Drusilla's Cauldron - Spooktoberfest 300w flash fiction text 26-29th October 2012

[This is really me at four or five years old.]

Here is my 300-word spooky text:

[The required 5 words are highlighted in chartreuse.]

Drusilla loved Halloween. It was so simple and fun. Every year she would dress up in her black witch-costume and paint green make-up on her face and hands, to greet the trick-or-treaters who would come to her door. 

She had a huge papier-maché cauldron filled with little paper bags of assorted candies. She would hang cobwebs all over the living-room. Using a razor-sharp knife, she cut faces into seven pumpkins and put these jack-o-lanterns on the porch and in each of the front windows. Then she would dim the lights and wait. 

The sun went down. The wind picked up speed and clouds played tag with the full moon. Wading through piles of fallen yellow, red and brown leaves, a troop of small witches, ghosts, pirates and princesses wandered up the path to Drusilla's door. 

'It's dark except for the lit jack-o-lanterns,' commented a tall ghost holding a paper bag, 'Shall we ring the doorbell?'

'There are seven of us', observed a short but brave pirate, 'Let's see what they have to offer.'

A tiny witch pressed the bell-button and the door cracked opened an inch or two.

'Trick or treat!' the children shouted. The door opened wider revealing the cauldron of bags of sweets, but no human being. Then they heard cackling laughter from the dark room. And in a flash, there stood Drusilla in her black pointed witch's hat, grey wig, black dress and green-painted face and hands.
  

'Take what you like, my pretties!' she said laughing so ghoulishly that the tall ghost threw back his bag of candies and ran. The little witch yelped and did the same. The pirate and the princess and others also ran away.

Drusilla never had to buy new candy. 

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[Text Copyright 2012 Christina Wigren]

Word Count according to WordCalc: 293

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Best wishes,

Anna

 

First Commenter:

Yolanda Renee

of


Defending the Pen

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Here are Jackie's and Dani's instructions for this Spooktoberfest blog fest:

Who’s up to their old blogfest tricks again?

Dani at Entertaining Interests and myself, that’s who.

Spooktoberfest is where cobwebs tickle your nose, cauldrons are brewing, jack-o-lanterns light the way, and ghosts go bump in the night. Oh yeah, watch out for the razors!

Requirements:

1.  Your Flash Fiction piece cannot be any longer than 300 words. Sorry… that’s part of the challenge. It can be scary, comical, romantic, whatever you choose. Just be creative!
2.  You must use the MANDATORY 5 words listed below 

   cobweb(s) 

   cauldron(s) 

   jack-o-lantern(s)

   ghost(s)

  razor(s)

3.  Post your Flash Fiction piece on your blog anytime between ...

Friday Oct. 26 - Monday, Oct. 29^th.  The contest ends at 11:59 p.m. Monday.
4.  Follow Dani and myself if you don’t already. We will follow back.
5.  It’s a blog hop, so hop around to other participating blogs and leave some awesome comments when the stories are posted.
6.  Have fun!

It'd be super cool if you'd post the Spooktoberfest button on your page.

Dani and I will each choose a winner. That's two winners total. 
We will post our decisions on HALLOWEEN . . . Wednesday, Oct. 31^st.

PRIZES: Candy and a grab bag of awesome stuff. The winners will get the biggest bags we can find of their favorite candy along with a bag containing some fun spookified items.

This blogfest is international. 

So what are you guys waiting for? Sign up using the linky thing below and spread the word on your Blog, Twitter, Facebook, owl messenger, or however you want!

Halloween House of Horrors! RFW-Challenge No. 47 - Friday October 19th, 2012

Welcome to Romantic Friday Writers Challenge No. 47 for Friday October 19th, 2012. RFWers is a fortnightly challenge that is founded by DeniseCovey_L_Aussie and hosted by DeniseCovey_L_Aussie  and Donna Hole. For Challenge No 47, participants are asked to write a text 1000 words or less using the prompt, 'Halloween House of Horrors'. 

Scroll down past my text to read the challenge guidelines:

 Title: 'Jenny's Robinson Crusoe - Halloween '

(If you want to read the whole story so far go to this page: Lost and then Found)

It’s nearly Halloween, thought Jenny, as she sat writing in her journal, alone on the deserted island, where she and two friends had crash-landed almost four years ago.

Halloween, on this tropical island, was no different from any other time of year. There were no pumpkins to make jack-o-lanterns; there were no trick-or-treaters to give sweets to at one’s door. Jenny thought tearfully of her children, Colin and Sarah, and wondered if they would join a band of happy candy-hunters dressed as goblins, witches, pirates and ghosts.

Yes, ghosts. 'Give me a ghost or two!' Jenny said out loud.

After more than three years of waiting to be rescued, Jenny welcomed meeting the ghosts of her two friends who had died around the time of the crash.

‘Oh Jack,’ Jenny whispered, remembering the party in honour of his birthday; his very last. But no one knew that at the time. Except for perhaps one.  

Jenny ate her last substantial meal at Jack’s party and often dreamed about all the gourmet food there that she would never again consume.

‘Please haunt me, Jack!’ Jenny called out. She missed both Tom and Jack, but for different reasons. She had grown up with Tom and missed him like a brother, although she sometimes wished that she had married him instead of her husband, Paul.

‘Please haunt me, Jack. You can do it in my dreams,’ continued Jenny, beckoning to the wind. Jenny thought of Jack’s beautiful, warm smile with dimples and his intense ice-blue eyes. She tried to forget how she closed those lovely eyes when he was dead and how she had to bury both her friends. No. She wished to see them both again as they were in life; especially Jack who made her feel so intensely alive in the short time that she knew him.‘Please haunt me, Jack', she whispered.

That very night, Jenny dreamed about Jack.

‘Hello beautiful!’ Jack said in his most playful voice, ‘Why do you want me to haunt you?’

‘Oh, Jack, I miss you, and I can’t get the radio to work. I want to get out of here! And I’m so hungry!’

‘I see that you have made good use of my leather oxfords’ said Jack playfully pointing to her feet.

‘I’m sorry. I thought it a shame to bury them with you, I mean, your...' said Jenny embarrassed. 'Look. They fit me perfectly! I can climb around the island without cutting my feet on the rocks, which is what I would have done if I had worn my silly city sandals.’

‘It’s alright, Jenny.' reassured Jack, fatherly. 'I’m only teasing. I’m glad you can use them. Please wear them. I’ll even hide in them when you leave the island and come back with you. 
'You look sharp in my khaki clothes and hat too’, Jack said with a twinkle in his beautiful blues.'

‘My skin burns so easily in the sun. I am freckled enough as it is.’

‘My pleasure, Jenny’, Jack said pulling her toward him. His embrace felt warm and natural to Jenny. Oh how is this possible?, she thought.

‘Thanks, Jack. I just wish...’

‘No, Jenny. Let's not speak of regrets. Let me help you get off the island. And perhaps you can help me solve a couple of mysteries.’

‘Anything, Jack!’ she said and kissed his cheek and then looked at him squarely in the face, ‘What mysteries?’

‘Mystery number one: If my wife, Myra, mailed my flight-plan to the authorities, someone should have been out looking for me and my aircraft, even if they mistakenly thought that you and Tom went down with that ship.

‘And what is mystery number two?’ asked Jenny already guessing what that might be.

‘Why did I die so suddenly?’

‘Yes, I have wondered about that. I assumed that it was a heart attack, but you did not seem to be a likely candidate for one.’ (When Jack slumped over in the cock-pit, he was just about to land on this tiny island. As co-pilot, Tom took over and crash-landed the plane on land rather than in the depths of the Pacific. While Tom was doing this, Jenny pulled and dragged Jack back toward the rear of the aircraft where she worked hard at trying to resuscitate him blowing air into his lungs and pounding his chest to try get him to breathe again. But he never regained consciousness.)

‘Exactly. Let’s do a little dreamtime-travelling together. Hold my hand and no one will  see us.’

With the speed of a film fade-out, it was more than three years earlier, and the invisible Jenny and Jack were standing in the middle of the decorated patio where Jack’s birthday party was about to begin.

Jenny’s mouth watered at the sight of all the party food, once again newly laid on the serving table before the guests would arrive.

‘Remember, Jenny’, warned Jack softly, ‘We cannot eat or do anything here. We are only here to observe.’

‘But I’m so hungry!’

‘I know, my sweet. You’ve been having a rough time, and you have been doing brilliantly. I’ve seen the way you’ve gathered food and been careful to boil your drinking water. But we cannot change anything here. We’re here to find out what happened. If we succeed, you will be able to return home and be with your family.’

‘You’re so thoughtful, Jack.’

‘And I need your help.'

'Why, Jack?' 

'I think that I may have been murdered.’

‘Oh no! But how could that be?’ asked Jenny trying not to think about how she really longed for a piece of pumpkin pie.

Reading her thoughts, Jack gave her a hug and a kiss, ‘All in due time.’

  

***

Word count: 977

[Text Copyrght Christina Wigren 2012]

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Word count, according to WordCalc, for 'Halloween House of Horrors' is: 977; FCA; Full Critique Acceptable

Best wishes,

Anna

P.S. 

This story uses the characters, Jenny Holland and the pilot, Jack Richardson, in order to fit the criteria for the given theme: Halloween/ghosts/horror/mystery/romance. It is experimental, and may or may not fit into the final novel.

This text is fictional. Any resemblance to events, firms or to persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.


First Commenter:

Yolanda Renée

of

Defending the Pen
 

 

It's Halloween!

Another FW/RU Challenge

We’re looking for chilling stories of ghosts and haunted locations – and maybe even love from beyond the grave. 

A romantic element is essential, but we’re looking for stories with a thrilling edge of fear to add to the romantic tension building between our Hero/Heroine.

Have fun with this one! 

Don't forget the Romantic Element!

Let your head go! 

You can write up to 1,000 words of prose/prosetry!

Sign up now for the Halloween House of Horrors challenge. Go to the RFW Challenges Page for more guidelines. 

1,000 word limit. The best entry chosen by our judges, Ann Best and Nas Dean. 

Take the badge and display it on your blog. Don't forget to post your story between October 19 and 21 (AustralianEST) which is nearly a day ahead of the US.

 

1.	Kiru Taye	9.	.:The Red Angel:.	17.	Nilanjana Bose
2.	Michael Di Gesu ... In TIme ....	10.	Erin Kane Spock	18.	Debra Elliott-Mirror Mirror
3.	Charmaine Clancy - Wagging Tales	11.	A.J. Locke	19.	Francine Howarth
4.	Anna of Annas Adornments	12.	Ghazala Hossain	20.	Candilynn Fite
5.	N. R. Williams	13.	Panchali	21.	Roland Yeomans
6.	Words are Timeless	14.	Denise Covey	22.	Heaven
7.	Sally Stackhouse	15.	Yolanda Renee
8.	Raelene Purtill	16.	Donna Hole

(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)

'Birthday Madness!' Romantic Friday Writers Challenge No. 46 for Friday October 5th, 2012

Welcome to Romantic Friday Writers Challenge No. 46 for Friday 5th October 2012. RFWers is a fortnightly challenge that is founded by DeniseCovey_L_Aussie and hosted by DeniseCovey_L_Aussie  and Donna Hole. For Challenge No. 46, participants are asked to write a text 400 words or less using the prompt, 'Birthday Madness'.

This story is a prequel to my on-going story about Paul & Jenny Holland & Co. If you haven't read the first part of this story, you can read it here.

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Title: 'Birthday Madness'

The writing prize, that Jenny Holland had won, for Plot & Intrigue Magazine was an all-expense-paid trip to the South Pacific. Jenny asked Tom Norton to accompany her as photographer. Their first stop was a reception for the prize-winners. After the speeches and awards, Jenny and Tom mingled among the guests. Tom found an old acquaintance, Jack Richardson*, a writer who also shared Tom's interest in flying. But Richardson had done better, and owned his own aeroplane. 

'I'd like you to to meet Jack Richardson, said Tom Norton, holding his half full glass of Champagne. Jack Richardson was a handsome but short and slightly balding man in his late forties. The first thing that Jenny noticed was his ice-blue eyes and the dimples that appeared when he smiled.

'Congratulations. I've read your marvelous story.'

'Thank you', replied Jenny, feeling perplexed, flattered and strangely attracted to this man. 

'Jack is a writer as well as a pilot’, explained Tom, thinking that Jenny might like to meet other writers. 'We've just booked passage on a cruse to the archipelago. I'm taking pictures and Jenny's writing a travel story.'

'Oh really?' replied Jack lighting up as if he saw this as an opportunity. 'Where and when do you plan to go? I'm taking my plane on a short trip soon and I need a couple of passengers. How much flight-time do you have, Tom? Could you be my co-pilot?'

Said and done. Mr Richardson convinced them to change their travel plans and fly with him the next morning. But tonight they would celebrate his birthday.

'Why don't you come home with me? My wife, Myra, has planned a surprise party tonight. You don't have to give me a present. The only requirement is that you must sing a song,' he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Jenny and Tom rode in Jack's elegant car to his luxurious home with a lush garden and a large patio lined with lanterns hanging over tables laid with white linens, fine china and silver cutlery. There was also one table covered with rich meats, shellfish and exotic fruits. Later, Jenny would spend many, many days and nights dreaming about the food that she saw on this table. Little did she know then, that it was to be her last meal for a very long time.

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Text copyright 2012 Christina Wigren
Word count according to WordCalc: 392; 'FCA' Full Critque Acceptable.

 ***

Best wishes,

Anna

This text is fictional. Any resemblance to events, firms, persons living or dead, is purely coincidental. *I changed the name of the pilot from 'Richard Smith' to 'Jack Richardson'.

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First Commenter:
Tanya Walton

 

of 
Allotments 4 you 

It's time for the Birthday Madness challenge, chosen to celebrate the joint birthdays of your hosts. We are looking for 400 words of prose or poetry in response to the prompt. You will find suggestions for storylines on the Challenges Page, but you're welcome to use your creativity however it strikes you.

You don't have to be a member to enter, but if you wish to sign up, go to the RFW site and submit your name to the linky.

For ease of reading, please write your post, copy the URL, then paste the direct link to the linky at the RFW site or wherever you see this list on member's sites.

If the voting set up works, you will be able to return here to vote once submissions close on late Sunday AEST (Oz time). 

Any problems with linking, contact Denise at den.covey@gmail.com.

The birthday girls are looking forward to reading your entries between celebratory glasses of good stuff.

1.	Raelene Purtill	5.	Linda Katmarian	9.	Anne
2.	Adura Ojo	6.	Roland Yeomans	10.	Sally Stackhouse
3.	Yolanda Renee	7.	Denise Covey	11.	Anna of Annas Adornments
4.	Nilanjana Bose	8.	N. R. Williams

(Cannot add links: Registration/trial expired)