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 .

Thank you, Janette, for stepping in. Btw does Ath know he doesn’t have to worry about judging?

But judge I must, as promised, so here are my thoughts:

Jill -…[Read more]

How about finding another judge?

Could anyone else reading this be willing to judge the comp? Five delightful entries. Then the winner can set the April comp.

All words taken from Rod Judkins’ The Art of Creative Thinking.

DRIBBLES AND SPATTERS

Inner demons

chisel

creative confidence

Ideas so strange

wither.

Radiate defiance

Salvage mistakes with freedom

and

transform the message

Come alive!

499 words

My sister’s boyfriend dumped her so she booked a day at a willow-weaving workshop – in the countryside, calming and therapeutic. She’d make a sculpture of a hare though she’d never seen one in real life. Ironic, I thought, as she’d never seen herself either.

I admit the dumping had been nasty. Sis waiting to meet the…[Read more]

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]

@jillsted Jill, you do an evocative encapsulation of Isabel’s memories of different kinds of love. Her memories are compelling, a sense of her moving through a full life. The ending has a twist, if I’ve read it correctly, that adds a shiver to the story, a question of whether Lydia’s…[Read more]

Maureen Chapman. No, tell a lie, it was Chaplain, like a vicar. Her name, I mean—she wasn’t like a vicar. Anyway, Maureen Chaplain was perfect from my ten-year-old point of view. But I’m getting all jumbled up about how to start, so I’ll take a breath. See, it really began when the Brazells moved out from next door and the Cha…[Read more]

Here’s the original post:

As it’s February the theme this month is love. It needn’t be romantic. It can be of any sort – for a place, a piece of music, an animal – whatever you like that that provokes a feeling of love.

Max 400 words, deadline midnight Saturda…[Read more]

Max 400 words, deadline midnight Saturday 28th February.

I’ll post the February comp later.

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]

Jim’s ballet exercises weren’t about dancing, they were about muscle fitness, until he was bent over, clutching the Aga rail which was his barre, and the shooting pains in his back were a quiversful of landed arrows. Gasping for breath he thought of that painting of St Sebastian, a dreary affair in his view, inspirational of not…[Read more]

Welsh Pub of the Year;

Welsh Eatery of the Year;

Welsh Gastropub of the Year;

First Place, Welsh Good Food Awards.

As I said before, it seems that the owners, Nils and Emma, are doing something right.

It so happens that we have a…[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]

Is there anybody who hasn’t had at least a small part in the production of a nativity play? Jill, that’s just how they go. A perfect evocation. And your story has a Christmas miracle as well – or was it a mischievous young actor?

Janette, I was there in that supermarket. No, really, I was actually there I think, barging past…[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]