Narrelle M Harris: writer | editor | songwriter | crafter
Words are like oxygen
The latest Improbable Press prompt had me thinking in rhyming couplets. It might be a little pat at the ending, but I enjoyed the challenge. Don’t forget to take a look at the IP Blog and try some of their writing prompts yourself! A Box for Wishes I have a box for wishesAnd every day it fillsI wish for better […]
» Read moreI’m back at the Improbable Press fiction prompt coalface, last week urged on by the words ‘A broken instrument’, ‘single’ and some pictures. The broken instrument made me think of how PG Wodehouse is always quoting Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King about ‘the rift within the lute’. And so, here we are. Pop over to Improbable Press […]
» Read moreMy responses to the Improbable Press fiction prompts tend to be optimistic, but this has gone very dark. Oh well. The muse is obviously In A Mood. Option Five The sea was on fire. No, wait. Hang on. The rolling waves of flame, sparks flickering like sea spray, lapped against a shore made of ice which, despite the heat, didn’t […]
» Read moreImprobable Press’s latest prompt included bees, and then I thought of that old tradition that the bees must be told when their keeper dies. And then I thought of Sherlock Holmes being away during WWI as a spy. And then I thought of John Watson. And then I thought of this. The Dancing Bees It is spring and we bees […]
» Read moreThis week, the Improbable Press prompt drew a song out of me. (Check out the site and try the prompts yourself!) I’ve been thinking about werewolves a lot, for an upcoming story, and this is the lyric that happened. It might also apply to vampires, actually, but mostly it was written for a new werewolf. Yes, I have a melody […]
» Read moreThis week’s prompt from Improbable Press made me think of Australian poet, Adam Lindsay Gordon, and how I’ve often wished there had been somebody to rescue him. Gordon’s poems are generally much more glum than his most famous few lines suggest, but I’m glad he’s known best for the hope than the despair. Stand Like Stone Cal knew it wasn’t […]
» Read moreHere we are again, with a story prompted by the Improbable Press blog. It seems my mind lately is rather fixated on metamorphis. The Only Daughter of Time The sun blazed hot outside but within the colonnade the air was cool and fresh. Outside smelled of hot dust; inside of earthy stone and antiquity. Ruins, partially reconstructed for the delight […]
» Read moreMy mind is definitely taking a lot of apocalyptic turns when I write to the Improbable Press prompts – but then I try to make them less grim. I’m not too sure which one this story is. Pop over to Improbable Press to read what others have done and to try out your own prompted fiction! Chrysalis Nobody survives Chrysalis. […]
» Read moreAfter a sudden run of work, I’ve finally had time to write some more lockdown fiction to the Improbable Press prompt this week! Bone Deep The ocean floor is made of bones. The earth’s great rocky bones of quartz, mainly, but others too. The calcium of shells and skeletons, the structures of coral and whales and clams and the great […]
» Read moreThis story comes from Clan Destine Press’s 1 June writing prompt. Flotsam ‘It’s not really umber, is it?’ Didi, pressed closed to Galatea’s side, ceased peering at the sea to blink her bemusement at her new companion. ‘Sorry?’ ‘The umber ella. It’s not umber. Perhaps like raw umber, but more like bone. And white, of course.’ Galatea’s dark eyes were […]
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