Anne C. West

Hello my dear readers

This week I have a short story in which I played around with a popular and ancient fairy tale.

In our homeschooling journey, we read a lot of fantastical and imaginative books. Two volumes were the Blue Fairy book and the Red Fairy book. Our bookcovers are completely boring compared to these though!

Since I love reading children’s books, these 2 books are definitely on my TBR pile again.

I digress!!

One of the fairy tales that get retold more than any one of the other stories are Beauty and the Beast. We get these in animations, in period dramas, in horrors, in contemporary fiction, modern fiction and we can go on and on.

So naturally, I wanted to try my version.

That’s how Beauty and the Vampire was born.

Mind you, I am not a very good fanfiction writer. My add-ons are quite ridiculous!

You also get it, there is a vampire in this story. I’m very attracted to the dark side of the fairy tales. I wasn’t surprised when I learned that Aesop’s Fables, Mother Goose and the famous Grimm tales were actually much much darker than the good feeling, good-overcomes-bad tropes of the modern retellings.

This was just a fooling around with words. Definitely not my best. And now rereading it, I cringe but I also appreciate the spirit with which I attempted this. There is a fairy tale retelling in the future though And that I look forward to a lot.

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That’s it for now.

Thank you for reading.

Sending love from my house to yours.

Anne

PS. remember to subscribe to my newsletter for the password.

Hello my dear readers

This week I have a short story that I feel very sentimental about.

I’ve always been a bit of an odd one, according to my mom. The poor old lady struggled to make sense of her weird daughter.

I’m under no illusion that many many shifts happened in people, perspectives and perceptions the past 40 years at least. I do however stand amazed where I started on my life journey.

Death is very much one of those perspectives I’ve had.

I’ve never been freaked out by it. I think most of our beliefs and perspectives regarding death are inherited from those in our nurtured years.

On my journey I’ve come to realise that death is, when WE give up our lives. Life is not ripped away from us. It’s not what happens when a deity needs a flower for their garden or some other disconcerting comfort that’s handed to grieving families.

Murder is different. (I don’t have an opinion on murder yet.) Even though those in energy circles will not agree. That is however outside the scope of my story.

Anyways, when I came to the realisation that the power of taking our last breath and ultimate death, is up to us, I wondered if one can really do that. And hypothesized how it could be.

That’s how Appointment To Die was born.

I’ve already had ideas how I could use Susan from this story in future stories. I look forward to explore that a bit more.

The Blog A Story series is password protected. To get the password, please join my email list. Use the big button at the bottom of this post.

That’s it for now.

Thank you for reading.

Sending love from my house to yours.

Anne

PS. remember to subscribe to my newsletter for the password.

Hello my dear readers

I hope you enjoyed my 1st Blog A Story. Don’t hesitate to let me know what you think about it, good or bad. All I ask is be kind.

This week I have a story I wrote a few years ago. At the time I participated in 12 Stories in 12 Months. It’s a fun experience!

We had the assignment of writing a story from the prompt ‘Desperate Times’.

I battled to think of something. The same time a news story broke of a teenage girl that was abducted from a shopping mall’s bathroom. It was horrible!!! The girl was however recovered safe and sound but the details were limited. Good news seldom live past the same day, right.

So wrong.

Anyways, I decided to take the ordeal and let it play out. What would it be like? What would happen? The horrors of these real life human trafficking is so removed from our every day lives that we don’t quite know exactly what it looks like or how it feels. Worse, we seldom, if ever, have a real life retelling from such a survivor.

This is once again a very short story of a girl that is not saved. She finds herself in one of these containers with a boy.

Heads up! It ends in death…

Sorry about that.

The Blog A Story series is password protected. Please use the big white button at the bottom of this post to join my newsletter.

That’s it for now.

Thank you for reading.

Sending love from my house to yours.

Anne

PS. remember to subscribe to my newsletter for the password.

Hello there

This Friday I’ll be blogging my 1st story for all to read!

Okay, not all, for those with the password.

More about the story.

It’s a story I wrote after my hubby was declared clear from any cancer. It was a tough time. My oldest was 3 years old, mind you.

Most of the details in the story are true. Bitter sweet memories really.

Cancer is such a big part of so many people’s lives. It’s so wrong really. But alas.

Anyways, until next time. Thank you for reading.

Anne

PS. remember to subscribe to my newsletter for the password.