Byron’s comment on the seasons

“The English winter – ending in July, to recommence in August”

It hasn’t felt that bad, but this year’s July does seem to have had a dearth of blue skies.

Thank goodness, then, for Prediction, which this week was chock-full with off-the-wall ideas and epic offerings, my favourite of which was Perry’s ‘Beachhead’ which sent my mind travelling way beyond the words.

Top place this week, however, for its small-scale setting but colourful and vastly entertaining characters, goes to Terrie’s SAS diaries entry 116 – thank you both.

Words for next week: coin peacock twitch

Entries by midnight Thursday 6th August, words and winners posted Friday 2nd

 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.

Blurring of the days

Antonia said it – ‘Good Reads’ – and this another week of an excellence we have got so used to I initially took Terrie’s ‘Brain-fried’ as a straight-forward apology instead of the brilliantly prompt-led piece it was. 

As usual, what I name ‘winner’ for the week is not an indication that others are in any way less accomplished or entertaining, just the one I pick on has some particular hook that catches my attention. This week Patricia managed it twice, with ‘In Plain Sight’ and ‘First appearances’

Words for next week: greed  state usurp

Entries by midnight Thursday 30th July , words and winners posted Friday 31st

 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.

Small but perfectly-formed

100% top quality this week, so I’m going to permit myself to indulge in my liking of the Scottish accent, and the knee-jerk reaction to anything with crows in it, and name David’s ‘On A Cold and Frosty Morning’ my undoubted favourite. Which is not, of course, to say I didn’t gain a great deal of enjoyment from reading each and every one of the others – thank you all. 

And thank you too for the endorsement of the importance of this group – I was enormously pleased to see three of us coincide here around 16.53 on the fifteenth,  and aim to keep it going as long as I am able.

Words for next week: deviate  emery  stunt

Entries by midnight Thursday 23rd July , words and winners posted Friday 24th

 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.

Back to Hot Chocolate, I fear ...

and yes, I know I’ve used it before, but when the lyrics are so appropriate …

Nevertheless, I’m well aware that at the Prediction it’s a beverage vigorously stirred with a liberality of horror – something which doesn’t come as easily to me to write as it evidently does to many of you. This week we’ve had several varieties: David’s haunting, Patricia’s chilling, Jim’s gruesome and John with a double dose of insidious and stomach churning which earns him this week’s number 1 spot.

Words for next week: blaspheme fizz ugly

Entries by midnight Thursday 16th July , words and winners posted Friday 17th

 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.

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.

"Brought to you by courtesy of …"

Words for next week, that is. I brought up a blank page to begin to write this, decided another chore needed attending to first and, in the process, gleaned words which accompanied action. Plenty action in this week’s entries, but the darkness – and the potential – of Jim’s ‘Go figure’ propelled it to top place.

As ever, I thank you for your  continuation – this site healthier by far than others I visit, a true indication we are first and foremost writers, more interested in doing so than images of  … kittens …

Words for next week: clatter, fingernail, pure  

Entries by midnight Thursday 2nd July , words and winners posted Friday 26th

 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.

Weather to be coloured in

A week of waking to pale grey skies which offer only the dreariness of dishcloths, and hinting at November, except it is not cold and the lush greenness of full-leaved trees is incongruous.  That not the reason, but despite a couple of days usefully drawing flow charts I’ve made no progress with ‘Snap’ and resorted again (and happily) to editing ‘Drink with a dead man’ – all but done and awaiting the attentions of one of my beta readers.

This weeks’ winners arrived at with a little less trauma too: David’s ‘The Generation Game’ takes top spot for providing a novel quantity of remarkable story in just 100 words, and very different but equally as entertaining, Terrie’s 'The Secret Armadillo Soldier (SAS) Diaries - entry 110' scampers up in second place.

Words for next week: interfere kitten profile

Entries by midnight Thursday 25th June , words and winners posted Friday 26th

 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.

running late today

so I’ll just post last week’s equally merit-earning winners, which were John’s ‘Utopia USA’ and Patricia’s  Cripplegate Junction episode 234 –– and come back to tidy up later.

I was glad to see the Shadow had other plans for Jim and totally agree with his comment about the wonderful verbs choice of Patricia’s – I read somewhere that’s possible the most important thing for vivid writing.

Words for next week:  distinguish pursue, sodden

Entries by midnight Thursday 18th June , words and winners posted Friday 19th

 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.

Inspiration: the act of breathing in

Adding up to ninety-seven words to the three provided, and crafting them to the standard most of us achieve here, on a regular basis, is no mean feat. For myself, there are occasions when an opening sentence arrives in an instant, and the rest follows, needing only a minimum amount of polish. Other times (on a ratio of approximately 7:1) it takes days for a story to emerge; another for the lumpiness to be beaten out, but as the standard of entries rises it becomes more imperative that I do so. In turn I thank those of you who do likewise. The prompt words themselves are mostly culled from cryptic crosswords, book or CD titles, and I do aim to include one verb and a couple of words that do not obviously combine. That you so frequently do precisely that is credit to your powers of inventiveness; no wonder they are occasionally capricious.

The winner this week, from a slightly smaller field, is Jim for what I very much hope is not the end of The Shadow Series.

Words for next week:  blanket lacerate Victorian

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 11th June , words and winners posted Friday 12th

 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.

And not a raspberry in sight!

I should have had more faith, but thank you, thank you once again for such  a wonderful crop of tales – I doubt I was the only one salivating with anticipation with each new post I read.  Which, of course, means I now have to choose the most delicious and, like the punnets of raspberries I have been offered this week, to choose one from several of near-identical quality is hard.

So, I narrowed it to three, stirred them and re-read them, and eventually – at this particular minute – was able to declare it to be Holly, for her  hint-of-epic ‘Ties’.

Words for next week:  compulsory extravagant tone

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 4th June , words and winners posted Friday 5th

 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.

Easy-peasy (phew!)

This week, I doubt I’ll have much dissension over my choice of David’s ‘Lucinda and the Beast’. since praise other than mine included ‘well-crafted piece […] a pleasure to read’, ‘Show, don't tell: a classic example’, ‘ quite stunning […]the beauty of the language’, and ‘delicate, horrifying, inevitable’. All of which, in their recognition and acknowledgement of the craft, make the hosting of this site both a pleasure and a reason for pride.

Words for next week:  jaw ostracise Pavlov

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 28th May , words and winners posted Friday 29th

 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.

Sunshine on a pewter hip flask ...

... caught my eye when I sat down to type this; the lines of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh engraved design picked out sharply. Near as sharp as this week’s writings, from which I am expected to a single … favourite. The one that, in this week, this hour (another hour might bring my thoughts to change) especially appeals, a duty which accompanies the hosting of this site.

Patricia’s snakes and ladders  in ‘Cripplegate Junction/Part 231 - Playing The Game’ evoked good memories, Jim’s ‘square inch’ just one highlight of  ‘The Shadow Series: I still Am’, and John’s 5th episode of ‘The curious cases of Dr. A. Marie Abernathy’ earned several re-readings and top place.

Words for next week: harvest  panache  sorry

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 21stMay , words and winners posted Friday 22nd

 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.

Light before half four

John’s ‘The curious cases of Dr. A. Marie Abernathy, Part 4’  has me enthralled, avid for continuation, and it is because I am trusting that won’t be the last (so I’ll have another opportunity to name him winner,) I’m placing him in third place. Patricia earns herself a vermilion rosette for her ‘Glory Day’ trilogy and David takes first place for ‘The Miner Forty-Niner’.

Such richness of writing deserves applause.  I have applauded myself this week, for finally making available as ebooks the first three of my ‘Love triangles with murder’ series. Details are on my Lines of communication blog for anyone interested – DI John Pettinger makes an appearance in ‘Commission & omission’. 

Words for next week: angle parody square

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 14th May , words and winners posted Friday 15th

 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.

Let me not name it to you

Last week, in a book containing glossaries of near-forgotten words, I found her name. But I fear to tell it to you for, as Terrie says, names hold great power and to reveal it might cause her to lose her magic. Suffice it to say, it’s one I doubt you’ll ever guess.

And, not for that snippet of wisdom, but because, by the narrowest of margins, Terrie’s ‘Gathering Magic’ charm-sharded its way to top place, leaving several panting in the rear, I declare her this week's winner.

Thank you all for another hard-to-choose-from week of entries (and I trust Patricia will be unable to resist a continuation with the following).

Words for next week: membrane perch  witness

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 7th May , words and winners posted Friday 8th

 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.

Not Scott Walker …

But nevertheless an attempt to make it easy – or at least easier – on myself, I decided this week’s winner would be the one with the most appealing, entertaining, individual use of  ‘goldfinch’. An entirely random rule and unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. So, we had lone and embroidered goldfinches from Terrie, ditto Patricia (along with a ‘tiny caged’ one) , a pendant from John and a ‘tumbledown lounge’ from Jim, but I was most charmed with Antonia’s ‘goldfinch in a flock of seagulls’ and am pleased to declare her this week’s winner.

Additionally, I’d like to echo John, Antonia and William’s gratitude for the richness of this site. While others languish somewhat, this has never missed a hale and healthy beat. Long may it last!

Words for next week:  palm vista weld

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 30th April, words and winners posted Friday 1st May

 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.

Yet again, a nigh-on photo finish

And yes … as predicted by John (truly, John, you’d be welcome to share responsibilities here), this week provided some tough judging, but hand in hand with that, of course, some fantastic reading and plenty of good-mannered, generous and very welcome comments.

In the end I went for the marginally more breath-taking – breath taken on reading the title – of David’s “The Water, Like a Witch’s Oils” but assure you that John, Terrie and Patricia were all jostling for places right behind.

Words for next week: extract  goldfinch  tallow

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 23rd April, words and winners posted Friday 24th

 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 social media you prefer.

The guilt of pinning a tale

This yet another week where to choose one above so many excellent offerings has me dithering, even though I do know you understand that not being feted and hailed ­– or offered so much as a biscuit – is no indication of less than meriting. We write for the joy of writing, in the hope of entertaining our peers and to a large extent the accolade is unnecessary. Except, somehow, it is. But, more important, is the acknowledgement of our peers, that we have written, have entertained. So this week I thank you all, and pin the tail on William’s  ‘Coming to terms II’.

Words for next week: fret  sea-glass  tear

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 16th April, words and winners posted Friday 17th

 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 social media you prefer.

Sweet tooth

A listing in the paper this week, of the contents of food parcels for the elderly, included Custard Creams, which would suit me, but not my husband. (Not that either of us dare eat them anyway – too easy to ramp up the calories) However, for an ending par excellence, I declare Patricia's Kursaal 'The Obfuscation Orb' takes the Prediction biscuit this week. '

As ever, thank you for your entries, your comments and for not upbraiding  me about my omitting to change the date in last week's cut and paste.

Words for next week:  biscuit  quilt  suffice

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 9th April, 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 social media you prefer.

Whitening as I watch

Perhaps it’s the unexpected sight from my window of freezing fog and fuzzy-damp trees that dictated my choice of winners this week: Jim’s decidedly chilling ‘Tonight’s prey’. My writing week went pear-shaped when I realised that, book 5 having reached 42K words, I'd started in the wrong place, the MC was not the man I thought he was and the plot needs a total overhaul. Luckily, my beta reader returned notes and comment on book 4 which was far easier to pay attention to.

Words for next week:  share  shelf  turpid

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 26th March, words and winners posted Friday 27th

 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 social media you prefer.

Black birds against spring sky

Another week of writing and reading richness and difficulty for me in choosing a winner from the many candidates, but while it was relatively easy to decide Terrie pipped the rest of you to the post, I was unable to decide which of hers – I was hovering between three – merited the topmost spot. So this is as much an award for  consistency as superb story-telling. Thank you all for so tirelessly posting and commenting each week; your participation propels this site to excellence.

Words for next week:  affect dregs journey

Entries by midnight (GMT) Thursday 26th March, words and winners posted Friday 27th

 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 social media you prefer.