Tag / Creative Writing

by Colette

Here Where The Sea Stands

Written by Arwa

sea_waves

The crash of sea waves at La Jolla Cove in California.
Image Courtesy of dreamlajolla.com

Here where the sea stands,
alone,
calmly.
I wish there was a wind,
a heated wind,
to crash the silence.

This wind,
a life savior,
will turn this sea to a raging monster
to defeat every living
with its infinite might.
It will change the course of being,
the seasons of love,
and the roles of passion.

This sea,
when it moves
It will demolish the islands,
and bring a new millennium,
a new society,
and a new age.

Yet,
the sea is still calm
and alone.

‘Here Where The Sea Stands’ is Arwa’s first poem published in Inkblots. As the English language is not Arwa’s mother-tongue, she was inspired to write poetry as a way of understanding our language, and also feels more comfortable expressing herself with it. We love the simplicity depicted throughout the poem, and hope to see many more poems from Arwa in the future.

by Colette

Inkblots New Year Special: Festive Fiction (Part 2)

Image Courtesy of fimfiction-static.net

The sun rises on a new year, and we’ve got some spectacular HHC entries to kick it off in style!
Image Courtesy of fimfiction-static.net

Welcome to our New Year Special – the second and final part of our festive fiction bonanza. Both entries published below have been picked for their startling creativity given the half hour time limit. Doishy’s piece is of particular interest, having taken inspiration from the ingenious and innovative HHC entries we’ve had over the year. The second HHC from Dice – featured after the read more tag – we just couldn’t resist in posting up! It’s another of his Alexander shorts, so we hope you enjoy! 

– Silver, Inkblots Editor

tinkerbell_fairy_wings

We believe in fairies, we do, we do!
Screen taken from Disney’s Secret of the Wings

Door 7 – Fairies

This is Jeremy:
(o.o)

How are you feeling today, J?
(o.o)b

Pretty good then?
d(o.o)b

And why is that?
(O.o)- <3_______________________(*o.o*)

You’ve met a nice girl? That’s wonderful! What’s her name?
-(o.o)-

You don’t know? Why not talk to her?
(@.@)

Ah, nerves. Tell you what… why don’t I talk to her for you?
(o.o)b

Awesome. Excuse me….miss?
(*o.o*) ?

Hi, my name’s Narrator and I was wondering if you would like to go talk to my friend over there, Jeremy.
(<.<) ___________________________(*o.O*)

He is a pretty cool guy, if sometimes a little out of it.
(*o.o*)b

You will talk to him! Awesome. I will let you be then.
(o.o) _____________________________(*o.o*)

(o.o) _________________(*o.o*)

(o.o)_________(*o.o*)

(O.o)_____(*o.O*)

(O.o) <3__(*o.O*)

(O.o) <3__(*o.o*)

(O.o) <3__(*O.o*)

(O.o) <\3_____________(*O.o*)

Well that didn’t go so well did it, J?
(O.O) <\3_______________________________________ (*O.o*)

Faeries aye, am I right?
(¬.¬)

Ah well. Shall we go get drunk instead?
(¬.¬)b

Good lad!
*A few hours later*

f(=.o)- u(o.O) <Riiight……
< And I’m telling you, there was this voice talking to me and a magic girl and it’…it wa’s assuM!

Continue reading →

by Colette

Monthly Editorial: Happy New Year!

NYE_fireworks

Did you bring in the new year in style?
Image Courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

Hey Inkblotters,

Welcome to 2014! And what I term as the year for hope, happiness, life and love. If you had a great 2013, fabulous! But if you didn’t – maybe just like myself – then let’s all look towards a brighter one for 2014; it’s an even number after all. We’ve got a bunch of new content to share with you to kick off the new year in style, so let’s make haste and get on with the show!

First up, we’ve got a brand new contributor under the name of Arwa. She’s written us a delightful poem called “Here Where the Sea Stands”, so look out for it on January 20th. What’s more we’ve got an underlying theme this month (as we usually do) on our written content. I’m not going to lie, this one’s really easy to spot and it will be a dead give-away by the end of the month. Other than three poems for January, we’ve also got lined up some fabulous short fiction starting with our New Year Special. Much like our Christmas Festive Fiction Special, this is part two of our specially selected winter HHCs, so we hope you enjoy it on January 5th. And, of course, there’s much more content for you to read over this month.

In other news, we’ve got a brand new Half Hour Challenge theme for January which is: Inkwell. It’s the word that our forum was born from and what better way to celebrate a new year than looking back to our roots. I’m quite sure there will be many entries of actual inkwells – I’d love to be able to try one out for myself one day! If you’d like to send an entry to us, simply label the header as ‘HHC Entry’ and email to creativewritinginkwell@hotmail.com.

Thanks to all our readers and followers, and we hope to see many more new as well as old readers in the days, weeks and months to come!

– Silver, Inkblots Editor

by Colette

October’s Content And The Return Of Fiction Frenzy

Jack_o_lanterns_group

Time for some late night pumpkin or Jack O’Lantern carvings? We think so!
Image Courtesy of irishcentral.com

Hey Inkblotters and welcome to October!

We’ve arrived at the turn of the spooky season once more, so it’s time to start penning those ghost stories. Who knows, I may even write one up myself for the Fiction Frenzy we’re hosting this month! But I digress, let’s talk about October’s content and what goodies you’ll be able to dig your teeth into this month.

The beginning of October’s content brings in another one of Dice’s Alexander episodes – he’s churning these out like there’s no tomorrow! But I guess that’s only fitting for science-fiction, right? We’ve also got three new contributors this month; on the 8th is Elanor’s “Sheffield Steel” with references to a few British cities, Miss Smiley’s prologue of “Death’s Mistress” on the 16th, and Dizzy Dazzle’s poem “The Humanitarian” will be coming up on the 20th. Plus, there’s a couple of surprises wiggled into this month’s content too, so make sure you keep checking back throughout.

In other news, we’ve got the return of the Fiction Frenzy, formerly known as the Friday Frenzy. Our writers and readers loved the concept, but sadly just couldn’t resist a Friday movie evening or a night out on the town. And who can blame you? So, the Fiction Frenzy now operates for the entire month. Starting from today until October 31, the Fiction Frenzy will be in full swing with the delectable theme Trick or Treat. There is, however, a twist, which you can read more about in our forum post, here. If you think you’ve got extra inspiration, don’t just sit on it, write about it! We want as many submissions from our readers and current contributors as possible – after all, it’s a Frenzy for a reason!

And to wrap up this long post yet again, (I’m good at waffling on aren’t I?) the theme for this month’s Half Hour Challenge is “Where Angels Fear To Tread”. The theme was thought up by our own Lilith and comes from the full quote: fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Remember, you can email your Fiction Frenzy and HHC entries to creativewritinginkwell@hotmail.com, or follow us on Twitter with our username @inkblotswriting to get all the latest posts straight to your feed.

Have a spooky one! 🙂

– Silver, Inkblots Editor

by Colette

Harplands

Written by Bobartles

Image Courtesy of Royal Berkshire NHS website.

Image Courtesy of Royal Berkshire NHS website.

Just down the street, at the edge of the town,
there’s a jumble of buildings, old and run-down.
Behind steel-plated doors a full three inches thick,
lies Ward Number One,
where the sick heal the sick.

There’s a man dressed in white with a comforting stance,
whose father disowned him for being a nurse,
and a sister in blue with a phone in her hand,
and twenty-five packets of pills in her purse.

The man with the clipboard and half-hearted smile,
whose girlfriend bled out after something he said;
the cleaner who sweeps down the halls all day long
to drown out the sound of the voice in his head.

The day’s rounds are done, but still it is known
that only the patients will truly go home.
For this huddle of boxes of slate and red brick
is Ward Number One,
where the sick heal the sick.

by Colette

Happy One Year Anniversary To Inkblots!

Anniversary 1

Doesn’t it just look scrumptious?

Hey Inkblotters,

It’s a wonderful time of the year at the moment as Inkblots and Typing Spots Magazine has officially been publishing content for one whole year! Although we did have a sneaky two months publishing breather, we have been organising content on a weekly basis for all our lovely readers for the past year, and we’d like to thank you for sticking by us, as well as our writers. So if you’ve been following our magazine from day one, week one or just yesterday, we’d like to personally thank you. It means a lot to us that we can publish our fabulous writers’ work, but it’s even better knowing that we have people who read their lovingly crafted poetry or fiction too. We’ll celebrate in style later, but you’re probably interested in what we’ve got in store for you to read this month.

August’s schedule brings many pieces from opposite ends of the scale. Readers will be pleased to know that Dice has written a sequel to Alex, so make sure to look out for “This One! An Alexander Episode” on the 5th. And since he’s such a great writer, Dice is featured twice this month with a piece about Writer’s Block – it’s comedic gold. We’ve also got some great poetry for you to get all teary-eyed over; one from our regular Haiku hero Blue-Eyed Devil called “You’re Home”, a touching story of a little boy, and another from writer Bobartles about a medical ward.

The Half Hour Challenge last month was ‘Serendipity‘ which proved to be quite popular among our writers, so we’ve got some stellar choices on the way for you reflecting that theme. But if you’re looking to write this month in our HHC, then make sure you submit a piece on the cute-as-a-button theme ‘Wishes‘. I’ve got something tucked away for this theme that I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time and, of course, we’re looking forward to receiving all your responses. Remember, you can send your entries into creativewritinginkwell@hotmail.com.

Thanks again to all our followers and have a lovely August!

– Silver, Inkblots Editor

by Doishy

Tack

Written by Lumberjacktom

fire

Destruction in many forms.
Image courtesy of: http://www.crazy-ivory.de

A little silvery trickle of water began to run from the bent pipe. It was surprisingly tough; the dull, stained copper was standing up to all the force Tack could put on it. He held the pipe by the brass tap on its top. Thinking about it, Tack saw that whoever had put this in was a terrible engineer. How they had expected a fairly flimsy, half-inch pipe to stand up to everyday use without so much as a bracket to support its length against the wall was a mystery compounded by the fact that they had evidently expected it to stand indefinitely, since, most of its length was buried in concrete making any repair an undertaking not worth the effort.

Needless to say, it would not stand indefinitely. Tack wrenched the pipe back and forth through fully a quarter of a turn by its length, levering against the concrete which collared it at the base. As he did so the trickle became a gently arcing thread glittering in the streetlight.

There was a visceral satisfaction in destroying something; some piece of public infrastructure, be it wrenching off a tap or dropping a mattress from the overpass, or watching thick, smoky petroleum flames begin to lick from the top of a litter bin. Pointless destruction of pointless things. For nothing had a reason, nothing had a goal which stretched beyond the void which was the end of all things. People abhorred destruction because they had been told to. Society constructs, it builds, moving toward a greater goal, went the mantra. Freedom is consumption, and labour, in a perfect balance. The freedom to work. The right to a mortgage. A neat lawn. A tidy funeral.

The thread became a spray, a mirror plane of clear glassy water, rent apart by surface tension into a thousand droplets soaking Tack’s shin.

Dab and Fen had finished smashing the lock from the cemented shell of a bin and the plastic inner container now lay bent and crippled on the ground, trails of stinking rubbish strewn along the sea defense. They turned their attention to Tack’s tap. Tack braced against the wall with one foot, and wrenched the pipe as Dab and Fen beat and kicked on the anchored end. Slowly, reluctantly, the pipe twisted and sheared free, a metallic crunch heralding its defeat. Foamy, pure white water ejaculated from the ground in a knee-high column, then ran down the concrete slope to the beach, muddied by dust and sand and grit.

Entropy, Tack smiled.

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 Colette

A Severe Lack of Continuation of an Individual

Written by Doishy

Frankie says Relax, or in this case, Doishy says it. Image Courtesy of wallitup.com

[soundtrack – please play.]

A pristine white wall stood high and mighty within the centre of the sand. Despite its environment it seemed to give out an aura of utter cleanliness with the sun glaring down and reflecting on its surface. This same light caught a small droplet as it floated across the sky, a small dark spot in the air with a small red glow below it due to the light. This droplet’s journey took it to the wall where it hit and scattered itself into, almost, a star of red. This star was soon not alone and the wall become a galaxy of red and white until none of its original colour remained.

Now that we have the scene ladies and gentlemen, I shall turn off the lovely soundtrack that has been playing [music stop] and let you imagine the sound of the chainsaw whirring as it grinds its way through a mans body. Continue reading →