Kate Hudson

Unfortunately, AFAIK (which may be completely wrong) WordPress and its plug-ins only allow a single chain of posts, the idea being that you have a Topic followed by Replies to it. So the thread might go something like ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY2 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY3 – Comment on ENTRY2 etc. which is likely to be…[Read more]

Absolutely agree with you Daeds about the caveat.

But is it possible to keep the comments linked to the entry. The way we do it now won’t let that happen, as Jonathan showed. Is there a way round that? Having a master thread for each comp with threads within it for each entry?

And more apologies – 411 words

HOW TO LEAVE A HUSBAND WHO ADORES YOU

Six Month Plan

Step One
Decide to do it.
Shut off all those voices inside you saying what a wonderful man he is and how lucky you are. How he does everything for you. How most women would give anything to have a husband like him.
Note: Do not tell anyone what you plan to do.…[Read more]

Yes, I think you are right, John. How does everybody feel about that? Here are my thoughts. I’d be interested to know what you all think…

I’d like comments to be part of the monthly/bi-monthly competition. I think it would remove some of the pressure off the competition setter to feedback on the entries and make it more interesting for us all.…[Read more]

Glad you asked that Jane, I was also wondering.

I know this is written down somewhere but what’s the policy on other people commenting on monthly comp entries?

I’m glad someone else does that too, Sandra!

Yes, Squidge – soon as I pressed ‘go’ I thought that myself!

At the risk of sounding ageist, is it not the case that a high(ish) percentage of those doing degrees/Masters are quite young, and are unlikely to yet have the confidence/experience to ignore publishers et al?

Ah, Jonathan, you and I (and Harry) are thinking along the same lines. And yes, there is more. The full blog is here:

https://jerichowriters.com/find-voice-writer/

When I was (a lot) younger I used to snort in contempt when I read in an author’s bio on a book cover, usually American in those days, that they had a degree in creative writing. Hah! I thought, either you got it or you ain’t. You can’t teach it like you can physics or history. It’s not hard and fast stuff like that.

Much later, after discovering…[Read more]

I always thought that one of the strengths of the SE course was the range of different books people were working on within each group if they were anything like mine – children’s, YA, fantasy,crime noir, women’s fiction, literary fiction and so on. It made it unlikely that you’d start picking up on each other’s styles.

Thank you for the book…[Read more]

To some extent (not that I’ve done any really full-on writing courses, just SE, some reading and building on experience) I do notice that my very early writing has a freshness of approach that more recent, more self-conscious writing does not.

And I do cheer when I come across writers such as Eimear McBride and Eley Williams (both James Tait…[Read more]

Sometimes Harry talks a lot of blah. Sometimes he makes a lot of sense. But that’s true of us all, I guess. Agents/publishers do want writers with their own voice but they equally want something that they can sell and that, sadly, does mean it needs to fit into a category of some sort. It’s a difficult balance I think and there’s a lot of luck involved.

You seem to have set a fire with your idea, Raine: even I’m having a go. Yet more apologies: 408 words.

The Last House

There’s freedom and there’s freedom. Sleeping rough and scavenging for food is freedom, but not the sort that appeals to me. And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing tonight if something doesn’t turn up. Another night’s B&B will…[Read more]

Drink with a dead man – and apologies, 410 words

Innocuous in colour as a Rich Tea biscuit, the envelope was angled so as to fit into the grey metal cell of the Post Restante box. Illuminated by the single bare bulb in the narrow passage between front and rear of the shop, the vertical/horizontal of the letter’s shadow made of it a hitman, w…[Read more]

The Memory Thing

I think it was reproach: that look on his face; or maybe despair. I only had a second to work it out as he fell backwards onto the tracks. That’s an odd way to put it. I mean, I wasn’t actually trying to work anything out, let alone his expression. And I was shocked; I hardly registered what happened. This man, this young man…[Read more]

Excellent idea Raine