Posted on by JenniferShelby · 2 Comments

housekeeping pixies

I came upon a pixie’s wash basin hidden on the forest floor. Her laundry was hanging out to dry nearby but I didn’t want to embarrass her by photographing her unmentionables.

washbasin

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My pixie friend has inspired me to a do a little housekeeping of my own…

To begin with, I’d like to invite you to read my spooky story The Grave of Ursula Pendlethwaite, written for a local non-profit’s Halloween newsletter. It’s now up on their website where you can read it for free! Click here to head there now.

Secondly, October is almost over, and with it my Freewrite experiment. I’ve got a deadline coming up and outline work left to do before NaNoWriMo begins, so I’m tallying up my numbers and bringing the experiment to a close a few days early.

The proposed experiment was to test if using the Freewrite actually doubled my wordcount, as claimed by manufacturer Astrohaus.

Going into the experiment, I’d been writing an embarrassing 4 000 words per month since baby Nim was born. Before that, my monthly average of new words (editing doesn’t count for this experiment) was 13 645 words.

I kept track of my daily word count from September 16th until October 26th, broke it down to a daily average, and then worked out an average for a 30-day month.

Did the Freewrite double my wordcount?

At 28 942 words, it did indeed.

*hands a bouquet to Astrohaus*

How did your October go? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo 2017?

Posted on by JenniferShelby · 3 Comments

the long-lost friends we find in dreams

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Deep in her dreaming, she found the forest she once knew as a child. The pixies who told her stories, the goblins that played hide-and-go-seek in the gullies, even the mean old witch who lived in the hollow tree – they were all still there.

“Of course we’re still here,” said the pixies. “This is our home. You’re the one who left!”

“You abandoned us for your growing up, didn’t you?” The witch’s voice still sounded as hoarse and bitter as she remembered. “Didn’t you ever realize that growing up and friends like us are not mutually exclusive?”

She sat down on a fallen tree as the realization washed over her. “I never did.”

“At least you’re here now,” said the goblins, hugging her knees. “We’ve missed you so.”

Posted on by JenniferShelby

directions

The pixie left detailed directions to her den written atop a mushroom. This was often how the pixies shared their secrets, knowing there would only be an hour or two before the notes rotted away and were lost forever. They never did realize the greater fungus down below kept careful notes of all these writings and shared them far and wide.

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