Debi Alper

Coordination: that’s exactly it. I can’t get coordinated with notebooks. I have one on my desk and it travels to my bedside table and back again. I admire people who use notebooks when they’re out – they seem more intuitive and open than I am. I think their minds flow more smoothly. They’re even Romantic with a capital R, with all the creativity…[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]

Mishaping to fit

Only as he pushed open the door into Haugesund’s Folkepuben, his mind occupied not only with what he needed to establish with Lars Sigmundssen but also a slightly fearful curiosity as to how Lars would react to his having slept with Maja, Lars’ current woman, was Rick Thorssen reminded, by the roar of convivial con…[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]

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 🙂

Thank you for this challenge Terrie, and your kind comments; I was glad of the opportunity to make best use of it. Well done Sea – and never doubt those who have read you KNOW full well you are indeed a talented and sparkling writer, and thank you Ath for evoking. albeit dimly, the challenges of childhood.

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]

Cheeky leap into an attempt of an opener for ‘Snap is not a children’s game’ 

Vic Duncan. Did Lucy but know it, the first of three Duncan men she’d sleep with before she died, possibly dangerous, but an especially satisfying addition to her habitual  maintenance of a quartet of alphabetically consecutively-named lovers.

It began in the final yea…[Read more]

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

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

Congratulations Terrie – a tale that got richer with every re-reading, as did those of Alex at Ath. And thank you Pinkbelt for the challenge.

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]

Retrieving memories

When on the Word Cloud, in 2014, Alan P proposed the challenge ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore’, I was in need of an explanation as to why Luke Darbyshere ( DI and main character in my ‘Love triangles with murder series) regularly sabotaged relationships at the point when they looked like becoming meaningful. His upbring…[Read more]

Have to confess I avoid much of that for Steve, by ordering and collecting the books I want and handing them over for him to ‘hide’ (recognising he is doubly challenged by my having a birthday five days before Christmas.)

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.