As The Smoke Cleared...

As the smoke cleared the devastation became clear. Charred and smouldering the extent of the damage took my breath away.
Expectation dissolved, overwhelming despair gripped me. Bitter tears filled my eyes.
"How could this happen?" My partner gasped. "There is no coming back from this!"
I straightened, ripped off my oven mitts and slammed the oven door..
"No coming back, but we can go out! Leave the windows open by the time we get home the smoke will have cleared!"

As The Smoke Cleared …

As the smoke cleared for the briefest moment I could see a clearing ahead. I pulled the scarf over my mouth keeping Chloe’s head buried into my breast. I had to get her through the clearing, there was no other escape route. If I hesitated, we will both die. This small window is our only hope. With maternal determination and total fear, I flung us through the burning eucalypt and ran and ran. My burnt breath was rasping in my throat; Chloe was chocking. Would we be strong enough to survive this inferno?

My eyes could hardly see. The smoke was rising and cloaking our escape. With a last huge effort I pushed through the charred scrub, my face and arms grazing against the sharpness of the tea-tree bushes. I felt faint. I couldn’t breathe. My chest hurt so badly, my child was silent. As life passed before us, I felt strong arms grab us and haul us through the scrub. We were safe, we had been saved. Oxygen was pushed over our faces; sirens screamed. I could hear Chloe crying; she was alive, we were safe.

by Annette Arthur

Souls

As time ticked by
Midnight crept on
The souls all gathered
To sing their sad song
And they danced in the moonlight
For an hour or so
Then left unnoticed
With the faded glow
Into the untouched earth below
They lay beside a desolate stream
Returning to their dying dreams
Of praying for world peace it seems.


Rhonda Rand Copyright 2018

Working with MS Word

This document is written for our workshop so you will be looking for misspelt words to correct, formatting to fix and hopefully some useful titbits to absorb.

We probably all have different versions of Word to work with, so if you find your page view is different just ask for help. This version is 2010. Seemed like state of the art back then.

The basics are still the same. (I hope) I used this version for my novels, and editing, so I let’s hope nothing much has changed.

OK, here we go. To start with, you need to recognise the menu bar. We will work on this document as we go. So, let’s transfer it to our own laptops.

Hopefully you will have Word open and see a screen similar to this. (Ignore the red warning about activation.)

Now, in the top left corner you will see FILE drop down menu.

CLICK on File… Then choose NEW, then BLANK Document

Now let us visit the blog page.

Two ways to transfer information. We want the whole document, so we can LEFT click on our mouse with our cursor at start of the document. Keeping pressure on the left button, SCROLL to the end of the document. This will highlight everything in the doc. Once it is highlighted press CONTROL C 

Then return to your word doc. Press CONTROL V

You should have the doc transferred. 

The second method is to Press CONTROL A, then CONTROL C, return to your word Doc and press CONTROL V.

Ok, that is called COPY/PASTING. Vital to moving information around your document. Changing sentences, paragraphs and even chapters. 

Now we are working in word.

We need to be able to Save our work.

The drop down menu FILE has SAVE AS,

We will create a saved Doc from today. 

Choose SAVE AS and name your file as Workshop03092018, or whatever you choose.

Now we can move on. Many of you will have done this before, so bear with us. You can be looking for errors in spelling/ grammar/formatting. ;)

NExt, we want to have our document looking tidy.

We need to have the same FONT throughout.

Again there are two ways of fixing this. First the manual way. Along the top menu bar you will see a drop down menu with THEME FONTS. It will have the name of the Font in use and the size in a drop down menu next to it.

Highlight the portion of the document you want to change. Then choose the font and size you prefer.

Otherwise there is a tool, FORMAT PAINTER which allows you to highlight the font and format you prefer, and then highlight the portion you want to be the same. With a click you can ‘fix’ your font, size and formatting.

If you make a mistake, don’t stress. High up on the menu bar, next to the SAVE image (an old floppy disc image) there is a backwards facing curved arrow. This will take you back to where you were!! Vital if you accidently click ENTER while you have text highlighted.
Now, apart from FONT size and style, we have BOLD, UNDERLINE, ITALICS etc.
Further across we have HIGHLIGHT...

Now we have some text to work with, I will carry on in person. ;)

I jus t wanted something for you to edit correct, etc.  

Lost Souls .. in memory of ..

They ran with glee to the recruitment office having alighted from their long train journey. All boys from the Barrington; excited to be together; jostling with their mates and brothers to be first in line. This was their opportunity; their means of excitement, adventure and to get away from the farms. Away from the drudgery of following their fathers orders; away from their dull routine. Now they would experience something amazing; dangerous and new.

To fight for their country. Yes they had lined up to join the ranks. Young boys who had no idea what was install for them over the coming years. They spent weeks leaning over ship balusters, green from sea sickness, wondering the sense of their enlistment. Solid ground, dairy cows and boring routine appeared a better vision than the endless stretch of waters before them.

They landed on foreign shores where the enemy had taken hold. Strange voices, faces and smells cut through their old familiar world as they plunged into the dense foliage before them. They marched with gun and sickle in hand, losing mates on the way from gun shell, disease and maim. Still they marched pushing the enemy back into denser forest until their numbers dwindled and they became overwhelmed by the enemy soldiers.

In walls they sat, those still alive; huddled with their now small band of mates. They called the place Changi and they watched with unseen eyes as their mates around them died from starvation, hard labour and disease. Their eyes now only saw their beloved Barrington as they struggled to lay the iron rail through Hellfire pass.

For most the cruelty and neglect was too great to bear and they lay down their weary bodies against the track on this foreign soil waiting for the north winds to one day lift their lost souls and carry them home again.

Lost Souls

In this highly complex world no wonder there are people who go through periods where they feel lost, hopeless, and simply feel there is no hope.  They generally struggle with the smallest issues and have no logic or rational thinking above all else.

It is a little wonder with the complexities of life that there are people who feel they are lost, souls.
They generally find it hard finding friends and that there is a place on earth for them.  They feel totally hopeless at times and can’t see their way forward.

Even though it is said, “your eyes are the windows to the soul”, a lost soul is not always easy to understand.

Many lost souls have had traumatic lives that are so devastating; they find it impossible to give of themselves to others and are generally labeled incorrectly as having mental health issues.

One such person, I personally knew fell into this category, although his traumatic issues were of his own doing, and instead of dealing with them he ran away.

His original place of origin that he ran away from after committing abusive behavior to his supervisor.  He then decided to apply to immigrate to another country with his young family, including his wife expecting another child.

He wasn’t successful at immigrating to his chosen country and ended up immigrating to Australia.

It wasn’t long before he realised his educational background would not get the desired work to sufficiently feed a growing family.

At the time of emigrating to Australia immigrants from another country, especially the Middle East, the migrants found it difficult to assimilate easily into their new country, unless they had higher than average relevant qualifications, skills, and knowledge.  Without any friends or family, apart from his wife and daughter he felt lost and desperate and ended up working at a few menial jobs whilst studying at university in the hope that he could source work in his chosen vocation.

He struggled at acquiring additional qualifications, whilst being a husband, father and coping with another child on the way.  He tried to persuade his wife not to go through with the pregnancy and ending up with another issue of running away after he assaulted his wife.

The years that followed were fought with the feeling of hopelessness, drug taking, moving in and out of work, health issues and the feeling of being lost within him.

Welcome to our blog...

In order to get this blog going we need to learn how to post, label, schedule and edit our posts.

Each month we will have our special day to post our story. 

Preparing to post we will import work by copy and pasting... but it might be easier for shorter pieces to write our work directly into a blank NEW POST page.

We have a choice of composing using "COMPOSE" from the top left hand menu, or

HTML. 

For now I suggest COMPOSE. It is simpler.

We can insert images. If you feel the need. Feel free to experiment. On the top RIGHT is a PREVIEW icon.

This opens a new tab where you can see what the blog will look like to the public.

Instead of PUBLISHING, I suggest we SCHEDULE posts.

They will automatically publish on our assigned day...or whenever we choose.

it is a good idea to LABEL your post, using words for search engines to find your story.

It is up to you. We can discuss this at a meeting.

If each author would like to post a short introduction, to say Hello and discover how to work the blog.
Our profiles from the groups' website are already available, so just feel free to say hi.
To do this...
Find NEW POST icon.
A blank page will appear. It needs a TITLE. Then the bulk of your message goes into the page.
Once you are happy with your message, you can PUBLISH.
If you want to EDIT, you will be able to do that from the list of POSTS.
See how you go.
No pressure!




Meanwhile

Each month we will have a theme.

Suggestions so far

A writing prompt

The lights were still on...

And

Lost Souls.

Leave  suggestions in the comments!

Each author is free to interpret the theme as they choose. Word limit is up to 750 words. No minimum.

Questions or comments welcome.

Be Inspired.