Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
It Came from Nether Smocking – some Flashback fiction as I was delving into the past short stories on my blog, cataloguing them. This was no idle self-confidence boost. I plan to make a collection of them, for publication and
I’ve not done any Friday Flash Fiction for a few months now. You may (or may not) have noticed. I started doing a regular flash fiction on Fridays way back… I have 301 posts tagged as ‘short stories’, the first
The End is in the Beginning is this month’s fiction in fifty words prompt. Fi50, or fiction in fifty words, is the ultimate in flash fiction. Get the whole story into fifty words, and make sure your reader’s imagination fills
Real Estate. That’s Chuck’s theme of the week. It seems a common problem at present; several of my blogging friends are moving, or thinking of doing so. I’m too busy at present to have written a flash fiction for today,
Ghosts of the Sea Queen: With no particular prompt this week I went back to the list of titles Chuck Wendig gave us a few weeks back, and picked out this one, with various Marie Celeste images floating through my
As mentioned last week, Chuck Wendig invited us to provide three word titles from which he’d select ten for us to pick from for our 1000 words this week. The (awesome) winning selections were (with owners): All Flags Fall (lbstribling)
The prompt from Chuck Wendig for this week is ‘Rebellion’, which is about where I am in planning the Princelings books, at present, although I’m currently re-editing The Perihelix. This is an excuse for my mind not switching into a third
Welcome to this month’s Insecure Writers Support Group post. You can join in by signing up at insecurewriterssupportgroup.com where you’ll also find the long list of people to visit each month. I tend to visit all my ‘follow’ blogs and at
Today’s challenge from Chuck is to start with a stranger at the door and write 1000 words. I fancied a little more Viridian System backstory – you may find referring to my world-building post on Ulric useful, but it’s not important.
Chuck gave us a simple challenge this week – pick one of the seven deadly sins, and go for it. So here are 1000 words on Kaa Birith’s hospitality at work. The Kaa is a senator of the Imperium, and
Aagh. Chuck challenged us to do a non-fiction piece about ourselves. I thought of a few more entertaining incidents in my life, but frankly, I didn’t want to share them. I’m trying to forget they ever happened! This one popped
OK, this is a very short Flash Fiction this Friday, because I’m still at Camp and it’s time for Bruce Gargoyle’s Fiction in Fifty words feature for the month. The theme is the title…Public Enemy Number One. What, no Chuck
The last two weeks have seen one story, then the continuation of one written by someone else, and so this week, we have my completion of two other author’s work from previous weeks. Blame Chuck Wendig who sets these challenges
Well, Chuck pulled a fast one on us, and made last week’s first half only the first third! So this will be the second third of a story, the first part of which was written by someone else. I think
Chuck’s flash fiction prompt this week required that we include a colour from his list in our titles. Being a glutton for punishment I picked two at random (thank you, my random number selector). I don’t seem ready to let
This week I give you two of my favourite things – a story written to a random title, and a new Narrathon tale by Willoughby the Narrator. You last saw him performing his take on The Princess and the Pea.
Chuck Wendig was a little late with his challenge this week, but fortunately I read the brief and thought of something pretty much straight away. “The borderlands expire thanks to the hundred violins.” “A poetic pattern retains inertia.” “The criminal
Our writing prompt guru Chuck Wendig decided to do an opening line challenge this week. In theory we write the opening line for today and next week we pick one and write the story. So I wrote: Nobody in her
The tenth letter of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet is J for Juliet. Since this is Friday I need to write some flash fiction for you, involving Juliet. Well, that really brings just one thing to mind. And since Chuck Wendig,
As usual, Friday is Flash Fiction day. I use the writing prompt from Chuck Wendig (AC). This week we have five random words to weave into a 1000 word story, any genre. My words were Topaz, Casket, Djinn, Acid and
In this week’s Chuck Wendig Challenge we have to write 1000 words in a ‘something’-punk subgenre of our choice – a made up one, not a standard one like steampunk. I ducked the opportunity to devise a new one and
Something different this week. Chuck Wendig gave us a writing exercise in place of the usual flash fiction challenge. “I want you to take one thing and describe it ten different ways. That thing can be… anything. An object. A person.
This week we are invited to invent our own cocktail (and give the recipe), then write a short story tied to the cocktail in some way. Any genre, 2000 words. So this story contains alcohol and mild abuse of it.
Our challenge from Chuck Wendig this week was to rewrite a fairy tale in a genre drawn at random. I got 6 – Satire – and I also wanted to make it part of my Norfolk week. I’ve always wanted
This week’s challenge from Chuck Wendig was to pick a random song title and use it as the title of our flash fiction story. I had trouble working out how to do this random thing. I could get my iPod