*Trips in over the sword, crashes to the table, spills the cookies, almost lands in the fireplace.*

 Hello. *Stands up, sits down*

 Um, oh yes, I'm back. I don't have a lot of writing to share with you this time, but more of a, "Does this sound better?" Thingy. So, here it is. 

 Not edited

The scream of a falling bomb sliced through the deep, nighttime silence like a knife. It woke Peter Jones with a start, for a moment making him forget all his training. He listened in horror, knowing something was very wrong, but not knowing that bomb was the start of a terrible war.


The screaming grew louder the closer the bomb got and Peter shot up in his cot just as the alarms went off. The alarms were almost as loud as the bomb and even though Peter was not fully awake he knew what he had to do. Leaping to his feet, he grabbed his clothing and threw them on. Stumbling toward the door, he tripped and crashed into things as he fought to pull his boots on. There were other men in the barracks who were faring no better with their clothing and boots. Many times the men crashed into each other, knocking one another down.

 Edited

The scream of a falling bomb sliced through the deep, nighttime silence like a knife. The sound woke Peter Jones with a start, for a moment making him forget all his military training. He listened in horror, not knowing that the bomb heralded the start of a terrible war.

The screaming grew louder and Peter shot up in his cot just as the alarms went off. The alarms were almost as loud as the bomb and even though sleep still blurred Peter's eyes his muddled brain started to work and he moved without thinking. Leaping to his feet, he grabbed his clothing and threw them on. Stumbling toward the door, he tripped and crashed into things as he fought to pull on and lace up his boots. There were other men in the barracks who were faring no better with their clothing and boots. Many times the men crashed into each other, knocking one another down.

Better? Or no? 

Jack and her Sardine Nemo

Snippet from 'Ira Bournton'

My new story is coming along splendidly.  You know how it is when you get an idea into your head and it springs out into several subplots that all magically link together and beautifully fit into one lovely picture complete with interesting character names?  Neither do I, although this story is close.  Only I am having trouble with character names and linking subplots.
Anyway, here is a bit of Ira Bournton, named after the main character until I can think of a better title for it.  It's set in New England in 1873, by the way, but before you relegate it to the boring, stuffy, old-fashioned category, let me just say that it is a murder mystery and a lot of other things combined.

Orville Gaskey stood looking about the place with a pleasant smile on his pleasant face.  “I suppose,” he said, rolling back on his heels, “that you want an exorbitant price for the place.”  He spoke to a rather fat man beside him who was clad in clothes much too tight for him in such a state of shabbiness that he might have easily been mistaken as a part of the general scenery.

“Five hundred, and it’s yours,” said the fat man, nervously wiping off a stream of greasy perspiration from his glistening forehead.

“That seems a fair price,” said Orville, not mentioning that it was about two hundred dollars less than he had expected to pay.  “It needs a good deal of work, but I suppose that I can spare the money.”

“I’m glad to be shet of the place,” admitted the fat man.  “No one around here wants to buy it.  Hasn’t for thirty odd years.  Ghosts, and all that tom-foolery.  Not that I believe it meself, but it does make it a mighty hard place to sell.”

Mr. Gaskey laughed.  “Well, Mr. Rufer, I don’t believe in ghosts either, and neither does my family.  And we do need a place desperately.  So, I think that this will do nicely, and you need not worry about my wanting to give it back to you.  Any place this secluded must be the source of superstitious stories in a…community such as this.”  He had meant to say ‘backwoods community,’ but thought that he had better not insult Mr. Rufer’s home of a lifetime to his face.

“Done, then,” said Mr. Rufer, extending his hand to Mr. Gaskey.  “Perfect place for a nice little family.”

“I haven’t a nice little family, though,” said Mr. Gaskey with a sigh.  “I have a very large family.  I have ten children, in fact.”

“Like I says, I nice little family,” said Mr. Rufer.  “I have fourteen.”

So, what do you think.  And if any of you can think of a good title for this story, please do tell.
Thanks for reading and God bless!

"I'm too young to die!" "I'm not! But I don't wanna!"

*Meekly trips in. Sits in a nearby chair, tries to hide under the hood of her cloak.*

 I feel a bit like a traitor, leaving all of you for, about a month....if not a month, maybe longer. I could give you a whole listing of reasons behind it, but it's a bit dull....SOOOOO! I will just say....

 "Well, I'm back."

 And I shall be more faithful in posting but mostly reading. And now, since I am feeling exceptionally British at the moment, I think I will sit here and sip tea with Nemo. Anyone care to join your AWOL Inkling?

Jamie: A Brief Character Sketch

Jamie is my female character in "After the Twelfth Night" and it's untitled sequel. I just realized that I really don't have many female characters... Just Jamie and a few minor characters (like Cressida and Talia!)
Her family includes one brother, aforementioned Matthias, and her father Dogberry (from Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing"). She has two honorary brothers in Verges (also from "Much Ado About Nothing") and William (my own character who is very paranoid). Jamie's mother died of illness when Jamie was only a month old.
Jamie is very caring and sweet but is not afraid to speak her mind and is always eager to join an adventure.
Her usual garb is a plain brown dress and brown slippers (not pajama type slippers, the ones like Jasmine from Alladin wears).
Jamie has fiery and wild red hair with bright amber eyes. She looks kind of like Karen Gillan with David Tennant's eyes and Merida's (from Disney/Pixar's Brave) hair.
Actually, Merida from Brave has inspired a lot of Jamie's looks (although to be fair to Jamie, I came up with her looks before I even knew that Brave existed).

An excerpt from The Sequel which I literally just wrote and will probably scrap later:

Jamie had a shimmery pale green dress with blue puffy sleeves and a blue panel in the skirt made for her during the night and day that they stayed in the town. A plain dark blue dress with gold rings on the sleeves was also purchased and a dark green cloak went with it. The final new dress was bright red to match Jamie’s hair. It had a green and red brocade patterned panel on the front. The sleeves were also made of that material, although they poofed red velvet at the shoulders. Red velvet also hung down from the hips in rolls.

The pale green dress was inspired by one that I wore as Beatrice last year in Much Ado About Nothing. Here is the dress:

The second dark blue dress was inspired by, you guessed it, Merida from Brave (I haven't even seen the movie people!):

The final red dress was one that I found on Google images when I typed in "red dress Shakespeare." This picture goes to it's rightful owner... I hope that they don't mind I stole it's description for my story.

So there is Jamie in a nutshell... The only person I didn't mention was Antony who is her best friend and fiance (don't worry, she's a lot older than 16 now.... Although people did get married a lot younger in Shakespeare's day!).

I hope you enjoyed. =)