Alan Rain

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The pirogue nudged its way between the cypress stumps, lily pads parting in its path and reuniting in its wake. The only sounds came from the rustle of leaves in the slight breeze and the occasional slap and roil of a feeding bass. It was late afternoon; a low sun dappled the brown surface of the bayou and the shadows pointed like…[Read more]

Well done, Raine!

The same sort of appalling victim-blaming appears to have been prevalent in the much more recent Yorkshire Ripper enquiry. According to a recent documentary, the police assumed the ripper, Sutcliffe, was punishing prostitutes when, in fact, he was preying on their vulnerability. At one point they failed to “credit” a victim to him because she…[Read more]

Nice one, Libby.

Thanks for that @clebs, great to see your enthusiasm. Some good thoughts there. I’m bogged down in various commissions with time running out fast at the moment, but will gather this all together asap

Another hugely entertaining tale of the rails, and very informative too. Thanks Richard.

OK, I’ll go first:

Sunday morning
A late breakfast, tea and toast, the paper folded at the cryptic crossword. 22 down, Kathmandu hippie hospital, 9 letters. Michael scratched his head with the pen. Just an average Sunday.
The doorbell rang, startling him. Nobody called on Sunday. Nobody called on any other day for that matter, not since he’d p…[Read more]

I was thinking a PM to the setter would be the easiest way, and not putting too much responsibility on a smallish group of people, but we can always try it for a while and see how it goes.

An alternating competitive-non competitive challenge is an option, but how would we decide who set the prompt for the non-competitive months?

Good thought, thanks Libby. I do like the idea of regular writing prompts, but at the moment we seem to be struggling to assemble enough entries for the competition, so whether we could maintain both I don’t know. What’s the general feeling towards non-competitive prompts as well?

I thought this very well written and certainly not slow. However, as the opening to a novel, in view of what you tell us is going to happen, I feel it needs a hook. Perhaps a short chapter before this one, whetting the readers appetite.
Just my opinion, as always, so ignore at will.

There’s little I like more than seeing fabulous writers recognised. Great stuff Raine, enjoy it

Sorry, final thought – I personally like the competitive aspect, and I think the peer judging takes the subjectivity out of it somewhat, but how does everyone feel about Squidge’s suggestion of just making it a prompt/challenge? Could/should we make it non-competitive every so often?

The peer judging might be nice, so it’s only a case of totting up the votes. They do it this way on the Fantasy Faction monthly competitions and that seems to work OK. And then I suppose people can offer whatever feedback they like on any of the entries. A PM to the setter should do it.

OK then, the balance of opinion seems to be to go for two…[Read more]

Thoughts:
A quarterly competition? Winner sets the subject for the next comp, but doesn’t judge it. Prize is a virtual Gold Quill.
The judging is either by a panel or a vote of the participants, or an open vote.
Critique of the entries? By who? Needs some ideas. Maybe submit the winning entry to a magazine or competition?

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Something ate Feb and most of March when I wasn’t looking, so I’m all for @raine ‘s suggested course of action.

Good idea

I think we probably need to have a wider conversation about how we run the competition, as the monthly flash thing doesn’t seem to be working as well as it did on the Cloud (and even there, there were some thin months). I know it’s difficult. I have been struggling for inspiration lately, and life has got in the way more than usual (new…[Read more]

Works for me, good idea.