LIGHT ON DARK MOUNTAIN

It's that wonderful time again when we enter Susanna Leonard Hill's Holiday Contest. This year, a story in no more than 250 words that contains a surprise. Here's mine!





It was dusk on a mid-winter evening when Tansy ran away.

The gate was open and I could just make out her footprints in the snow. She was heading for Dark Mountain and I had to get her back. That little donkey was the only friend I had.

 Hour after hour I climbed, battling the icy wind. At first the beam from my torch only followed donkey hoofs. But then the tracks of other creatures began to appear in the snow. Why were they climbing Dark Mountain in the middle of the night?

 Faintly I heard music and saw a halo of light. The night no longer seemed so cold and the climb was not so hard.

Then, in a single moment, the mountainside was transformed. Menorahs, kinaras and Christmas candles cast their shimmering glow to the skies. The stars were spinning, angels were singing and children of every race were dancing together in the snow and singing the angel song. There were reindeer dancing with them, camels and wildebeest, and one little donkey named Tansy, the happiest dancer of all.

Just as it came, it all faded away and I led my donkey home.

But who was this coming to meet us? A party of village folk.

“There was no light in your window, Sam. You didn’t answer your door. We were worried, so we came looking for you. Happy Holiday!”

And I was warmly wrapped up in hugs and smiles.  I did have friends after all!

ANOTHER HALLOWEENSIE TALE!

I'm having so much fun with 100 word stories for Susanna Leonard Hill's Halloweensie Contest. Three of those words have to be Monster, Shadow and Candy Corn.

Here we go again. Entry number two!

You Just Never Know!

We three went out one Halloween to play a game of “Dare”.

Tom was a monster. He had to jump out of the shadows as our teacher cycled by.

Lucy had to hang her grinning pumpkin from the top of a tree.

I had to Trick or Treat at the creepy house they said belonged to a witch.

I almost ran as a wrinkled old woman slowly opened the door.  

Thank you, child.” She smiled tearfully as she held out some candy corn. “I’ve waited so many years for a Trick or Treat. You’re the first one who ever came!”

SUSANNA'S HALLOWEENSIE CONTEST!

Here it is! Children's author and blogger extraordinaire Susanna Leonard Hill's 7th Annual Halloweensie Contest. This is the first time I've entered, but here goes.

The challenge is to write a Halloween-themed story for children using no more than 100 words. Three of those words have to be MONSTER, SHADOW and CANDY CORN, or derivatives of.

WHO SCARED WHO?

Said  Mother Owl to little Wowee,

“You had better stay home with me.

‘There are Halloweenish things out tonight,

'creep-about things that might give you a fright.”

Wowee peeped from his hole in a tree,

to see what scary things he could see.

There were witchetty, monsterish, shadow-loom things,

black cat and bat things on scratch-scraggle wings.

Then came a sound soooo ghooostly and weird,

 they all cried eeek! and disappeared.

Safe in his bed, munching candy corn,

Little Wowee said with a yawn,

 “They were frightened away by The Great  Whooo-ooo”

   Said Mother Owl “Dearest, that Whooo-ooo was you!”

WHERE WILL THE SMIFFIES TAKE US?

An Adventure in Creativity

The YES! Factor. Everyone with the faintest hint of creativity in their DNA knows it. Whether it’s writing, painting, composing, designing, whatever, the moment comes.

It’s the time when a glimmer of an idea, an unformed possibility, suddenly throws off its haziness and leaps off the back burner, demanding to become real. From a vague ‘maybe’, it wants to become a ‘Yes, let’s do it’. Or at least a ‘Let’s give it our best’.

Suddenly we are faced with something that demands everything we can give it, and maybe more. But what can we say, except ‘Yes’?

So it is with me and the Smiffies and friends. But let me explain. One of the things I care about most in this world is children who suffer because of wars. They don’t deserve it. It isn’t their fault. Yet so often they suffer the most. I do all I can to help them. One way is to fundraise for organizations that care for them as much as I do. I have a stall at our local market selling pre-loved books. People are very good and kind. They donate books and they buy books. My stall does well and I know that the money I raise makes a difference to the lives of refugee children all over the world. But I want to do more. I hope to do that as a children’s author.

The Smiffies and friends live in Auntie Tia’s garden. They have adventures that will delight small children and I plan to share them through a series of hand-crafted books and cards for the very young. I can spin the stories, but I am no artist. For that I turn to my lovely 17 year-old grand-daughter, Tia, a gifted photographer. Together we will bring Smiffies and friends vividly and joyfully to life. Proceeds will go to refugee children. Please stay with us, because we need you.  And thank you, so much!

The Dartmoor Donkey

The first chilly days of winter have arrived here at the Hooting Owl. What better way to spend a grey, drizzly afternoon than in front of the fire in the snug? And while we’re cosy inside, what better time for a story about a bleak and wintry, windswept place?

Dartmoor is a vast area of moorland in Devon, England. Sometimes desolate, sometimes lonely, yet often beautiful in its own way, Dartmoor, has many myths and legends going back to ancient times. But the story I am going to tell you is true.

Many years ago I visited some friends who lived in a small village on the edge of Dartmoor. As we sat together by a warm fire, much like the one we are gathered around now, my friends told me of something that had happened only a year or two before.

It had been a long, harsh winter in Devon, the worst they could remember. Day and night heavy snowstorms swept across the moors, piling into drifts higher than a human being and burying every road and pathway, so that everything became one huge white wilderness.

Even though the villagers managed to clear the snow from their doorways, there was no way they could get out of the village. And there was no way that any kind of vehicle could get in. Children couldn’t go to school, nobody could get to work. There were no shops in the village, but usually everyone drove into the town, about ten miles away, or rode on the bus. But now they were completely cut off from the rest of the world.

At first that wasn’t so bad. Everyone had food in their larder and wood for their fire. But that was only for a while. Food and all the other items that everyone usually bought in the town began to run out. Worse perhaps, medicines that sick people needed couldn’t be bought either. Things were getting very grim.

There was one farmer who owned a donkey. It was a tough, sturdy little creature and the farmer had an idea. From odds and ends of timber that he had in his shed, he built a large sleigh. Then he harnessed the donkey to the sleigh, climbed aboard himself and set off across the snow-covered landscape. Neither he nor the donkey could trace where the road was supposed to be. They just had to trust that they could find their way to the town.

Hour after hour, mile after mile, the donkey plodded through the snowdrifts, pulling the sleigh behind him. Somehow his little hooves and strong legs kept going, even in places where a man would have sunk in.

At last they reached the place where a road had been cleared into the town. The farmer was able to load up his sleigh with food, medicine and all the other things that the trapped villagers needed. Then the donkey turned around and began to pull his even heavier load back home. It must have taken all the strength and courage he had, but that donkey finally made it back to the village. There he went around all the houses and the farmer delivered the much-needed goods to the whole community.

At last signs of spring began to appear. The sun shone, the snow slowly melted and once again the villagers could begin to go about their normal lives. But they didn’t forget the donkey and what he had done for them.

On a bright, sunny day in early summer, the children made a flower crown for the donkey. The farmer led him down the street and everyone came out to cheer their four-legged hero. It was the donkey’s day and he deserved it.

True story!

Why Do I Blog?

Why Do It?

Why blog? There must be as many blogs as there are stars in the sky (well, nearly). Bloggers post about the joys and dismays of their  life in a country cottage, a yurt, a converted chicken house  or on the thirtieth floor of a city skyscraper, They blog about their travels, their kids, their crafts, their politics and what they like to cook and/or eat. Whatever floats your boat, somebody somewhere is writing an exciting, knowledgeable, witty and entertaining blog about it and you can find it and follow it. More importantly, you can respond with your own bits. It's a 21st century  phenomenon,this totally open and accessible sharing of each others lives, indeed, the innermost essence of who we are,  and mostly it's good.

Writers are told that they certainly should blog and they do. I follow several and I savour the wisdom, wit and experience that my peers are so generously willing to share.But this old duck of thirty five years writing for children is very much of a pre-blog era and not sure that she is able to compete for her share of bloggery following. In my day, dear readers and writers, it was your bum on a chair and a pen in your hand, or a typewriter and endless cups of coffee (dare I say fags?). You could try talking to somebody  who was interested, if you could find one, but mostly it was a solitary, lonesome and scary occupation.  Dammit, writing was meant to be in a garret, alone and freezing cold, trying to type with those fingerless mitten thingies and not knowing if your latest story would cover  the arrears in the rent.

Now we have World Wide  Web! We have online writers' support groups, communities and conferences. We have writers' blogs! It's all so much cosier and friendlier; most of all supportive, and I love it! I guess I can give some advice to emerging writers based on my own experience and philosophy, From time to time I will do so. But guys, essentially I'm a story-teller. We're a breed that's  been around  pretty much since time began, which might  make us the second oldest profession in the world after you-know-what. Goodness knows where we come from, but we're born this way. Inns, hillsides, hearthsides, baronial halls, songs, operas, poems, books, films, and the multiple way we access them, TV, we've forever had our place to gather folk together to experience stories. It has been proven that stories are essential to human existence and so  story-tellers have this huge, brilliant, inescapable (we sometimes  try to, but we can't) responsibility to turn the whole meaning of life, love, pain, evil, goodness, mystery, laughter and beauty into something we can mirror back to you.

So, that's what I do. Mainly, but not always, my stories are for children and young people. They have been published as novels, early readers and picture books. So, I ask again, why blog? I don't think the average follower would be interested in my latest op shop find or what I had for breakfast, so never mind about me.

My  blog is another way to tell stories. If I'd lived in my homeland of England five centuries ago, which my ancestors did, I would still have been a story-teller, probably in the tap room of an inn. But today in 2017, by the miracle of IT, I am able to create my own virtual inn, The Hooting Owl. We have a cosy, fire warmed and fire-lit snug for chilly days and storm-ridden nights , a sun-speckled, leafy woodland for lazy summer wandering and yarning and a clifftop vista over the bay where we can sit  to spin and share our stories. I shall tell mine and I invite you to tell yours. This blog is not about reality, or at least only reality as told through stories. Please come and share my stories and send me your own. Poems and illustrations are a welcome story-telling vehicle.  Send to a.p.martin@bigpond.com and become a part of the Hooting Owl story-telling community.

The Stories I Tell

Ok, so my name is Carol Ann Martin and I hang out with a couple of ghosts (three if you count Ernie, The Ghost Horse) in a five hundred year-old inn called The Hooting Owl. What goes on at the Hooting Owl, apart from owl hoots at night and ghostly hauntings pretty much any time? Stories, that's what. My stories, your stories, ghost stories, funny stories, creepy stories, fantasies and true stories, poem stories - this is the place to come if you love stories.

Do my stories ever get published? Yes, they do. I write them and my wonderful agent, Jane Novak at the Jane Novak Literary Agency finds them a loving home with a publisher.

Working with an illustrator and a publishing team to create a book is one of the most exciting things that anyone could hope to do. This is storytelling that can go everywhere, from tree house to bedtime, from secret little reading nook to bus, story time at school, holiday on the beach, quiet time at the library. Anytime anywhere is the right time to dive into a book! Or even to write a book!!

MEET THE GHOSTS

Welcome again to the Hooting Owl Inn. My name is Carol Ann Martin and I spend a lot of time here at the inn, spinning stories, sharing news about stories -and sharing stories spun by others.

In future posts I'll be telling you more about me and the books I have written, plus those I plan to write. I am also happy to share your news, your stories, your books in our story sessions here at the Hooting Owl. You can reach me on a.p.martin@bigpond.com and we'll arrange your visit to the inn.

One very important thing you need to know is that the Hooting Owl Inn is haunted. We have three resident ghosts, the Headless Horseman, The Wailing Woman and Ernie Horse. I want you to meet them all and today we'll start with the Headless Horseman. Relax and enjoy this interview I carried out with him recently.

INTERVIEW WITH THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN AND THE WAILING WOMAN

Resident Ghosts at The Hooting Owl Inn

C.A.M: So, Headless Horseman, I guess the question that a lot of people ask you is, how did you lose your head?’

HEADLESS HORSEMAN: Please, just call me Headless. And no, apart from Ernie, my horse, nobody has asked me that. In fact, nobody’s asked me anything since I lost my head. Mostly when they see me folk just gibber, or wet their pants, they don’t usually start up a conversation.

So thank you for taking an interest, and in answer to your question, it was like this. One afternoon in the winter of 1648, me and Ernie was galloping home across Bludangore Moor. I was thinking about what to have for my tea, when all of a sudden, there we was in the middle of this battle. Well, you could’ve knocked me down with a pikestaff! I had no idea there was going to be a battle on. There’d been nothing about it in the papers or anything. But we was right in the thick of it, with blokes jabbing each other with pikes and blasting away at each other each with muskets. Then there were the cannons. Don’t ask me about the cannons.

WAILING WOMAN: No, don’t ask him about the cannons.

C.A.M: I won’t.

HEADLESS H: The cannons was the worst of it. Thumping great balls whizzing around, knocking the stuffing out of folk and making this smoky stink you wouldn’t believe.

WAILING W:  Headless believes it was a cannon ball that knocked his head off.

HEADLESS H: Well something did, that I do know. First I’m alive, then I’m not. One minute I’ve got my head on, next minute here’s me groping around and there’s my head watching me look for it. Lucky for me, my horse was dead as well.

WAILING W: But perhaps not so lucky for the horse.

C.A.M: I can see that.

HEADLESS H: Well I couldn’t see nothing, not with my eyes being in my head and my head not being on my shoulders. But having my mouth in it as well, my head had the brains to sing out to my horse.

“Ernie! Ernie!” it went. And Ernie, dead but still with his head on, trotted over to my head and stood over it until I’d got down and picked it up. I tried sticking it back on, but it wouldn’t stay put, so in the end I sat it on the saddle in front of me.

CAM: And when was it you realised you were a ghost?

HEADLESS H: Well, I could tell something was up. The battle finished very sudden like. Both sides ran off screaming and it was hard to say who’d won.

It was Ernie who twigged. “I think it’s us,” he said. “I think we’re ghosts.”

That’s the first thing about being a ghost, you can have a conversation with your horse. The second thing is that you’re supposed to spend the rest of eternity haunting the place where you died. But the battlefield was empty, it was perishing cold and starting to get dark.

“Blow this for a lark,” I said. “Let’s go and find somewhere more comfortable to haunt.”

So we galloped across the moor until we came to The Hooting Owl Inn. There was a notice that said, “No Ghosts and No Horses in the Bedrooms”.

WAILING W: The ‘no ghosts’ bit was because of me. I’d been haunting the place for three hundred years. They couldn’t get rid of me, but they tried to put a stop to any more ghosts.

C.A.M: And the ‘no horses’ part?

HEADLESS H: How many inns do you know of that allow horses in the bedrooms?

 Well, what with getting caught in a battle, having my head knocked off and missing my tea, I’d had enough for one day. And so had Herbert. So we just jumped through an upstairs window. It wasn’t open, but that didn’t matter. The third thing about being a ghost is that you can do all this floating stuff; straight through solid wall and windows. It scares anybody who sees you do it, but it’s handy for getting around.

WAILING W: Well, if I’d been alive, I would’ve died when this oik on a horse came sailing through my window.But when we realised we were all….thingummies…

C.A.M: Ghosts?

WAILING W:  Apparitions…we decided we’d be room-mates, including Ernie. We’ve been haunting this inn together ever since.

C.A.M: No doubt you have an interesting story yourself, Wailing Woman. Perhaps we can talk to you next time. In the meantime, thank you headless, for talking to us today.

HEADLESS H: Pleasure. And Ernie does interviews an’ all. You can always talk to Ernie.

C.AM: I would love to talk to Ernie sometime soon. But for now, thank you again, ghosts of the Hooting Owl. We look forward to talking to you again