Second Campaigner Challenge - The Imago Test

I really enjoyed having a go at the last Campaigner Challenge so thought I'd try this one too. Here's the brief:

Write a blog post in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc.

The blog post should:

• include the word "imago" in the title
• include the following 4 random words: "miasma," "lacuna," "oscitate," "synchronicity,"

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional and included in the word count), make reference to a mirror in your post.

For those who want an even greater challenge (optional), make your post 200 words EXACTLY!

Pretty difficult, but I couldn't resist a challenge. Here's my entry:

The Imago Test

I take my place alongside the other initiates so that the tips of my toes overhang the ledge.  The chasm oscitates ahead, a wide lacuna between two promontories, each studded with a black obelix. Stiffening, I turn to look at Marlo. He catches my eye and manages a weak smile. “We’ll be fine. We’re the chosen,” he whispers, but fear surrounds him like a thick miasma. How are we supposed to survive this?

The horn blows and Martha jumps. I watch as she plummets towards the sea, my heart racing, but then something explodes from her back - wings that reflect the pale sunlight like mirrors. I inhale sharply as she catches the wind and soars to the other side of the abyss, raising her hand in triumph.  Why has no one told us what we might become?

Marlo’s next, but this time I can’t look. I close my eyes. When I open them, there’s no sign of him. 

The priest stands beside me, his face bone-white against purple robes. “Time to take flight, daughter.”

Empty, I gaze up at the clouds just as a butterfly crosses the sky, a silverwing. Marlo’s favourite. In that moment of synchronicity, I fall.

Seven Random Things About Me

I was mightly chuffed to receive a Versatile Blogger Award from Kristina Fugate over at KayKay's Corner  and Jani Grey at Life Debatable today.  To obtain my shiny badge, however, I have to complete three different tasks:

1.)  Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.

2.)  Share 7 things about yourself.
3.)  Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it.

So here goes number two. Seven things about me:

1. I've lived in 26 different dwellings (including a old mill and a tent) during my 30-something years. Unsurprisingly, change holds very little fear for me now.

2. I have an intense dislike of cut flowers - almost a phobia.  A bouquet is the worst thing that anyone could ever buy me. Plants are OK, trees are even better.

3. My first story was published in the Puffin Post when I was 12 years old. It was called 'The Sandals and The Unsuspecting Witch'. 

4. I like Hayao Miyazaki's work so much (see last post) that I decided to pay a special visit to the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo a couple of years ago.

5. I eat at least one banana every day - sometimes two.

6. I've never used my dishwasher even though I have lived in my current house for nearly four years.

7. My hiking boots are twenty-two years old and still going strong. They've made contact with five continents, completed two long-distance trails and climbed countless hills.

Now to pass this on. I'd like to give this award to the following bloggers:

Claire Robyns
Read in Between the Lines
Imagination to Publication
Belief Suspenders
Life Debatable
Thoughts from the Hearthfire
The Scribbling Sea Serpent
In Somnis Veritas
Medeia Sharif
The Eagle's Aerial Perspective

And thanks once again to Kristina and Jani for passing this award to me in the first place!

If I Could Be Anyone, I'd Be...

As part of the celebrations for the launch of Watching Willow Watts by Talli Roland, I'm joining in with her 'If I Could Be Anyone, I'd Be' party. 
  

I've spent all day racking my brains, but have finally decided that I'd like to be Princess Nausicaa from Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. 

Not only is she a skilled fighter and glider pilot, she’s also wise and compassionate with a soft-spot for giant insects.  I love the way that she steers her own path in the face of overwhelming odds, saving a whole race of Ohms (misunderstood caterpillar-like creatures) from extinction when everyone else fears them.   She’s also the Chosen One – the person destined to restore the earth’s natural cycle.  With credentials like these, I definitely swap places with this character for a short time, although maybe not forever.  

And now onto the real reason for this post - Talli's new book - Watching Willow Watts:

For twenty-five-year-old Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine: days behind the counter at her father's antique shop; nights watching fuzzy telly whilst the elderly residents of Britain's Ugliest Village bed down for yet another early night. But everything changes when Willow's epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation is uploaded to YouTube. A canny viewer spots Marilyn's ghostly image hidden in the film and Willow becomes an international sensation. Her dire little town is suddenly overrun with fans proclaiming her to be the 'new Marilyn'. Egged on by the villagers - whose shops and businesses are cashing in - Willow eagerly embraces her new identity, dying her hair platinum and scoffing cakes to achieve Marilyn's legendary curves. But when the only man she has ever truly loved returns, seeking the old Willow, it's decision time. Should she risk stardom and the village's new-found fortune on love? Or is being Marilyn Willow's real ticket to happiness

You can buy a UK copy of the book here and a US Kindle copy here.

Flash Fiction: Infinite Doors

It's been a busy week, but I thought I'd have a stab at the first challenge for the Third Writers' Platform-Building Campaign, which is hosted over at Rachael Harrie's blog. The rules are as follows:


Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut." (also included in the word count)

For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!

Infinite Doorways

The door swung open.

Jay gasped.  The corridor that lay in front of her stretched so far into the distance that she couldn’t see its end point.  Hundreds of wooden doors studded the pale walls, each one was marked with a shining bronze plaque. Her future.

“So this is it then,” said David, his voice low, cracked. “You’d better go. They’ll be here soon.”

Unable to move, she took a deep breath.  Finally, she was free. She could do anything she wanted, go anywhere she pleased, but suddenly it all seemed too much.  What would she find out there, hidden behind those infinite doorways?

She turned to him and studied his face for one last time. The large mouth and those muted blue eyes, wise and utterly sad.  Funny how he’d changed, but then she had too.  “Will I see you again?” she asked softly.

He opened his mouth to answer her, but just as he was about to speak, the floor rippled with a faint green cast.  Her heart rate accelerated. The others had breached the gate.

“Go!” he said. “I’ll find you, I promise.”

She swallowed hard and stepped into the endless passageway.

The door swung shut.

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