#nanopoblano 2023

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13. William Makepeace Thackeray

Wrote one of my favourite books, a heartbreaking brick of a novel called ‘Vanity Fair’. I was tenderly twelve when I read it, so most of the themes flew right over my head because I tended to be quite naive and had innocent and pure thoughts about the world, much like our beloved Amelia Sedley, one of the main characters in the book, who, notwithstanding her faults, was grossly mistreated by…

[rewritingkel]

November

It is the 1st of November. The start of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), Cheer Peppers (NanoPoblano), reasons we are grateful, Thanksgiving, the start of winter months, and for some people the start of Christmas, or at least the decorations. This year has flown. I feel like 2023 just started. Wasn’t it just April? This has been one of the fastest years. With NaBloPoMo and NanoPoblano…

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[10] Rejection

I was rejected from a writing job this week. It felt heartbreaking to me, a real blow to my self esteem. I thought I was good at what I do, but the comments I received on the piece I had written were horrifically brutal. And true. They said it was fluff and drivel and ‘poorly written’. This is the thing I thought I was good at, so to be told I was so inadequate at it made me feel absolutely…

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29. Light in the Dark

On driving home from an appointment this wintry night, when frost from the morning still adorned every blade of grass and leaf, when houses breathed their heated breaths into the air from pipes protruding out their sides, when people stood like icicles at bus stops… I saw the warmest sight. I saw on the canal a houseboat. It nestled on the furthest bank, and its little windows, sunken to a level…

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20. Transient

Half the park was lit with the streetlamps that peppered the carpark next to it. They lent their glow to the empty playground. But if you turned away from the light, you could see blackness spreading like ink from above. The light from behind was swallowed by it. Half a civilised world, half a void of blackness where anything could exist. Beings don’t prowl under street lights, you see. They…

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19. November

I used to write letters. Millions of letters. To everything and everyone. Letters to the months, seasons, years. Letters to past me, future me, present me. Letters to to my friends, school mates, imaginary people. I had lots to say, lots of love to give. In the most recent years of my life I find I have less to say. My son makes up for more of it, he chatters incessantly, all day and all night,…

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17. Whale

I watched a film recently – mind you, it did take me 3 months to watch it in its entirety, but such is life. It was called The Whale, and even though I didn’t consume it in one sitting, it was a pretty emotional charged film to watch. One theme that emerged was honesty in writing. The protagonist lived his truth but in doing so caused some destruction in his path – to himself and his…

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14. Paws

“Let me just go and wash my paws”, my two year old girl said. She got her chubby lil self off the chair and went in search of the sink to wash her ‘paws’. Two year olds come out with the sweetest things, so I sure am glad I have a two year old. People call that age the ‘terrible twos’, but with both my kids, I have always found the age of two to be the most precious. It’s that precarious teeter…

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12. Original

Sometimes I think that the truths of teenagers out in the same institutions together are suppressed. Suppressed truths are a byproduct of self preservation. Why reveal your true authentic self when your attachment figures would turn on you at the slightest sign of vulnerability and ostracise you for views you believe represent you? And this is why I feel that sometimes high school can be the…

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11. Highway to the Sun

I took a picture while I was driving to capture how the wet road was in the direct path of the sunlight. It was like I was driving on a sunbeam. But my phone has the sort of technology where it softens the light if it is too bright to allow the camera to take a photo where you can actually see the details. This is one scenario where I didn’t want the camera to capture the details, because in…

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9. Freshly Baked

There is some internal mental battle going on within me these past few days. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is. Seems to be a multitude of issues resurfacing, now that the dust of the chaos of the past two months has settled. So today I will share some pictures of my latest sourdough loaf instead of writing. My son couldn’t wait for it to cool down so he picked the crusty bits off the edge,…

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8. The Colour of Autumn

Oh autumn. Vivid colour. Squelchy wet, leaves stuck to your hair and shoes. Grey skies at 2pm. ‘why don’t you just turn the light on, Mama?’ Something in me refuses to switch the light on in the middle of the afternoon. So we go outside instead. Raincoats, wellies, wind whipping at hands and faces. The rain starts, stops, and a huge grey cloud is chased by a golden beam of sunlight, the…

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6. Storm

I’m listening. He said. as the leaves rustled outside the window, and the distant clouds warned of an impending storm. She could hear it, a slow rumble, like hills jostling each other over the earth. The smell of wet soil hung in the air, and there was a cool breeze wafting in through the small diamond panes. Rustling the little curls she had hanging out of her cap. But you’re not, really.…

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4. After

Let me set the scene for you.  A candid evening. Why candid? I don’t know. Candles around the drawing room. Laura in her peach dress, flowing gently from her shoulders. Golden curls pinned up; it was the evening, she would unpin them soon. Aunt Abigail had rung the bell for supper. She would join Laura after seeing to the roses in the conservatory. Laura gently arranged the pillows, setting the…

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2. Sound

We can only hear a small bandwidth of the amount of sound that exists in the world. You know, cats can hear things we can’t hear? Like the sounds that come out of graves? It’s called the hearing frequency range – but you are not here for a science lesson. I don’t know what you are here for, but I will give it to you anyway. What about the sounds we can’t hear? Sounds that are out of our…

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1. Castle by Moonlight

I missed my posting on the first of November – I forgot! Here it is a day late. My four year old boy is at the delightful age where everything he sees is fascinating. City walls of Chester, for example. Why are they there? Who used to walk on them? Did they used to walk on walls in the olden days, and today we walk on paths? Why did they walk on walls in the olden days? What are enemies? Mama,…