The iron tablets should make a big difference, and they tend to take effect within a few days. I do hope all goes well with your referral. Do please keep u…[Read more]

I do hope you are able to resolve the outstanding issues swiftly and then make some plans to do something special after all you’ve been through 🙂

Sandra, I loved…[Read more]

I hope you are taking things easy and making good progress. It’s great to see you back at the Den. Sending very best wishes for a speedy recovery 🙂

I  decided  not  to go with  the  traditional  kinds of  prompts  associated  with  April  and  simply   picked  four words  at random  that must be included  in  your comp  entry  about  anything  in any genre  that inspires  your  creative  preference in 450 words or less.

The four words are :-   Portrait  Ignite  Butterfly & Granite

&nbsp…[Read more]

The  April  comp   challenge   will be posted  shortly .

The necklace of tiny silver bells about her neck tinkled softly as she backed against the garden wall. ‘You’re all mad, you know,’ she muttered holding the sharp seed dibber, labelled ‘Mr Pointy’, like a knife at the advancing crowd.

At the front of the group,…[Read more]

Thank you Jill, Sandra and Libby for  giving me totally engaging entries  composed in three distinct voices.  This monthly challenge  is always a  great  showcase  for the  talents  of the  members of  Den of Writers.

Jill:- Lots of new beginnings in this piece. New start new job new house new baby.  A well-crafted thoughtful story with lots o…[Read more]

Think….New Year resolution.  New crime scene.  New house.  New relationship.   New…[Read more]

Thank you  for  the  chance to set the  January comp Ath.

Sorry  was  busy  yesterday  and  forgot to pop in to see the results .  I will  post  the  January challenge   as  soon as  I come up with  one . …[Read more]

Riann contemplated her decision of allowing the snow-covered stranger, now tending the fire, into her cottage. His ice-sprinkled cloak and hood hung at one side of the fire’s mantle, a puddle forming below it, while his boots and mittens lay close to the hearth.

He hadn’t actually set her senses tingling with alarm but there was a p…[Read more]

After a  hectic  but  lovely  build up to  xmas  and a family orientated  day   yesterday I settled  down  about  half an hour ago  to  try and finish my offering.  ……. son  was  carrying a  very large  bucket  of  soapy  wash  water  out to the drive  to clean his  motorbike when…[Read more]

Jill  –  a heart-warming  tale  with a hint  of  caution and a happy ending as  luckily the fairies didn’t try to whisk  Ellie away.

The warmth between Ellie and her grandma really shone through and I enjoyed how you blended something modern with a fairy tale too.

Libby  – I tried to  leave the scope  of the  challenge   a  little open…[Read more]

I expect lots of you, like me,  are  creating and drafting  exciting  entries  for the  September  Song  competition  but  dont forget  there are only  fourteen days until the  monthly (November ) competition closes  and i’m looking forward to  reading  your entries for that  too .

Now the November evenings are darkening earlier  and  there is that  expectant  chill in the air  I was thinking  about the art of storytelling beside the  warmth and  atmosphere  of a  log fire.

So, become that story teller beside a night-time fire and surprise me with the most heart-warming, scary, romantic, mysterious, or cautionar…[Read more]

All the other entries  were of  such high  calibre  I had  been  thinking  ‘I’m glad  I’m not the one having to  chose one  above the others’  and now that’s going to be  my  dilemma at the end of  Novembers  competition  challenge .

The Emperor’s Spy

The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Princess Bride

<u>Pocket Money</u>

Hidden in gloom-light, he shadow-shifts within the numinous cloak of darkness rippling and folding into a Samhain-shadowed mist, as it protects him within its unsettled veil.

Hood pushed back, revealing small horns twisting, like red fingers, on dark hair, falling away over his shoulders, he glides over the grass.

Drawn…[Read more]

Congratulations ,everyone, for the interesting and well crafted   reads and well done Sea for being the one taking the  lead into  the July   challenge.

Just pulled the last bit of candy floss from my brain, looked at some famous last quotes “Julius ‘Groucho’ Marx and Noel Coward.” Played with some authors and their book titles, used some well know sayings and came up with this bit of fluff.

<u>The last question</u>

I was surprised when the invite appeared mysteriously on my lap.

F…[Read more]

I enjoyed everyone’s entries.

Its always interesting to  see others  take on  a challenge prompt.

Below a patchy canopy of leaves, sunlight falls in dusted shafts of light, highlighting small tufts of fluffy-winged seeds, spiralling and soaring in the breeze and somewhere, within the cool, dark, caverns of under-earth, the chime of rock, root and soil begins its soft, ceaseless, song of renewal.

Stirred from slumber beneath the…[Read more]

‘you will mistake  the gulls

  for the  screaming of a girl

and run out of your flat

 to an empty landing’

No.

The landing is not empty.

You know what you see.

And the gulls, well, you should have remembered, they’re always there. Wheeling and calling, ghostly as Valkyries, looking for a better prize than picking at bleached bones of…[Read more]

Although this started out as a response to the monthly competition and is probably moving at a much slower pace that the challenge might have intended, it has blossomed into an opening for something larger.   I’ve written a lot more than 400 words and tinkered with a plot line and title too.    

The old man stared into the flames. ‘There…[Read more]

I  hope ,when I  walk into the dawn,  someone does this for me .

ODDS AND ENDINGS IN MY LIFE, INCLUDING THE STICKY ONES. .

For me the phrase ‘the end’ invokes a variety of feelings.

Some, such as the end of a candle or bit of soap are not memorable. Those endings flash out of existence in a blink of thoughtlessness, never to be recalled again.

However, dancing along the polar opposite to that, there are…[Read more]

I thought about all the things  that cause me difficulty  – didn’t know how to start  writing about it  and  ended up  making myself smile with a bit of  fun.

I can’t fit inside a kayak, or paddle a canoe.

I can’t crochet anything or mend my pushbike brake

and bouncing on a tramp…[Read more]

I enjoy seeing  how  differently  we  all approach  the monthly challenges. this months were wonderfully varied.

Congratulations to Seagreen  for  such an atmospheric winning  offering.

<u>All in my head</u>

Emotion, bright as a shooting star, trails across the bowl of dark-light, caught

crackling and spluttering, straining against the speckle and spackle of midnight thought.

 I feel it drift, almost mutely, into a cascade of unspoken dreams, tumbling, and falling

slowly, into an…[Read more]

Everyone of the stories so enjoyable. I’m glad it wasn’t me having to make that choice on who to pass the baton to.

Congratulations Knicks  for such a great piece, and well done everyone else for their  offerings too.

I  titled it  –
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Heartbreak Is A Killer</p>
You asked, ‘what becomes of the broken hearted?’ The more oblique and pithier question would be ‘How do the broken hearted cope?’

I’m not naming names because if I did …. Well, let’s just say that’s not a go…[Read more]

Congratulations Sandra, I’m looking forward to where your monthly inspiration will lead us for  September.

Well  done Ath and Sea too.

It helps me to dip my toe into  writing in genres outside my comfort zone  when I see how diverse our  entries are