Patricia Purvis

I remember …

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …

except it wasn’t the wood that was yellow but the fallen leaves, many of which were tinged with gingerbread brown. And it wasn’t a road they covered but a track. At least, one was a track. Green grass centred and, from the narrowness of then wet mud indentations, cartwheeled. Which thought too…[Read more]

@Seagreen, the ‘lightweight’ of your entry was in the well-chosen words; that they so well-expressed the solidity, the impact of that moment was the really clever bit. Thank you for this explanation.

Brilliantly well done Seagreen, and thank you Libby for the challenge, your insightful comments and for picking my favourite as winner, though all were enjoyable variations on the theme.

@ Libby – I confess I never print off an MS even for my own novels, but I do, when I’m feeling confident that the end is nigh, order it as a paperback book from Blurb.

@ Richard – thank you for that description ‘instinctive writer’ which very accurately describes my creative approach (and as an artist too) It may sound like a talent but the…[Read more]

Sorry Ath, but I didn’t reply to your “images have always been here, just not uploading images” because I wasn’t sure what you were getting at.

I do think Bella’s beta readers might be an idea, but perhaps, at least to start with, omit the financial bit and just set up a register of those willing and those wanting, with some detail of genre, etc and the willingness to send a sample chapter to see if they’re compatible.

And the possibility of uploading pictures, I’d say Handle With Care,…[Read more]

“Above the tideline”
first line provided by Thomas A Clarke

Above the tideline, an old blue rope is entangled in a bramble bush. I gaze at it while retying my hair, turning to face into the wind, risking the scratch of sand beneath my already sore eyelids; its crunching against my teeth.
Sand, salt and shell fragments speckle the twists of it,…[Read more]

Site was ‘murdered’ because owner decided to shut it down then did so, Telling no-one and refusing to answer all communications thereafter.

I do think we that were there were lucky, insofar as it was a chatty, supportive active group, probably at the peak of its activity, which made the death of it al the more tragic,

Read this, Ath, and will ponder (not that I think I’ve any answers.) but a year in which to turn around is an excellent idea.
Another thought, along the lines of ‘if you pay for it you make sure you get your money’s worth; would be more convincing were this as lively and well-functioning as we’d like it to be.
But, The site I cut my writing teeth…[Read more]

Another fairy tale

Was it when, age three or maybe four and my mother, part way through their evening meal, seated at the table with husband, husband’s sister and husband’s parents, met my bad dream request for comfort with a withering ‘Why should I help you when this morning you said you didn’t love me?’. I knew then the rest of them didn’t…[Read more]

Thanks Gail, for your kind words and well done Ath! I had such high hopes of myself with this theme, having had several ancient, (I was 8 years old) nut-brown men in a Hertfordshire village to base a tale upon but strive as I might, (and I DID) it would not come right and each time I read it I knew that I’d missed the hoped-for essence.

The Urban McGonagall [one expletive]

Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. I’m a poet.
Not that many folk, to look at me, would know it.
(Part because they look but never see beyond the Council-issued uniform: pea-green.

Mostly I’m invisible. Indivisible, from barrow, brush and bucket. And yes of course, when drunks stumble, trip and tumble over my…[Read more]

@Seagreen

Good heavens!! What happened to April? I completely forgot I’d set a competition, was somewhat startled to discover it was May, but I do like this – rings some bells since, apart from invisible, April seems to have been a retrospective month, for more than me.

So without further ado, I’m handing the baton for May’s competition to you -…[Read more]