Here is something that cheered me up this past week. Teresa, aka The Haunted Wordsmith, has combined two blogging awards and established a new accolade named THE WRITER’S SOUL AWARD, as you can see from her post below:
https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/the-writers-soul-award/
I am very grateful for all of the support from Teresa and other bloggers. It is almost ten months since I started blogging and I have enjoyed it much more than I ever imagined I would.
I have been in the habit of writing since I was a young child, but not stories, and certainly not poems. Even at school I struggled with that kind of writing. I could churn out essays easily, but making up a story or poem was not natural to me.
I am a life-long letter writer. I had little penpals all over England and then in other countries, and other continents. The post office must have loved me! During my teens I was an extremely prolific letter-writer. Eventually, as I became busier and busier and technology became more accessible, I made the switch to e-mails. I was rather pleased that I could type a long e-mail about our adventures and then send it to hundreds of friends who I had been keeping in touch with previously by post.
I have had shorts spells of keeping a journal. I went through eighteen months of illness requiring several surgical procedures about twelve years ago. Keeping a journal helped me at that time. Also, when I was twenty four and I split up with my teenage sweetheart who had been courting me for years. I do believe that the letter writing and the occasional journal keeping have shaped my style of writing.
Since I started blogging, I have read the work by many other writers and have loved their poetry and flash-fiction and longer stories. I have made a few attempts myself. I must admit I find I often revert to writing about a real-life experience, instead of making up something imaginary. But I have decided I will keep trying to develop better writing skills, and especially with regards to short flash-fiction posts.
At the moment…I feel a bit aghast at the thought of writing about myself. It’s all a bit raw right now. I am sure that will pass! But in the meantime, I quite like the idea of working on a bit more flash-fiction, immersing myself in completely imaginary fictional characters. Thinking up little stories and hopefully throwing in some clever twist, as so many talented bloggers have mastered the skill of doing.
I am really looking forward to spring and summer ahead. I want to be outside as often as possible. I will take a little notebook and pen and if I have any ideas or see anything that inspires me, I will jot them down and work on some stories to keep my site light-hearted and joyful. And all of my stories will have happy endings – because those are the type that I prefer.
I think it will be good for me…to try to write a bit of fiction, and I might even subject you to more bad poetry. I love that no matter how awful my occasional poems are, there is always a lovely blogger willing to tell me it’s nice. Some gorgeous bloggers out there. 🙂
What had been supposed to be a dream holiday, a luxury cruise on a private boat with a group of girls I had been friends with since school, had turned out to be a disaster! When our boat sprung a leak and began to sink, we had to abandon it and all of our luggage!
“Michelle, your life is more important than Chanel sunglasses!”
It was Claire who seemed to notice the unusual appearance of the group that had helped us onto the beach. She remarked in rather a loud voice that they must be some gimmick the local tourist board had thought would look authentic to tourists. We had no idea at that point that we were far far off the tourist track.
Lucy started to ask if they could help us. She said we needed to contact our travel rep and wondered if anyone had a mobile phone on them. There did not seem to be much response to her questions. She started asking for directions towards the nearest town or resort. After some time, our frustrations built and we decided that the group who had met us were determined to continue their act and were not going to help us. We all agreed that we should start walking away from the beach but we could not see any signs of a built-up area. Still, we were pretty fed up of the group who had not responded to our requests for help to contact our travel rep.
As we walked the group followed us and then began to crowd around us. It was intimidating at first, but we were all rather shocked as they started to lift us up on and carry us on their hands. Although it was strange, we were so tired after the swim from our boat to the shore, it was rather nice to be carried. They carried us along tracks that were surrounded by dense layers of lush jungle. We hoped they were taking us towards the town so that we could get the help we asked for.
But rather than a built-up town or hotel resort, the group led us to what looked like a village of mud-huts.
Although, we were concerned about our whereabouts and how we would find our way get some help so that we could travel back to England, at this point we were just tired and so grateful for the delicious stew on a bed of vegetables and grains that was brought to us by some of the villagers. It was so good to have some warm food. We were given some tropical fruit juice to drink. As darkness fell, we were taken to one of the huts, where comfortable beds made of something as soft as heather and adorned with jungle flowers were waiting for us. All six of us talked about how the next day we should try to find out how to get to the nearest built up town. But we were so tired we quickly fell asleep.
…Well, that was our first 24 hours of what would become our new home. I can’t explain it except that the situation kind of grew on us. These men were cooking for us, making up fresh scented beds for our hut every evening, they entertained us, they taught us about the beautiful fruitage, flora and fauna in the jungle around us. They took us to stunning waterfalls and plunge pools were we could bathe in seclusion. They were only ever respectful and kind. They treated us like princesses. It just grew on us. We realized we were happier here than we had been in England.
In fact we started to feel as if we had stumbled across paradise. We felt so healthy and so happy. The villagers who had met us on that beach were able to help us discover the wonders of the beautiful island we had been shipwrecked on. They were the loveliest men we had ever known.
In fact super friendly. It turned out that the tribe on the island are all male. For some reason all the females on the island kept giving birth to sons and no daughters. So now they have become an exclusively male tribe. The men were hoping we would choose to stay and settle. They made sure we wanted for nothing, thinking of our every comfort and pleasure. They never forced us to stay, We just gradually realized we had never been so happy and healthy. We wanted to stay there. Over the following years each one of us girls developed friendships with one of the villagers. One by one each of the six of us fell in love with a man of this secluded village and we insisted on a marriage ceremony. It was not long before the pitter patter of little ones (including little girls) was heard.
Michelle – Ghana
Caramel 