a Compilation

these r the only nanowrimo excerpts ur gonna get for the time being lmao

what's the truth

she wears strings of forget-me-nots she walks as one entranced she takes me to secluded spots and leads me in the dance.

I've known Isla since we were tots; we've danced some twenty years. our childhood games I always lost; her comfort through my fears.

I've heard the tales of cradle swaps, the changelings in our midst; the fae slipped in our baby's cots and raised amongst our kids.

I'm not too blind to join the dots; I know just what she is. the leopard may not change her spots, but she was always this.

she's more at home out in our copse, naming the herbs and trees. but though she fosters wilder crops she's most at home with me.

a bark hosts insects as it rots; she tells me with a glance that earwigs prefer apricots when they're given the chance.

her hands are rough, but not her touch, her nails don't leave a scar. she may not have had soft things much but still knows what they are.

for although I may know the what I also know the who. and what's the truth when lips have got such better things to do.

she drapes me in forget-me-nots. she holds me as we sway. can she be trusted? maybe not. I love her anyway.

#i love this#such a great tale of love

Thanks!

what's the truth

she wears strings of forget-me-nots she walks as one entranced she takes me to secluded spots and leads me in the dance.

I've known Isla since we were tots; we've danced some twenty years. our childhood games I always lost; her comfort through my fears.

I've heard the tales of cradle swaps, the changelings in our midst; the fae slipped in our baby's cots and raised amongst our kids.

I'm not too blind to join the dots; I know just what she is. the leopard may not change her spots, but she was always this.

she's more at home out in our copse, naming the herbs and trees. but though she fosters wilder crops she's most at home with me.

a bark hosts insects as it rots; she tells me with a glance that earwigs prefer apricots when they're given the chance.

her hands are rough, but not her touch, her nails don't leave a scar. she may not have had soft things much but still knows what they are.

for although I may know the what I also know the who. and what's the truth when lips have got such better things to do.

she drapes me in forget-me-nots. she holds me as we sway. can she be trusted? maybe not. I love her anyway.

#she may not have had soft things much / but still knows what they are#!!!!!#ooooh I love this

Thank you! Weirdly this one was inspired by somehow finding myself on the Wikipedia page for earwigs...

portrait

he asked to be immortalised, preserved for evermore in paint. he had barely turned twenty-five but recently observed the taint of time's grey fingers on his skin; its smudges underneath his eyes. a forehead crumpled, paper thin, as if perpetually surprised.

this was no canvas for the wall. he hated portraits in that way; a way of measuring his fall, flesh left to wither and decay whilst paint preserved him as before. a benchmark of forsaken youth, held up as a comparator whilst mirrors showed the brutal truth.

he offered himself as the frame, for paint directly on his face; for portraits always look the same, never a hair brushed out of place. he hired a painter for six weeks then learnt to apply it himself; a face he daubed across his cheeks from pots kept on his bathroom shelf.

he brushed his skin with sacred oils, embalmed in rouge and rose and jaune, and wore his hair in russet coils, each one anointed so they shone. the smallest detail was arranged, the precise place, the exact hue. a ritual that never changed; as if he'd live forever too.

but powder paint around his eyes, and false veneers for his teeth, could only manage to disguise cracks in the canvas underneath. beneath painted sarcophagi even the pharaohs fade to dust. there is no stilling that demise once mould sets in beneath the crust.

he didn't last for very long with all that lead daubed on his face; a fear of ageing had been wrong compared to what came in its place. for wishing to stay twenty-five, frozen in time, everything fixed, can simply mean not to survive to ever witness twenty-six.

his body was quick to decay only the mask atop remained; even the maggots kept away from skin so consummately stained. his face was perfectly preserved; a death mask to hang on the wall. peeled off as art to be observed; a simple portrait after all.

#You have been killing it lately#really enjoying these

Thank you! I am now back from travelling so should be putting a little bit more time in (and able to format them correctly) so hopefully can get back to this kind of level.

Out of the Loop

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

Well, it certainly wasn't the ideal start to a working day. It turns out that the storm last night has torn some panels from the fence, so that's something I'll need to get fixed, no doubt at great expense. Judging from the drive to work, there's going to be a waiting list. The roads were awful, too, traffic stretched as far as the eye could see, just because some trees had fallen down as well. At least work was straightforward, although I had to show Jonas how to do his job again. The same stuff I told him just a few months ago. Brain like a sieve, that guy, honestly.

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

I don't really know how to say this, but Jonas has finally snapped. I was just making my mid-morning coffee when he cornered me in the kitchen and started rambling some absolute nonsense, even worse than his usual barrage of stupid work questions. It's not like I was having the ideal start to my day as it was - it turns out that the storm last night has done for some of the fence panels, so that's a direct hit to my savings, and I had to spend an hour in traffic because it decided to take out some trees on the way. With all that stress going on, I was really hoping for a straightforward day at the office.

I managed to excuse myself and ignored him when we were back at our desk, but then later on I hear he's been escorted from the building because he kept prodding people and shouting. Prodding! I've always joked that he's a few panels short of a fence himself, but I always thought he was just a bit scatterbrained, not... whatever this is. I actually thought he might be showing signs of improvement when I came in this morning, remembering stuff I taught him a few months ago without needing his usual reminder, but I guess a few hours of competency was all that bizarre mind of his could take. I wonder what will happen to him now?

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

I have no idea how to write this entry. I don't really have the words to do it justice, so I guess I'll just be frank and state the facts.

Jonas is dead. He didn't show up for work this morning, and we assumed it must have been because of the storm last night - I was delayed in traffic for a fallen tree, and the garden fence is in tatters, so plenty of reasons he might have had to stay home or not been able to make it in - but then someone said he'd been found dead.

Even then we guessed it must have been a fallen roof tile, a tragic casualty of the storm, but the truth turned out to be even worse. He took his own life. They won't say how, but I don't think I actually want to know. How long have we shared a desk now? I has to be the best part of a year. I won't pretend that we always got on, and I did find him frustrating at times, but this is horrible. I would never have wanted this for him.

It's awful to think that I used to make jokes about his intelligence, his sanity, and all the while he was actually struggling with real problems. He needed support, not my mockery. Did he know how I felt? Was that a reason that he did what he did? If that's the case, I don't think that I'll ever forgive myself, but I suppose that all that I can do now is try to be a better person in the future. It goes without saying that I'll never speak ill of Jonas again.

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

God, that imbecile Jonas has been creeping me out all day. Having a moron for a desk buddy is hard enough when he's focusing on work, but today he seems to be trying out a new party trick: guessing what I'm about to say before I say it. I tried my best not to encourage him, playing down the accuracy, but he was actually getting scarily close. Sometimes almost word for word. I don't know how he was doing it, but I didn't like it at all.

He actually said that he'd been to the future, lived this day before, something like that, so he knew what I was going to say, but that was definitely the weaker part of the whole act. If he's training to be one of those amateur magicians, he really needs to work on his patter. Probably best to focus on guessing cards and facts and things, too, rather than jumping in to finish every sentence. Even children must find that annoying.

Then of course I have to come home to missing fence panels, a legacy of last night's storm (which also doubled the length of my commute, thanks to some fallen trees), but I've got no energy at all to try and get them fixed. I'll look for someone tomorrow, although I bet they're already fully booked by now.

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

I'm worried about Jonas. He was weirdly efficient this morning, getting his work done in half the time it should usually take - and that means a quarter of the time it usually takes him, given the number of questions he has to ask - but then spent the time he'd freed up researching electricity and the storm last night.

I thought I was badly hit - a few broken fence panels, one nightmare commute - but it turns out his building was actually struck by lightning. He kept asking me questions about how lightning actually works, as if I'd have the first clue. I'm pretty good at answering him on work stuff, often because I've already given the same answer before, but he seems to think that makes me an expert on everything.

"How can I recreate it?" was one of them, which is such a weird hypothetical that I don't think it even makes sense. Nobody creates lightning - unless I'm even more ignorant than I thought. I assume he didn't meant literally, but I'm lost as to what he actually wanted. Besides, even if I did know how to summon another storm, I certainly wouldn't tell anybody - least of all a maniac like him. I'm not sure my savings could afford any more damage like last night.

Anyway, he left at lunchtime for a dentist appointment he'd forgotten to tell anyone about - that's classic scatterbrain Jonas for you - so I didn't get the chance to ask him what the hell he was on about. I do worry about him sometimes, you know - whether he's actually not all there, beyond the jokes I make along similar lines. Hopefully he's just a bit shocked and excited by living through a freak occurrence like that. I guess I can always check in with him tomorrow.

I loved this and wished I'd had the time to read this sooner😅🙌 Loved loved LOVED how this is a time loop from the perspective of someone who'snot conscious of that little fact😁👏 I'm seriously invested in their concern for Jonas and Jonas' shenanigans in trying to break the loop!

Thank you - I thought it was an interesting angle I hadn't seen tried before, so I wanted to see if I could make it work. Poor Jonas! I thought I'd leave the ending open so you can decide for yourselves whether his plan worked or not, but there was a potential epilogue I scrapped where we finally go into entry 543.

If you want some closure, it was along the following lines...

Journal entry 543 16th June 2022

I'm not sure what yesterday was all about, but it's good to see Jonas back to his usual harmless imbecile self. He seemed over the moon when I walked into the office this morning - like every little thing I did, every conversation we had was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. I don't know what his dentist did, but I suspect the anaesthesia hasn't fully worn off.

Well, I'm glad somebody's happy. I'm still trying to get my fences fixed, and it's been a nightmare to organise when everybody in the town is trying to do the same thing. Jonas rents, so he doesn't have to deal with these kind of stresses - he gets away with being an airhead because his life is completely worry free. No wonder he was wearing that giddy grin all day. He's clearly never been through any hardship in his life.

Official Time Loop Post

#THIS IS SO GOOF I LOVE THIS OP#such an interesting way to build a story too i am always amazed when people pull it off

Thank you - all of my stories are goofy, but some are more goofy than others.

There should be more books that have chapter titles, and then a little summary of the chapter below them. You don't have to be boring with them, or spoil the whole chapter by telling what happens - you could make it vague, like a prophecy of something you know is going to happen, but you don't know how, or with what results.

Having one-sentence summaries like "Chapter 12 - where the Queen's hound makes a fatal mistake" and you're like oh shit does this refer to the queen's actual hunting dog, or the guy that's mockingly called her lapdog? "Chapter 24 - where justice finds a thief, and a thief finds justice" and you're like ooooh shit the cute little pickpocket is going to get caught, and then it turns out that shit, she does get caught, but by someone who actually agrees that she's right to steal to help feed her family, and gets her help instead, which is justice.

You already know what's going to happen, but not how.

In a world where even chapter titles are an endangered species, perhaps we should all be trying to bring these back.

I appreciate it when modern authors put in the extra effort. The two recent examples I can remember were (IIRC) in Nona the Ninth and Going Postal, and they give you an added little puzzle waiting to find out what they mean.

It's not exactly like this but I do have chapter titles in Not The Fighting Kind (chapter one, for example, is "Many Things, But Not A Fool") all of which are lines pulled from said chapter that you can match up. I had a lot of fun with it and will be continuing in future projects that don't have established chapter styles already.

Also, in Welcome To Humanity, it's in like chapters and parts with titles, eg: chapter 1 is Crisis and chapter 1 part 1 is "welcome to your new life".

There are also very enjoyable chapter titles in Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

#i really like doing chapter titles now#but youre right thar you dont see them much so i didnt think to include them sooner#and i didnt think of including them until very suddenly i did#not the fainting kind will also have fun chapter titles#as will my not yet properly announced urban fantasy thing Claretbury Chronicles#idk if you were just ranting or if you wanted suggestions but they dont call me the unwarranted advice giver for nothing

Well it's good to hear about all of your WIPs! I'm glad you're fighting back against the tide, and taking quotes from the chapter is a classic but great way to do it.

purr

I raised you from a kitten,

and to me that's what you'll always be;

your story may be written

but an empty page is all I see.

you're cunning, stealthy, agile;

a ferocious hunter in your eyes.

but mine just find you fragile,

at a fraction of my strength and size.

If either of us takes a nap

the other will stand guard.

You know the shelter of my lap.

You're soft when life is hard.

You rouse me gently from my bed,

kneading with urgent paws,

as if here in my mother's stead

or as if I was yours.

I coddled you despite your years

held swaddled to my chest,

but you're the one who dried my tears

and listened to me best.

Communicating just by touch

you taught me all you knew,

and raised me as yours just as much

as I was raising you.

I introduced you as my son,

newborn when I was ten,

but in cat years turned sixty-one

a decade on again.

You still struggle to vocalise,

just chatter at the birds,

and even I can't summarise

how we relate in words.

So in their place, I show my love

with hands upon your fur;

and you capture it well enough

with each responding purr.

#as someone with an elderly cat ive had since she was a kitten this poem resonated with me so much#this poem is making me so emotional i love it so much

Thank you! I've written a lot about heartbreak and so on but this felt like one of my most personal attempts.

Out of the Loop

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

Well, it certainly wasn't the ideal start to a working day. It turns out that the storm last night has torn some panels from the fence, so that's something I'll need to get fixed, no doubt at great expense. Judging from the drive to work, there's going to be a waiting list. The roads were awful, too, traffic stretched as far as the eye could see, just because some trees had fallen down as well. At least work was straightforward, although I had to show Jonas how to do his job again. The same stuff I told him just a few months ago. Brain like a sieve, that guy, honestly.

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

I don't really know how to say this, but Jonas has finally snapped. I was just making my mid-morning coffee when he cornered me in the kitchen and started rambling some absolute nonsense, even worse than his usual barrage of stupid work questions. It's not like I was having the ideal start to my day as it was - it turns out that the storm last night has done for some of the fence panels, so that's a direct hit to my savings, and I had to spend an hour in traffic because it decided to take out some trees on the way. With all that stress going on, I was really hoping for a straightforward day at the office.

I managed to excuse myself and ignored him when we were back at our desk, but then later on I hear he's been escorted from the building because he kept prodding people and shouting. Prodding! I've always joked that he's a few panels short of a fence himself, but I always thought he was just a bit scatterbrained, not... whatever this is. I actually thought he might be showing signs of improvement when I came in this morning, remembering stuff I taught him a few months ago without needing his usual reminder, but I guess a few hours of competency was all that bizarre mind of his could take. I wonder what will happen to him now?

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

I have no idea how to write this entry. I don't really have the words to do it justice, so I guess I'll just be frank and state the facts.

Jonas is dead. He didn't show up for work this morning, and we assumed it must have been because of the storm last night - I was delayed in traffic for a fallen tree, and the garden fence is in tatters, so plenty of reasons he might have had to stay home or not been able to make it in - but then someone said he'd been found dead.

Even then we guessed it must have been a fallen roof tile, a tragic casualty of the storm, but the truth turned out to be even worse. He took his own life. They won't say how, but I don't think I actually want to know. How long have we shared a desk now? I has to be the best part of a year. I won't pretend that we always got on, and I did find him frustrating at times, but this is horrible. I would never have wanted this for him.

It's awful to think that I used to make jokes about his intelligence, his sanity, and all the while he was actually struggling with real problems. He needed support, not my mockery. Did he know how I felt? Was that a reason that he did what he did? If that's the case, I don't think that I'll ever forgive myself, but I suppose that all that I can do now is try to be a better person in the future. It goes without saying that I'll never speak ill of Jonas again.

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

God, that imbecile Jonas has been creeping me out all day. Having a moron for a desk buddy is hard enough when he's focusing on work, but today he seems to be trying out a new party trick: guessing what I'm about to say before I say it. I tried my best not to encourage him, playing down the accuracy, but he was actually getting scarily close. Sometimes almost word for word. I don't know how he was doing it, but I didn't like it at all.

He actually said that he'd been to the future, lived this day before, something like that, so he knew what I was going to say, but that was definitely the weaker part of the whole act. If he's training to be one of those amateur magicians, he really needs to work on his patter. Probably best to focus on guessing cards and facts and things, too, rather than jumping in to finish every sentence. Even children must find that annoying.

Then of course I have to come home to missing fence panels, a legacy of last night's storm (which also doubled the length of my commute, thanks to some fallen trees), but I've got no energy at all to try and get them fixed. I'll look for someone tomorrow, although I bet they're already fully booked by now.

Journal entry 542 15th June 2022

I'm worried about Jonas. He was weirdly efficient this morning, getting his work done in half the time it should usually take - and that means a quarter of the time it usually takes him, given the number of questions he has to ask - but then spent the time he'd freed up researching electricity and the storm last night.

I thought I was badly hit - a few broken fence panels, one nightmare commute - but it turns out his building was actually struck by lightning. He kept asking me questions about how lightning actually works, as if I'd have the first clue. I'm pretty good at answering him on work stuff, often because I've already given the same answer before, but he seems to think that makes me an expert on everything.

"How can I recreate it?" was one of them, which is such a weird hypothetical that I don't think it even makes sense. Nobody creates lightning - unless I'm even more ignorant than I thought. I assume he didn't meant literally, but I'm lost as to what he actually wanted. Besides, even if I did know how to summon another storm, I certainly wouldn't tell anybody - least of all a maniac like him. I'm not sure my savings could afford any more damage like last night.

Anyway, he left at lunchtime for a dentist appointment he'd forgotten to tell anyone about - that's classic scatterbrain Jonas for you - so I didn't get the chance to ask him what the hell he was on about. I do worry about him sometimes, you know - whether he's actually not all there, beyond the jokes I make along similar lines. Hopefully he's just a bit shocked and excited by living through a freak occurrence like that. I guess I can always check in with him tomorrow.

I loved this and wished I'd had the time to read this sooner😅🙌 Loved loved LOVED how this is a time loop from the perspective of someone who'snot conscious of that little fact😁👏 I'm seriously invested in their concern for Jonas and Jonas' shenanigans in trying to break the loop!

Thank you - I thought it was an interesting angle I hadn't seen tried before, so I wanted to see if I could make it work. Poor Jonas! I thought I'd leave the ending open so you can decide for yourselves whether his plan worked or not, but there was a potential epilogue I scrapped where we finally go into entry 543.

If you want some closure, it was along the following lines...

Journal entry 543 16th June 2022

I'm not sure what yesterday was all about, but it's good to see Jonas back to his usual harmless imbecile self. He seemed over the moon when I walked into the office this morning - like every little thing I did, every conversation we had was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. I don't know what his dentist did, but I suspect the anaesthesia hasn't fully worn off.

Well, I'm glad somebody's happy. I'm still trying to get my fences fixed, and it's been a nightmare to organise when everybody in the town is trying to do the same thing. Jonas rents, so he doesn't have to deal with these kind of stresses - he gets away with being an airhead because his life is completely worry free. No wonder he was wearing that giddy grin all day. He's clearly never been through any hardship in his life.

Official Time Loop Post

#this is so underrated this needs so much more attention#someone should release the time loop short stories of tumblr as a collection#i would buy so many copies

Thanks! Funnily enough I just self-published the first collection of my short stories (unfortunately just in print for friends and family, at least for now), which begins with another of my time loop stories (here).

we need more vampire stuff that’s set really really far north on the planet. the potential… we don’t have any sunlight for a couple of months every year so they would literally be able to walk around during the day and no one would know…

"Oh but its so cold-" vampires literally wouldn't care. They would be attracting their victims by being dressed too lightly and people would be all like "oh no you are too cold, you are already cold to the touch, come inside" and then the vampire could be all "bleh!"

What about the times of the year when the sun doesn't set?

So I wrote this along similar lines...