Posted on by JenniferShelby

dark and liquid matters

The soil drinks deep of long-awaited rain. Gnomes are fleeing from their flooded burrows.

The beach is closed for fecal matters, try again tomorrow. The Kraken feeds.

Reflections quiver and shimmer on the rock wall rising from the creek. A sylph’s breath upon stone.

A toxic algae flourishes in the depth of a lake. The lake demon grins and whispers “my garden is blooming.”

The humidity will be high this week and Environment Canada has issued heat warnings. The waterlogged ghosts of drowned people are expected to crowd the living this week. You have been warned.

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It’s been hot and humid on the mountain these past few weeks, making it hard to sleep. Sleeplessness has a strange, twisty effect on my imagination. The above lines are my muddled responses to things I saw or heard on the news. Future stories, perhaps, but the water theme tempted me to gather them together.

In writing news, the editor/publisher of the children’s bedtime story anthology Eeny Meeny Miney Mo: Tales for Tired Tykes sent me this review of the book, mentioning that my piece, Leif the Story Hunter, was their favorite. That gave me a thrill.

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Print copies of the book are now for sale on the Patchwork Raven’s website for $65 (NZ, international shipping included). My print copy hasn’t arrived yet but I am watching for it.

Happy writing!
Posted on by JenniferShelby · 4 Comments

adventures in the gorge

Summers here are glorious and humid, creating a vortex of increasingly unbearable heat. Write in the mornings when it’s cool, then escape. Grab the kids and follow the water.

We’ve been spending our summer weekends exploring and hunting stories. Down the mountain from our home lies a deep, protected gorge with a creek running through it. The trees are old, the creek is cold, and the wilderness is criss-crossed with aged dirt roads.

The gorge has a long history of logging, farming, and we’ve heard rumors of abandoned villages. We haven’t come across those yet, but we did find this structure.

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It might have been a section of an old boiler (based on surrounding structures) or a possibly a brick oven. I prefer to think of it as an abandoned goblin lair, myself.

There are stories hiding everywhere in these woods!

In another section of the gorge, we came across the ruins of a castle. Okay, okay, not a castle, but a stone wall once built to border a farm long since invaded by forest. I have long dreamt of finding the ruins of a castle in the woods. Coming this close was a thrill.

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Following a dirt road at the bottom of the gorge with some vague directions from Google maps, we fjorded the creek past a caved-in bridge and hiked along a quad trail to a covered bridge. Covered bridges are fairly common in our area, but we don’t often find them this far into the wilderness. Perhaps it was the missing bridge along the road to it which made it feel like a secret place.

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There were three well-worn camp sites near the covered bride, and an excellent swimming spot for the kids beneath the bridge. It’s fun to hunt for trolls beneath the bridge and look up at the construction to see how they were built way back when.

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Ever since I was a child I’ve wanted to build a fort in the rafters of a covered bridge, tucked up from the road and sheltered just enough. This bridge, nestled into the woods with the mountains towering on either side, brought that urge back with renewed vigor.

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Are you taking breaks from your writing to have an adventure or two this summer?

 

Posted on by JenniferShelby · 2 Comments

Once upon a graveyard dreary

I’ve been storyhunting again, the baby in tow. My hunt took us all over. The best October tales are spiced with spooky flavors: crusty cobwebs, graveyard dust, eye of newt. The dark comes quicker, it stays longer. The death of autumn haunts the air. The stories, naturally, turn to the macabre.

My hunt was a success.

I traveled to many ancient cemeteries in search of my October tales. The dead were most obliging and the baby enjoyed the fresh graveyard air. We soon came across an intriguing grave stone marked with nothing but my own initials. A macabre tale waited just beneath it.

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In a second graveyard I found peaceful ghosts and an old tin man, but the stories had all been told. Or so I thought. When I checked through my photographs upon our return to story hunting headquarters, I discovered an odd door I somehow missed while we were there. If you follow the arrow, you’ll see it, not hiding at all, out there in the open and the ghosts.

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Of course I plan to open said door in search of its story, but I will have to wait until the baby is not with me. Portals are hard on children, or so stories have led me to believe. Few are the risks I’m willing to take with her.

On a third wild hunt I found a moody universe I am only beginning to understand. For now I stare at in awe, the story an ethereal dream that isn’t willing to be translated into words as yet. I can feel it trembling, somewhere behind the image. It won’t be long now.

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The stories will be scribbled down, polished, and sent out into the reading world as part of my ongoing catch and release program. One, for a certainty, will be available to read for free upon it’s publishing date somewhere before Hallowe’en. I’ll share it here as it becomes available.

Happy hunting, happy haunting, and merry October.