Happy Saturday!  We hope you’re having a nice day with only pleasant decisions to be made.  The characters in this week’s stories may be having a harder time of it.

This week’s prompt was: Write a story about making a difficult choice

Enjoy reading!

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Cheryl Mahoney:

I looked at the two books on the table in front of me.  Everyone said they were just two possible paths.  Everyone official said that.  The whispers said something else.

It wasn’t obvious looking at them.  They were much the same, in fact.  Two big leather tomes, each with a locked clasp holding them shut.  Each with swirling gold lettering on the front.

“Could I, maybe, look at the table of contents?” I asked.

The Mentor across the table from me blinked once, so I knew this wasn’t a usual question.  And it was true, I had a pretty good idea what was in each one.  I knew the lore.  I’d already been learning for three years.  No one was ever offered the Choice until their fourth year of study.  The Choice that would determine their future study.

But then she nodded, and drew a ring of tiny keys out of her pocket, so apparently the question wasn’t completely unheard of.  She unlocked each book, turned each one to the contents page.

I looked at the right hand one first.  It was more or less what I had expected.  Spells to grow flowers, to mend tears in cloth, to heal mild ailments.  All the things a simple village witch would need, to take care of a simple village like the one I’d grown up in.  My mother took it for granted I’d choose this one, and always had.  She had always said how the Choice was no real choice.  It hadn’t been for her.

And yet—it all seemed so small.

I looked at the left hand book.  There was nothing small about these spells.  Spells for raising up walls, for blasting fireballs, for uprooting trees.  And other spells.  Darker spells.  All the things a warrior witch would need, to spread conquest and destruction.

But I didn’t really want to do that either.

“I don’t suppose, maybe, there’s a third book?” I said weakly.

Continue reading “Stonehenge Story Starts: Decisions, Decisions (Results)”

Welcome to Stonehenge Story Starts, a weekly writing prompt and story sharing opportunity.  Each week, we post a writing prompt: an opening line, a concept, a plot hook, maybe an image.  The following Saturday, we’ll post again with the writing the prompt inspired.

This week’s prompt is: Write a story about making a difficult choice

Our writers will be writing for the prompts, but anyone is welcome to participate!  Just come by on Sunday to see the week’s prompt, write during the week, and send any writing you’d like to share to StonehengeCircleWriters@gmail.com by the following Friday at 8 pm.  On Saturday we’ll post participants’ writing (with credit to the author, of course).

Write as much or as little as you choose: a paragraph, a flash fiction piece (less than 1,000 words) or a short story.  (Note, for long writing, we may choose to post only a selection.)  You are encouraged to be as creative as possible with the writing prompts.  Try to do something unexpected, or explore a particular genre like science fiction or historical fiction.  Take the prompt literally, or decide it’s a metaphor.  Your only limit is your own imagination.

Happy writing!

 

If you like to plan ahead, next week’s prompt will be: “You had one job to do…”

Happy Saturday!  Our writers are heading to our quarterly retreat today, but that hasn’t stopped us getting two new stories up.

This week’s prompt was: Write a story featuring Stonehenge

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Cheryl Mahoney: Aliens on the Salisbury Plain

Stonehenge had collected many myths over the millennia, especially about how and why it was build.  Was it built by druids?  Was it an ancient calendar?  Did it have religious significance?  One of the more extreme myths, of course, was that it had been built by aliens.

This was obviously nonsense.  Stonehenge had never been a meeting point between Earth-born humans and extraterrestrial life.

Until today, that is.

I was never particularly interested in aliens.  When I was a teenager I had friends who were into old media like Star Trek or Star Wars, or the latest virtual reality series, Star Reveries.  I preferred history.  There were enough fascinating cultures and peoples in Earth’s past; I didn’t see a need to make up others.

Of course I saw the news stories, when EASA (Earth’s Aeronautic and Space Administration) announced they had made positive contact with an alien species.  I mean, I didn’t go dance in the streets like lots of people, but I thought it was pretty cool.  I didn’t expect it to impact my work, as part of the English Heritage team at Stonehenge.

Until EASA contacted us to explain that the Growlers had chosen Stonehenge as the site for first in-person contact.  Not that “Growlers” was what they called themselves, but humans couldn’t pronounce the guttural sound they made.

Continue reading “Stonehenge Story Starts: Getting to Our Origins (Prompt)”

Welcome to Stonehenge Story Starts, a weekly writing prompt and story sharing opportunity.  Each week, we post a writing prompt: an opening line, a concept, a plot hook, maybe an image.  The following Saturday, we’ll post again with the writing the prompt inspired.

This week’s prompt is: Write a story featuring Stonehenge

Our writers will be writing for the prompts, but anyone is welcome to participate!  Just come by on Sunday to see the week’s prompt, write during the week, and send any writing you’d like to share to StonehengeCircleWriters@gmail.com by the following Friday at 8 pm.  On Saturday we’ll post participants’ writing (with credit to the author, of course).

Write as much or as little as you choose: a paragraph, a flash fiction piece (less than 1,000 words) or a short story.  (Note, for long writing, we may choose to post only a selection.)  You are encouraged to be as creative as possible with the writing prompts.  Try to do something unexpected, or explore a particular genre like science fiction or historical fiction.  Take the prompt literally, or decide it’s a metaphor.  Your only limit is your own imagination.

Happy writing!

 

Happy Saturday!  Enjoy our two stories this week, written in two very different styles.

This week’s prompt was: Write a story that begins and ends with a bicycle

(Prompt courtesy of eadeverell.com)

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Karen Blakely:

The sight of the bicycle made Jeremy stop then slump back against the wall of the garage, his legs shaking too hard to support him. He didn’t consider the dust or the spiders that he’d been cursing a moment before. Instead, he felt the hard, implacable wall of anger that had been lodged inside his gut begin to crack.

Jeremy had tried everything he could think of not to be there, dealing with this. His mother had been gone for five years now, and his sister Julie was ready to go into labor any hour; she couldn’t come half-way across the country to take care of it. He’d argued with her, suggesting they just hire someone, but she’d insisted he come. And Matthew, his brother-in-law, had called him the next morning and begged him to go — Julie’s hormones were out of control and she’d been crying ever since their phone call the night before. So here he was, at his father’s house, with orders to clean it out and get it ready to sell. Just him. There was no one Jeremy could ask to help. He’d kept everyone else at arms-length since he was sixteen.

He hated being here. He hadn’t set foot in this house for nearly five years. Not since the fight shortly after his mother died, when his father accused him of contributing to her death with his reckless behavior, making her worry about him all the time. Jeremy had tried to insist that his job – taking people on tandem parachute jumps – was not exactly reckless, but it only made his father angrier. He’d said things to Jeremy that were unforgivable, and Jeremy had responded in kind. Both of them had been too raw to watch their words. By the time the fighting was done, neither of them could bear to even look at the other.

Jeremy had thought a few times that someday they’d make it up to each other, but the one time he’d called his father it became apparent that he wasn’t ready to forgive or forget. Which made Jeremy angry all over again. He’d been angry with his father since he was sixteen, and that anger churned like acid in his gut, poisoning him and his ability to relate to others. After all, he obviously sucked at relationships.

Then last week his father had died of a massive heart attack, and all chances to make it up were gone. And that anger had frozen inside him, into a hard wall. His father was gone, and Jeremy found himself unable to feel sorry about it.

Continue reading “Stonehenge Story Starts: Bicycling (Results)”