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  • ‘I dreamt about you last night, or rather I dream about this every night.’
    ‘You’re not John. Who are you? Do I know you?’
    ‘It’s me, Gran. It’s David.’
    ‘I don’t know anyone called David.’
    ‘Sure you do, Gran. It’s just that you don’t remember. I’m Moira’s son. You remember Moira, don’t you? She was your daughter.’
    ‘Moira’s dead. She had a…[Read more]

  • ‘I dreamt of you last night, y’know’
    ‘Oh yeah, anything good? You should try this, sit down, its good’
    ‘Some of it, yeah. The old parts, y’know, before…..that’
    ‘Come on, Steph…..we agreed. It was the only way’
    ‘Was it? Really? We could have just left, run away, started again just you & me. She’d never have known where to send them if we were car…[Read more]

  • Good question @Seagreen. I checked with the story that inspired it (A L Kennedy’s ‘Sympathy’) and the answer’s pure dialogue, please. The difficulty of it is part of the challenge.

  • Are we allowed ‘he said/she said’ and scratching of heads, or is it pure dialogue you’re looking for?

  • Sandra posted an update 5 years, 5 months ago

    I doubt there’s a single person in the Den who has not said, at one time in their life, ‘I dreamt about you last night –’
    November’s competition asks that you continue the conversation for up to further 354 words.

  • Thank you, Sea, for the challenge. It was a challenge, too! Not my normal kind of writing.

    Congratulations, Sandra. An excellent story.

  • Opening with ‘I dreamt about you last night –’ I’d like you to write an all-dialogue piece between two people in no more than 350 words, at the end of which we have an understanding of each of them as individuals and the state of their relationship.
    Deadline 10 p.m. Monday 30th November.

  • Congratulations, Sandra – an excellent story. And thank you, Sea, for the feedback and setting a challenge I could rise to.

  • Thank you Sea, not least for the challenge itself, which forced me to face and write a scene I had been putting off; I look forward to the time that bottle of wine is anything but virtual. And yes, I was glad not to be the judge this month, so many differing emotions to choose from. I’ll be back in the morning with a challenge for November.

  • Apologies for the delay in posting these results…You know what I’m like with feedback but I did my best.

    Firstly, though, many thanks for taking the time to post an entry 🙂

    Sandra – Great use of short, staccato sentences and broken sentence structure to indicate disorganised thought. Sharp intake of breath when I realised where this was…[Read more]

  • Doug replied to the topic Positive thoughts in the forum Group logo of CoronaMoCoronaMo 5 years, 6 months ago

    Something new I’d like to share. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts every day at my job, and every so often it occurs to me there’s some classic or another I somehow never read. So, why not spin it on audio while I type? So far I’ve listened to The Gulag Archipelago, Dracula, Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down, and Shakespearean plays.

    And I’ve known…[Read more]

  • This is an idea I got just now, and thought I’d dash off here. Usually I don’t care much for movies where Christmas collides with Halloween: holiday cheer and Halloween horror don’t mix, I believe. But this idea hit me nonethless.

    Santa Claus becomes:

    ***SANTA ZOMB***

    St. Nick shook himself back to consciousness. Sitting up in the snow, he…[Read more]

  • 346 words excluding title

    Learned Habits

    Her flatmate said she wanted a chat, about the apartment. She called it an apartment but with its beige kitchen units, its shower over the bath, its dingy paintwork, it was an old-fashioned flat.

    Both women were in their early twenties.

    Jess sat down on the sofa. The sofa, said the flatmate. Its…[Read more]

  • OK all. Did you miss out on your chance to join the “Things that go bump” writing challenge? Well, just like Brigadoon, we have appeared again – just briefly – to give you one last, brief, opportunity to join your fellow Denizens. To grab the opportunity send me a Direct Message and I’ll tell you what to do. ACT FAST! This offer expires on 1…[Read more]

  • A week left to get your rage on the page or your venom on the vellum!

  • Doug started the topic Robotomania in the forum Coffee Shop 5 years, 6 months ago

    Yesterday I got a heads-up from an audiobook about Hanson Robotics. Those things have really come along, and not only that, they seem to have built one as Philip K. Dick!

    I wanted to insert a pic of it here, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do that. So I’ll include a link instead. If you Google it, there are also YouTube videos of people…[Read more]

  • Libby replied to the topic Keep at it, Keep at it! in the forum Blogs 5 years, 6 months ago

    Congratulations, Doug. Sounds like you’re on a roll. It’s lovely having that feeling of not wanting to stop.

  • Doug started the topic Keep at it, Keep at it! in the forum Blogs 5 years, 6 months ago

    Hi all,

    I turn 59 next month, getting up to the age where you’re growing conscious of your own mortality. When I was a teen, why I could do anything! I took it for granted I was gonna live forever! When I gave in to my writing life-calling at 27, I still had my whole life ahead of me. But not so now.

    The trouble is, I’ve wasted a lot of time…[Read more]

  • Doug replied to the topic Positive thoughts in the forum Group logo of CoronaMoCoronaMo 5 years, 6 months ago

    BTW Jules, I’m finally listening to that audio of Hamlet! And yes, it lives up to its legend.

    I wonder what literature would be like today, had there been no William Shakespeare? I’ve read that he inspired Hermann Melville to keep going with Moby Dick.

    • So glad your enjoying it! It’s amazing how many writers and artists Shakespeare infuenced – many in genres you’d never expect! 😊

  • There’s a monster inside of me.

    It was born when Noellia moved into number 14.

    The car started it. A shiny new Fiat 500. Electric. In powder blue. Parked on the drive. I looked at my own clapped out Fiesta and felt the first stirrings of new life, deep in my chest.

    She fed the monster well, did Noellia.

    Had an open house, she did. Invited…[Read more]

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