Tag Archives: fiction

Jun 19 2012

Also starring (!) me?

There are only a few spaces for this but it is going to be a magnificent exclusive event – never to be forgotten. Please come and support the support act too!! Places can be reserved via the Ubuprojex website (right-click to open in a new window)

Jun 15 2012

The hunt spreads…

(also on The Unofficial Poetry Society website)

We like this. You don’t pay to enter. There’s no rules other than the closing date (which is fair enough) and a request for the project key words to be included but hey – really that’s up to you, isn’t it?

Poetry.

See the site here: Lost and Found Festival 2012

Jan 2 2012

**STOP PRESS**

For a limited time, Walking on Chalk is available from Amazon at a reduced price of £5.51… with free P&P! It’s about to go up to £6.99 so if you would like a copy, now’s the time :)
I’ve been shafted on this one as I don’t make a penny from it at the moment but the good news is that if you order it now, they make a loss too! Woohoo! Do me a favour, eh? ;) Follow THIS LINK to buy now in the UK.
 
 

For those who don’t know, Legend picked up and published this in 2008. It had a following from its initial conception and daily postings on the writerscafe. Thoroughly disillusioned with the publishing pitfalls and pitiful royalties, Kiersty now self-publishes the title at a reduced price and as an e-book.

Set in a seaside town (a mixture of Worthing and Hove for those in the know) and introducing many of the colourful local characters, this book introduces Kate and Ern, showing us their unique love story. Ern is a street artist who creates amazing illusions and worlds with his pictures. Kate is just a girl, who’s trying to get by, in her own inimitable fashion, when she quite literally stumbles into his path.

Aug 15 2010

Walking On Chalk

Last night, with the first time that I have had in a long time, I decided to take a look at the Walking On Chalk manuscript. I have been very disgruntled with the publisher (ssshhhh, you know who they are) and was horrified when someone told me they had to wait 10 weeks for a copy! And the returns on it were dire… And they would not let me edit the manuscript, saying it was too expensive.
So, the copyright remains mine. I owe them nothing and I have decided to republish it with Lulu. I’ve edited out some of the ‘chuckles’ (I love the word, sound, implication of chuckle but okay, I concede, there are a few too many) and I have changed the other typos, I think. And there it is. It has a shiny new cover (the cover I originally wanted) and a nicer blurb, look, overall.
AND it’s a whole £1 less than they were producing it for!! To be honest, I was so horrified at the pricing structure that I had put off ordering any for myself and that just can’t be right eh?

I can hear Paul saying ‘tell them the original will be worth a fortune one day!’ haha… so there you go Paul, I’ve told them.

So, now all I have to do is write the sequel. That’s going to be a toughie for obvious reasons. Everyone wants a happy ending, eh? But sometimes life just isn’t like that. Not sure how I’ll end it yet but it will write itself, like the first one did.
I will get around to changing all the links on my pages as to how to purchase it but for now, I am just swimming in the knowledge that it is there, mine, and no-one can be fecked about how long it takes to receive, price or anything else now. I’m thrilled.

If you want to take a look at the preview, it is here under these words and you can just right-click on them to open it in a new window. But here’s the finished product.

Some of you may understand that this is my own tribute to Paul. Without knowing him, talking to him and understanding him, this book would never have been published. Re-publishing is something he was pushing me to do for a long time and it is now done. Late, I grant you. But it is done. And yes, I will write the sequel. There are many other tributes planned and many private tributes in my notebook but I would prefer to keep them private, which I’m sure people will understand. Thank you, Paul.

Nov 3 2009

Last part!

Indelible part one is under this link here (right click to open in a new window)

Indelible part two is under this link here (right click to open in a new window)

Indelible part three is under this link here (right click to open in a new window)

indelible (part 4)

It was the screaming that brought clarity. Or the vomiting – he didn’t know which.

Matthew had tried to be so careful. He had finished his first name from her left ear and across her throat in an old Italian script. The moment he touched the needle to her skin to begin his surname the skin appeared to disintegrate and the ink bled into her.

He didn’t panic at first, he just held it there watching the maggots crawl out, fascinated by how they made his name come alive as they danced underneath her skin. They started crawling up his fingers and that was when she started screaming. The pitch of her voice could have broken glass and almost immediately the neighbours upstairs started thumping on the floor like some kind of ironic bass beat to her soprano wailing.

And then there was silence.

He looked at her face and for the first time in nearly two weeks he wanted to kiss her. As he leaned over to touch her lips with his own, a fly emerged from her mouth and flew up to his face, hitting him above the eye. He started screaming again.

Matthew stood up and clawed at his own face, the flies around him buzzing their white noise so loudly that he thought they had burrowed inside his head. The neighbour started thumping on the floor again.

He quietened his screams to a whimper as he looked at her body. Where her skin was still intact, he saw the green tinge that his mind had twisted into a backdrop for his art. Matthew saw the beautiful dream world that he had created over her body being slowly eaten alive by maggots and flies; puss and shit seemed to ooze from open sores. The mattress was sodden with her bodily fluids, the stink of which finally hit his stomach.

The vomiting was uncontrollable but brief. He fell down to his knees and tried to breathe. The knife that he had used all those days ago was partially hidden under the bed. He pulled it out and looked at it. It was still stained with her blood. He stood up slowly and started to cry.

‘Don’t cry, Matty,’ she whispered.

Matthew looked at her smiling face and took comfort from it. He allowed the fog to take over his mind again so that he could speak to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I know, Matty. Now you’ve got to come with me…’ She spoke the words kindly, sisterly. ‘Come with me now, Matty.’

Matthew looked at her one last time. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and he had created her. She had completed him.

He lay down on the bed, laid his head on her chest and ran the knife over his left wrist… and then his right.

 

The End.