Stevie

😃😊 Yayyy! Nothing makes me happier than that which is weird and wonderful. I personally won’t mind teeth-dropping out ones. There’s beauty in nightmare as well ✨

@richardb how cool is that!! Thank you for sharing your special day and moment 😃✨

@athelstone

We are not natural

I couldn’t have said it more aptly myself, nor could I agree more. How beautiful it is to re-introduce a species we made the unnatural choice (and for pleasure no less!) to hunt to near-extinction. And how hideous it is to have hunted…[Read more]

Thank you, @sandra 😊

Late to this, but well done indeed @Knicky, for a poetic tale. Also to @Athelstone – I too had a lane like that in the place where I was born, which decades later had its magic buried beneath tarmac.
Thanks @Seagreen for the challenge and the feedback – I did enjoy the opportunity to just play.

😃 Thank you, @seagreen, for the competition and for choosing my piece! I’m so glad you enjoyed it, it was most delicious to write. I took inspiration from what came to mind with the prompt, which was that scene in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when Maurice (Belle’s dad) was on his way to the science fair with his invention, and Phillipe (the…[Read more]

Congratulations on the acceptance @squidge! And some solid advice, with proof in hand 😊😊🥳

*content warning for a bit of gore down at the end*

All Woods

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. One led to autumn, calm and chilly, its last bronzed leaf picked by a wind still echoing with residual birdsong. The other to darkness, cloaked in mist, where naked trees loomed overhead like a canopy of murderers, intentions ill. The signpost…[Read more]

I remember …

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …

except it wasn’t the wood that was yellow but the fallen leaves, many of which were tinged with gingerbread brown. And it wasn’t a road they covered but a track. At least, one was a track. Green grass centred and, from the narrowness of then wet mud indentations, cartwheeled. Which thought too…[Read more]

@Seagreen, the ‘lightweight’ of your entry was in the well-chosen words; that they so well-expressed the solidity, the impact of that moment was the really clever bit. Thank you for this explanation.

Thank you for hosting this month’s comp, Libby, and for your thoughtful words on my piece. And congratulations, Seagreen, I thought your piece was wonderfully evocative. I enjoyed each entry for this month.

@Libby Grit was about my rather difficult pregnancy, and how the only peace and pleasure I found (from the daily waves of nausea and hostile…[Read more]

Brilliantly well done Seagreen, and thank you Libby for the challenge, your insightful comments and for picking my favourite as winner, though all were enjoyable variations on the theme.

@ Libby – I confess I never print off an MS even for my own novels, but I do, when I’m feeling confident that the end is nigh, order it as a paperback book from Blurb.

@ Richard – thank you for that description ‘instinctive writer’ which very accurately describes my creative approach (and as an artist too) It may sound like a talent but the…[Read more]

Grit

The crunch of ice between my teeth – cold edges, agitated nerves, sabulous sensitivity. All coalescing into sharp points of pleasure in my body, my brain. Soothing. Assuasive. Momentary. Cup after cup of chipped ice; happiness only until they are empty. Nausea quickly returning.

The grit of sand and salt and soap beneath my fingers, the…[Read more]