BSB News
Last week’s freebie was a fun little collection of four “office terror” flash stories – No Hazard Pay by Alex Westhaven. Did you get your copy? Want a creepy taste? We’ve added an excerpt to the book page!
There’s another free book waiting for you in the Available Books section! Can you find it?
Last week we had a poetry post, but no short story due to an organizational conflict. This week, we have both poetry and prose for you! Check out this past weekend’s posts for some fun jewelry-based legends and a cute & funny dragon story…
Prompted Poetry: Jewelry Legends
Prompted Prose: Dragon Meeting
Topic of the Week: Reading Spaces
When I was younger (much younger – kid-sized), I took books *everywhere*. This was the pre-Kindle/mobile/ebook era, so yes, I hauled around print books. And I could/would read pretty much anywhere…noise, chaos, distraction…none of it mattered. I could block anything out with a book, and frequently did to the chagrin and embarrassment of my parents. Because it’s not polite to read when others might want to socialize with you, you know. Even if you don’t particularly feel like socializing with anyone else.
Fast forward a great many years, and now I have the option of carrying a zillion books in my Kindle and smartphone, but it’s incredibly rare for me to read while I’m out and about anymore. If I’m early for an appointment I might open up whatever digital book I have going at the time, or a magazine article, but it depends on whether I think I have enough time to finish a whole chapter or not. I hate reading for five minutes and having to put the book down again…or even ten. At the ten to fifteen minute mark, I get really annoyed if I have to close the book before the end of whatever chapter I happen to be on.
I guess you could say I have closure/stopping point issues.
If I’m by myself, I’ll read an ebook while I’m eating lunch, but I’m not often alone (my husband eats with me). Ebooks are heaven for reading while eating, don’t you think? No actual pages to turn and keep clean, just a tap of the knuckle to turn a “page”.
At night when I crawl into bed, I read a few chapters in whatever print book I have going. And force myself to close it when I need to sleep…sometimes even on time, but I’ve been known to read until I’m nodding off and really not comprehending the words anymore (which means back-tracking to the last thing I actually remember the next night…kind of embarrassing, but I can’t be the only one, right?). If the hubby’s already asleep and I don’t want to wake him, I sit in my office reading chair with my Kindle. E-ink is so much nicer than a back-lit screen for reading. My Paperwhite does have a light, but I don’t often use it.
It’s not often I get to stretch out on the couch and just read, but I’ll use whatever format I feel like in the living room, and sometimes go on comic book binge-reading marathons. I need to do that again…the comic book pile is out of control. Soon, my pretties. Soon…
Where do you read? Do you read while out running errands? On your breaks at work? Do you have a comfy reading chair all your own? Does it bother you to read in short stints?
Wanna write? Pick a prompt!
Prose Writing Prompt of the Week: Write about some sort of metamorphosis, what triggered it and whether the outcome was expected or not.
Poetry Prompt of the Week: We all need to rant sometimes. Write a poetic rant about something that happened to you recently.
Write a 500 – 1000 word story based on the prose prompt and/or a poem using the theme of the poetry prompt, and email it/them to brazensnake@brazensnakebooks.com. Poems will be posted on Saturdays, Prose on Sundays. Happy writing!