Chrissy

Congratulations, Ath, and thanks for running the comp, Libby.

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]

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]

Thank you, Seagreen, Sandra, Janette and John.

And happy new year to all Denizens.

Well done Libby. Excellent entries from all.
Happy New Year!

That’s a lovely surprise, and for the new year too! Thank you, Ath.

Thank you also to everyone who entered. A very compelling selection of stories, as always, and a wide range of styles. I’ll have a think about what to set for the January competition.

Happy new year, if we’re allowed to say that after 2020 🙂

359 words

Fracture

The room was big, like a workshop, but the machinery was rows of people seated on chairs all facing the same way. Silence nestled beside and around them, cut by infrequent remarks. What dreary weather today, no sign of sun. A bit stuffy in here. I hope we’re not kept waiting long.

The ceiling was open to the roof. Struts m…[Read more]

@dougk if you’d like an alternative to a sedative, you can read the exhaustive cautionary tale of my small press experience here https://airandseastories.com/2019/01/30/my-publishing-nightmare-the-story-of-a-book-deal-gone-bad-part-1/

They do have that sort of instant hit of relateable truth don’t they? Ironic, or perhaps not, that Roche’s career might apply to the principle of ‘Connections’, even though it’s clearly about something much more personal. A missed connection here or there is the difference between national treasure status and obscurity.

Also interesting for me to…[Read more]

I haven’t removed the internet connection from my laptop because it’s too useful when I want to check something, but keeping the laptop for writing and using a PC for everything else – emails, online purchases etc – makes distraction less of a problem. When I’m using the laptop I’m in writing mode. It’s a little thing but it helps.

@sandradavies thanks, I will look that up. I’m a fan of keeping speech tags/descriptions to a minimum and I often write scenes with dialogue first and then build the other stuff around it, so this is very much up my street

Great competition Sandra, am really intrigued to read the story that inspired it now. Well done Ath, and everyone else, good set of stories

“I dreamt about you last night. No, don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s a line or… like I’m being…?”
“What?”
“I dunno. Overly sentimental.”
“OK. I won’t then.

…Well you can’t leave it hanging like that. What was I doing in this dream?”
“That’s the thing. I can’t actually remember. You know what dreams are like.”
“I know what my…[Read more]

Thank you, Sea, for the challenge. It was a challenge, too! Not my normal kind of writing.

Congratulations, Sandra. An excellent story.

346 words excluding title

Learned Habits

Her flatmate said she wanted a chat, about the apartment. She called it an apartment but with its beige kitchen units, its shower over the bath, its dingy paintwork, it was an old-fashioned flat.

Both women were in their early twenties.

Jess sat down on the sofa. The sofa, said the flatmate. Its…[Read more]