Athelstone

Coordination: that’s exactly it. I can’t get coordinated with notebooks. I have one on my desk and it travels to my bedside table and back again. I admire people who use notebooks when they’re out – they seem more intuitive and open than I am. I think their minds flow more smoothly. They’re even Romantic with a capital R, with all the creativity…[Read more]

Not Date stamp Approved

I am waiting in a line of silent people.
Through the high-domed crystalline crown of windows, pale light, drifting like blossom in the air, reflects a gauzy veil of sleepy light and a comfort blanket of warm, mysterious, air coils softly with it.

There is a sense of waking on a limp summer morning coated in the scent of…[Read more]

Mishaping to fit

Only as he pushed open the door into Haugesund’s Folkepuben, his mind occupied not only with what he needed to establish with Lars Sigmundssen but also a slightly fearful curiosity as to how Lars would react to his having slept with Maja, Lars’ current woman, was Rick Thorssen reminded, by the roar of convivial con…[Read more]

Thank you for the prompt, Terrie, which served to oil those mental cogs I was beginning to think had seized.

@Ath and Sandra – both great stories 🙂 and I hope you’ll be equally inspired by April’s comp.

Thank you for this challenge Terrie, and your kind comments; I was glad of the opportunity to make best use of it. Well done Sea – and never doubt those who have read you KNOW full well you are indeed a talented and sparkling writer, and thank you Ath for evoking. albeit dimly, the challenges of childhood.

Thank you Sandra, Ath, and Sea for such excellent entries.

1. Sandra, what a ‘jump right in’ really thought-provoking opening statement then backtracking to give a well-crafted back story to the piece before we actually meet Vic Duncan. I especially liked the small almost throw away sentences that gives good insight into the main cha…[Read more]

As I drove home on Wednesday morning after a nightshift, I had the most amazing idea for the monthly comp. A sort of fantasy, supernatural, sci-fi thing that I was excited to start working on. I got home, made myself a cup of tea and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. By the time I woke, the idea was long gone, picked up and carried away – like s…[Read more]

Cheeky leap into an attempt of an opener for ‘Snap is not a children’s game’ 

Vic Duncan. Did Lucy but know it, the first of three Duncan men she’d sleep with before she died, possibly dangerous, but an especially satisfying addition to her habitual  maintenance of a quartet of alphabetically consecutively-named lovers.

It began in the final yea…[Read more]

Congratulations Terrie – a tale that got richer with every re-reading, as did those of Alex at Ath. And thank you Pinkbelt for the challenge.

First of all, thanks for allowing me to come back into the fold and do this. I’d forgotten how much fun these are, and I can’t believe just how much people can express in so few words. I loved all of them in different ways.

Sandra, I found your piece thoughtful and intriguing. I love the part of writing when you revisit a character to find out a…[Read more]

Retrieving memories

When on the Word Cloud, in 2014, Alan P proposed the challenge ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore’, I was in need of an explanation as to why Luke Darbyshere ( DI and main character in my ‘Love triangles with murder series) regularly sabotaged relationships at the point when they looked like becoming meaningful. His upbring…[Read more]

Have to confess I avoid much of that for Steve, by ordering and collecting the books I want and handing them over for him to ‘hide’ (recognising he is doubly challenged by my having a birthday five days before Christmas.)

@ Terrie – I second Ath’s recommendation for hard drives: the one my thoughtful elder son bought for me, having listened to my moans, scrambled its contents when my laptop blew several gaskets.

@Athelstone – “gift lists for next year” not illegal, they masquerade as Amazon wish lists, ready to be re-written for handing to my local bookshop.