Athelstone

Okay guys, I’ve completed my reading and I really must say these are all so good and left my expectations very well-met.

@squidge – I enjoyed this far-away, fantastical dream sequence, with its lightly pressing sense of isolation, elusive understanding, and finally, lucidity.

@athelstone – Gorgeously streaming subconsciousness with this one,…[Read more]

@richardb how cool is that!! Thank you for sharing your special day and moment 😃✨

@athelstone

We are not natural

I couldn’t have said it more aptly myself, nor could I agree more. How beautiful it is to re-introduce a species we made the unnatural choice (and for pleasure no less!) to hunt to near-extinction. And how hideous it is to have hunted…[Read more]

Late to this, but well done indeed @Knicky, for a poetic tale. Also to @Athelstone – I too had a lane like that in the place where I was born, which decades later had its magic buried beneath tarmac.
Thanks @Seagreen for the challenge and the feedback – I did enjoy the opportunity to just play.

😃 Thank you, @seagreen, for the competition and for choosing my piece! I’m so glad you enjoyed it, it was most delicious to write. I took inspiration from what came to mind with the prompt, which was that scene in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when Maurice (Belle’s dad) was on his way to the science fair with his invention, and Phillipe (the…[Read more]

Five glorious entries and oh, so difficult to choose! Many thanks for participating 😊

Anyway, down to business. You know what I’m like with feedback so I’ll keep it brief.

@sandradavies – Loved the voice, the descriptive language (gingerbread brown and the notion of a magical, travelling kaleidoscope – how perfect!) Then, just the hint of threa…[Read more]

Wow! This is the best collection of stories I’ve read in response to a single competition. They’re a joy to read and completely daunting to judge.

What impressed me most, on top of all the individual skills displayed, is that every piece is such a distinct rendition of the author’s voice. I’ve read most of you before and could recognise you in…[Read more]

School literature lessons often had a lot to answer for @Athelstone . I gave up with them and returned to Eng Lit A level ten years later at evening classes. A vastly improved experience 🙂

Wow. So so much interesting and useful stuff, @Libby ! It would make a brilliant checklist for anyone. It will take me a bit of time to assimilate it all. I will say though, with my ‘Being betaread’ hat on, that I wouldn’t expect a beta reader of a whole novel to cover all that for me in one go if anyone is feeling a bit daunted.

@athelstone Why…[Read more]

@athelstone have you looked at moving to a 21st century forum like discourse? I use it on talk.restarters.net and it’s pretty slick. You can get email notifications and reply by email; can upload pictures, has trust levels and you can restrict areas.

First off, apologies. I am not as active on here as I was, and definitely not as active as I was on the Cloud. Partly, recently that’s been due to being swamped with book release stuff. Partly though it’s because of the format & the way the site kills off chat. Both in hiding replies and in it’s weird notifications limitations. I think that’s a…[Read more]

Thank you @Athelstone and @seagreen. Also thanks @Janette for a prompt which enabled me to try out a reason for a murder.

@Daedalus, that’s so unutterably awful it’s tipped all the way over into wonderful!

@libby, @athelstone, thank you. I’m delighted with my foxy. 🙂

I think you’re right in that figures are often used as a massive ‘THIS IS WHAT THIS BOOK IS’ flag, like for bodice rippers or YA urban romantic fantasy, or twee historical rags-to-riches stories.…[Read more]

Yes, my thoughts exactly @athelstone. I did the same thing – I specifically asked my publisher to brief the designer to NOT include illustrations of the characters, for precisely the reasons you say. I wanted the kids to have ownership of them. Silhouettes are fine, but not drawings. Funny how we all feel the same about this!