Philippa East

Congratulations! Completely deserved.

I was thinking a PM to the setter would be the easiest way, and not putting too much responsibility on a smallish group of people, but we can always try it for a while and see how it goes.

An alternating competitive-non competitive challenge is an option, but how would we decide who set the prompt for the non-competitive months?

Just checked with Steve and apparently an 18 year old is limited to bikes of no more than 125 cc – nippy enough to weave through London traffic, but max speed of ~60mph (and not as nippy as the twist’n’go scooters beloved by street thieves) Once he’s 19 and had has 2 years experience he can go larger.
Happy to answer any other questions on the subject.

Just to prove how stupid I am – did not realise that the camp didn’t let you post anything until the official start of the writing period. But at least I know where to find the thing to log word count – even if it’s not appearing yet.

Can you tell I’ve not done this before? *face plant*

This all sounds good, though I’m not entirely sure how the peer judging would work. Would everyone send scores to the setter, or just people who have volunteered to judge, or some other subgroup?

Steve is out – on his BSA B33 – today, I’ll ask him when he returns.

That would be a nice touch, Sandra. He’s 18 and it’s his pride and joy.

Kate, it also crossed my mind, on first reading, that Alex would’ve referred to his bike by make: ‘his Ducati 500 Hornet’ (or something – I made that up). If you want some better info than I have about modern bikes I can find out, but need to know how old he is – there might be rules about what cc a bike for what age.

I do that too, Sandra.

Then ‘mate’ worked, don’t fret – the trouble with reading to critique is that one tries too hard and focuses on unnecessaries.

I really like Squidge’s suggestion of a noncompetitive writing prompt.The previous format of having it be a comp to judge was slightly off-putting, for me anyway, because of the burden of that responsibility alone. I don’t have a lot of time to show up and chime in, so the idea of judging a comp was a daunting one for me. Now to show up and…[Read more]

Ok, I joined the camp.

Thanks Sandra. The ‘mate’ was an attempt to show gender. Always tricky in first person. I’ve never been on a motorbike so your observations are most useful, as are your suggested tweaks. Much appreciated.

I like this a LOT Kate and defnitely want to read on. One of the intriguing things for me (don’t know if it’s intentional, presume so) is that, despite the ‘mate’ I don’t 100% know what sex the narrator is at this point – either woukd be of interest.

I entirely agree with Bella’s tweaks, the following are my own reactions and are to be ignored…[Read more]

Thanks Bella. I’m relieved it works for you and thanks for all the tweaks. Definitely should be ‘they would come for me.’ Great catch.

Having never done Nano before, someone’s going to have to tell me how I log my word count, cos I can’t find where on the menu bar I do that. I have found stats… just not how to change them.

Sometimes I really hate technology.

This is great. A good build up of tension and it certainly kept my attention as I wondered what Alex is so afraid of, and why.

The prickle started between my shoulder blades and trickled down my limbs like iced water the moment I stepped outside the front door – I thought “the moment I stepped…” was continuing the simile so this pulled me out…[Read more]

OK, looks like I’m going to be ‘Silver Squidge’ as just Squidge was already taken…