Clebs

Thank you for  helping out  here  Janette, and  thank for  choosing  my  offereing as  winner. I felt  all the  entries   captured  Ath’s remit for this  March  madness  comp so well done  Jill, Sandra,Libby and Sea.

The  April  comp   challenge   will be posted  shortly .

Damn! It messed with my formatting 🙁

The madness is all mine for thinking I could do this!

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!

You asked for mad?  Well, here’s the  slice of crackpot absurdity I came up with .

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]

Thank you for such a satisfactory February topic, Libby, and for your generous appraisal! I loved the other two entries; they could easily have won.

Teabreak in love

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]

Terrie, I had a tricky January but that’s no excuse. Sorry for missing a super monthly comp. Well done Libby, a really great entry. Well done all.

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]

I know that feeling. I was also a government employee who found himself parcelled up and sold to the highest bidder, or at least the one that made the most empty promises and said the things that our betters at the high table wanted to hear. I recall now how our managers queued up to tell us what a good thing it was and, yes, they used that exact…[Read more]

In the few months since I wrote this blog about ‘our’ pub, the Ancient Briton has won – count them – four awards:

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]

Well done Jill,  Janette and  Sandra  , December comps always seem to be more of a challenge as  most of us  usually busy  with other things.

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]

Right, here we go.

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]

OK, it’s a fraction after midnight so 2026. I’ve read them all. They’re annoyingly good. So sorry, you can all wait until tomorrow is well and truly underway. Happy New Year!

Lord of Yule

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]