Distracted

 Having last month asked the excellent  Graham Bartlett – a retired ex-policeman who has successfully supported enough crime writers to be inspired to write his own – to look at my known-to-be-faulty novel #5, and subsequently spent time  mulling over his spot-on advice, I made the decision to turn the telling of it upside down and  completely re-write it. 

I began the process yesterday and got so deeply involved I forgot I needed to post both new words and a winner to this week’s Prediction. So, a quick re-read, and I came up with two deserving entries:  Terrie’s 'paperclipped to the moon’ in her SAS diaries entry 208 was both joyful and inspired,  and David’s ‘Artefact’ exceptionally poignant – thank you both, as well as to Jim and Antonia for their ever-reliable commenting.

Words for the coming week, eggcup, number, spectacle

Entries by midnight Thursday February 2nd Saturday December 31st, new words  Friday 3rd.

 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.

Oh, Patricia!

 Woken to the news of your broken right arm!

Sending grapes and gin and good wishes, and hoping for your speedy recovery (while the writerly part of me wonders  which bone and how does it feel, because Luke breaks his arm in book 5  –- felicitously entitled 'Snap is not a children's game'!) But seriously, I do hope you are not in too much pain.

So, it was the reminder of John Wyndham which dictated this week's winner, although his 'Kraken Wakes' not one of my favourites. 'The Chrysalids', re-read last year, blew my pre-teen mind. Thank you David for  'Wiskey Galore'. 

Words for the coming week are: hotel  limit  quarter 

Entries by midnight Thursday 11th March, new words posted Friday 12th 

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.

This week stalled

Despite flow charts and spreadsheets, re-writings and a new starting  point, my current novel has refused to make any progress this week, thus my inability to add scenes – i.e. no reason to write – is making me bad-tempered. All the more reason, therefore, to thank you for the encouragement given by your comments on what I did post here.

I’ve said before, I’ve no interest in “winning” because, as most of you know, that’s not, and never has been, the raison d’être of this site. I assume, like me, participants primarily welcome the opportunity to exercise writing muscles by attempting to match in quality the best of what appears here and thereby entertain. Motivation is personal. As host, my weekly obligation is to choose three words and to name those who particularly entertained me. This week (and remembering Jim won last week) I name three who regularly contribute do so; all very different, all superb: Terrie for ‘SAS Diaries entry 112’, David for ‘Sisters are doing it for themselves’ and Patricia for ‘Collared’.

Words for next week: amuse decrepit platform  

Entries by midnight Thursday 9th July , words and winners posted Friday 10th

 Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the 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.