Kate

Congratulations, Sandra! I love your story.

Thank you, @Seagreen for the comp. I enjoyed doing my pastiche of The Big Sleep. I find that kind of thing a useful exercise. Recently my own  sentence structures and vocabulary have seemed stuck in a rut. Studying someone else’s gives a necessary jolt.

It’s a fun thing to do if other Denizens want to…[Read more]

Fabulous! I loved each and every one of these. Sandra, very well done. I’ll remember this as I tuck into my light supper tonight.

Thanks for the prompt Seagreen.

Before this competition was set I’d been thinking about the opening from The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, specifically how it builds humour and tension in the first paragraph. I decided to use Chandler’s first two paras as a template for the story comp, possibly a daft and murderous thing to do but a bit of fun.

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The Blush

It was the s…[Read more]

Katherine is typing…

JohnG91 19:44

Hi Kath. I’ve been thinking about what you said. You know, about being decisive. I’ve made a decision. You’ve bullied me into it.

JohnG91 19:57

Just read that back. The bullied thing was supposed to be a joke. Well light-hearted anyway. You’re not a bully. I know when you talked about people who don’t mak…[Read more]

A Draconian Call in the Dark

(400 words, excluding title)

“I don’t want anything. That’s how I survive. I will never want anything again.”

I wring my head, trying to force the memories leaking out of me back down my spine. I hate the wet upon my face, the ache in my throat, the hollow in my chest. I hate so many, many things.

“YOU WILL NEVE…[Read more]

And it looks well worthy of continuing, Terrie!

Although this started out as a response to the monthly competition and is probably moving at a much slower pace that the challenge might have intended, it has blossomed into an opening for something larger.   I’ve written a lot more than 400 words and tinkered with a plot line and title too.    

The old man stared into the flames. ‘There…[Read more]

Somehow I missed this entire comp – sorry Richard –  but am nevertheless rewarded by being gifted four marvellous pieces of writing – thank you each and all.

Dilemma

So, last night’s message warning that the Wimps were planning some sort of revolt had been genuine, despite the unlikelihood. As Jack had said, delivering it, something must’ve fired them into action, provided them with   a Warrior script instead of the Wimp one their biology merited.

Frey’s eyes sharpened on noting my arrival (We’d a…[Read more]

What a well-deserved winner, Seagreen. Such beautiful writing.

Thank you, Richard, for the prompt.

Oof. Yes. Gaiman. I think a lot of people I know are particularly hurt by that one because he appeared to be a writer of such humanity. I didn’t read anything of his that I didn’t like, and connect with in some way. At first, I did allow myself to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not for very long, and I’m not sure there’s any doubt now…[Read more]

But now the debate does (briefly?) raise its head again as I contemplate that doyen of popular, left-liberal writers, Neil Gaiman.

Why must people keep doing this? I almost completed that last sentence “to me” because it does feel personal sometimes.

Some strong writing this month. Very well done, Seagreen.

I’ll come back tomorrow

I’ll come back tomorrow to look at the clear space between the Co-op and the Santander Bank. The fresh morning sun will light the glistening concrete and the unexpected birds taking baths in puddles where carpets have been carried off. Men in hard hats and hi-vis vests will bundle drills about and smoke their cigarettes a…[Read more]

impromptu

you’ll come to a bad end, said my dad in our hallway, in his pyjamas, hands at his sides, knuckles curled, though – as far as I know – he never raised his fists, and what’s more he was too clever for cliché most of the time, but that evening when I came home from the gig with a scent of sweat and beer, I was grinning, shifting from foo…[Read more]