Carole Anne Carr's Thin Time

uick post from me today!

I'm working on the next installment of my Rule of Three Blogfest story - see post below - and having a great time reading everyone else's stories.

Also, this month's exercise over at the Compuserve Forum is a doozy: can you make Barbara Rogan cry?

My entry features Rosa and Baha from Out of the Water; please let me know if you think I've succeeded. Er, not that I want everyone bawling their eyes out or anything...

Last week I read Carole Anne Carr's middle grade story Thin Time.

"In the Shropshire village of Tong, a bad tempered tomb dog called Fymm makes a mistake and chooses the wrong girl to be Task Bearer. Chased by gargoyles, Alice reaches the Green Lady's cottage, receives the first of her three gifts, and learns that she must enter the Other World at Thin Time.

Her task is to bring back the New Year seeds before midnight, and prevent the world from dying. With her small stepbrother Thomas, Ratatosk the squirrel who can't be trusted, and Fymm by her side, she sets out on her dangerous quest.

Using the skipping rhyme password to enter the door into the Tree of Life, she travels into the Other World. With the help of the singing cockerel from the church tower, and armed with a stone and a gargoyle's shield, she must face the terrible Sisters at the Well of Wyrd, and the fury of Nidhogg the Snake-Dragon.

But does she possess the one thing that will protect her – a loving heart? For without that, she will never be able to return to her own time, and the treasure, whatever it may be, will never be hers."

The story is a perfect blend of excitement, adventure and coming-of-age that draws you in right from the first paragraph:

"I'm looking for Fymm now that the early frosts are nipping my fingers and toes, like a bite from his small sharp teeth. It's nearly a year since I last saw him, and I'm scared and excited too. It won't be long before Thin Time is here again."

And, Carole Anne is a Shrophsire author! Shropshire's a part of England I've been to quite often, and it's the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, where the Ironbridge is located. I once had a story idea come to me in a pub across the bridge (going west along the Severn Way)...

Speaking of ideas, if you aren't doing so already, then Explore Your Ragged Edge. Step Outside Your Comfort Zone. Write big!