On the (hopefully traffic-easy) road

 The current intention is to travel the 280 miles from home to Julia's on Thursday. On arrival we'll be busy, busy, and having already seen the wealth and variety of this week's posts, I'm not confident I'll have time to do justice to the reading and choosing a winner. So I'm scheduling this to appear on Friday with new words, and will do my best to catch up with the awards as soon as possible thereafter. Please note I have also tweaked the dates a little to allow more time for fitting round other activities. and would also like to take the opportunity to wish you and yours the best of health and happiness for 2022 

Words for the coming week: chime linen plough 

Entries by midnight  Thursday 6th January,  new words posted Friday 7th 

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

Easy journey and good to arrive after more than a year's forbidding. Time enough now to read through the riches of last week, only to realise that no amount of time will enable me to pick just one winner. The podium thus becomes a level stage, on which Holly, (for 'Promise'), Jim, 'for 'Good Samaritan'), Julia (Practice), (for ('Ellis 024') and Perry, (for 'Original Story')  will have to squeeze themselves. And thank you all for the delicious entertainment.

The addiction of reading

Apologies for the tardiness in posting this week's update – I was too much absorbed in the book I was reading (Peter Benson's 'The South in winter') to remember the need to write one – how much I admire and envy the ability of novelists to do that!  (And that despite both the rich variety of what was on offer this week from each of you, and including the welcome return of Holly!

So a quick re-read this morning and it is the final line of David's 'Better the Devil you know' tale of the Ark that takes my fancy, along with a nod of recognition to Antonia, once again, for her seamless inclusion of the prompt words into an account of her weekly shop activities. Thank you, both, and also to each of you for commenting, which is the life blood of this site.

Words for the coming week: gentle, goose, weave

Entries by midnight Thursday 23rd December,  new words posted Friday 24th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

Is no word safe?

The weekly task of choosing prompt words is not exactly onerous, I aim for one that works as either verb or noun; something with a bit of a kick, and, sometimes, that I know will challenge in the expectation of enjoying the skill with which you accept this. 'Espalier' was a light-hearted choice of something whose prettiness might cause some head-scratching – I certainly did not anticipate the breadth of ghastly invention with which it was used. (Nor, I have to confess, the gore!)

So thank you, one and all, for the entertainment. As I am sure you can appreciate, choosing a favourite from this wealth  of possibilities is a greater level of challenge. Perry deserves a mention for his 'Not mushroom for error' – humour all my family but me excel in  – but after much reading and re-reading, it is the elegance of Patricia's 'The girl next door' which stayed longest in my mind.

                        Words for the coming week: applaud court flood

Entries by midnight Thursday 16th December,  new words posted Friday 17th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

And now it's December!

 

 I start by echoing John's comment about how wonderfully friendly and supportive folk are on this site. Inventive too,  as has been illustrated this week with wedding disasters  and varied uses of 'bubble', along with I would add, an excellent standard of writings. As ever, I am reluctant to single out the customary one or two winners, and (apparently) ignore the rest, but I am sure you appreciate the variety and the wealth of choice and will applaud your own 'winner'.  Mine, for the wealth of imagination, is David's 'Wedding of the year' 

Words for the coming week: current espalier regret

Entries by midnight Thursday 9th December,  new words posted Friday 10th 

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.