Libby

I love your story, Seagreen. Congratulations!

Janette, Alex, Sandra – all great stories. Thanks for setting the competition, Squidge.

When My Favourite Employee Really Gets Going, He Quotes Churchill

(300 words)

I stop in Steve’s doorway. He looks up from his laptop. Angled at his side, his PC screen glows with the photos and primary colours of our online edition.

At the opticians recently, he told the young woman he’s a journalist on the local rag and when off duty he rea…[Read more]

Congratulations @squidge  A fabulously tense story.

Thank you Sandra for setting such an interesting challenge.

Picture Gap

296 words 

The woman standing at the dining table carries an unsmiling, get-to-work concentration. Her hair is grabbed into an updo clip, and beneath a lit pendant lampshade she shifts paperbacks from the tabletop into a box, tucking away volumes of sky-blue, white and pink. Beach reads.

The woman, or someone, has chosen Scandi…[Read more]

Some more thought on influences. In a way every novel and short story I’ve enjoyed is an influence in a composting kind of way. That’s not very helpful here though.

Carys Davies’ short stories. I tried to improve one of my own stories this morning and for inspiration I once again looked at the openings of several of hers.

Katherine Mansfield.…[Read more]

I agree, John, this is a difficult one. I’ll have to think about it.

Some influence comes from writers whose style I don’t like. I make mental notes not to do things like ‘whoever’ (they’ll remain nameless :-))

Then there’s the memory of a feeling a book created at the time I read it.  They include authors I couldn’t or don’t feel drawn to read…[Read more]

July monthly comp reminder – three more days to post an entry 🙂

Tell a story of building work that suffers some kind of mix up. The wrong site, the wrong builder – anything you like.

Deadline midnight 31st July.

300 words maximum

Thank you @Seagreen ! This is a lovely surprise. The standard of entries is so high – I loved all the stories.

Thank you too @Sandra for your congratulations.

Right, now I must try to think of a comp theme that will be as good as Seagreen’s …