Diamonds are a girl’s best friend …or are they?
I stared at my wedding rings emotions spilling over
And felt a fraud.
Marriage died a long time ago
Our vows cast aside in favour of adultery
Never did I break mine
Decisions. Dilemmas. Dichotomy.
Rings were tearfully removed, releasing the past.
I felt naked and lost.
New ring selected with self-love in mind
Giving myself permission to “marry” my future.
(image sourced via Google – credits to the owner)
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Tagged #acrosticpoem, #CoralMcCallum, #IndieAuthor, #newblogpost, #poertryblog, #poetrylovers
For the third year in succession, I recently took part in Beth Kempton’s Meet the Writer online challenge. Fifteen prompts/questions over fifteen days that will hopefully give you a bit of an insight into my creative world. As before I’ll split this across three blogs.
I love creating and developing my characters and getting to know them. I love creating their world. In my current work in progress, I’ve enjoyed losing myself in my fictitious view of the San Bernadino mountains. It gives me somewhere to escape to as I write and takes me away from my day-to-day mundane world. I hope in time my readers will enjoy escaping into the mountains too.
Much as I love to sit outdoors and write, this is my usual cluttered creative corner. My traditional writing desk sits in the corner of my living room. I upgraded to this a few years back. Before that I sat at my kitchen table to work.
Evenings have evolved to become my writing time. I endeavour to carve out a couple of hours a night during the week and take what I can manage at the weekends. I journal daily and keep a diary so there’s some form of writing involved in every single day
I love writing in any season but as the days grow warmer and the nights are lighter, I love being able to write outdoors.
If I’m writing a novel I need 5 identical notebooks so that the first draft is all in books the same. I like turquoise, pink or purple ink to write with unless I’m writing my Silently Watching vampire angel tale. I’m that case the notebooks and ink should be green. Poems and blogs I tend to write in pencil. I also need Alexa or some source of music nearby
to be continued….
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Tagged #BethKempton, #CoralMcCallum, #IndieAuthor, #Indieauthorsrock, #insights, #meetthewriter, #newblog, #newblogpost, #wrtinglife
She jumped from the train, rolling in the dust before coming to a stop. A sharp pain shot through her right ankle. Breathing heavily, she reached down and rubbed it as she flexed her foot. It didn’t appear to be broken. With a groan, she clambered to her feet, testing her weight on her throbbing ankle gingerly. Her backpack had come to rest about a hundred metres back down the track. Seconds before she jumped, she had thrown it out, knowing that her desire not to lose it would give her that final boost of confidence to make the leap.
Her heart was still pounding as she limped back up the track to retrieve it. As she hoisted it onto her back, she looked around her. Nothing but fields to be seen for miles. Field after field after field stretching across the flat landscape towards the horizon. Squinting into the early morning sunshine, she thought she could make out a road in the distance. With no better plan in mind, she headed down the shallow scree slope beside the tracks, climbed the barbed wire fence and set off through the field. Keeping to the boundary so as not to damage the crop planted there, she walked in the general direction of the road.
As she walked, she felt the weight of her past begin to lift. True, she was only twenty-three, but she had lived and endured more in her short life than most folk twice her age.
The fresh new day stretched before her as she mentally created a new identity for herself. The person she had been was gone. She’d left them on the train. Her future lay ahead beyond the fields.
“Dawn,” she thought. “My name is now Dawn.”
Letting the shadows fall behind, she kept walking.
Recently I have been taking part in one of Beth Kempton’s #tinypoem challenges. I love these as they keep the creative juices flowing. You get a one-word prompt for the day and 10 minutes with no editing to come up with a poem. Simple, right?
A recent word prompt stirred nostalgic childhood memories. The word was FOLDED.
Immediately a picture formed in my mind’s eye.
Who else remembers making “fortune tellers” from a folded square of paper when they were a child?
Who can still remember how to make one?
Back then we didn’t need tarot cards or astrology charts to predict our future. All we needed was a piece of paper and our imagination.
Those were the days….
Folded
A square of paper
Folded on the diagonal twice
Opened out
Corners folded into the centre
1, 2, 3 and 4
Flip it over and repeat.
How many of these have I made?
What fortunes did they foretell?
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Tagged #BethKempton, #blogger, #coralmccallun, #folded, #fortuneteller, #memories, #newblogpost, #nostalgia, #origami, #poetryblog, #tinypoem
Ten years… a whole decade… since my first book baby, Stronger Within was published for Kindle. (The paperback edition followed a few weeks later)
It feels truly surreal that ten years have passed since that day.
I chose the date carefully. (I’m a bit weird about dates) The 15th April would have been my Wee Gran’s birthday. It was also the date that The Big Green Gummi Bear proposed to me. It was a date that felt as if it augured well.
In all honesty, I was absolutely petrified about self-publishing my first-born book baby. Was I about to make myself a laughingstock? What if no one bought it? What if everyone who did then hated it? What if they all thought it was rubbish? What if….
Looking back, it took me more personal courage than I knew I had to release that book, but I also knew that by taking the plunge that I was making my lifelong dream come true.
Ever since I had been a little girl, I’d dreamed of being an author one day and seeing my name on the cover of a book. I made that dream come true.
Stronger Within’s story began almost two years earlier on 8 May 2013 when I bought a notebook and pen on the way home from work then after dinner that evening, sat down on my front doorstep in the early evening sunshine and began to write. As I wrote page after page over the coming weeks and months, I had no idea that this story that I was writing was destined to become my first book.
One of my biggest fears, one that I have worked hard to conquer, is a crippling fear of letting people read what I write. It’s a terrible fear for an author to have! It was months before I told anyone about what I was attempting to do. Thanks to the belief that a few close friends had in me, I was persuaded to type the story up and share it with them. They loved it! Even the friend who on the face of things should have hated it, loved it. Their love and faith in my storytelling gave me the push I needed to venture into the world of self-publishing. It was a steep learning curve!
If you’d said to me on 15 April 2015 that ten years down the line, I’d have seven novels and a poetry anthology for sale worldwide via Amazon and that they’d all have multiple glowing reviews, I would never have believed you. I’d have thought you were insane to even think I could achieve that. Seven novels? Me? Never….
Yet here we are and that’s exactly what happened. My eighth novel is in the pipeline too. It still feels completely surreal…I am a published author who has sold books in several countries around the world!
Over the years people have asked me how I do it. I’ve been asked countless times about how I find the time to do it. I’ve been asked why I do it.
The how is that I sit down somewhere, whether that’s at my desk, or the picnic table or the doorstep with a notebook and a pen and I write the story one word after another.
The time I carve out to do something that I am passionate about. If you care enough about something you will always find time in your day to do it. Some days it’s a few hours and on others it’s a few minutes.
The why is a bit more complex to answer but the short version is that it gives me somewhere to escape to.
Writing to me is like oxygen. I can’t imagine a day without it in one form or other.
I’ve always said that if it ever begins to feel like work then that’s the day that I put the lid back on my pen, close over my notebook and put them down.
If you’ve spared some of your hard-earned pennies to purchase one of my books, I thank you.
If you’ve read it and then taken the time to leave me a review online, I thank you.
If you haven’t read any of them yet, then I’d encourage you to give one a try. You never know, you might enjoy it. Lots of other people have so far.
For me the end goal here isn’t to seek fame and fortune. (Ok a little bit of a fortune would be nice, I’ll not lie.) There are very few indie-authors who earn enough from their books to make a living. Without a word of a lie, at the time of writing this, my estimated royalties for the month are £1.56/$2.00 – not even enough to buy a cup of coffee. I write for the love of telling the story and if by telling that story I evoke an emotional reaction in my reader whether it be laughter or tears then my job is done.
They say everyone has a book in them so if you fancy finding the book in you, buy a notebook and a pen, find a sunny spot, sit down and begin to write. You never know where that dream will take you.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each and every one of you who has supported my creative journey over the last ten years, especially to my Infamous Five. I couldn’t do it without your love and support and belief in me.
Love n hugs
Coral
PS If you’ve not checked out any of my book babies yet, here’s the links-
Silver Lake series
Amazon.com links –
Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VXDSC1M FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY
Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C0GS30K
Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSQHG71
Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM
Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RR1FGLG
Amazon.co.uk links –
Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VXDSC1M FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY
Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01C0GS30K
Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XSQHG71
Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM
Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RR1FGLG
Riley
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9SWP6K3
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B9SWP6K3
Ellen
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FYHKR44
http s://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYHKR44
Beginnings – poetry anthology
Beginnings – a collection of poems eBook : McCallum, Coral: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
It was late, almost midnight, and the house was quiet…too quiet. All around her the kitchen lay in chaos after the earlier visit from her kids and their partners. It had been wonderful to have everyone over for dinner, but it was nice to wave them off at the front door too and have the house to herself again.
“Alexa, play my soundtrack,” she instructed as she began to load the dishwasher.
The first song that the “sometimes-not-so-smart” speaker began to play stirred up emotional ghosts from the past.
“Skip,” she stated sharply as she added the cutlery to the basket in the dishwasher.
Soon the kitchen was filled with music. She sang quietly and tunelessly to herself while she worked, content to lose herself in the songs. Music had always been her safe place, her sanctuary, and her playlist held so many precious memories for her.
Still singing, she filled the sink with hot soapy water and began to wash the wine glasses, stacking them carefully on the draining rack. The speaker began to play a song she hadn’t heard for a long, long time. It always reminded her of him. It was the song that had been playing the only time that they had danced together, slightly drunkenly, at a mutual friend’s wedding. That dance was one of her most precious memories of him. They’d trodden on each other’s toes repeatedly as they’d slowly made their way round the dancefloor that night.
Behind her, something in the air stirred. A familiar scent wafted by. She felt hands at her waist, pulling her round and into the all too familiar embrace of her past. Allowing herself to be held, she the arms around her encouraging her to sway in time to the music. Swept up in the moment, she danced slowly round the kitchen, savouring the seconds right through to the dying notes of the song.
From his perch on the breakfast bar, her cat watched the scene, wondering who this man was that was dancing in the kitchen at midnight with his mistress.
(credits to the owner of the image The Heart Speaks via Facebook)
Petite white paws with pink beans
You stole my baby boy’s heart a long time ago
Taking up too much space in his bed at night
Hunter extraordinaire in your day
Agile and strong
Ginger fur softening as the years flew by
Over the roof and in through the window you’d go
Reluctantly accepting my love in time
A big softie underneath it all
Sleep easy, beautiful boy
March 2009 – 14 March 2005
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Tagged #acrosticpoem, #blogger, #cat, #CoralMcCallum, #grief, #IndieAuthor, #newblogpost, #poetryblog, #Pythagoras
23 March 2020…the day the UK entered its first Covid 19 Lockdown.
How on earth is that five years ago already?
It all seems surreal…
I remember sitting having a coffee in the office canteen with a friend three days before the announcement. We pondered if this virus would come to anything and if we were told that we had to work from home, how long would that last. Little did we realise…
Five years down the line and we’ve not sat together in the office canteen with a coffee since.
That first lockdown for me marks the start of the world changing forever. I appreciate that in my family’s case our lockdown suffered a dark cruel twist of fate when The Big Green Gummi Bear received a terminal cancer diagnosis in September 2020. In so many ways we lived in semi-lockdown conditions for three years.
In years to come, when our children’s children are in school, they’ll come home and ask us, “What did you do during the Covid 19 Lockdowns?” It’ll become one of those questions like “where were you when 9/11 happened?” and “where were you when Kennedy was shot?”
Will our grandchildren really believe that overnight all schools and offices and non-essential shops closed, that you were only allowed out for an hour a day, that the supermarket shelves were half empty and that you had to queue to be allowed into the store to follow a one-way system marked out on the floor? (I still recall being yelled at by a member of our local supermarket staff for going the wrong way down an aisle only to witness her cooing over a customer’s baby in a pram a few moments later and not obeying the 2m social distancing rule….) Will our grandchildren believe that folk were stockpiling toilet rolls and that you couldn’t get any in the shops for love nor money? Will they believe that for months on end people would stand on their doorsteps at 8pm on a Thursday to clap in support of the NHS workers? Will they be able to comprehend having to wear a mask in shops/schools/offices and on public transport? Will they even be able to comprehend not being able to see our loved ones for weeks on end and then when we could mix socially again you had to stay 2m apart and only meet up outdoors? Will they believe that everyone’s general knowledge dramatically improved as everyone was keeping morale up by doing quizzes on Zoom or Teams?
How do you explain the covid testing rituals we all went through to prove that you didn’t have the virus? Or how to describe the initial panic when the test was actually positive? Would “it” kill me?
I could go on, but you get the gist…. after all you lived through it and have your own memories of the challenges lockdown brought but does it really truly feel like it was five years ago?
It all seems surreal.
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Tagged #23March2020, #anniversary, #blogger, #CoralMcCallum, #Covid19, #IndieAuthor, #lockdown, #memories, #newblogpost, #pandemic
Dilemma
How to sign?
Signing autographs feels alien
Full name?
First initial and second name?
Signing autographs feels alien
First name and a kiss?
Decision made.
A short poem inspired by the real life dilemma I faced ahead of my recent book signing in aid of Ardgowan Hospice.
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Tagged #autograph., #CoralMcCallum, #IndieAuthor, #newblogpost, #poem, #poertryisnotdead, #poetryblog
The Measly Jar of Motivation has thrown out two phrases that scream “Breakfast!”
Breakfast is a meal I’ve had a difficult relationship with over the years. I’m not great at eating first thing in the morning. A big, cooked breakfast would be totally wasted on me.
Those followers of this blog who know me personally might be somewhat surprised that hot coffee is not the first thing I need every morning. At a push, I can make it to lunchtime without my caffeine hit but I cannot function without my orange juice. It’s a vital component of my morning routine. I love the taste of oranges although I would never sit and actually peel and eat an orange. I hate finding “bits” in my OJ so its smooth/pulp free all the way for me.
After OJ then comes hot coffee – hot, strong and black. I can’t stand cold or even cool coffee. I like my Americano piping hot.
As for food… well, that’s either a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel or hot buttered toast. If I’m in the office, it’s a cereal bar.
On a Sunday, I like to have a more leisurely start to the day and treat myself to some crispy pancetta with my cinnamon raisin bagel and my coffee. We all have our weaknesses…
Last summer, when I returned to visit Rehoboth Beach, I became a regular at a local diner. I also became a creature of habit despite their extensive breakfast menu- OJ, coffee and a short stack of pancakes. Delicious! I can’t wait to go back this summer for more of the same.
So, what’s your breakfast guilty pleasure?
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Tagged #bagels, #breakfast, #coffee, #CoralMcCallum, #guiltypleasure, #newblog, #newblogpost, #pancakes, #themeaslyjarofmotivation
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Coral McCallum 