Welcome to the Belberg blog! I am planning to share poems and excerpts of stories I have written, for your enjoyment. Let me know which ones hit the spot for you.
A bit of a bio: I live in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, surrounded by gum trees and yellow-flowering acacias, possums, wattle birds, koalas, and a host of other wildlife. The neighbours are reasonably tame though :) I have a family, tropical fish and one chicken. I write for children, young adults and adults in no particular genre (the miscellaneous side of 'literary') but I love to write about what's going on inside people.
Here's an excerpt from my story 'Head in the Clouds':
'I can't believe this is happening,' Jennifer said out loud for the comfort of hearing something familiar.
'I can! It's just like I wanted,' piped a young girl's voice from behind her.
Jennifer jumped. 'Who are you?' she asked, peering at the girl uncertainly.
'I'm Jennifer. How did you get here?'
She was a funny little thing, the woman thought. She reminded her of herself as a child, only sweeter in manner. 'Well, isn't that amazing?' she said aloud, her eyebrows raised. 'My name's Jennifer too. I came here on a sailing boat. What about you?'
'Me too. I never knew sailing would feel so much like flying.' The child held out her arms and spun around.
'Ooh, careful! How do you know you won't fall through the cloud and out the bottom?' The adult Jennifer hadn't moved yet for fear of that.
'It's fine. You should try it. It's like . . . like dancing in cottonwool.' Little Jennifer continued her dance in wider and wider circles.
Jennifer the woman moved gingerly, and found the insubstantial mist to be as firm as land. Relieved, she turned back to the little girl. 'We need to decide on names. We can't both be Jennifer or people will get confused.'
'What people?' the girl asked, looking around. 'I don't think there are any. What a shame. I'd like to meet the people who live here.'
'Yes, but names,' the woman repeated. 'Do you have a nickname or do they call you 'Jenny'?'
'I don't like 'Jenny',' the girl said, frowning, then brightening. 'You could call me Poppet. My granddad calls me that. I didn't like it at first, but he said it was a special name for a special girl.' She did a special girl pirouette. But her words had made the woman shiver.
Well, that's all for this week. There's much more to that story, so let me know if you're interested in reading more of it.
See you next week!
Claire Belberg
Here's a test comment.
ReplyDeleteSee:
http://productforums.google.com/d/topic/blogger/w9y5Ixtak0w/discussion
Thanks, Chuck. I've been avidly reading your answers to all our Blogger questions, and I really appreciate your help. I didn't realise I was using Dynamic Views. I've now changed to the Simple template, returned the comments to 'embedded' so that I can have threaded comments, like this, and I hope my problems are all solved for the time being. Thanks again!
DeleteAlovely story
ReplyDeleteI like poppet better than darling. Everybody is called darling but not many get the privilege of being called poppet.
Dad
Yes, I agree :) You were my inspiration for that bit of the story.
DeleteClaire, this is intriguing,where is it going? I don't think I've read the like before from you.
ReplyDeleteYou'll need to let me know who you are if you want answers to questions :) I'm happy to send you the whole story, if you're interested.
DeleteClaire, I loved that small part of your story. I hope we can read more very soon. And I love that you are doing this! I've accessed it through Facebook. I wish you all the best with it. Bless you. Ann Newbery
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think, Ann? Should I do more of that story on the blog, or some other pieces? I was planning to do a poem for Post 2, but I'm happy to be guided by what people want to read :)
DeleteOther readers are welcome to make suggestions too!
I'm sure I'll enjoy either - you choose:)
DeleteClaire Belberg: Chicken Thief Extraordinaire!
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing what comes next. I vote for the poetry, but I always like to read the stories.
By the way, for me (using Safari as my browser) commenting is currently impossible, the site won't let me authenticate to post. I have a hypothesis that it's to do with my draconic cookie settings, but I'll let you know if I solve the problem. Otherwise, people should get firefox. Firefox is rad.
'Thief' is a bit strong, don't you think, Unwise Owl? I'd say rather 'Chicken Minder' :)
ReplyDeleteYes, apparently cookie settings can make a difference but I'm no techspert, so you might have to hunt around for a forum that explains how.
Your vote wins: it'll be a poem for Post 2. Thanks for the suggestion!