“Thank you for the coffee in bed, sorry I’m so lazy, it’s just that morning sounds have become such sweet music to me.”
“That’s okay, Mom, we don’t mind, do we Dad?”
He grunted his assent and lingered with his own coffee after Hope left to tend her chickens. “Everything okay, I mean, you ain’t got your traveling itch again do you?”
“If you must know, I do plan on traveling, hikin’ to the blackberry patch that’s past the upper meadow, fill some buckets, then hike back, scratches and all, and make jam… Stop worrying, I’ve never been happier.”
Written as a follow up to last week’s Offerings and as a response to this week’s prompt from Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch: August 10, 2017 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) include music and berries. Also submitting as a six sentence story for Zoe at Recording Life Under the Radar, whose word this week is “scratch”.
Blackberrying how that brings back memories, fingers and lips stained as most went in the mouth rather than the basket. Sadly in Australia blackberries are a now noxious weed and so very few of the bushes planted by the settlers by the roadsides remain or those that do are sprayed with weedkiller.
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They’re my favorite. Easy to pick but you are right, many go direct rather than the bucket.
Thanks for coming by.
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I went blackberrying yesterday and today I’m mixing them with apples and baking a pie! Worth every scratch as I’m sure your character knows! Delightful little tale.
Click to see my six!
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Yum! Yes, indeed, worth the scratches. Enjoy your pie. Thanks for the visit.
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There are blackberries here. When are you coming back?
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Not until I write something good. And I have stonework to do. And I gotta mow.
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damn subtext your Sixes much?
is there anything more unbearably (yet, by definition, pride and denial, must in fact remain bearable), than maintaining appearances. It’s surely one of the most amazingly powerful examples of relationship inertia. Of course I could be reading more into the story than is there (and thereby renting yet another virtual billboard for my own demons and past adventures.)
lol
(come on, insufferably cleverness, don’t fail me now!)
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(hoist on my own petard) that should be ‘insufferable’ not ‘insufferably’ but then again, perhaps it serves as a reminder to myself of the old adage: “…read twice, post once”
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Thanks for coming by. I always look forward to your comments. Yeah, this six is a little forced, tried to kill two birds and build on an earlier flash series. I may fix it or nix it.
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so my question (full disclosure: kinda recent to this insanity, writing), if I might… I’ve read books* on writing and it appears that there are those who are for and those against the notion that all creative writing is a shadow show and we’re the candles. I can’t see how any character we create cannot be us. Recognizable to various degrees due to blatancy and style, however as issues of our minds, surely they must reflect the ‘within’ of the author.
I take to heart what a friend said, that any elements of my own past or predilection are far less visible to readers than to me.
* I’m totally careful about how much I attempt to learn about the skill and craft of writing. Nothing will lock me up faster than reading about how writing should be done.
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Dearest Clark Scottroger;
You asked no question. Therefore, I withhold all answers.
I will disclose that I too am new to this, and that I have been writing fiction, just making up stories, sometimes in 99 words, sometimes in six sentences, sometimes both at the same time. Just to see if I can.
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I like this progression. A feeling of contentment, and breakfast in bed. I’m pleased he’s not afraid to ask the hard questions that may not produce the answers he’d rather hear.
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Thanks. This one felt a little lame to me, but I had no other ideas tumbling about so… Even as we speak I am working on a further progression, either making the whole thing worse or maybe better. Don’t know. I’ll keep you posted, so to speak.
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Enjoyed the continuation. As Oldegg said, blackberries are a noxious weed here. We were thrilled when we bought acreage with some with berries almost ripe. We looked forward to pie. We had some earthworks done (nowhere near the blackberries) and the dozer driver saw them and ploughed them up. We were so disappointed but thought they would return in the following year (they are a noxious weed afterall) but they never again were seen.
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My experience with them in New England is that the wild ones know their place. They come in after a woods has been logged off, or under powerlines, but eventually die off as the trees return and mature and shade them out. They are found at the edges of woods and mown areas.
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Yes I think our climate is just so good for them they get out of control.
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