel and Ciaran meet on the docks of lower Manhattan in 1928. Drawn to each other in this lyrical story, must they repeat a doomed cycle as eternal lovers?
“Tunnel of Mirrors fires the imagination and stirs the soul…a story to savour that remains long in the mind. I loved it.”
-Sunday Times Bestselling Author of Our Story, Miranda Dickinson
“Humour, emotion, and perfectly tuned dialogue, ensures her people are triumphantly alive.”
-Novelist Janette Jenkins, author of Firefly and Little Bones
“Tunnel of Mirrors is a beautiful, lyrical recreation of the past. With warmth, wit and great heart, Ferne Arfin takes the reader back into the struggles and small victories of a lost world.”
-Toby Litt, English writer and academic, author of Patience
Every morning, on the way to work, Rachel stopped at Bessie’s to change from the modest cotton dresses her father allowed into one of the swingy, short frocks that she and Bessie made during their lunch breaks. Then, their hemlines a daring nine inches above the ground, the two girls swanked uptown to their jobs at Mishkin’s, Theatrical Costumiers to the Trade.
Mishkin’s son, Arthur, managed the sewing rooms. He was sweet on Bessie and any friend of Bessie’s was a friend of his, so both girls could count on extra break time for their own sewing. They could count on remnants of fabric, from time to time, as well.
Mishkin allowed his trimmers to keep the beads and feathers swept up at the end of the day. Lately, Arthur, who Bessie kept on a very long leash, had begun passing on the full boxes of beads that were often left over when a show was dressed. These were supposed to go back into stock but Arthur said, “What the heck. They’re paid for. If my old man asks, you got them from the sweepings.”
“You’re a real prince, Arty,” Bessie would say and he would glow for a week. Sometimes she even gave him a peck on the cheek. It was a small price to pay for the very same sequins and beads the showgirls wore when they danced for Ziegfeld and Minsky.
Rachel and Bessie were making special dresses. They had big plans. It was no use knowing all the latest steps, if you couldn’t show them off at the landsmannschaft socials, where bearded old men and everybody’s mother prowled the dance floor. And most of the boys at Corkery’s Shamrock Dancehall thought a good time was slipping a double bathtub gin into a girl’s Moxie and seeing how far you could get her to go. If you went to Corkery’s too often, the regulars started thinking you were a charity girl who would do just about anything for the price of a bottle of pop. Drunken boys were always staggering out of there whistling the tune to I’ll Say She Does. Even though Corkery made his payments, the place got raided at least once a month. Duvi said it was part of Corkery’s arrangement with Tierney, who was the local boss, because it kept the neighbours off the councilman’s back. Duvi always knew about the raids in advance, so the girls never got into trouble.
But now Rachel and Bessie were ready for better things. In the right place, a girl could meet big spenders who were hot steppers and who carried real Canadian whiskey in silver hip flasks. But for high-class dancehalls like Roseland or Dreamworld or Feldman’s Coney Island Palace, they needed real dance dresses.
Bessie thought Rachel should bob her hair. But some things couldn’t be left behind in Bessie’s rooms and Rachel was careful to protect her new double life. “You said you wasn’t afraid of your old man,” Bessie insisted. Rachel couldn’t make Bessie, who never did anything by half, understand that some arguments were not worth the trouble. Or that most of the trouble would land on her mother. Bessie hadn’t had a mother in such a long time.
***
Rachel weighed a heavy hank of glass beads across the palm of her hand. Bugles. The most delicate cylinders of crystal blue and green, threaded on lengths of fine silk. They sparked like a shoal of moon-chased minnows. There were enough to finish.
“And about time too,” Bessie said. Bessie had grown impatient with Rachel’s fussy particularity. Anything that glittered made Bessie happy. While Rachel waited for just the right colours, Bessie had finished her dress and was stringing a boa of pink dyed marabou feathers. She waved it under Rachel’s nose. “Ain’t these just dee-vine?” she said. “Ain’t they just the cat’s pyjamas?”
Rachel didn’t have the heart to tell her she looked like an explosion at bead factory; Bessie was so eager to make what she imagined would be a very grand entrance at Roseland. “Look out fellas, here I come.”
Rachel had planned more carefully, making sure Arty found just what she needed. If Arty ever wondered why he took so much trouble for a skinny Jewish girl, when he was already married to one and when it was her Irish shiksa friend he was after, Rachel did not let him wonder for long. Still the dress had taken months to finish. It was covered with beaded fringe and scattered with iridescent sequins, flashes of silver and the smallest seed pearls that Arty could finagle. From its pure white hemline, it rose in a narrow column through all the greens and blues to a deep cobalt at the shoulders. When Rachel put it on, she looked like a creature risen from the bottom of the ocean, seafoam still clinging about her knees.
“Geez, you look like a million, kiddo.” Bessie said. “Who’d ever guess you was jail-bait.”
London-based American writer Ferne Arfin has worked as a journalist, copywriter, actress and travel writer. Her short stories have been anthologised by Virago and Travellers’ Tales. Tunnel of Mirrors is her first published novel.
Is there a song you associate with someone special in your life?
Please share a song which sparks fond memories of someone, or something, in your life? A relative? A friend? Maybe a family pet? Or even somewhere you lived or visited? Even better, share that memory as well?
After losing my husband in 2018 I sort of figured I would be on my own…maybe not forever, but I didn’t feel the need to find someone else. But fate plays its own role and I met David. I was nervous to have such strong feelings for someone, I was falling in love. I didn’t want to rush into things and one day I told him how I felt. Then I heard this song…
Lyrics
There’s no need to complicate it Dress it up or overstate it Without too much hesitation Here’s the way I feel
I like you, I like you Even when I don’t try to Yes, I do, that’s the truth I like you
Seven years is a long, long while Somehow you still make me smile I’d say almost most the time Here’s the way I feel
I like you, I just like you Even when I don’t try to Yes, I do, that’s the truth I like you, hmm
There are way too many love songs And I think they’ve got it all wrong ‘Cause life is not the mountain tops It’s the walkin’ in between And I like you walking next to me
Well I like you, I like you Even when I don’t try to Yes, I do, that’s the truth I like you, yeah
Stine Writing 
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