RichardB

Apologies for being late back to this.

Richard, thank you for the comp and for your kind words. I did try to steer clear of that particular subject matter but, ultimately, it was the only thing that remained front and centre when all the other ideas had scarpered.

Strong field this month and all so marvellously different!…[Read more]

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]

UNTITLED – 350 words

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Lumpy pillows in torn, unidentifiable protective fabric, stuffed into too-small pillow cases. A saggy, foam mattress, plastic-coated and marinated in dilute bleach. A side-room with a window looking onto the whitewashed wall on the other side of the hospital and a door that opens d…[Read more]

I asked it about limits and it recommended breaking text into chunks, so I divided the input into blocks of chapters, but as I was about to do the final block I hit an error, which I think was the limit of my free access: there was a message about that soon afterwards. Annoyingly inconclusive! Some chapters were summarised in full, others were…[Read more]

I tried a 500 word synopsis. It was curiously like a “bad” synopsis that an inexperienced writer might try, too much detail at the outset and then broad generalisations for the middle and end. It always concludes by asking whether you want any refinements, so I asked for more detail about the conclusion and it invented a character and several plot…[Read more]

As we are in imminent peril of being swamped with things-AI if Mr Starmer and our present government are to be believed, I thought I’d bite the bullet and give ChatGPT a whirl. As an experiment, I thought I’d try for a summary of my WIP. Since that’s something I will have to wrestle with when I come to submit, I wondered whether it might be…[Read more]

Oh Lord. Two entries. Both very different from what I expected. Not that I expected anything in particular, but I know what I mean. Both excellent. Richard’s engrossed me, as the protagonist was engrossed in the model. Terrie’s made me laugh out loud. There’s no winner or loser here, because it was a virtual toss of the coin. Richard, choose us a…[Read more]

And many thanks to you, Libby, and to the other happy few who make this place worth keeping. A very happy Christmas to us all.

Thanks Seagreen. Glad you laughed. Well, Terrie, there’s a coincidence. I’ve barely been able to write for the last month having been fitting our new kitchen. Completely new from top to bottom including having to rebuild joists under the floor and fit a kitchen to an accuracy of 1mm per metre. As I’ve never done anything to that accuracy except by…[Read more]