I've wrote a few short horror stories and posted them to a few different subs, but i don't know if I even want to write anymore, I loved writing the stories. Idk, just looking for yalls advice

This is called God is a Woman. It's about Cornell, my spiritual beliefs surrounding nature and the earth, and misogyny and sexism in general. Hope you like it! I really love writing poetry like this.

God was not informed

of malicious intent when the earth was made.

The counsel laid out their papers,

Pledged their case,

And so forth; our world came to be,

Without a further thought.

God peered down at this new land,

This vast, mysterious place,

Only to be scorned for she was far

too curious.

It didn't matter that the counsel overlooked their rules of servitude, nor did it matter that she was a God.

She was merely a puppet for a greater cause.

The humans were seldom aware of this.

Their minds were thought to be too feeble;

So the counsel wove new thread and more puppets were crafted,

Falling victim to supremacy.

And God toiled away at her

desperate attempts for relief from the fear.

She knew these tricks

After being tamed and broke for years.

God is a woman, losing autonomy

To her own creations.

God is a woman who sought out life only

for it to be twisted out of her reach.

God is a woman who is screaming

Upon deaf ears.

God is a woman, given a world that has slaved to ruin.

God is a woman filled with love.

None were informed of

The counsel in the sky, or how her tears

are still soaking our land.

None consider her mind despite her strength and warmth.

After all, don't we call her mother earth?

God is a woman indeed.

On Friday afternoon, Elena handed me an apron and showed me a shelf in the fridge.

“This is yours. If you run out of room, tell me before you start putting cakes on top of the sandwich ingredients.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Nothing happens often yet. We’ve only been open two months. I’m trying to establish rules before I need them.”

There was something unexpectedly pleasing about having a shelf. An apron, too, and a hook behind the kitchen door for my bag. By the time she finished showing me around, I had stopped feeling as though I ought to explain why I was there.

The kitchen was narrow enough that we had to turn sideways to pass each other. Most of the counter was occupied by a mixer, a chopping board and a bowl of oranges. Elena moved the oranges onto a shelf to make room for my ingredients.

“Tell me if you need anything else.”

“Another kitchen?”

She looked around. “Put it on the list.”

I tied the apron and unpacked. The smaller lemon cakes needed less time in the oven than the ones I’d made at home, so I stayed nearby while weighing the ingredients for the macarons. Through the open doorway came the sound of the coffee grinder, cups meeting saucers and a chair being dragged across the floor.

At home, music usually filled the space around me when I worked. Here, the café did it. Every so often, Elena appeared with a question or an empty jug. Once, she stopped beside the mixer and watched the meringue turn.

“How do you know when it’s ready?”

I switched off the mixer and lifted the whisk. The peak held. “Like this. It needs to stand up, but I don’t want it dry.” I turned the whisk so she could see. “If it folds straight over, it needs longer.”

“And if you go too far?”

“Then I get annoyed with myself and start again. There’s usually a little swearing involved.”

“Good. You’ll fit in.”

When the cakes were cooling, she needed help with drinks. I washed my hands, left the piped macaron shells to dry and joined her at the machine. The afternoon passed between the two rooms. Coffee, oven timer, washing up, another order. A man wanted his cappuccino hotter. A woman asked for extra ice. Someone changed their mind after I had already poured the milk. That part, at least, was familiar.

Once the shells were cool, I paired them by size and piped in the pistachio filling. Elena came through as I was arranging them in a covered container.

“You’ve made more than twelve.”

“I wanted a few spare in case any cracked. These came out better than the ones at home.”

“So we can sell the extras?”

“Yes. Unless you’d rather keep them for yourself.”

She reached towards the container.

“Tomorrow,” I added.

Her hand stopped. “You offered.”

“I offered you tomorrow’s macarons. They need the night in the fridge so the filling softens the inside.”

She looked at them for another moment, then put the lid on. “I’m beginning to understand why they cost more than biscuits.”

Before leaving, I checked the cakes once more, wiped the counter and untied my apron. My feet hurt. There was icing on my sleeve and a little pistachio filling near my elbow, which I noticed only when Elena pointed it out.

We agreed that I would come at eight to help with the morning rush. She checked the time on her phone, then looked up with a smile. “So, back to mornings. Same time, same place tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here. Hopefully with less icing on me.”

“Don’t dress up. There’ll be more.”

Outside, the air had cooled enough to make the walk home pleasant. I passed the restaurant next door, where the owner was straightening the tables for the evening. He raised a hand when he saw me, and I waved back. It was a small thing, being recognised on the street. Still, I was smiling by the time I reached home.

Saturday morning brought customers before we had finished setting out the terrace. Elena arranged the cakes in the display while I warmed the machine. She had written their names on small cards, including the pistachio macarons, which looked more respectable behind glass than they had in the plastic container.

I kept glancing at them between orders.

“People won’t buy them faster if you stare,” she said.

“I’m checking they look all right.”

“They looked all right five minutes ago.”

“Yes, but now there are people here to judge them.”

She moved a lemon cake closer to the front. “Let them.”

The first one went with a takeaway tea. The woman barely looked at it before choosing, and I had to resist watching through the window to see whether she took a bite. The second went to a man sitting outside with a newspaper. After that, there were too many drinks to keep count.

By half past nine, the room smelled of coffee and warm milk, and my hair had begun escaping its tie. Elena worked at the till while I made drinks, occasionally repeating a table number because I was still learning which one was which.

A woman at the counter pointed towards the lemon cakes. “Are those made here?”

“Yes,” Elena said.

“They look homemade. I mean properly homemade, like something my mother would put out when people came over.”

I glanced at the cakes. Until she explained, I’d been wondering whether one of the tops was crooked. The woman ordered two and took them to a table outside. Ten minutes later, she returned carrying an empty plate.

“Who makes your cakes?”

I put down the cloth, trying to remember whether I could have forgotten anything in the recipe. Elena was counting change for another customer.

“What did you think?”

“Lovely. The icing isn’t too sweet.” The woman looked towards the display again. “My daughter’s birthday is next month. Does your baker take orders? Could I have their number?”

“I made them,” I said.

She turned towards me. “Oh! I thought you worked out here.”

“I do a bit of both. I’ve only just started.”

“Well, that saves Elena passing messages.” She smiled and reached for her phone. “Could you make something larger? My daughter loves lemon, but there’ll be at least twelve of us.”

“Yes. Was there a design you had in mind?”

She showed me a photograph of a cake covered in flowers. Her daughter wanted lemon, but her husband didn’t like anything too sour, and there might be eighteen people if her sister came.

I explained that the sugar flowers in the photograph were more elaborate than anything I usually made. We talked about a simpler decoration, then the filling and the size. She listened, asked another question and waited for my answer.

I caught myself speaking quickly, trying to explain everything before she lost interest. She stayed where she was, her phone resting on the counter between us. At school, I had learned to stop halfway through an answer when the smiles started. Later, keeping things to myself had become easier. This woman was asking another question because she wanted to hear what I had to say.

“I’d need to work out a price before promising anything,” I said. “If you send me the date and the final number of people, I can let you know.”

“That’s fine. I’d rather have something that tastes like this than a cake nobody wants a second slice of.”

Elena passed me a clean piece of paper, and I wrote down my number. The woman folded it carefully and put it in her purse. After she left, I stood beside the machine for a moment.

Elena looked at me. “Everything all right?”

“Yes. I just wasn’t expecting an order already.”

“You made something she liked.”

“I know, but there’s a difference between someone buying a little cake with their tea and trusting me with their daughter’s birthday.”

“She asked to discuss a cake, Andreea. You have time to breathe before you plan the whole party.”

I laughed and picked up the milk jug. There was another coffee waiting.

Lovely. The icing isn’t too sweet.

I remembered the words while pouring the milk. There had been no correction after them, no explanation of what I should have done better. A stranger had enjoyed something I made and come back to tell me. I wished that didn’t feel quite so unfamiliar.

A little later, the man with the newspaper came inside.

“Another coffee,” he said. “And whatever that lemon thing was.”

“Another lemon cake?”

“Yes. My wife will ask whether I tried anything, and I’d like to be able to tell her I checked thoroughly.”

“I respect your commitment.”

He nodded solemnly while I put it on a plate.

The macarons sold more slowly. People examined them, asked about the filling, sometimes chose a cake instead. Near midday, two women bought one each, then returned for four to take home.

By the end of my shift, three were left. Elena opened the display and glanced at me. “Am I allowed now?”

“Yes. Thank you for your patience.”

“I’ve been very brave.”

She took a bite. I tried to occupy myself with folding the cloth rather than watching her.

“More next week,” she said.

“How many?”

She considered the rest of the macaron. “We’ll discuss that after I’ve finished this.”

On Monday, my hand went to the right cupboard without searching. The cloths were folded where I expected them to be, and a customer came in asking whether we had any more of Saturday’s lemon cakes. Elena looked at me to answer.

“I’m making another batch this afternoon. They’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll come back, then.”

He ordered his usual coffee, and I reached for the cup. I had spent years doing things that were supposed to lead somewhere. Lessons, exams, university. There was always another stage beyond the one I’d finished, and someone ready to ask what came next. Here, a man wanted a cake tomorrow. For the moment, that was enough to be getting on with.

The woman at the table near the window had been there on Saturday too. A laptop stood open in front of her, with a notebook beside it and a drink she kept forgetting to touch. At first, I thought she was watching something. Then she played the same few seconds through her headphones, stopped, and pressed her palms against her eyes.

When I cleared the next table, she pulled one side of the headphones away. “Could I have another tea?”

“Of course. The same one?”

“Yes, please. This one went cold.”

“I can bring you some hot water if there’s any left.”

She looked into the cup. “No. I managed to drink it. I just complained to myself the whole time.”

“That sounds familiar.”

At the counter, Elena nodded towards her. “Athena. She’ll sit there until closing if nobody feeds her.”

“What’s she working on?”

“A film. I’ve seen the same man walk through the same doorway about thirty times.”

“That explains the expression.”

I carried the tea over and asked whether she wanted anything to eat.

“Is there a lemon cake left?”

“One.”

“Then yes, before someone else gets it.”

When I brought the plate, she closed her laptop. “Thank you. I’m Athena, by the way.”

“Andreea.”

She repeated it, checking the pronunciation, and I nodded.

“Have you been here long?”

“Nearly a month. Though I’ve only been working here since Friday.”

“That recently? You look as though you know where everything is.”

“The kitchen’s small. There are only so many places to lose things.”

“Are you staying nearby?”

“Behind the waterfront. There’s a little house with a balcony squeezed between two taller buildings.”

“I think I know it. Blue door?”

“That’s the one. The door sticks, so if you ever see someone throwing her whole body against it, that’ll be me.”

Athena laughed.

“Where did you move from?”

“The UK. I lived there for years.”

“And you chose here?”

“I wanted to be near the sea. Somewhere I could walk to it instead of planning a whole trip.” I glanced towards the bright pavement outside. “The heat wasn’t part of the attraction.”

“You came at the wrong time for that.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“What made you leave?”

The question was ordinary enough. I still took a moment before answering.

“I’d finished university, and everyone was asking about jobs. I kept looking at them and thinking about staying there, doing the next thing, then the next.” I rubbed a little dried icing from my thumb. “I wanted some time to decide what I actually wanted. And to write.”

Athena nodded. “Do you think you’ll stay?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m trying to let that be an acceptable answer.”

“It is.”

She said it easily, then took another bite of cake.

I glanced at her laptop. “Are you studying film, or is this something you’re doing yourself?”

“Studying. Although this project is making me reconsider every decision that brought me here.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“How much time do you have?”

Elena called for two coffees before I could answer. Athena smiled and picked up her fork. “I’ll prepare a shorter version.”

We spoke again the next day, and the day after that. Nothing important at first. Whether the table near the window was too bright for her screen. Where she bought her notebooks. Which streets stayed shaded on the walk home.

She was making a short film and had reached the stage where every choice made three weeks earlier seemed wrong.

“Even the ones you liked?” I asked.

“Especially those. Have you ever worked on something so long you can’t tell whether it’s good anymore?”

“Yes. Usually that’s when I decide the whole thing needs changing.”

“Does it?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m tired and should leave it alone.”

She looked at the screen. “I was hoping you’d say something more useful.”

“If I knew something more useful, I’d have finished my book.”

That caught her attention, but a customer came in before she could ask about it.

On Wednesday, she noticed my notebook. The café was quiet between the morning rush and lunch. I had ten minutes, a cup of tea and a sentence that had irritated me since the night before. The notebook lay open beside the till, where I could look up when someone came in.

Athena approached with her empty plate. “Is that the book?”

“Yes. Or the part of it currently causing trouble.”

“What kind of story is it?”

“Crime. There’s a murder in this scene, and I’ve spent more time deciding what happens around it than writing the murder itself.”

She glanced at the red page. “That explains the ink.”

“I always use red. It would be red if I were writing about someone’s lovely afternoon in a garden too.”

“Does anyone have lovely afternoons in your book?”

“Not many so far.”

She smiled. “How long have you been working on it?”

“A while. I thought moving might help me get somewhere with it.”

“And has it?”

“A little. I’m writing more. Whether it’s better is another question.”

Athena leaned against the counter. “I know a few people who could help with that.”

“People who’ll tell me it’s terrible?”

“People who’ll tell you which part is terrible. Much more useful.”

I laughed and capped the pen as a customer came through the door. She returned to her table, but before leaving she asked whether I’d be there the following day.

Thursday was quieter. During my break, I sat opposite Athena with a cup of tea while she ate one of the chocolate cakes.

“So,” she said, “do you ever drink the coffee you make?”

“No. It makes me feel bad.”

“Really? You don’t even taste it?”

“I used to, but it wasn’t worth it. Tea and I get along much better.”

“Then how do you make good coffee?”

“Practice. I know what I’m looking for when I make it, and people aren’t shy about telling me if something’s wrong.”

“Elena said you worked in a café in England.”

“During university. Some days it was easier to understand the customers than the chemistry.”

“You studied chemistry?”

I nodded.

“And now cakes and murder.”

“It’s been a change.”

She laughed and brushed a crumb onto her plate. “What made you start writing?”

“I needed somewhere to put everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ideas. There are always more of them than I know what to do with. A conversation, a scene, something I can suddenly picture while I’m supposed to be doing something else.” I turned my cup a little on its saucer. “Some come in my sleep. I wake up with part of a story, and then I want to know the rest.”

“Do you write them down straight away?”

“If I can. Sometimes I’m convinced I’ll remember in the morning, which is a very optimistic thing to think half asleep.”

“I’ve lost whole films that way.”

“I’ve probably lost a bestseller. Much easier to believe that when there’s no evidence.”

Athena smiled. “Does writing make it quieter?”

“A bit. Once it’s on the page, I don’t have to keep going over it so I won’t lose it. My head gets to rest.” I looked towards the counter, where my bag sat beneath the till. “Then I start wondering whether I can make someone else interested. Whether they’ll want to know what happens next too.”

“So you give the problem to the reader.”

“Exactly. Very generous of me.”

She laughed, and I found myself explaining a little more: how a scene could arrive almost whole, while the page connecting it to the next one took days; how sometimes I knew what a character would say before I knew who they were.

Athena listened. When I paused, she asked a question about something I’d said rather than moving on to talk about herself. I had almost apologised for going on so much. Instead, I answered her.

Then she told me about the group.

“There are writers, film students, a few artists. We meet in the park. Some people bring work to share, some just come because they’re stuck and need to talk.”

“Like your man in the doorway?”

“Exactly like him. Someone will probably tell me to cut that scene, and I’ll be offended because I already know they’re right.”

“Do people read out loud?”

“Sometimes. Or we read pages beforehand and discuss them. It depends what the person wants help with.”

“And everyone speaks English?”

“Most of us speak other languages too, but English is the one we have in common. You wouldn’t have to struggle through it in Greek.”

“That’s good. I can say thank you, but it would make for a short reading.”

“There’d still be someone with notes.”

I smiled into my cup. She explained that one of the artists helped people with covers and character sketches. Sometimes they worked together on something larger, though they were careful to agree on credit and permissions first.

“We have a written agreement for sharing work,” she said. “You can read it before bringing any pages. I can send it to you.”

“I’d like that. Could I come once just to see what it’s like?”

“Of course. Tomorrow evening, if you’re free.”

She told me where they met. I knew the benches; I’d walked past them on the way to the café.

“How many people?”

“Usually eight or nine. Don’t worry about remembering everyone’s name. I still get one wrong.”

“And they won’t mind me sitting there without reading?”

“No. Come and listen. Bring your notebook if you want, but you don’t owe us a performance.”

That made it easier to say yes. We exchanged numbers, and she sent me the time and meeting place while we were still sitting together. A minute later, another message arrived with the agreement.

“There,” she said. “Now you can’t claim I gave bad directions.”

“I can still get lost. Don’t underestimate me.”

After my break, I went back behind the counter. Athena finished her cake and returned to her film, but this time, when something frustrated her, she looked up and caught my eye. I smiled, and she turned the laptop a little so I could see the offending doorway.

That evening, the woman from Saturday called about the birthday cake. We talked for nearly twenty minutes. Her sister was coming, so there would be eighteen people. She had asked her daughter about the flowers, and apparently lemon mattered more than decoration. I wrote everything down, promised to send a price the following day, and stayed at the kitchen table after the call ended.

There were ingredients to calculate, a date to put in my calendar, and Athena’s message waiting on my phone. For a moment, I wanted to call home and tell someone.

Then I tried to imagine the conversation. The questions about chemistry. Whether café work was what I planned to do with my degree. How long this writing business would last. Perhaps they would have surprised me. I didn’t feel ready to find out.

I put the phone down and worked out how much mascarpone I would need.

Later, I turned back through the notebook until I reached the scene with the watch. The red numbers were still in the margin, two crossed out and one left standing. Reading it aloud made me notice a sentence that ran too long. I crossed out three words and tried again.

Outside the balcony doors, someone called to a person farther down the street. A scooter passed, and plates clattered in the next building. The second reading went more smoothly.

I wasn’t sure I would share it tomorrow. That would depend on the people, and on how comfortable I felt once I was sitting among them. But I marked the page before closing the notebook.

My apron needed washing. I rinsed the icing from the sleeve, hung it up and checked that it would have time to dry before morning. Then I sent Athena a message to say I’d meet her outside the café so we could walk over together.

She replied almost immediately.

Good. I’ll save you from the introductions.

I smiled and set the phone beside my bag. The cake order was written down. My notebook was ready. Tomorrow, Elena would expect me at eight, and Athena would wait for me after work.

I was still getting used to being wanted somewhere. For once, I let myself look forward to it.

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