Almost there for the Monthly Competition. Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Almost there for the Monthly Competition. Hurry, hurry, hurry!
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Clebs

  • Athelstone posted an update 1 day, 1 hour ago

    Oddity Corner: accustom, verb, make someone or something accept (something) as normal. The other day, in my writing group, somebody came up with the phrase, “…as my eyes accustomed to the darkness.”

    It immediately struck me as an odd phrase, but I was in a minority of one. I suppose my reaction is because I’m used to seeing accustomed as part…[Read more]

    • I don’t think it has a problem though it perhaps sounds old fashioned, which could be the intention. In a contemporary story I’d be more likely to say, ‘As my eyes adapted to …’.

      • But I think there could be a grammar question in there, Ath. This is where I show my uncertainties about active v passive but accustomed on its own is active. In a compound with an auxiliary verb it’s more passive I think. ‘My eyes became accustomed.’ The OED says, ‘In passive use sometimes approaching the stative adjective; cf. accustomed adj.’

        • My eyes opened to darkness.
          My eyes were opened to darkness.

          • In which ‘opened to darkness’ is adjectival. Sometimes you want a straightforward active verb and sometimes you don’t.

            • I’ll stay sitting on this fence 🙂
              And I’ll chuck in a quote. ‘The ear is not accustomed to exercise constantly its functions of hearing, it is accustomed to stillness.’
              J. Ruskin, Modern Painters vol. I. 60
              Lucky Ruskin.

    • It’s definitely not intended to be old-fashioned. A twisty modern tale.
      The nearest support I have found to my position when searching the internet, is the statement that “accustomed to usually comes after linking verbs such as be, become, get, and grow”.
      I suspect that part of the issue is that, as the OED suggests, there is an adjectival…[Read more]

      • I wondered if the transitive quality of accustomed was playing a part but couldn’t get my head round whether it was or not. This is where my thin knowledge of grammar fails me. I’m also easily lost when having to consider how one word can fulfil different grammatical functions which might overlap.
        With accustomed, maybe it comes down to how an…[Read more]

        • In the end, voice is probably the most important thing. If the character or narrator would use a linking verb, there should be one included.

          • I think that’s what bothered me the most. It’s far away from a commonplace way of speaking. I’ve had quite a few conversations over the last three score years and (well not quite) ten, and read a fair bit, and I’m pretty certain that this is the first time I’ve seen “accustomed” used in this way.

    • Why I’m wasting my time puzzling and researching this, I don’t know. Actually I do. I’m about to start editing and at the same time I’m at a difficult point in the rewrite of a short story that’s insisting on growing towards novella length. In other words, prevarication.
      Anyway, I think I have it:
      1) Accustom is a transitive verb. It requires an…[Read more]

  • I have tried for years to get into the habit of using notebooks. Success has been limited. Yes, I can write and I know how to write in a notebook. I also know how to carry things, especially in pockets. I certainly have thoughts that I think, ‘Ooh, that would be good in a story’. If only I could get, carrying the notebook and writing in the…[Read more]

  • I know everyone has their own muse that sparks ideas and their urge to write. The genre of writing you are most comfortable with also flavours those ideas so, for me, anything archaeological, mythical and magical always holds that allure.

    And yes I have a note book in which I scribble ideas – actually I have a couple of notebooks. Alright……[Read more]

  • Athelstone posted an update 1 week, 1 day ago

    OK. A question, dear denisons. Can an author writing for children in the under 10 range include murder in the story? I have a friend who’s a published author for older children and adults who has written a fine story (my guess is 7-12 yo with more sophisticated funny bits for any adults reading to their kids) but it includes a murder. Is this OK?…[Read more]

    • Harry Potter has murder…

    • Skulduggery Pleasant also has murder. In fact, if Amazon is anything to go by, there’s loads of murder out there.

      • Thanks for that. Yes, my view was that it should be fine, but it does seem that the publishing world imposes rules for children’s books these days. I don’t want to get into a debate on the merits of these, but it’s important to know them as an author, if only to stop wasting time writing stuff that will never be published. In this particular case…[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]

  • My route.

    Life’s not so bad. Not anymore. Not now that I’ve got a job and a place to live. The job’s easy enough. I have a route and a barrow. I wheel the barrow to the start of the route and then I clear the rubbish along the whole of it. Some people here don’t manage it for long. They say it’s too tiring, or too boring, or we’re expected to…[Read more]

  • Athelstone posted an update 3 weeks ago

    First draft of WIP finished.

    • Fabulous!
      Which one?

      • Thank you 🙂
        Working title is “Thirty days”. Teabreak goes to a new town and finds his memories and experiences are broken. Is it a past life? Is it his current life? Mystery, romance, murder, and disastrous incompetence await him.

        • Teabreak? Not what I was expecting to hear. Even more fabulous! 🙂

          • It wasn’t orginally his story (a few years ago) but I was getting nowhere after 12,000 words, so I asked him if he’d mind it being about him. He generously stepped in as the MC and I began to enjoy it.

    • Thanks Libby. I was quite pleased with the pitch. Not thinking about it too hard seemed to work 🙂

      • Being a bit Zen seems to be the way to approach them. Relaxed but focused? Though I’ve yet to achieve this with a pitch.

  • Great prompt, Terrie. Well done, Sea, absolutely well deserved. For my part it was fun to relax with a bit of 1960s -style pulp sci-fi 🙂

  • I’ve had a few challenges of late, not least because, for some reason known only to the gods of dubious decisions, I chose to do my Return to Nursing Practice while still working full-time for City of Edinburgh Council. I had some fool notion that I could utilise prior skills to help out during the recruitment crisis but ultimately discovered…[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 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]

  • The Leap

    Before I knew what The Leap was, I thought it was magic. Like I thought magic was a real thing. Me and Cob and Dez and Piggy were all under ten years old. I mean, I didn’t know what a year was. That was an earth thing. Piggy was nine, and he said that a year was like four and a bit turns of the stars. Turns were an asteroid thing, a K…[Read more]

  • Thanks for choosing my entry as winner for the February competition i enjoyed writing it and also reading everyone else’s offerings.

    As this year is a leap year I decided a good title for this months competition would be ‘The Leap’.
    The only limit is your imagination so interpret it as you like, prose or poem if that takes your fancy but…[Read more]

  • Well done, @purplewitch. That was an excellent return to the monthly competition 🙂

    Liked that prompt @pinkbelt. Super bunch of entries this month.

     

  • 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]

  • The Return

    Brenda’s dad died in 1983, so when he returned forty years later, it was a bit of a nuisance. Brenda woke up and went down to make a cup of tea. She was rather surprised to see him sitting in the kitchen looking out of the window.

    ‘You’ve let the garden go,’ he said without looking round. Then he did look round, and he added, ‘Bloody…[Read more]

  • Every year I aim to be organised (see Terrie above) and pick presents well in advance. The practice is different. I may not be quite as bad as the proverbial desparate man, the evening before, in the petrol station shop, but I’m cutting it close.

  • By the way, ” I’ve even written my gift list for next year”. I believe this is actually against the law.

  • Oh yes, prevaricating about the bush as Wallace refers to it. I do a great deal of that. Top tip. Every so often, copy the contents of that 1TB hard drive somewhere else as well. Whether that’s the Cloud (Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive, Apple iCloud and so on) or another sleek 1TB hard drive. The day may come when your adorable cat decides the…[Read more]

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