Nature’s Fury and Delights

A Fogo Island Sunset

This is a picture I took many years ago as I sat on the rocks near Joe Batt’s Arm, Fogo Island, NL, watching the sun go down.

(If you’d prefer to listen to this post in audio read by Christopher, my cloned narrator, you can do that on YouTube at this link.)

Many years ago, at the very beginning of my writing “career” (while I still had a day job as a teacher), I wanted to make writing a regular practice. This desire became a plan for a writing exercise called Thursday’s Three Hundred, which was doomed to fail. 🙂

The plan was to use a random visual prompt and write three hundred, equally as random, words of a story scene, that I would share on my blog each Thursday.

The exercise failed because I found I couldn’t just write three hundred words and move on. That very first three hundred words begged to be turned into a story called Hope at Dawn, and the next new story I started begged me to turn it into a series — what is now my Willow Hall Romance series. So, while the exercise failed in part, that failure has produced a fair number of stories, and I did develop a consistent writing practice. In that way, it was more of a success than a failure.

Today, I’m sharing the first chapter of that first failed exercise that was prompted by the image in the video graphic of a Sunset on Fogo Island. I took this picture not too far from the cottage at which I was staying in Joe Batt’s Arm. This was the first trip I had ever taken to Fogo and was when I fell in love with the remote and rugged beauty of the place.

Hope at Dawn begins on a rocky shoreline as a gentleman, who was not deemed worthy enough to marry the lady he loves, waits for her to return home after an extended period of time away.

As he sits, watching the waves while darkness fades into light, faint hope is the only thing to which he has to cling as he waits to see if the work he’s done while she’s been gone is enough to now be worthy of her hand.

Wintery Night in the Park

Wintertime night scene in the park. Author: psychoshadow. Image sourced from Depositphotos

This image that I found on Depositphotos feels like the story that I’m sharing from today in this post. It’s lonely and quiet. It’s rimmed with shadows that hide many things. And yet, it’s got that light which is chasing away those shadows and making the scene feel a little welcoming.

I’d say this story, Frosted Windowpanes, is like that. There’s a welcome to the scene in which the main character finds himself, but is it a lasting welcome or will the shadows of the past and circumstances of the present snuff out the glimmer of home? I can’t tell you how it happens because that would be spoiling the story. But, this is a Leenie Brown story and touched with inspiration from Persuasion, so you know the ending cannot be bleak, right?

Below is the first chapter of this four-chapter novelette from my Nature’s Fury and Delights Collection. For those who are familiar with my Willow Hall series, you’ll see a few names that should be familiar since Mr. Mullins’s estate is located in Derbyshire near Willow Hall and Kympton.

One more note before I let you read the beginning of the story: Frosted Windowpanes is the free Ream and Patreon read this month, so at the end of the chapter, I will include links to find it on those platforms (you do have to sign up as a free follower to access it there) and links to where the story is available in stores and such.

Enjoy!

The April 2023 Saturday Broadsheet

This month’s Saturday Broadsheet, with all my writing life updates, is now available at the link below.

In this issue of the Broadsheet you will find:

my current writing project
what has been newly added to Kindle Unlimited
which books have been put on limited time promotions (It’s two free books this time.)
an upcoming opportunity to read and review a previously published book via Booksprout
and a refreshed, inspired by Oxford Cottage, story scene I wrote several years ago, called Lawrence, the Lonely Viscount

CLICK HERE TO READ THis Month’s SATURDAY BROADSHEET

Have a great weekend!

Archers (after a drawing by Adam Buck)

“Archers”, an April 1799 “pin-up” type print, engraved after a drawing by Adam Buck, and with a dedication to the Prince Regent. At the time, archery was one of the few competitive sports that adult women of the “genteel” classes could respectably engage in (others were battledore/shuttlecock — a precursor to badminton — and for a tiny social elite, old-fashioned “court tennis”). Engraved after a drawing by Adam Buck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Do you know what was one of my most favourite times of the day back when I was in elementary school? No, it wasn’t recess or lunch. It was when we would come in from lunch recess and our teacher would read a chapter or two from a book while we settled back into our desks and got our minds ready to finish our classes.

When I was teaching, reading to my class, like my teachers had done, was one of the things I loved to do.

With that in mind, let me tell you that I have been working on a reading project which taps into memories of that loved activity from years gone by. It’s a project that I have wanted to do for some time, but then, right after I began it, I got long covid and had to abandon it for a while.

The June 2022 Saturday Broadsheet

The Saturday Broadsheet, with all my writing life updates, is now available at the link at the bottom of this short post.

In this issue of the Broadsheet you will find:

Info about what is posting on my blog. (As if you didn’t know, right? LOL)
Info about what will be posting at Patreon, starting next Friday
Info about the two books I have on sale for $0.99 this month and one boxset that is on sale for this weekend only.
Info about some other books, which are not mine, that are either free or on sale.
And in the something interesting section at the end of the newsletter you will find, a video that has been paired with an excerpt from one of the books in the boxset I have on sale this weekend.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE June 2022 SATURDAY BROADSHEET

Have a great weekend!

I hope you have time to read a book.

I’ll be back on Thursday with a new chapter of His Inconvenient Choice.