Wednesday Blog Hop - Hard to Let Go

It's Wednesday once again, and after a brief rest the blog hop is back. I hope that everyone across the Atlantic had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. I'd say you should feel rested but after hearing some stories about peoples holiday weekends I'm sure you're probably having the rest now!

So for those unfamiliar with this blog hop the rules are as follows:

• There is one photo and five words, all of which need to be included in your story
• There is a maximum limit of 500 words
• You have until the following Wednesday to complete your post
• When you have finished and posted, link up with one of the blog hosts and let them know you're joining in
• The main rule is to not take it too seriously, but as the hosts admit it's unlikely that any writers will not take it seriously. As long as you don't fret/panic/pass out/hyperventilate/lose sleep/run in fear over it, then they are happy

The hosts for this blog hop are Nicole Pyles at The World of My Imagination and Carrie Sorenson at Chasing Revery


This weeks photo is:

 

The words are:                iron, moon, university, bee, bench

And here is my contribution:

Hard to Let Go

  

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I let Jackson get a little way ahead of me with Chester, I didn't want him to see the tears in my eyes. This was one of our favourite places to walk, at this time of year the leaves crunched noisily beneath our boots. I'd let him get as far as the bench up ahead and then I'd have to sit down with him and explain. I wasn't sure if I could keep myself together for long enough but I was going to have to try. I had to stay strong for him, it would only make things harder otherwise.

I'd been looking after Jackson for just over a year, the longest resident that I'd had since entering into the fostering programme. They'd warned me that sometimes it could be hard to let go once a more permanent home had been found for them. The last two children I'd looked after were only babies, and I was surprised how easy it was to hand them over, knowing they were going to a loving family. But with Jackson he was quite a bit older, we could actually talk and get to know each other. He'd been very quiet when he first came to me and had terrible trouble sleeping. Quite often I'd check on him in the evening when he'd gone to bed, and he'd be sat at the window inside the curtains staring up at the moon. I tried not to think too much about what had happened to the children before they came to me, I just had to concentrate on helping them to feel safe.

He settled in nicely after a few weeks, and we established a nice routine that worked for both of us. He'd hit it straight off with Chester, the pair were inseparable now. Something else that would only make this process harder.

I hadn't even thought about how I'd approach the subject with him. I needed to be careful, I didn't want to undo all the good progress we'd made. He'd told me about his dreams, of growing up in a loving home, eventually going off to university so he could get a good job and look after his own family properly. He was already sure he didn't want his own children to grow up like him. Listening to him melted my heart, and in this business that wasn't always a good thing. You were expected to lock your emotions away in an iron vault.

As we reached the bench I called for him to sit down with me, my mind trying to calm before I started. In the trees behind me I noticed a lone bee rustling in the leaves and I thought to myself what a simple life they must lead.

Word count: 459

Why don't you have a go?

Teaser Tuesday - 27th Nov

Teaser Tuesday is a new meme I have discovered, brought to you by MizB at Should Be Reading.

It is all about books on this one and anyone can join in.

All you have to do is:

1.  Grab your current read
2.  Open to a random page
3.  Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
4.  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
     Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!
5.  Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Then you can hop on over to MizB's blog and add a link to yours in her comments, and check out some other new blogs while you're there!

My teaser for today is:

'And it was almost warm, his usually icy skin.  But I barely noticed, for I was touching his face, something I'd dreamed of constantly since the first day I'd seen him.'

                                                   - p242, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Congratulations NaNoers!

I've just been catching up with my blogs after spending the whole weekend without viewing a single one. I won't be doing that again I can tell you, it's taken me more than a little time going through them all. 

I'm really pleased to see that so many of you that started the NaNoWriMo challenge this year have already finished their 50k word target, and I want to say a huge congratulations to you all! I admire your hard work and dedication in achieving such a target, especially as many of you have a lot more than just writing going on in your lives.

Once again I contemplated doing NaNo this year, and after a tentative start couldn't keep going after the first week.  Too many other things conspired against me and I fell too far behind to catch up. I realise this isn't much of an excuse and I really have to make the time for it, but I've been going through a period of contemplation and growth lately with my writing and I'm sure I'll be much more mentally prepared for it next year.  And I can always have a go at CampNaNoWriMo too if I fancy it sooner.

For those of you still going with your NaNo experience, keep at it, the end is in sight!

I'll have to put my own challenge attempt on next years to-do list.

Breaking Dawn 2 - Not too bad at all ...

Photo courtesy of www.filmofilia.com

So, the new Twilight movie? I'd have to say that it is actually pretty good.

The feelings of discomfort that I was worried about were certainly there, but for reasons I wasn't anticipating.  There were a lot of teenagers there, as well as younger children, which I was surprised at as the film is rated a 12A. There was a particular sex scene that, although not very graphic for an adult, I felt was quite inappropriate for some of the youngsters in there.  Then later on there was quite a lot of head removal and body tearing. I'm not sure if this is an age thing, maybe I'm starting to get a little too old, but I certainly don't remember seeing such things when I was so young.
Apart from that though I really enjoyed the film. I went through a range of emotions, including annoyance at Kristen Stewart.  I don't rate her very highly as an actress but the focus in this film was less on her so she couldn't be too whiney about everything. I loved the whole coming together of the vampire community, as well as the werewolves, to go up against the might of the strongest vampires, all to protect one little girl.
I'm not sure about the whole Edward/Jacob debate, but I would definitely be on Team Carlisle.  He's such a cool vampire, taking things in his stride, and he's not too bad on the eye either :-)
It's been a long while since I've read the books for this series, and seeing the film has now compelled me to dig them out and read them again.  In fact, that may be my next stop after signing off.

After making a nice cup of tea that is ...

Team Jake or Edward ...

A couple of friends are dragging me off to see the new Twilight film tomorrow, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

I've been to see all the ones before, and I've read all of the books but I still can't make my mind up whether I like them or not.

When I read the books it didn't take very long, I was drawn in and felt compelled to get to the end.  The ending was a fairly satisfying one, no loose ends or the feeling of 'oh, is that it?' But I still can't say for certain if they were good or not.  I think that throughout I had a niggling in the back of my mind that it's target market is more teenagers, and I'm not sure if I'm getting to be a bit too old to be enjoying these books. I suppose at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, you like what you like.  Overall I did enjoy them, but it's safe to say I'm not an ecstatic fanatic.

The same thinking goes for the films. They are not as good as the books (I find films rarely are) but they were enjoyable nonetheless. I do get a little bit conscious however when there are lots of teenage girls going in to the cinema, proudly declaring which camp they are in, Jake or Edward. When asked the same question I feel I can't even consider it without feeling a little squirm inside. Even though the
 actors may be a bit older, the characters are essentially teens themselves (well, I know they're vampires and so older than everyone, but the facade they're carrying off is that of teens).  To me that's just a little too weird.

I'm sure that I'm probably over thinking all of this and should just go along to the film and see what it's like.  After that I may revisit the books to see if I can fathom what makes them so compelling.

I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow ...

Photo courtesy of twilightsaga.wikia.com

Thanks for the inspiration

There is a blog that I follow called Scotty Watty Doodle All the Day and he posts something to his blog every single day without fail.  The only time that I have managed to do blogging like this was during the A-Z Challenge back in April, and I think I just about managed to post something every day.

Since then I've been trying to go for a couple of times a week, but I have a tendency to forget that I'm supposed to do it and two weeks can go by without anything from me. 
The last post I read from this guy, Hygge Man, struck a chord within me somewhere and I'm wondering to myself if I could manage to keep going with a post every day.  He admits that if he doesn't post something every day then he finds it harder to stick to a schedule to do it each week. 

A little voice within me was trying to whisper something to me 'I wonder if I could do a post every day.  maybe I'll put it in my diary to try it in the new year'.
But then a louder voice shouted back 'The new year!? Why wait? Get started on it today!'

I sat and listened to this second voice and though how right it was.  Why on earth should I wait a few weeks to get started on something like this? I'll probably forget anyway, and then feel disappointed with myself for not following through on yet another idea. 

So this is my first post in what I hope will remain a daily habit.  I want to say a massive thanks to Hygge Man, you're inspiration today has pushed me on to the next step in this writing journey.

Expanding onto pastures new ...

I hadn’t realised it until now but I’ve had this blog going for just over a year.  I’ve been quite absorbed in other things lately and the first anniversary on 3^rd October completely passed me by.

So here I am saying a belated Happy 1^st Birthday to my lovely blog!  

 

 

I had one before this but I didn’t manage to keep it going for one reason or another.  It was along the same kind of lines as this one when it started out, but after a whole year of posting this one has evolved into something a bit different.

It was originally intended as a means of chronicling my first tentative steps into the world of writing, but I have found writing to be a tricky business to get into.  I don’t just mean that from a publishing point of view either.  I'm not far enough along yet to know anything about that side of it!   

The very act of coming up with stories and then sitting down to turn them into something readable is a lot harder than I thought it would be.  Needless to say I haven’t given up, but I don’t want to say too much about that now; I’m saving it for the next IWSG post.

I’m pleased that my blog covers all three aspects of my title: book reviews (although these have been lacking lately) for Reading, blog hops and short pieces for Writing, and I think my film challenge is qualifying in the Everything in Between section.

Doing the A-Z challenge back in April certainly helped to boost my blogging confidence and I’m looking forward to it again next year.  I’ll probably work more to a theme next time around.

The focus of my blog seems to have moved a little way away from the art of writing over the last few months, and this has prompted me to think about starting up a second blog to focus solely on writing.  I fully intend to keep this blog going, it’s a lot of fun to do and I still have my challenges to get through!

I think for the new one though, I want to try and keep a journal of my writing practices and have a regular spot to post short stories and at this stage I’m thinking of themes for each month to write stories about.  It’s still in the very early planning stages but I will keep you updated as to its progress.  Ideally I’d like a launch date of 1^st January, and now that I’ve made this semi-announcement about it I should have more impetus to get it moving.  Watch this space for more news!