Tanka Project #38: Mist and Fury

I'm currently reading A Court of Mist and Fury by Sara J Maas, because I am obsessed with the fairy tale of Tam Lin and will find him anyway possible.

TBH I'm very disappointed in his behaviour in this book, although it does make sense and provide a sound reason for Feyre's continuing story arc. Who knew? OK, so everyone knew, but still.

Anyway, I like to use first lines as a writing prompt from time to time. It is ridiculous how much thought goes into a first line, and some of them are utter genius (Patrick Rothfuss, I'm looking at you). This one is intriguing, but a little annoying and pathetic as well. It seems more like the sort of thing a teen might write in her diary than an opening line, so I thought I'd fudge it up a bit and go elsewhere from there. I am, being a raging goth, assuming that the darkness is a good thing.

Here's the first line:

"Maybe I'd always been broken and dark inside."

And here's where I went with it:

Where would you go?

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February update!

Hello! Please see above for a screenshot (not sure who the photo is by) from the lovely Fragmented Voices website which has my poem, Escaping Pheasants, as their featured poem today. This poem is inspired by the pheasants which are brought in to our local country house for people who are that way inclined to shoot. Sometimes I see them flapping down from the estate wall and on to the busy road, making a break for it toward the moors. Good luck pheasants. Escaping Pheasants also features in my book, Little Gods, published by the marvellous Roswell Publishing and available from booksellers and Amazon, or get in touch to get a signed copy from me. Other recent successes include two poems in Obsessed with Pipework #105, a Haiku in Coin Operated Press ' Haiku Zine, The Libraries came out in Culture Matters' Bread & Roses Anthology, and, as I mentioned last time, When you slow a bit you can see the way , another poem from Little Gods, came out in Butcher's Dog #19. I have ...

A wee update

Hello! Thought I'd give you a wee update on how things are going in my world! Little Gods came out with Roswell Press at the end of September 2023 and I was really busy for the first bit of October, reading poems from the new book at various local events. I'm really grateful for all the books people bought, but there's still copies available, either online via Amazon for Kindle or in paperback, or you can get in touch with me at caralmckee (at) gmail (dot) com to get a signed copy of Little Gods and/or First Kiss sent to you in the post! After my reading frenzy at the beginning of October I took a little break for a birthday celebration frenzy (it's still going on, there's a lot to celebrate). I've been meaning to read a couple of poems online too, but I'm having a flare of trigeminal neuralgia which is triggered by talking, so that will come when it comes. I'm hoping to read at the Scottish Writer's Centre launch of their new Mountain & Glen ...

Tanka Project #41: Truth

Fake news infuriates me. I can understand a foreign power wanting to destabilise a nation with lies, but I cannot understand the people in power in that nation lying to the people who have elected them, whom they want the votes of in future. That slogan on the bus for Brexit? People believed it, and voted accordingly. And Boris Johnson keeps on telling the same lie again and again despite it being shown to be a lie. My father in law tells me that politicians lie - that is what we should expect of them. It is not what I expect. I expect politicians to tell the truth about what their intentions are and then to do their best to represent the people in their constituencies while following the basic ideas of their intentions. Sometimes changes will have to be made and that's fine, but to lie just to get power, that's despicable, and no one who does such a thing should be allowed to keep their office. There aren't just lies about the NHS millions though, there are so ma...

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