The Morning After at Wordsworth’s Glade

/ michaelwynnauthor

A quick note to say ‘From the Edge of an English Summer’ can be downloaded for just 99p/99cents until Sunday. Thanks again to everyone who has already purchased. A special shout out to America, you’re doing me proud. Your support really is flattering, encouraging and humbling all at the same time. The prompt picture has fallen well for me this week, I’ve selected a short episode from one of the several spent round Wordsworth’s camp fire in the book.

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTO PROMPT © Anshu Bhojnagarwala

Despite the tiredness and alcohol, Sunday morning came repeatedly, every hour it seemed. To say I had an interrupted night’s sleep would be uncaringly inaccurate. Sleep punctuated my moments awake. Wordsworth had helped me cobble together a makeshift mattress of bracken and lent me an old jumper but I was cold and uncomfortable.
He stoked the fire back to life, placed a pan of water in the embers and we were soon enjoying a reviving cuppa.
“It wasn’t cold last night and that’s a very comfortable bed. The problem is not with the world, it’s you,” he said, “you’ve grown soft.”

Written for Friday Fictioneers – a 100 words story based on a photo prompt. Hosted by Rochelle. Read the other entries here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

60 thoughts on “The Morning After at Wordsworth’s Glade”

      • No real tips I’m afraid Michael. Mine did okay up until Christmas and then sales tailed off considerably in the new year. I just use social media to spread the word now and then, repost good reviews and so on, get other bloggers to post about it, some will do interviews – but it’s a hard slog. My best solution – get on with writing the next one, which I am about to begin hopefully this month!

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        • It’s absolutely fine. Writing Magazine and particularly Writer’s News are brilliant for this. They have monthly competitions and publicise as many as they can find. They are the same magazine. If you go on their website you’ll be able to see their competition section. (And if you search my name in their gallery you’ll find one of my little successes, a long time ago.) It’s well worth a subscription because they have free to enter comps for subscribers and at the beginning of the year they send a competition guide for the year ahead listing hundreds, which helps with planning. The best piece of advice I received is to send whatever you have before the deadline. I was running out of time once and didn’t think the piece was quite finished but I sent it anyway and came second. Countless times I’ve held on too long and missed the closing date. If you want someone to cast an eye over what you’ve written before you send it, I’d be happy to help.

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          • Thanks so much Michael, I appreciate your guidance. The Writers’ Magazine is new to me. It’ll be a real focus and incentive for writing short stories. I’ll let you know how it goes.
            I’m reading a book just now called ‘First You Write a Sentence’ by Jo Moran. Its surprisingly helpful.
            Thanks again.

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            • If you haven’t read Writing Magazine before, you’re in for quite a treat. I have been known to read it from cover to cover which is a problem because then I’m not writing, so beware. 🙂 In the margins of the Writer’s News section is where you find quite a few little competitions and call outs.

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  18. I empathize with the protagonist… I’m so soft that I find it horribly inconvenient to sleep somewhere without an ensuite, as I tend to get up once or twice every night to go to the bathroom.
    I really liked the line “sleep punctuated my moments awake”.

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  23. This is beautifully crafted, Michael. Your storytelling drew me in… the Sunday repeating itself hourly, and “Sleep punctuated my moments awake,” are gorgeous. It’s not my genre, but I bought my cop, The $.99 was gone already, though it’s still Sunday, but your writing was too tempting. 😉

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  25. True, we do get used to all the comforts of life. But sleeping on a makeshift mattress of bracken is probably uncomfortable. If Wordsworth doesn’t recognize that then he is going to wander lonely as a cloud 😉

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