Pre-dawn on a midsummer morning, Tait Duncan, drove  south-east along an A1 empty of all but Highlands-bound supermarket wagons, conscience similarly uncluttered by the lie he’d last night told his wife as to the reason for his early morning departure. (In what had become th…[Read more]

Looking forward  to  seeing the prompt  for June .

  Songs from the charts  31st  October   1998  – 

Aerosmith   ‘I don’t want to miss a thing’

Bachman Turner Overdrive – ‘You aint seen nothing yet.’

Contains one, bleeped, swear word.

True   story

This story involves my youngest daughter, who’s the sassy, won’t give an inch if she thinks she is in the right, type, and the anniversar…[Read more]

1)  choose  a  significant anniversary in your life:  e.g.  birthday,  wedding, first child: graduation – then,

2 ) Google the UK Top 10 singles chart for that week.

3) select two, three or four  song titles  from that list and,

4) use them (loosely if necessary!) as a basis for  a short story, of…[Read more]

Thank you , Terrie, both for the challenge and your comments on both my entry and Jill’s excellently crafted, sensitive  story. I’ll aim to set something for June by the end of today.

Sandra, I loved…[Read more]

Crikey Moses, William, I’m heart-heartedly glad to hear you are home and hopefully on your way to some sort of recovery – what a torrid time you and your family must have gone through, and thank you for updating us so vividly.

Sendng love and the most healingest of good wishes

Sandra

‘Gobsmacked’ the inelegant word that came to mind when I read the letter. What else would you expect , being told your three year-old daughter’s poem had been awarded first prize ?  A prize  which earned her up to three sittings with well-renowned portrait artist Bernard Broom. Especially when I’d not an inkling she’d  written any…[Read more]

I  decided  not  to go with  the  traditional  kinds of  prompts  associated  with  April  and  simply   picked  four words  at random  that must be included  in  your comp  entry  about  anything  in any genre  that inspires  your  creative  preference in 450 words or less.

The four words are :-   Portrait  Ignite  Butterfly & Granite

&nbsp…[Read more]

The  April  comp   challenge   will be posted  shortly .

Having heard Athelstone indisposed again, it’s unlikely he’ll be be judging  this any time soon

The necklace of tiny silver bells about her neck tinkled softly as she backed against the garden wall. ‘You’re all mad, you know,’ she muttered holding the sharp seed dibber, labelled ‘Mr Pointy’, like a knife at the advancing crowd.

At the front of the group,…[Read more]

Wine-heavy eyes and naked, she was cleaning her teeth in front of the bathroom mirror when he came in through the door behind her.   He stood behind her, serious-faced, saying nothing, but unignorably attentive.   She finished brushing. Spat, rinsed and spat a couple more times then put the toothbrush back in the glass on…[Read more]

From the steps of Leith’s registry Office, exceeding the word count and containing expletives, but the best I can do given other demands.  

Then, hand in hand, another looking-to-be-wed couple arrived from the rear carpark. On foot and windblown,  Well-matched in the scruffiness of their clothes. Even earlier for their ceremony th…[Read more]

Thank you Jill, Sandra and Libby for  giving me totally engaging entries  composed in three distinct voices.  This monthly challenge  is always a  great  showcase  for the  talents  of the  members of  Den of Writers.

Jill:- Lots of new beginnings in this piece. New start new job new house new baby.  A well-crafted thoughtful story with lots o…[Read more]

New book and a new – and very welcome – experience for me:  a “How To” write book received as a birthday present which I found many times more compelling, educational; entertaining and personally useful than the many “How To” books on writing I own: a dozen on my bookshelves, and knowledge of one di…[Read more]

Think….New Year resolution.  New crime scene.  New house.  New relationship.   New…[Read more]

Thank you  for  the  chance to set the  January comp Ath.

Sorry  was  busy  yesterday  and  forgot to pop in to see the results .  I will  post  the  January challenge   as  soon as  I come up with  one . …[Read more]

Riann contemplated her decision of allowing the snow-covered stranger, now tending the fire, into her cottage. His ice-sprinkled cloak and hood hung at one side of the fire’s mantle, a puddle forming below it, while his boots and mittens lay close to the hearth.

He hadn’t actually set her senses tingling with alarm but there was a p…[Read more]

After a  hectic  but  lovely  build up to  xmas  and a family orientated  day   yesterday I settled  down  about  half an hour ago  to  try and finish my offering.  ……. son  was  carrying a  very large  bucket  of  soapy  wash  water  out to the drive  to clean his  motorbike when…[Read more]

The telegram sent by my new-made grandfather, telling my father of my safe arrival, at five minutes to midnight on the twentieth December (and, according to my great-grandfather’s fish scales, weighing 6lbs 4 ozs) is explanation enough of why I don’t remember my first Christmas. To establish whether it was my sec…[Read more]

Jill  –  a heart-warming  tale  with a hint  of  caution and a happy ending as  luckily the fairies didn’t try to whisk  Ellie away.

The warmth between Ellie and her grandma really shone through and I enjoyed how you blended something modern with a fairy tale too.

Libby  – I tried to  leave the scope  of the  challenge   a  little open…[Read more]

I expect lots of you, like me,  are  creating and drafting  exciting  entries  for the  September  Song  competition  but  dont forget  there are only  fourteen days until the  monthly (November ) competition closes  and i’m looking forward to  reading  your entries for that  too .

Now the November evenings are darkening earlier  and  there is that  expectant  chill in the air  I was thinking  about the art of storytelling beside the  warmth and  atmosphere  of a  log fire.

So, become that story teller beside a night-time fire and surprise me with the most heart-warming, scary, romantic, mysterious, or cautionar…[Read more]

All the other entries  were of  such high  calibre  I had  been  thinking  ‘I’m glad  I’m not the one having to  chose one  above the others’  and now that’s going to be  my  dilemma at the end of  Novembers  competition  challenge .

Games people play

Monday morning’s plumping of the pillows of our marital bed effortful, thanks to both sleep and sex absent as snow in August throughout the weekend. Similarly,  energy enough to dissipate the sourness of my reaction when I noticed  the wor…[Read more]