Sandra

  • A question of perception

    After, naked, panting; towelling stinging sweat from our eyelids, we stepped outside through the open French windows into the still-warm August night. A quick sideways glance: he as relieved as I to no longer be the focus of intense female attention. Relieved it had ended – honourably? Yes. That could honestly be said.…[Read more]

  • Congratulations Raine – so uncomfortably vivid! – and to all of you who managed to fight down an adversary, real or fictitious. And thank you Knicks for competition and comments.

  • Not exactly ‘Overcoming Adversary’

    Truth is, I can’t think of anything big enough in my life to count as ‘adversity’. (If it was big, I either ignored, walked painlessly around, or didn’t even notice it.
    So I’m giving you, ‘My writing journey‘, which is as close as I can get.

    If we’re talking about ‘proper’ conscious writing; wanting to set d…[Read more]

  • Knicks, you very closely echo my thoughts about participation in the comps (and in the Den as a whole, to be honest, despite Ath’s striving to make it a more use-friendly site) but I think the answer IS just to press on with setting one – if we join the non-participants, they have us beat.
    And yes, I do know how Life leaches away time, am well…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted an update 4 years, 4 months ago

    I’ve just been reminded of Allan Guthrie’s 34 tips on writing, including pleonasms – a word unknown to me when I first heard it, but which tweak my writing conscience quite frequently. https://notetoselfhumanize.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/32-writing-rules-allan-guthrie/

    • Thanks for the link, Sandra. I’m guilty of using pleonasms. They’re filler words when I’m thinking of what to say next, like typing a comma whenever deeper thought is needed.

    • Thanks, Sandra. This is an excellent list. I shall bookmark it.

  • Sandra posted an update 4 years, 4 months ago

    December competition winner now announced.

  • December destined to be a quiet month, I suppose, and very few of you seemed to have suffered from the prurient curiosity about the activities of Jack and Jill’s activities I did, Nevertheless the two entries submitted were a pleasure.
    Ath’s trawl through several nursery rhymes returned me to childhood, browsing through books illustrated by the…[Read more]

  • Just realised deadline is today – I’ll be back ASAP to read and muse over a decision.

  • Thanks, Ath, though I’m not sure I’d welcome being 21 again, in many ways (all those nights with screaming babies!!)

  • Come on folks! Jack and Jill went up a hill … As a child you must’ve wondered what happened to send them tunbling down! It’s my birthday on Friday (a horribly big one) so please present me with a story for the December comp.

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 5 months ago

    Thanks, Raine – hope it inspires a good few entries

  • Sandra posted an update 4 years, 5 months ago

    December comp is up – you’ve a month to exercise your writing muscles and put one of 2022’s Resolutions into practice.

  • When Jack and Jill are found – Jack unconscious, Jill bruised, with a broken wrist, on the downward path from Old Well Hill, each are separately interviewed while in their hospital beds. Each gives an implausible and conflicting account of the events which led to their injuries.
    As a local journalist you want a front page story but are mindful o…[Read more]

  • Thank you Ath, and thank you Knicks for a version I wish I’d thought of , so many excellent phrases. Now to try to craft an irresistible competition!!

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 5 months ago

    I too spent some time checking out the new improved site and, without any IT knowledge as to what and how achieved, found it easy and intuitive. (My commenting on it was delayed by my rediscovery of a blog about the narrative arc which, having read Seagreen’s 7 ‘C’s I spent much of the rest of the day trying to apply to my current wip, before…[Read more]

  • Failed on the basics.
    I’d been riding pillion on a BSA since my teens. Clandestinely to start, because my parents forbade me, but by 2004 I was well past that, and three years past my first BSA rally, which had taken us to Australia. Being one of 200 bikes wending our way across rolling golden hills an unforgettable experience. Even so, that…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 6 months ago

    Thanks, Newbie. I count myself lucky to have come through it with minimal side effects – and a huge warm glow from the quantity and breadth of caring messages which have come my way from friends and family.

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 6 months ago

    Steve says school leaving age was 15, but you could stay on. Also see wikipedia Raising_of_school_leaving_age_in_England_and_Wales

    • Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to find someone who could have or did leave at Easter. Better still, someone who remembers if it was mandatory or whether there were exceptions. My MC wants to stop on, but her parents are insistent she leaves asap. However, if something meant she couldn’t or shouldn’t leave at Easter …

      It’s a long shot, and I’m fast…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 6 months ago

    I was 16 at Easter 1963, so can’t help you there, sorry.

    • Steve says school leaving age was 15, but you could stay on. Also see wikipedia Raising_of_school_leaving_age_in_England_and_Wales

      • Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to find someone who could have or did leave at Easter. Better still, someone who remembers if it was mandatory or whether there were exceptions. My MC wants to stop on, but her parents are insistent she leaves asap. However, if something meant she couldn’t or shouldn’t leave at Easter …

        It’s a long shot, and I’m fast…[Read more]

  • Sandra posted a new activity comment 4 years, 6 months ago

    I can’t think leaving at Easter would’ve been that likely, because of ‘O’levels.

    • Hi, Sandra,
      I was one of the ones who had to stay on an extra year and leave aged 16 (in June 1974 – oops, showing my age!), which I was pleased about because I wanted to sit exams and my parents wanted me to leave to earn a wage. It was a common thing then, that some kids were expected to leave the earliest opportunity to ‘bring home a wage’, and…[Read more]

      • I was 16 at Easter 1963, so can’t help you there, sorry.

        • Steve says school leaving age was 15, but you could stay on. Also see wikipedia Raising_of_school_leaving_age_in_England_and_Wales

          • Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to find someone who could have or did leave at Easter. Better still, someone who remembers if it was mandatory or whether there were exceptions. My MC wants to stop on, but her parents are insistent she leaves asap. However, if something meant she couldn’t or shouldn’t leave at Easter …

            It’s a long shot, and I’m fast…[Read more]

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