Daedalus

  • 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]

    • Congratulations. Looks fab. And very exciting!

    • Fabulous, Raine! I look foward to reading about it in more detail on your blog.

    • 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.

      • 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

  • Squidge posted an update 5 years, 5 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…)

  • 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]

  • A MESSAGE FOR ALL “THINGS THAT GO BUMP” ESSAYERS. There is an update in the group’s activity stream.

  • 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?

  • 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]

  • Raine posted an update 5 years, 5 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. 🙂

  • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

      • 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.

  • 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.

  • JaneShuff posted an update 5 years, 5 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]

    • 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?

  • ‘Also known as …’

    Early Thursday, DS Mike Kennedy, on her arrival.
    ‘Infirmary’s been on. Ursula Bothwell died three this morning. Peacefully, they said.’
    ‘Cause?’
    ‘Not known. Which means –’
    ‘A PM. Not peaceful.’ DS Fran Lloyd strove to hide the threat of tears. Not normally a problem; had to be more than fifty times she’d heard the nec…[Read more]

  • 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]

    • 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, Seagreen, Sandra, Janette and John.

    And happy new year to all Denizens.

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

  • Sandra posted an update 5 years, 6 months ago

    For a more accurate picture of Den participation, is it possible to have, in the RH column, Members listed by ‘Active’ rather than ‘Newest?’

  • 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 metaphorical

    Between 250 and 450 words.

    • 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? 🙂 )

  • JaneShuff posted an update 5 years, 6 months ago

    Congratulations to all for the great bunch of entries! And A Happy New Year!!

  • Thank you for the comp and the positive comments, Ath. And well done Libby – nice work.

  • 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 🙂

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