Tag Archives: short story

August 3, 2012 · 2:30 pm

Tall Elf and Frederick to the Rescue! (Part III)

See Part I and Part II before reading Part III. Have Tall Elf and Frederick failed in their plan to save Anna?

TALL ELF AND FREDERICK TO THE RESCUE, Part III

The next morning, Frederick the Third’s shoulders slumped even more. “Oh no!” he said. “We’ll never get the medicine to Anna now!” The ground was covered with a thick, white blanket of snow.

Just then Tall Elf jogged up to the house, dragging a strange contraption. “We’ll certainly get the medicine to Anna now!”

“What do you mean?” Frederick asked, rushing outside to stare at the contraption Tall Elf was dragging.

It was flat and one end curved up. A string was attached to the curved end.

“I saw the children of the Big People play on these last winter,” said Tall Elf. “So I made one. It works like a dream on snow. I believe it’s called – a sledge.”

They picked up the bottle and put it on the sledge. Tall Elf held the string. “You push the back,” he told Frederick.

It began sliding up the hill. They pushed and pulled it all the way to the top without needing to rest.

The bottle just fit through the crack under the door of Anna’s house. They found Anna lying, pale and white, in a room at the end of a long hallway.

“We’re just in time,” whispered Tall Elf.

They fed Anna the pills and stared anxiously into her face for any signs of improvement. Then they heard footsteps in the hall. Big people footsteps. “Quick, hide!” said Tall Elf.

Anna’s father and a doctor had entered the room. The doctor took Anna’s temperature. Then he listened to her heart. Then he took her temperature again.

“Why doctor, it looks like you’ve seen a ghost!” said Anna’s father.

“She’s getting better,” said the doctor. “I don’t believe it – she’s getting better.”

Tall Elf beckoned to Frederick from their hiding place behind the bookshelf. “Come, Frederick the Third,” he said. “Our work here is done.”

The End! (A little different from my other Stories, huh? Hope you enjoyed it!)

Tall Elf and Frederick to the Rescue! (Part II)

Part I is here. Tall Elf and Frederick have come up with a plan to save their friend, but will they be able to implement it?

TALL ELF AND FREDERICK TO THE RESCUE, Part II

Tall Elf and Frederick the Third walked to the bottom of the hill and began to roll the bottle up. It was easier than carrying, but about halfway up it became harder to push. About three quarters of the way up, Frederick panted, “I can’t go on!”

“Oh dear,” said Tall Elf, and let go.

The bottle rolled back down the hill, with Frederick still hanging on!

“Ouch!” cried Frederick. “Why did you let go?”

”Why didn’t you let go?” Tall Elf replied, from where he was standing on the hill. Frederick could only splutter.

Tall Elf then joined Frederick at the bottom. “Why don’t we ask Anna to come down the hill?” Frederick asked.

“She is far too ill to get out of bed,” said Tall Elf, shaking his head.

“Well, we can’t move the bottle up by our own force,” said Frederick. “We need a machine. How about a pulley?”

“Think, Frederick the Third,” said Tall Elf. “We need to make a pulley, and then take it to the top of the hill. By that time, Anna may have died.”

“Then try… any machine!” said Frederick. “I know, a catapult!”

With great difficulty they positioned a stone at the bottom of the hill. Then they balanced board on top. Next, they set the pills on one end of the board.

“Now how to get the other end down?” said Frederick.

“Jump on it,” said Tall Elf.

So Frederick jumped. And hooked his pants on the end of the board.

“Help!” he said. Tall Elf reached for him, and the end came down. The bottle flew into the air.

Tall Elf removed Frederick from the board. The bottle hit the hill near the top, then came rolling back down.

“I’ll try this time,” said Tall Elf. But try as he might, he could not make the bottle reach the top of the hill.

“Did you see how much farther it went through the air?” said Frederick. “If only we could fly!”

“Quite a problem,” said Tall Elf. “We can’t.”

Frederick sat down on the ground, putting his chin in his hands. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Tall Elf looked towards the sun, which was setting fast. “It will be dark soon,” he said. “We’ll have to try again tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow may be too late!” said Frederick.

Tall Elf shrugged sadly and turned to go. Frederick’s shoulders slumped.

Stay tuned for Part III next Friday!

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Tagged as elves, rescue, short story, Tall Elf and Frederick to the Rescue, writing

July 20, 2012 · 2:30 pm

Tall Elf and Frederick to the Rescue! (Part I)

Here is a whimsical little story in 3 parts, to tide you over till I get back from the underside of the world (ie: Brazil). It’s just a short piece about a couple of elves, slightly different than my usual style of writing, but hopefully it makes nice summer reading!

TALL ELF AND FREDERICK TO THE RESCUE

Frederick the Third was sitting outside when the Tall Elf of Seven Hundred Years came huffing and puffing up the lane.

No one was quite sure why Frederick was Frederick the Third, not even Frederick himself. No one in his family was called Frederick, and none of the elves he knew were either. But Tall Elf, on the other hand, was most certainly old.

“Bad news!” Tall Elf puffed. “Anna is dying.”

Frederick stood up. “Dying? She’s eight years old!”

“Big People are not as hardy as us elven folk,” said Tall Elf grimly. “If she has a chance of living, we must get our medicine to her.”

“We must do something,” Frederick agreed.

So they started working – mashing herbs and stirring up rainbow dew, and adding just a touch of that elven magic which helps only those who believe in little folk. Frederick worried as he worked. Anna was one of the few humans who‘d ever come down into the valley to make friends with the elves below. Such a sweet girl, he thought, she cannot die!

Moulding the mixture into human-sized pills took the longest. When it was done, they put the pills in the largest bottle they could find.

“Now all we have to do is bring it to her!” Frederick said.

He and Tall Elf tried to lift it. “We need handles,” said Tall Elf. So they attached handles, carried it outside to the hill, and began to climb. To Frederick, the bottle seemed to get heavier with each step.

Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. “I need a rest!” he cried, and let go. Tall Elf did too. The bottle promptly rolled back down the hill.

“We cannot carry it up without resting, and if we rest it rolls back down!” Frederick stared dejectedly at the bottle below.

Then, “Hey!” he said. “The bottle rolled down the hill!”

“Of course,” said Tall Elf.

“Maybe we can roll it up!”

“Now you are thinking, Frederick,” said Tall Elf. And the two of them walked back to the bottom of the hill.

Oh dear, will they manage to get the bottle up the hill in time? Stay tuned for the second part, next Friday!

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Tagged as elves, rescue, short story, writing

April 18, 2012 · 9:01 am

Harder to Write Romance Than Criticize It

'The Kiss,' by Francesco Hayez

“If you think it’s so awful, why don’t you try to do it yourself?”

That’s the sort of thing you get thrown at you if you criticize something. No one’s said it specifically to me, even after going on and on about ‘The Trouble With Modern Romance,’ ‘Healthy Romance Makes Bad Novels,’ and ‘The Missing Ingredient in Too Many Romance Novels’ – but you may have been thinking it. Well, let me assure you that romance is one thing I write often, and it is harder to write than it looks.

Want to know if I’ve succeeded? Check out my latest short story, Johnnie’s Girl, on Amazon. Better yet – today it’s free! Let me know what you think.

Ps: You can also look at my work under the Stories tab at the top, but those are emphatically rough drafts, and they don’t come on your Kindle with a cool cover.

The E-Publishing Experiment

So I decided to take a shot at e-publishing. If you listen to the hype, the world of e-publishing has exploded in the last couple years—it is the way of the future, it will revolutionize the industry, and so on and so forth. I’m not sure if all the evidence supporting that is in yet, but I still think e-publishing is a worthwhile experiment for authors. Which is why I e-published a short Christmas story yesterday. After all, what have I got to lose?

Only the chance of ever being taken seriously by traditional publishers, if you listen to the detractors of e-publishing. Self-published e-books look amateur, are unedited, and only sell if you’re lucky. Hmmm…

Oh well. I can’t get a feel for something until I try it, which is the reason for this experiment. I don’t expect to become a best-selling author by next Monday, that’s for sure. But how am I going to understand this new world if I don’t dip my feet in? It is just so different from the traditional route—already my head is whirling with different distribution platforms, methods of advertising, and formatting issues. And thus, Spring Fever (yes, that’s really the title, though it has to do with both Christmas and spring) has been published.

You may think this post is just a plug to let all my lovely readers know I have e-published something (I don’t know if the word ‘self-published’ makes sense because I’m not really doing the publishing myself). But truly, I want to hear your thoughts on e-publishing. Just a fad, or here to stay? Would you try it?

(Spring Fever is available at Smashwords and Amazon)

Note: yes, I did forget to post on Wednesday. How could I forget??? I blame it on exam-and-paper stress.

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Filed under -- ON WRITING (well?)

Tagged as Christmas, e-publishing, indie publishers, self-publishing, short story, Spring Fever, writing

February 3, 2011 · 2:01 am

In It For the Long Haul (or, Facing Writer’s Block)

“Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing,” is a quote I saw online once (apparently Sylvia Plath said it). If so, then my room must reek. I’ve got shelves and shelves of the stuff, and very little published writing. On top of that, most of what’s on my shelves is unpublishable – not only is it not edited, it’s not even finished. I always hope someday I’ll get around to finishing it, but that seems less and less likely…

I’ve realized that I write to escape from reality to a world I can (somewhat) control. So when I start it’s all excitement – I get to explore this situation, this new world, or a set of characters. But then comes fear: what if I screw this idea up (when it’s such a good idea)? What if I can’t write the characters as well as they deserve, and anyone who reads this story can’t see why I’m spending ages and ages describing what this loser does? What if I can’t figure out a way to resolve the plot in a satisfying and interesting way?

As soon as fear creeps in, the desire to write becomes less and less. I put off writing the next bit until I’ve truly lost interest in the story or the characters, and wonder why it excited me so much in the first place.

Then that stack of writing goes to join all the others on the shelf.

A handful of times, I’ve gotten through the fear stage, the excitement came back, and I plowed on to the end of a story or novel. That process looks something like this:

I think I should remind myself why I like writing so much. What do you think writer’s block is? Fear, lack of confidence, or just a plain lack of ideas?