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Daedalus posted an update 5 years, 2 months ago
Cutting a story down from 3800 to 2800… Got to 3200 and now every word removed feels like a fingernail
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Kate replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 2 months ago
Congratulations, Ath, and thanks for running the comp, Libby.
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Athelstone started the topic Monthly comp – February 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 2 months ago
Can’t believe it’s February already. To quote Don McLean, February made me shiver. Cold, love, anger, heat, fear, excitement, illness, happiness – 400 words maximum on absolutely anything that caused a shiver one February.
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Ooh, thank you, Ath – you’ve enabled me to tackle another tricky scene.
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Athelstone replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 2 months ago
A small field but some fab entries and I’m very happy to be picked!
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Libby replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 2 months ago
What a tantalising range of stories and good use of the prompts. The standard is so high, and having a small number of entries paradoxically doesn’t make it any easier! In all of them I particularly enjoyed the voices both in the dialogue and the narration. I know Sandra’s piece is an excerpt from a longer work and Ath’s and Kate’s could be comp…[Read more]
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Raine started the topic Cover reveal for This Is Our Undoing in the forum Podium 5 years, 2 months ago
Hey all,
Just wanted to show you the cover for my book – I can’t post pictures here, but this link takes you to a wee blogpost. I witter a bit about it there, but you can ignore that and just admire the foxyness of the art. Daniele has done covers for the likes of Stephen King and lots more, so to have him do my art is pretty awesome. 🙂 It’s…[Read more]
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Congratulations. Looks fab. And very exciting!
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Fabulous, Raine! I look foward to reading about it in more detail on your blog.
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So thrilled for you Raine. This is a long time coming, but wow, what a result when it did. Looking forward to reading my copy.
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It is a thing of BEAUTY and I just love it, @raine! It’s so perfect for your prose – it’s mysterious and evocative and moody with an edge of wildness, and fox. It’s perfect! SO exciting isn’t it? xxx
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Squidge posted an update 5 years, 2 months ago
My Bump story’s up at last. Been pondering it for weeks, with no real ideas coming together, then it all came through in a rush this weekend. Phew.
(Loved reading the other stories that’ve been posted. I never start on them til I’ve posted my own…)
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Kate replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 2 months ago
DIRECTIONS
‘What do I need this for?’
‘It’s a new cinema, I don’t know the way.’
‘Well, get out your phone and ask it to direct you, like any normal person.’
‘You know what happened last time I tried that. I ended up driving in circles for half an hour until my phone found a connection. A map on the other hand, can’t go wrong.’
‘Fine. Let…[Read more]
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Athelstone posted an update 5 years, 2 months ago
A MESSAGE FOR ALL “THINGS THAT GO BUMP” ESSAYERS. There is an update in the group’s activity stream.
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Libby replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 2 months ago
Three days to go before the monthly competition deadline! I know many Denizens are busy with the annual challenge. Still, as my grandmother used to say when spooning out seconds at the lunch table, any more for any more?
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Come on – it’s a super challenge this month! Just a few hundred words and still 2 and a teeny bit days left.
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Athelstone replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 3 months ago
Occasional rough language
Prat’s Key Wood
Prat’s Key Wood was as old as the hills. No, really.
Well, seeing as the hills are billions of years old and forged in the countless aeons before organic life, that’s a stretch. But, I mean 1) it was ancient to the max and 2) it took Jacko and a team of ten, and a bulldozer, and chainsaws, just one…[Read more]
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Raine posted an update 5 years, 3 months ago
Well I’ve posted my Bump comp! Yay me. Was beginning to think I might not make it, but rush-jobness notwithstanding, at least it’s done now & I can read the others. 🙂
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For a rush job, it really is not too shabby.
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Finished mine too, but still reading/editing it.
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Also – yay you 🙂
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Athelstone posted an update 5 years, 3 months ago
Is it just me, or is the commercially produced garlic from supermarkets and greengrocers feeble old shite compared to the stuff I cooked with a few years back? I’ll swear it used to have some bite and tang to it, but these days I could stick whole bulbs in and hardly taste it. Going to try growing a few different types.
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No it’s not just you! Supermarket garlic tastes quite bland compared to the stuff I’ve cooked with while self-catering in France – though our local farm shop sometimes has decent bulbs.
Sounds a great idea to try growing it yourself.-
Definitely true. The garlic in the box I get from the organic farmer in the next village is ten times tastier than supermarket stuff.
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I agree. It has gone the way of so many other foods, so bland when mass produced. My France holiday (a distant memory) showed just how much.
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One of the first and most obvious changes is that after preparing a meal with garlic I’d have to scrub away at my hands for a good ten minutes and they’d still be poor company next day. These days a quick rinse is all that’s needed.
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Libby replied to the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 3 months ago
A half-time reminder, for anyone thinking of entering this month’s Den competition, that we’re half way through January.
I hope everyone’s year is going well/reasonably well in the general Covid circumstances.
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BUMP!!! Not that I want to make tons of work for Libby, but only 2 entries so far and only 4 days + today left
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JaneShuff posted an update 5 years, 3 months ago
Posting this on the off chance someone can help. I’m planning my next book, part of which will be set in a camp for refugees and immigrants – very similar to the camp on Lesbos in Greece. I need to do some research into the conditions in the Greek camps and how they operates and also get some sense of the refugees’ different stories. I’ve found an…[Read more]
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Might be worth looking at Medecine Sans Frontier websites etc. They do a lot of work in the Med with the migrants, so there might be things via them?
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Libby started the topic Copyright question re Den entries in the forum Competitions, Open calls and Writing Opportunities 5 years, 3 months ago
My resolution this year is to enter a couple of short-story competitions beyond the Den. To boldly go …
Please can anyone advise on a couple of things. Most competitions won’t accept entries previously published anywhere online except on password-protected sites, but what if I wanted to develop a story idea from something I’ve previously posted…[Read more]
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I’ve developed bits from monthly comps into full stories – and even short stories and submitted them. Never had an issue because the end results which are submitted are often very different to how they started. So I don’t consider the end result to be what has already been published, if you see what I mean?
And re getting publisher’s permission -…[Read more]-
Thank you, @squidge. That’s very helpful.
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Hiya @libby Yeah, I’ve published several things from monthly comps before. Whatever we post on here, we retain all copyright, so there is no need to call a piece from here ‘previously published’ as such. As long as its been noticeably revised then I’ve never worried too much about submitting it as as an unpublished piece. Can you go back and…[Read more]
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Thanks, @raine
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Libby replied to the topic Monthly comp: December 2020 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 3 months ago
Thank you, Seagreen, Sandra, Janette and John.
And happy new year to all Denizens.
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John S Alty replied to the topic Monthly comp: December 2020 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 3 months ago
Well done Libby. Excellent entries from all.
Happy New Year! -
Libby started the topic Monthly competition – January 2021 in the forum Monthly Competition 5 years, 3 months ago
Happy new year, everyone.
We haven’t had a list of choices for a quite a while in the monthly competitions.
For the January competition please write a story to include two of the following:
– a road atlas
– something made of wood
– aontrariness
– a light switch; this can be literal or metaphoricalBetween 250 and 450 words.
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That’s meant to be ‘contrariness’. I’ve edited the post on the monthly comp thread but out here in the Den window, changes don’t appear! (A little bit of Den contrariness? 🙂 )
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Keep going, Daeds. And good luck!
Thanks @libby! 209 to go
Oh no, @daedalus, we’re not going to be haunted by all the babies murdered, are we? 😀
Seriously, good luck with that. If anyone can, you can.
Thanks! It’s looking pretty sparse, I can tell you
59 for me.
And I just happen to be reading a book about writing titled “Murder Your Darlings.” 🙂
Sounds like fate to me. Keep slaying 🙂
I have allowed myself one darling to remain. The rest have been butchered
I started out at 900 words over, Daedalus, but persevered and think my cut down version is stronger. Funny how that can happen. Good luck with losing those final few hundred words.
All of you! Save those precious babes and enter them in the Monthy Comp!
Often that is the case, but in this case the original version was fairly tight, and there was no real way to lose length other than salami slicing. Ah well