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Kathleen `Woods

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Feb, 2021

Stories (115)

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435 Followers

398 Following

115 Stories

2520 karma pts

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Memories. No pronouns.

Kathleen `Woods

Warning: Barely on theme. There’s almost no timeline to this, that's just about the only part of this that is even partially on theme. If there’s something to break down or interesting implications or interpretation it’ll be really nice to see...This body isn’t little anymore, the blanket-stitch isn’t enough.All the pretty things need straight stitches. What’s the point in polyester? Walmart sells lemons, learn the backstitch, forget the feed-dogs trust the body’s hands.Forget the limits, waiting for perfect things is the same as g...

3 likes

Suzy & Brad Live By Themselves

Kathleen `Woods

"Atisshoo, ack. Um. Gross.” “Ah the sounds of spring. I’m telling you Suzy it’s hayfever.” “Why’re you so mean Brad?” “Because you won’t take the loratadine like a grown up.” “I don’t wanna develop a dependency.” “On what, breathing? Look, I’d make them grow some female trees, but that's more legislative than anything else.” “Why would female trees have anything to do with my sneezing?” “The Pollon? I thought they taught basic reproduction. Like at all. Or ever.” “Iffg Uck, I think I'd rather have the pink kind.” “Diphenhydramine? Well...

1 like

That thing about Wolves & Corvids

Kathleen `Woods

Leaves fall in the expected manner, pitted and dry. She feels the heady mixture of low-quality coffee and cinnamon as it permeates her mind and bloodstream. A little treat after a well expected disaster. There are days in this life that will make you want to bury yourself, to simply march into a forest somewhere and leave your clothes for crows to mangle. This should not be Sloane’s first instinct whenever something bad happens, but not everyone is so charitable with the local wildlife. It was the third time she’d had to walk home basi...

1 like

To Drown in a Teacup

Kathleen `Woods

In tight tempo with the draft of the castle, a maid sets down a tea tray, left to wait in a room that would otherwise seem empty of still living wakeful things, save the music box figure wearing away at it’s paper. The maid leaves, knowing well how to greet her mistress, rarely, to respect her station. A body strange and small crawls up to meet this intrusion on the space, glaring up at the stubborn grace of the only slightly disadvantaged attendant. A Princess couldn’t be cared for by a real honest peasant after all. And so en...

2 likes

Earth from the Surface

Kathleen `Woods

Chiluffya carried the smallest of her equipment away from the ship and the natives she’d apparently come to arms with. She made a point of looking away from the sky, as she ran from the crash site. Likely, to closer contact with the revenants. She had been sentenced- tasked with the last sweep of the planet, a grand disease had been settled on the common populace of the strange graying world, and now after a few already well-punished crimes she was stuck on it. Literally so, as some of the ‘common’ populace managed to down her ship wit...

3 likes

Lung cancer with friends

Kathleen `Woods

She takes another drag of her cigarette; she knows that she’ll need to go back inside. But until then she’ll enjoy the taste. Goodness, it was yesterday. Why does it bother her? Why is her daughter being so unfair? Give a girl a baby and she’d start lording-over like she was a doctor. Telling you how to live your life. Her husband follows after her, seeing her breath, like she saw his. Well assisted not unlike his movements, a whirring motor. She thinks better than to stamp it out, before handing it over to him. Gotta be ch...

4 likes

Ginevran Hostility

Kathleen `Woods

A star falls from the night darkened skies of Ginevra, just as the industrious folk along the equator awoke from the heat of the midday Sun, such a show in the sky, a rare treat leading up to an important holiday. Aalis watches them, along with those others far and away who are likely much more inconvenienced by it. Her cousin Ayo had set her to task this holiday season, and she has neglected to deliver. Preferring a certain entertainment that was, a bit hotter. Ayo was not happy with her. But Gino was if anything a little too happy with...

4 likes

Ice & blood pudding

Kathleen `Woods

The building is old, and the skeleton of it is historied, but it’s current use is scarcely less so, having been some variety of bar restaurant combo for most of its run. Lucian has taken up many roles in the current establishment, but he’s always done well on the nightshift. Even as it seems during the holidays. It’s early in the night like always it seems, when he sees a regular of his, slip in alongside a group of seasonal pub-crawlers. This regular, would frankly be too young by appearances, but got away with a correctly dated I.D. They ...

6 likes

Sandy's still a B!tch~workable 3000

Kathleen `Woods

Warning: real commentary has been edited for comedic effect. It was hard getting into the mind of a creep, especially when you don’t want to think about what they like and how they are. Sandy had never been a target of anything like that, but she knew that people didn’t generally like it, so she thought it would be an easy enough thing to write about without much research.Surely between that, her scrupled editing, and the fee, nobody would overlook it, right? It didn’t matter if she won or not of course. Anyway, she wanted to start...

6 likes

Dream House Sympathetic – Citehtapmys Esouh Maerd

Kathleen `Woods

There’s a box in my hand, and given the style of sweet contained it’s a bit small, one inch by three inches by six inches. Their sweethearts, and they are a little big with flat One-inch dimensions. I take one into my mouth and instead of the usual compacted sugar-ashes, its sour. I feel electricity down my back, but I do not wake up. I look around the room. The space is broadly compact, the room is painted in eight shades of purple. The floor is carpeted, shaggily but in a strange print. I get up from my spot on the floor, and I measure th...

5 likes

Snakes on a Train

Kathleen `Woods

He watches her as she looks out the window, the weight of the locomotive a heavy crash to the rails with each plunge of steel pistons. He’ll follow her to hell and back given what else she is, cold-blooded lacking the manners of a proper human.In this the seventh day of April in the common year he’d chosen to follow a serpent. A daughter creature to the Amar by the name of Belinda Bryaxis, suitably too given her supposed pedigree.Only there was no tenderness in the monuments she built.She was an asset to a known terrorist organization, nowhe...

9 likes

Some Pigs find a truffle in an ashen forest

Kathleen `Woods

She’d been marching more so than running, as the vines did creep, too careful in the once dappled light above her to really see. It’s touch in her mind, a leading whisper. She’d been too young to die, though the hold of death on the young is unmistakable. But Claudia was not lost in the roots, no, she was, she was still tied down beneath the forest, as she felt the lesser King’s fire eat it away. The forest had swallowed only the edge of her senses, but the urge to run from it all, was too much to avoid. Even as all her edges went numb, an...

6 likes

What do you do when the Shifter argues with the Forest?

Kathleen `Woods

Alina bereaves herself of sensation, her path numbing her as she walked. She wonders if Claudia felt this way when she fell, she wonders if she’s still somewhere on this path, but she knows at the very least, she can’t trust it. Even if her vision is clearer now, Alina knows, anyone can lie. It’s one of the few things that most everyone does, if not to others than themselves. She didn’t really think that the forest is any different. ‘You shouldn’t show off your thoughts to “something” like me’ it sighs into her mind. “Your right about th...

7 likes

Lost are the First and Last, but Who’s Left to look down the Well?

Kathleen `Woods

He was looking into the wellspring of their discontent, the rope run taught from where it was tied, until it wasn’t. There’s oil in his throat, and he retches right beside it, his world is too small. Was that the stone? or was it simply shame? Twelve hours. Twelve hours and they’d lost them both. Alex pulls himself up- tries to, as his legs give out. He waits it out the expected. And he gets up. And walks back home. He feels it in his bones, trying to say the words. Alina, Claudia. Isabel won’t even speak to them. She’s too angry. “Don’t ...

5 likes

A Maid in Cereraghu

Kathleen `Woods

The Kettle sings shrilly this morning, as boiling bubbles pop in the canister. A fine last act of the night, as the sun pulls itself up the mountain side, and Yawa relinquishes her name. First tea was churned along with a breakfast, if you could call it that, of Narama-Bohne, Seed-of-Vakar and the Yi-Kopuklu the usual thing made for the ladies of the Aavabanu. An Inn built right into mount Ohchayaah, on the outskirts of Cereraghu, a majorly agricultural town. It is the early hours of this mountain side, and the meal was not so different ...

6 likes

Author bio

So I’ve been contemplating this addition to my bio for a while: I’ve decided that while I’m happy to get Links in my comments to other peoples stories, I also want to get and encourage more analysis for my work. And hopefully encourage myself to do the same.

Here’s an open invite: Please if you’ve posted something no matter how old on here that happens to have similarities in Subject, Character or Style to something of mine, post a link to it in the comment section of the associated work.

Thanks for reading!

Is it weird to say that I've learned my current writing style through instant message? you might see a preference for the fantastical, but this is mostly inexperience on my part.

I believe in going first by subject then by sound, which is why I sometimes edit with an E-reader.
Those who I've bothered in their comment section may be aware of its alternative use.

I like knowing that unrelated people read my work sometimes.
I sometimes get bogged down by my style, and by attempts at subtext.

If this helps you to make the choice to comment, Remember that it's easier to cut a hemline with distance than with a mirror.
By that I mean, you aren't doing anything wrong by telling me what you see, even if it wasn't intended on my part.

Also I don't know whether this counts as pressure or not, but shoving opinions on my older stories is actually a really good idea, and you should do it.