Month / April 2013

by Colette

Friday Frenzy – “The Orient”

The Orient is a spectacular and fascinating topic just waiting to be explored! Image Courtesy of http://www.sewandso.co.uk

Look at that Inkblotters, it’s our fourth Friday Frenzy! The monthly challenge has taken off with tremendous success and it’s all thanks to our writers that participate each month. We love reading your submissions and oh boy, do you make it hard for us to separate you all to choose a winner. So keep your entries coming in – details of how you can enter can be found here, or at the end of this post.

So, what’s in store this month?

Friday Frenzy Theme – The Orient

 April’s theme is considerably different to the ones we’ve had before (and even our half hour challenges). The Orient is something that I, in particular, find fascinating and I’ve never seen it fully explored within any of The Inkwell’s members’ writing. The East is exotic, intoxicating and completely foreign to our Western Culture. Continue reading →

by Colette

Three-Minute Reads: Haiku Selection IV

green-tea

Here’s some green tea to accompany this month’s Haiku Selection.

We are nearing the end of April, and also the end of the day, so what better way to spend your time than reading Haiku while drinking a hot cup of tea? And it doesn’t just have to be Yorkshire Tea or Earl Grey Tea or the classic English Tea, it could just as easily be some green tea – we like to keep our options open at Inkblots.

As always, we’ve picked an absolute stellar of a selection for all your Haiku needs, and we’ve even picked three that work together as a whole as well as individually. Can you spot the recurring theme or ongoing narrative within this selection?

So, without further adieu, you have one minute to read, another to ponder and one extra to decipher. Continue reading →

by Colette

Bernard the Dormouse

Written by Silver

Just havin’ a kip. Image Courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk

Comfortable in my teacup house – that’s me;
sleeping and breathing,
breathing and sleeping.
Comfortable in my teacup house – that’s me:
The Dormouse.

On my left sits the fidgeting March Hare;
clawing and gnawing
gnawing and clawing.
On my left sits the fidgeting March Hare,
terribly adoring the tea-party air.
Continue reading →

by marleylilith

It Was a Rainy March Day

Written by lost in a dream.

This beautiful rainy day in Paris is very different from lost in a dream’s rainy garden! Image courtesy of visualise.us.

It was a rainy March day when I found him.

The first time I saw him, he was looking up at me from the floor. His unruly white hair soaked with rain, his eyes darting from side to side. Someone must be missing him, he needed to go home. I didn’t know what to do.

I walked back towards the house, I would ring the police, yes, that’s what I would do. I made it to the patio, then I got the biggest shock of my life. There he was staring at me from patio door. How did he overtake me? Never mind how, he was coming straight towards me. He looked terrified. His eyes were wide and childlike in aged face and his body was shaking. He kept coming towards me until we were centimetres apart. That’s when I saw it.

Continue reading →

by marleylilith

Minor Wounds

Written by x3naurus

Memories, all drained in vain…

Few enclose my sight to words
in sync with silence, as night occurs
to send me in a wind of ice.
Light betrays, shadows suffice

Memories, all drained in vain.
Hidden smiles keep me insane.
Not with sight I cannot see,
but watching what’s in front of me.

A simple circle, falling fast;
The seeds inside all watch the past
disappear, and sing with fear
to die in light, and live in tears.

Continue reading →

by Colette

Sophie in Wonderland

Written by Fantasy Girl 

It’s not Alice, it’s Sophie.
Image Courtesy of http://www.fanpop.com

Alice was her name – my great-aunt on my mother’s side. There are no pictures any more, no paintings like there used to be, not that I was alive when they were there… forty years ago, maybe? Fifty?

She was insane, that’s what they said. She had strange dreams, claimed they were true. She would say they sat at a table, and drank out of old tea cups with broken handles, with a rabbit, and a door mouse, and a man in a green hat. And sometimes there would be a cat too, who would always smile. And a caterpillar that would blow rings and words out of the smoke from his pipe. She was insane, I get it, but…

I never got to meet her. Mum and Dad would visit her in the mental asylum, with my nanna and granddad. They wouldn’t let me go too. I was ‘too young’, I was ‘too impressionable’. In other words, they were ashamed of her. They didn’t want me to be tarred with the same brush and they didn’t want me to have any connection with her.  Continue reading →

by marleylilith

Friday Frenzy Winner – Avolet

Written by Doishy

A beautiful day outside a coffee shop...

A beautiful day outside a coffee shop…

I am born and then I die. It is not painful but it the same sweet taste of oblivion that everyone has. This is explained to me quite clearly by a gentleman standing in front of me. He claims to see me every day but I do not recall having ever seen him before. The meeting lasts all of twenty minutes and he finally leaves making sure I have everything I need beforehand. I sit awhile in silence and collect my thoughts for this morning. The sun, starting to reach the heights of midday warms my cheek through the window and I decide to head out to somewhere that isn’t my dusty house.

Continue reading →

by marleylilith

Welcome to April (and its showers)!

It’s probably a good thing that most trees don’t grow like this, but it would be interesting…

Happy Easter Inkblotters, and we hope you’ve been as busy stuffing your faces full of chocolate as we have! Mm, delicious Easter Eggs…

Last month we gave our writers the theme “Mad as a March Hare” and they didn’t disappoint us with their responses, so you can expect some really entertaining reading this month, including the intriguing tale “Sophie in Wonderland” and a short but terribly sad tale about a rainy March day. We also discovered in our writing archives a lovely poem about a dormouse by our very own Silver, and much much more! The brand new Half Hour Challenge theme this month is “Idiocy”, and we’re hoping for a few April Fools stories to put a cheeky smile on all our faces.

Continue reading →