Friday Fictioneers: The Red Barn

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

The moon was full enough to illuminate the path, but I clicked on the light anyway, enjoying how my shadow stretched across the lawn, a giant in the night.

In the cardboard box were the broken spectacles, the engraved wedding ring (Forever), the shoes with their matted laces. All dried now, still rusty looking.

The riskiest things to keep are the driving licences, row upon row of tiny photographs like prison mugshots.

But I keep them anyway.

And touch each with my outstretched fingertip when the kids are on playdates, when my husband is down the pub.

Bliss.

***

Friday Fictioneers is run my the wonderful Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Come write and share and read other stories.

This week that shed took me along a deadly path by reminding me of the 19th century killing of Maria Marten at Polstead in Suffolk, otherwise known as the Red Barn Murder. My dad used to live closeby and I remember him pointing out the spot where poor Maria died. All I glimpsed was a flash of trees and a newer black barn as we drove past. The original building burnt down years ago but the tragedy lingers on.

***Editorial Sale*** I currently have a 1/3 off all critique and mentoring packages through to the end of September. What better time to polish those submission packages and short stories and make your novel the best it can be?

Drop me a message in the comments or visit my website

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If you go down to the woods today…

Image: Pixabay

Once upon a time…

I’ve not been on WordPress for a long old time, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up writing.

At the start of the first lockdown here in the UK, I decided it was now or never for me to write the supernatural novel I’d been planning for a long time. But to do that, I’d have to stop my deliciously all-consuming blogging habit. So that’s what I did, went WordPress cold turkey. It was a wrench, but at the end of those three months I had a shiny new first draft. Alright, it was a ramshackle threadbare, ugly first draft, but it had one huge plus – it was finished.

And of course, once I’d done one draft, I had to do another, and another. And then I was invited to contribute to one anthology, then out of that came another, by which time that ramshackle first draft had become a slightly-less-awful second draft, an even-better-than-that third draft, and then I was sending my lockdown baby out on submission, hoping it would be noticed by some stunningly wonderful literary agent. Hoping, but not assuming of course, because the chances of getting signed are a thousand to one…

Then last November my thousand to one chance came in. I’ll share the full story of my road to representation another time, but I now have an agent – the amazing Susan Armstrong at C&W – and I’m currently sculpting that malformed creature of mine into something rather more beautiful.

So, what does a would-be author need, but somewhere to peddle dark tales, twisty thoughts and ghostly whisperings. Below is the link to my new author website where you’ll find the usual meanderings down unlit corridors and details of my critique services.

If you write spec fiction, women’s fiction or literary and need fresh eyes on your work, click the link below. I’m open to other genres (though not children’s fiction, sorry) but message me first so we can decide if I’m a good fit for you.

Or you can just hit Subscribe and wait by your inbox for news, updates and more shaggy ghost stories.

And we all lived spookily ever after…

https://www.lynnlove.co.uk/