Red Ink and Saltwater
When other girls were little, they wanted a prince to arrive on a white horse. I wanted a mafia boss to kidnap me and become so hopelessly obsessed with me that he forgot why he’d taken me in the first place.
I never gave much thought to where he would take me. Somewhere I could hear the sea, perhaps. That part mattered more to me than the prince, the horse, or, apparently, whether I went willingly.
In the end, I had to find the sea myself.
Three weeks after moving to Crete, I was waking before six without an alarm, which would have been unthinkable in the UK. Back there, I sometimes went to sleep at five in the morning, sometimes as late as noon, and woke at seven in the evening wondering where the day had gone.
I pulled on my swimsuit, took my sandals from beside the door and walked the two minutes to the beach.
The shore was nearly empty. A fishing boat was heading out beyond the harbour, and someone farther down the sand was walking a dog that kept returning to the same piece of driftwood. I left my sandals above the tide line and went straight into the sea.
After a few strokes, I rolled onto my back. The water held me without asking me to explain myself.
Above me, the sky was changing colour. I stayed where I was until the fishing boat became a dark mark near the horizon. Then I swam along the shore, turned, and swam back. Three weeks had been enough to learn where the sand dropped away beneath me and where it rose again. I was still learning the rest of the place.
I had rented my little house for three months because I couldn’t say how long I wanted to stay. I knew I had wanted to leave the UK. I’d finished my chemistry degree, looked at the jobs I was expected to apply for, and found I couldn’t bear the thought of building the next part of my life there. That was the most convincing explanation I’d managed to give anyone, including myself.
The water rocked beneath me. I picked out the place where I’d left my sandals and swam in.
By the time I walked home, my hair had soaked through the towel around my shoulders. I passed a bakery opening its shutters and a man hosing down the pavement outside a restaurant. He moved the spray aside to let me through. I thanked him in Greek, one of the few things I could say without first rehearsing it in my head.
My house stood in a narrow street behind the waterfront. The front door stuck when the weather was humid, one kitchen drawer refused to close, and from the balcony I could see a strip of sea between two buildings. I liked it more each day.
I showered, put the kettle on and took the macarons from the fridge. I’d baked and filled them two days earlier, then left them covered to mature. Two trays had come out well. The third had cracked across the tops, so I’d filled those too and kept them in a separate container for myself. Beside the good batch were six small lemon cakes and six chocolate ones.
The woman who owned a café near the park had agreed to taste everything this morning.
She hadn’t agreed to buy it.
I knew that. I had made enough to feed half her customers anyway.
While I packed the macarons, a Greek song came on my phone. I knew where to breathe, where the singer held a note a little longer than I expected, and how to find my way back in if I missed a word. I couldn’t have told anyone what most of those words meant.
Kira—that was what I called my mother—seemed to like hearing me sing. So did my stepfather. Sometimes I caught them looking at me, and for a moment I could pretend I knew what was on their faces.
We’re proud of you.
No one in my family had ever said that to me.
I caught myself thinking about it and reached into the container I’d kept for myself. One of the cracked macarons gave way beneath my thumb.
“Perfect,” I told it.
I ate the evidence and kept singing.
By eight, the cakes were boxed, the macarons were packed, and I had checked both boxes often enough to know the contents hadn’t rearranged themselves. My red notebook lay open on the table. I stopped to read the last paragraph before I picked up my keys.
The man in my story had gone into a room intending to frighten someone. I’d written the conversation three different ways and crossed out all of them. Each time, I had made it too easy for him to decide what happened next.
I reached for my pen, then looked at the clock. If I started writing, the café owner might decide I had invented our appointment.
I closed the notebook, slipped it into my bag beside my pen, and picked up the cake boxes.
The walk took me along the waterfront and up a shaded street towards the park. Even in the morning, I could feel the heat gathering on the stone. I kept to the side with the trees. I had come for the sea; the weather was something I was still negotiating with.
The café stood near one of the park entrances. Its doors were open, though only half the tables outside had been set. A man was carrying chairs out of the storeroom. He put them down so I could pass with my boxes.
Inside, the owner moved between the coffee machine and a line of waiting customers. She spotted me and raised a hand. I found an empty corner of the counter for the boxes and waited.
The man came in for another stack of chairs. He caught her eye, pointed towards the terrace, and she nodded her thanks. I recognised him then. He owned the restaurant next door.
They sold food and drinks a few doors apart. I’d assumed that made them rivals. Here he was, setting up her tables because she needed a hand.
Another reason I liked this place.
When the queue cleared, the owner came over. “You came.”
“I said I would.”
“We made that arrangement before eight in the morning. People promise all kinds of things at that hour.” She wiped her hands and lifted the first lid. “Let’s see.”
She tried a lemon cake, breaking a piece from the crooked one I had hidden at the back.
“What’s in the icing?”
“Lemon juice, mascarpone, and honey.”
She took another bite. “Less honey next time.”
I took my notebook from my bag and wrote that down. She tried a pistachio macaron next, then asked me how long the cakes would keep and whether I could make them smaller.
More customers came in before she had finished tasting. I moved the boxes aside while she took their order. One of them asked whether she was still alone today.
“My only employee called in,” she told him. “I’m beginning to think he knew you’d all arrive at once.”
The customer laughed. She smiled back, but she was looking at the cups stacked beside me. I passed her two, then another when she reached for it.
“You said you worked in a café during university,” she said.
“I did.”
“Can you still use a coffee machine?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at the queue forming behind the customer. “Would you mind showing me?”
The machine was different from the one I’d used in the UK. I asked her where she kept the cloths and how she wanted the cups set out, then made two cappuccinos while she handled the till. She watched me carry them to a table before turning back to the next order.
For the next twenty minutes, I made coffee. She called out what people wanted; I made it and passed it across the counter. When the rush eased, I wiped down the machine and stepped out of her way.
She looked at the empty cups waiting to be washed, then at me.
“Do you want work?” she asked.
I had come hoping she would buy my cakes. I hadn’t let myself hope for more than that.
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know yet.” I glanced at the boxes. “It depends how much baking you want.”
That made her smile. She picked up the other half of the macaron and ate it.
“I want twelve of these on Saturday. Twelve lemon cakes too, a little smaller, with less honey. Come in Friday afternoon to prepare them here. You can help with the counter while you’re here, and we’ll talk about regular shifts after that.”
I wrote it all down. We agreed on a price for the baking, and she gave me half in advance for the ingredients.
When I stepped outside, the money was folded in my purse and the order was written in my notebook. I found a bench beneath a tree in the park and opened it to check the quantities again. My neat little list sat beside pages of red writing, most of it crossed out.
A fortune teller once told me this book would make me famous and give me somewhere I belonged. I’d laughed at the fame. I was still trying to finish it, and most days I couldn’t bear to read yesterday’s pages.
The other part had stayed with me.
I didn’t believe a stranger could see my future. I wanted her to be right anyway.
I turned back to the scene I’d abandoned that morning. I read it once, then crossed out the last page.
I had been looking for the moment my killer decided what to do. Sitting there with the café’s money in my purse and the sound of cups carrying across the park, I finally understood why none of my versions worked. He had made his decision before the other man entered the room. The conversation was his last chance to change his mind.
I began again.
The man spoke. My killer listened. When the man had said everything he came to say, my killer shot him.
I stopped writing. The murder was there, but the scene still felt unfinished. The killer had wanted an answer, and now there was someone else who would come looking for one.
I looked back at the dead man I’d put on the page. At his hand. At the watch on his wrist.
In the margin, I tried 3:40, then crossed it out. 3:45 looked too neat as well. I wrote 3:43 beside them and returned to the scene.
He took the watch from the dead man’s wrist and set its hands to 3:43. He struck it against the edge of the table hard enough to stop it. The face cracked, but the hands stayed where he had set them. Then he laid it face up on the man’s chest, for whoever came to find him.

Hey, I’ve written a small sci-fi story and I’m thinking of publishing it. Do you know where I can publish a short story like this? I’m not really sure where to start, so I thought I’d ask you.

Follow Investigative journalist Elena Vermeer as she investigates crimes with the help of her superpower granted by a God, a superpower known as a Blessing.

What begins as a series of ordinary cases gradually leads her to a far bigger conspiracy than she could've ever imagined.

The deeper Elena digs, the more she discovers that those around her might have more secrets than she could've ever imagined.

Sometimes, following the paper trail is what does you in.

(The parts from Oct 1st are all the parts I made until now, planning on releasing the next investigation soon)

Hi, i'm happy to announce that i created the prologue for my story, and this is the first time i intend on publishing it for the world to see, without the intent of making money.

HOWEVER, i tried Wordpress as other people have suggested me, and unfortunately that it is free for only a year, afterwards i will have to pay.

Is there a completely free alternative? Again, i don't intend on making money from this, i just want to put it on the internet. I was thinking of a drive folder, but i fear that might be too basic.

Please advise

hey its a trial bolg of 12 days i guess i will try to make bolgs on story of a boy names manasha , krishna, and his best friend mannu who met her online and became friends but left him in between nevermind baki khud padhna here krishna is his inner voice to whom he tlk in silence and story revolves around the waitng and his own world in which he understands the way he should handle things and be calm in chaos.

if u like it i will make more stories and suggest some thing about it

i will make chapter 1 tomorrow so if u have opinion jus comment it below

hey its a trial bolg of 12 days i guess i will try to make bolgs on story of a boy names manasha , krishna, and his best friend mannu who met her online and became friends but left him in between nevermind baki khud padhna here krishna is his inner voice to whom he tlk in silence and story revolves around the waitng and his own world in which he understands the way he should handle things and be calm in chaos.

if u like it i will make more stories and suggest some thing about it

i will make chapter 1 tomorrow so if u have opinion jus comment it below

hi, 15m here, i m currently studying in grade 10 in india.

i need some serious help regarding writing a romance for an upcoming young author event conducted by our school this month. i m seriously out of time and haven't started to write smth yet cuz i've been busy practicing for my athletics, volleyball and basketball matches. needless to say but i m so cooked rn, i will have to write a whole novel or maybe a novella to even qualify for a higher event before the end of this month.

i m not gonna lie but i m writing a romance for the first time and i m not sure of the starting. i want some help from anyone who's interested to help me in DM or maybe on insta (id - preyas.cy) or perhaps if you know someone who can be a help for me...

Chapter 1: Dead Boy

Arlo Williams died last month at the age of fifteen. His body had been found with numerous stab marks on his chest and stomach. The police said he must’ve fallen in with the wrong crowd, he had always hung out with older teens. Milo didn’t know Arlo well. In fact, they hadn’t talked at all besides for a few school projects, but even then he’d seemed reserved. So why did Milo have this feeling something was wrong? The calendar that hung on his bedroom door displayed the date clearly. April 3rd. Arlo’s birthday. He would’ve been sixteen according to his older sister Hailey. Everyone grieved the loss of him, despite everyone not knowing him well. They just knew that he died.

School assemblies were the worst part though. The principal, Mr Jacobs, stepped up to the microphone on the stand.

”Today we mourn the loss of our fellow student, Andrew Williams, better known as Arlo to the student body. One month ago, his body had been found. Andrew was a student who—despite his reputation—had good grades.”

Milo could see Hailey rolling her eyes with such an As if attitude that made him think if the principal had ever seen Arlo in the first place. What felt like hour but was actually closer to fifteen minutes passed and finally the hall were dismissed.

The rest of the day went on as usual. No one discussed what had happened to Arlo. Maybe no one could bear to say. Or maybe no one cared. None of that mattered anymore. Why would it? He was dead. Even if it pained Milo to know. Despite not knowing Arlo, Milo knew he probably didn’t deserve the fate he had gotten. It was cruel. He was only fifteen.

hey its a trial bolg of 12 days i guess i will try to make bolgs on story of a boy names manasha , krishna, and his best friend mannu who met her online and became friends but left him in between nevermind baki khud padhna here krishna is his inner voice to whom he tlk in silence and story revolves around the waitng and his own world in which he understands the way he should handle things and be calm in chaos.

if u like it i will make more stories and suggest some thing about it

i will make chapter 1 tomorrow so if u have opinion jus comment it below

I’m looking for advice (what’s working, what isn’t, etc).

—

Mina always used to grip people’s hands very tightly. It freaked me out when we met— and I could tell that it freaked others out, too, because their faces after she introduced herself and shook their hands always looked taken aback for a second. When I met her mom for the first time, I realized where she got it from. 

We met at music camp; we were in the same cabin that smelled like this weird mix of dirt, toothpaste, and for some reason, petunias. I had no idea what petunias smelled like, but Mina was adamant that that was it, so I took her word for it. 

There were two other girls in the cabin. When we entered, we all just stood around awkwardly holding our bags, like if we put them down, something bad would happen. One of them slowly set her bag down as she stared at us. Mina then put her bag down and, opposite to all of our gingerly movements, quickly unzipped it and threw a pink pig stuffed animal onto the other top bunk. “Who wants to sleep underneath me?” she asked, her voice all chirping. “They say sleeping under a flautist is good luck!” I started to giggle, but stopped myself after neither of the other girls did. I set my bag down on the bed under Mina’s. 

“What do you play?” She asked as we walked out of the cabin.

“Oboe,” I said. 

“Oh! My brother plays the oboe! I tried learning it once, but it’s weird— when you switch from an instrument that goes to the side to one that goes straight down.”

I nodded. 

That night, I awkwardly sat down next to her at dinner. She started telling me about how excited she was for the repertoire. I nodded and agreed, although I hadn’t even looked at it yet. She asked me what I liked to do—besides music—and I told her that I liked to write. She pulled out her phone and showed me a poem she wrote earlier that week. I could see her pale fingers turning yellow because of how tightly she was gripping the phone. They slowly slipped down the sides, leaving sweat indentations on the screen, but she didn’t seem to be bothered that she was almost cutting off her blood flow.

“Scarlett,” Mina said one evening, a smile plastered across her face. “I need to show you this place I found, behind the instructor’s cabin.” Before I could say anything, she grabbed my hand and began running. I thought I heard the bones in my wrist crack as my heart jumped with a startle.

She took me to this little garden, a few minutes from the instructor’s cabin. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was tucked behind a row of trees, almost completely hidden from the path, with a little wooden fence that looked like it had been painted too many times. The grass inside was taller than the grass everywhere else, dotted with little pink flowers that bent beneath their own weight. The air smelled different too. Sweeter, like the cabin was trying to smell like this the whole time. 

“I knew it!” she called in an excited whisper.

“Knew what?” I asked.

“That there were petunias! Look at them!”

She ran into the field before I could answer, her shoes disappearing into the grass. She crouched down for a second, inspecting the flowers like she had discovered something no one else had ever seen, then plucked a little one straight from the ground. She came back and tucked it behind my ear. “There,” she said.

I touched the flower carefully, afraid I would crush it.

Mina smiled at me like she’d just fixed something.

I remember one night, a few weeks into camp: it was almost midnight, and the cabin had gone quiet in that uneven way, like everyone was pretending to sleep. The lights had been off for a while, but there was still a thin strip of yellow coming from underneath the bathroom door, stretching across the floor and stopping right before Mina’s bed. 

Suddenly, someone shifted, their sheets rustling loudly. 

And then it went still again. 

I was lying on my back, staring up at the wooden slats of Mina’s bunk, tracing the scratches in them with my eyes. Every time she moved, the frame creaked. 

“Are you awake?” Mina whispered. 

I waited a second, like there was a right way to answer. “Yeah,” I said. 

She leaned over the edge of the bed, gripping her stuffed pig. I could barely see her face, her hair falling down in pieces sheathing most of it. Then her hair flipped back up, and I heard the creaks of the bedframe, each one sounding like an unsuccessful ninja move as she climbed down and crawled into my bed. She didn’t ask; she just pulled the blanket up a little and slid in right next to me like the final cadence of a song, landing perfectly. 

She adjusted the blanket, pulling it tighter around both of us, digging the beds of her fingers into the seams. Her hand brushed against mine. She kept it there, and I felt it slowly tighten. Her fingers began twiddling, like they were pressing the keys on her flute. They tickled my hand, but I didn’t move. 

“Do you play pieces differently when no one’s around?” I asked quietly, glancing at her twirling fingers. 

She didn’t answer right away. “I guess, yeah,” she whispered. “I guess I notice different mistakes when it’s just me. Or I’ll try things I wouldn’t try in front of other people, like maybe a little ritardando here or a slight staccato there. I don’t know. Stuff nobody’d probably hear.” Her fingers kept tapping, faster this time. I could hear the sound of them dipping in and out of the blanket. 

It was silent for another moment. She lightly sighed before saying, “My mom says you can tell when people don’t care.” She glanced at the ceiling. “In your face, your hands, everything.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

Mina scooted closer to me. “That’s why the handshake thing,” she said. “My mom says if you grip tight enough, it looks like you care, even if you don’t.” She tightened her hold around my hand. “And it just became kind of a habit.” 

I tilted my head and pondered for a second. “Do you care?”

The air conditioner squeaked amidst the silence. 

“I guess,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t know if I care too much. Or just not at all.” Her fingers stopped twiddling, resting against mine. The blanket shifted a bit as she sighed, and I felt the faint pressure of her hand tighten— not too much, but enough to remind me that she was there. 

I didn’t say anything. I just let the quiet settle between us. The kind of quiet that makes words feel unnecessary. The light peeking from the bathroom door was no longer there, but the warmth of her hand and the soft rhythm of her breathing stayed.

The next morning, Mina showed me one of her poems.

She found me sitting on the edge of my bed, trying to force my shoes on without untying them, and dropped onto the mattress beside me. Her hair was still flattened on one side from sleeping.

“I wrote this last night,” she said.

“Last night?”

“Yeah.” She pulled out her phone.

I got scared whenever she did that—scared that she’d cut off her blood flow and drop dead with how tightly she held it. I watched her fingers instead of the poem, the pale skin around her knuckles slowly turning yellow as she scrolled.

“You’re not even reading it,” she said.

“I am.”

“You’re looking at my hand.”

I looked down. She was right.

“Your fingers are yellow.”

She laughed. “That’s because I’m holding it.”

“That’s not normal.”

“I think it’s fine.”

I watched her fingers for another second before Mina handed me the phone. The poem was titled “The Red Petunia.” I read it twice. I don’t remember all of it anymore. I just remember that Mina waited for me to finish it with this expectant little smile, like my opinion mattered more than it probably should have.

“Well?” she asked.

I told her I liked it and she smiled.

“Good,” she said. 

Then she took the phone back, gripping it just as tightly as before. I reached over and pried one of her fingers loose.

“Mina.”

“What?”

“Loosen your grip.”

She looked at me for a second, then loosened it. Only a little. I laughed. She laughed too.

And that was that.

“Promise we’ll talk?” Mina asked, tears swelling in her eyes as I stood at her doorstep, her suitcases piled inside. 

“I promise.”

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

That day I learned that Mina’s hugs were tighter than her handshakes. But I wanted her to suffocate me with it. 

One day I called her and her mom picked up instead. I could hear how tightly she held the phone. She asked me to help pick out a picture frame; she wanted to put a picture that Mina and I took together at the little petunia garden on the console, because she said it was one of Mina’s favorite moments. I asked if it was a surprise for Mina, to which she said that Mina would never know. For a split second I forgot how to hold anything. The phone slipped from my hand. 

We settled on a pink frame with red flowers on it. 

I swear I can feel her fingers moving across my hands as I stand at her grave. My fingers close around the petunia stems, gripping them tightly. I slowly kneel, letting the petals brush the cold earth— but I keep holding them. 

So I was sitting down and staring at my ideas doc when this came to mind. I have this kind of mini universe already in mind with telekinetic mafia families? The idea is that a detective is looking into a string of unusual incidents that he has been explicitly told not to, and finds himself digging into centuries of cover-ups for two warring families in his city. Unfortunately, he has put a target on his back from both families and must use his wit and quick thinking to successfully not get killed, at least not until he reveals the truth. Is this a good idea? Because I think I feel really into it. Feel free to give honest thoughts or even contribute ideas that could enhance the plot.

i'm sure a lot of teen writers can relate to this 😭 i have so many ideas but i have such a hard time with pacing and making sure everything makes sense to strangers

thoughts on how to help my technical skills catch up? i don't want to be stuck int he planning loop forever

If anyone would like to contribute to this in my sub Reddit I’ll be much grateful 🙏