Daytime Drama

[Leanne]

AA, gerunds are quite passive and a little bit ordinary -- they generally lack the punch and immediacy of an un-inged verb (it's a word now, dammit!). However, the -ing words you've used here aren't technically gerunds, since they're verbs acting as adjectives and not nouns (or verb acting as verb, just in the passive sense, in the case of "abandoning" -- you could use "abandons" instead, to strengthen). I agree that there are too many -ings in a small space, whether gerunds or not, however -- and that's purely because the sound becomes repetitive, drawing attention away from the main part of the word. Instead of "churning", "that once churned" would do well enough. I'd leave "blushing clouds", that's pretty.

Hope that helps a bit.