Jackie Wesley

It only occurred to me after posting to do a bit of investigating, and it turns out this must have been a female golden-ringed dragonfly, which is the longest British dragonfly and is often found quite some way from water.

‘…Every book back I read seemed to involve a magic sword or a ring and sorting the good from the bad became impossible…’ Yes, Kate, that was exactly my experience.

By contrast, to take a selection of the Ballantine books I read in my youth, The Well at the World’s End (William Morris), The Worm Ouroboros (E R Edison), The Night Land (William…[Read more]

I’m in the same position as I was in last year: the Den is normally the only place I interact with anybody on-line, so I would be very sad to see it go. I’m a bit more up-beat about it, though, because since the ‘members’ side-bar on the home page has been changed from ‘most recent’ to ‘most active’ (good idea) it shows that quite a few people do…[Read more]

Oh yes, I remember that gent, and his habit of taking other people’s writing and, unasked for, eviscerating the piece, stripping it of every possible nuance and subtlety to leave a lifeless skeleton. You mean he once actually admitted he was wrong?

I’ve just edited out the opposite problem (sort of) to the one you mention in your first para. I…[Read more]

Hmm, crossed with everything after Libby’s post. Hence my repetition of the point about the transitivity (Is that a word? Sod it, it ought to be…) of those speech tags.

I think part of the problem here is that the author is concentrating very hard on the laudable aim of putting as much as possible – that he is comforting her, that he is speaking with his mouth close to her hair – into as few words as possible. Which can be very effective and satisfying when it works, but unfortunately this doesn’t.

It’s also a…[Read more]

I did actually consider putting in something about rationing, but decided that I’d make my point more vividly by keeping it simple and sticking to one issue.

Rather more distressing than your neighbour, I had an e-mail argument a few months back with my oldest friend (I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, and perhaps it’s just as well), who…[Read more]

Congratulations Sandra. I loved both stories so I don’t envy Ath having to choose.

Couldn’t think of anything so had to bow out.

Ath, I know I’ve not been round much recently, but that looks fab! Noticed that blogs and whatever the heading is next to it both go bold when you click on blogs, but it seems so much easier and intuitive to navigate. Thank you xxx

Hi Ath, I’ve got my thinking cap on so hopefully something will light up.

Congratulations, Athelstone. A well deserved win. 🙂

Love your story too, Knicks. xx

Thank you Raine for organising the comp. xx

Headline (397 words excluding heading)

I’ve spent the last 17 months recovering from a particularly horrific Halloween party and I’m reluctant to accept this invitation to another one.
Still, if you have to face your fears, where better to do it than with a group of thrill seekers who think nothing of taking ‘daring’ to its limit?
Yes, I know it…[Read more]