#RomanticFridayWriters - Challenge No 28 - 'Ties That Bind'

Featured Writer - Challenge No 27 - Sparkle!

Hello everyone! No doubt due to Christmas preparations our entries were down this challenge. Some have told me that they won't be able to post til the New Year, but I'll be keeping RFWer operational for those of us who are getting back into the swing of it!

Thanks to each and every one of you for your entries this week. Glad to see such powerful poetry packing a punch again! All entries so different but each so unique for our Sparkle theme.

A warm welcome back to Ruth. It was great to be reading about Stewart again. An excellent snippet. I'm sure we all enjoyed reading Anna's unique entry, complete with personal photos of her charming children. Simran wrote a heart-warming story whereas Francine entertained us with her twisted fairy tale. Roland managed to weave some more sparkle into his characters Victor and Alice while I had a smile on my face the whole time I was writing my Christmas Lights story.

So you've probably worked out by now that I can't help going with our powerful poets this week. All three stole the show with their sparkly imagery.

Tie for Runner Up. Andy, whose 'words are like music on a battlefield' is our first Runner Up, and Adura's poem which was inspirational as she penned a poem based on a real-life experience of keeping the spark alive, shares second place with Andy. Congratulations to Andy and Adura for such wonderful words this week. Both contained that romantic element.

Our Featured Writer this week could be none other than Heaven whose poetry, or prosetry as Adura called it, absolutely sparkled with romance and tragedy. Her Christmas Star poem blew me away with its story of deep love and 'hope...fluttering, sparkling in his chest.' So a big round of applause to Heaven! Her poem can be found on the Featured Writer page. I see two other people as well as myself have voted for Heaven as FW this week.

Please keep those poems/stories coming each fortnight.

Looking forward to reading about those Ties That Bind on December 30. By then your fingers should be twitching to get back to writing.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Denise (L'Aussie)

My little Christmas tree at my apartment. 
A much bigger one awaits at the beach. 

#RomanticFridayWriters Challenge No 27 - Friday December 16 - Sparkle!

Challenge No 27 for December 16 - Sparkle! Challenge open to all!

Our current challenge is Sparkle! There's lots of sparkly things around at the moment so writing to this theme should be a delight. That doesn't mean your stories have to be all sweetness and light - there could be more to the sparkle than meets the eye.

As I've written on the Challenges page -

What sparkles in your life? What sparkles in your WIP? How many sparkly things can you think of? How can you make your story unique? What wouldn't you expect to sparkle, yet it did? Come on, challenge yourself! Sparkle us all with your 400 words of fairy dust!


http://www.wattpad.com/965811-poems-and-short-stories-sparkle-eyes

An interesting little Sparkle poem can be found at the above link.


I got my idea for my Sparkle! story from a newspaper article (well, actually I often get ideas there!) Where do you get your ideas from? We know Nancy Williams dreams hers up when she's ill, Francine sees movies in her head, I get my ideas from a first sentence here or there or a photo, painting - newspaper, magazine, book, film...What about you? Leave a comment and tell us...

Linky will be up this Thursday December 15th so have those works of art ready!

Denise (L'Aussie)

Featured Writer - Challenge No 26 - Response to Image - The House in the Snow

Hi all! Great to be back and writing stories/poems for RFWer isn't it? Just finished my second sweep in quest of a winner for Featured Writer. I heartily plead with you if you have not disallowed 'Word Verification' please help your readers out by getting rid of it. It really serves no purpose other than to slow down your speedy commenters.

Welcome to our new followers. I hope you tippy toed around and read some entries and gained enough confidence to join us for our theme Sparkle! on December 16. I'm polishing my baubles in readiness!

I'm trialling a poll this week. It may be a bit of a dud as I didn't get the word around early enough, but I hope to poll you all on your choices in future. I know it's tempting to just vote for yourself, and that's okay if you really think yours was the best story. To overcome that I've been researching different polls and found one where we can have two votes. The Blogger Poll is very basic - allows one or multiple! (Postscript: Yes, a bit of a dud as only half voted when I went to air and no doubt some self votes there).

So, to our entries this week. The image conjured up largely atmospheric pieces. It was great reading the many and varied descriptions, along with misty characters. Thank you all so much for hours of reading pleasure. Being an Aussie from Queensland in the north/east of Oz, snow is strictly reserved for trips to Europe in the northern winter, of which I've had a few. Even been in a blizzard from Brussels to Luxembourg. Will never forget that! Magical! Whoops, sidetracked. Most of you are quite familiar with snow, especially at Christmas.

As always, it was terribly difficult to narrow down the wonderful entries to two sparkling ones. Most entries had atmosphere, great characters, some romance, some nostalgia, er, and some ghostly apparitions.


I must give an honourable mention to Anna, whose story this week was so great. Anna, participating in RFWer has improved your writing remarkably. I'd be enchanted if you took the Encouragement Award again this week for your sweet and mystical story of Jakob and Jenny.

Now to runner up. Maybe because it resonated with me with the idea of experiencing a different kind of Christmas, yet hot and steamy in the cold clime. I loved the sensual goodness of Kerrin Hearfield's Snowed In. Congratulations Kerrin for a wonderful response to image. Please take the Runner Up badge for your blog.

Featured Writer this week goes to a traditional story of mistletoe, the heart-rending yet heart-warming story of two lost souls finding each other. Yes, Nancy William's story of Jane and Martin touched me. Nancy is a fine writer and her story zoomed to the top of my chart. Nancy, please take the Featured Writer badge for your blog. I'll be adding your story to our Featured Writer page.

I thought the quality was very good this week, maybe because there was more time to think about our stories/poems. I won't forget Adura's 'misled toes' for awhile, or Li's poignant story of homecoming, the romance of a place. We saw Andy speak with a somewhat different edgy voice this week with his cruel lover. And Donna's creepy ghost story will have me looking over my shoulder should I be renting a Christmas Cottage, lol. Everyone, you are such a great group of writers. I can't mention you all, heck, why not - Marsha, your story enchanted me, Roland, loved your Inn at the End of the World, Ballerina's Smile, a beautiful sensuous poem, Francine, as always your historical romance sweeps me away and I quite liked my little girl and her Dada. There were many potential winners this week! Can't wait to see you Sparkle!

Have a great writing week.

Looking forward to your entries for Sparkle! on December 16!

Denise (L'Aussie)

Challenge No 26 - Response to Image - House in the Snow

Don't forget to read the post on critiquing below!