First there was Armand, the mean little devil,
In the suffering of others, he surely did revel.
And then there was Amy, the hot-tempered scamp,
She loved to cause pain; good spirits made damp.
This is part three of a larger story for Christmas. All parts are in the form of a stanza of a poem. Check back tomorrow for part four!
Well, I’ve been shortlisted for the Reedsy competition again! This is the third time I’ve been shortlisted, now. I’ve won it twice, and would love to win it a third time, but being shortlisted three times isn’t anything to sniff at, either!
Honesty in G# Minor was a bit outside my comfort zone as a writer, so it was really nice to know that people actually enjoyed it! If you haven’t already, you can read the story on here, or over on Reedsy.
“Think of it like painting a picture.”
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If you’re interested, you can check out my other stories which were shortlisted:
And my stories which actually won:
He tore through his list growing madder and madder,
The first time was bad, the second time sadder.
“What’s wrong with these kids?” he screamed at the wall,
His booming voice thundering through workshop and hall.
This is part two of a larger story for Christmas. All parts are in the form of a stanza of a poem. Check back tomorrow for part three!
Well, hello there! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I know I’ve still kept my Reedsy short stories updated, but other than that I’ve been AWOL. The reason is that I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo throughout November! For those of you who don’t know what it is, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month. It’s a lot… but, as of last night, I officially completed the challenge!
I am super-proud of myself for having ‘won’ this year’s NaNoWriMo. I participated in the challenge once before, and came away with my tail between my legs. The first draft of my novel is now 3/4 complete! I aim to maintain the pace I set during November, and hope to have a fully-polished manuscript at some point next year.
For those of you who are stats nerds like me, I’ve included a screenshot of my November writing stats to give you a bit of a chuckle. I flew back home to the UK to attend my brother’s wedding in November — you can clearly see this in the dent in my progress! But, I managed to claw my way back, tooth and nail! It just goes to show, no matter how far ‘behind’ you feel you are, if you put the work in, you can still succeed.
And on to my next project! Back in October I wrote a little piece for my Bite-Sized Horror section for Halloween, consisting of daily ‘bite-sized’ 99-word stories. Well, this Christmas, I’ve decided to do the same! The title of the series is Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Christmas, and every day I’ll be posting a little section of it — all the way up until the 25th!
Unlike my Bite-Sized Halloween story, Yule Be Sorry will be made up of daily stanzas, to form one large poem. I think I did the 99-word story idea to death, and wanted to try something new! I’m not much of a poet — I consider myself to be more of a storyteller… but the idea sounded fun, so we’ll see how it goes!
When I finished my Bite-Sized Halloween piece, I made a post commenting on my lack of preparation in advance, and how if I were to ever do such a thing again, I’d plan it out ahead of schedule… well, that didn’t work out. At all. Mainly due to time constraints and other commitments (i.e. NaNoWriMo). So, much like the Halloween piece, this Christmas piece will be written on the fly, and made up as I go along.
Well, that’s about it, guys! I’m glad to be back, after a month away, and I’m super-excited to see where Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Christmas will take me! (Part one was posted this morning!)
So, look out for a man in a red suit, and keep your ears open for the jingling of bells — it may not be the jolly fellow you are expecting…
Santa Claus sat in his grotto of old,
The ice dripping water and the biting wind cold.
“Bad, naughty, wicked and mean!”
These kids were the worst that there ever had been.
This is part one of a larger story for Christmas. All parts are in the form of a stanza of a poem. Check back tomorrow for part two!
Hey, guys! So, here we are, the final day of NaNoWriMo! But… I’ll be making a post about that another day. Today is Reedsy short story contest time! The final Reedsy during NaNoWriMo! I’ve found it a little bit exhausting to maintain all my side stuff alongside NaNo, but I’ve made it!
This week’s Reedsy theme was ‘All the Fixin’s’ for Thanksgiving! As a Brit, I don’t really know what it’s exactly all about, but I was more than happy to pen a story under the theme, nonetheless! I chose prompt #2 — “Write a story about a family dinner that includes someone unexpected showing up.”
The title of my story is Frank, and, as always, you can read it here on WordPress, or over on my Reedsy profile!
We all thought that Frank was dead. Had we known that he wasn’t, we would have killed him again.
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I wrote this piece in a really short space of time, due to my NaNo commitments — it came together in the space of an hour or so. I think it’s got quite an off-beat vibe! I hope you all like it!
Stay tuned for more posts as NaNo comes to an end!
Well, here we are again! Another month, another #BlogBattle prompt. The word for November is ‘harp’. At first I was a bit baffled as to where to take the prompt, but after the first idea floated to the top of my mind the rest slotted into place rather smoothly!
“Take it away, man,” said the first.
“Play it, daddy-o,” said the second.
“Gotcha,” replied the third.
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I tried to avoid writing a chase scene again, as I’d done a few of those already for the #BlogBattle… I quite like the direction the story took. Perhaps we’ll visit this world again, at some point in the future? I feel that there’s potential here.
As always, check out the other bloggers’ stories when they get posted! They’re always great!
So, I didn’t win the Reedsy contest this week, but I’m not going to grumble, considering I’ve already won it twice! (Three times would definitely be nice, though…) However, I received an email telling me that my story What Did We Do? was very well received, and was actually shortlisted for the prize — so I’ll take that as a sort of win, in any case.
If you haven’t already, you can read What Did We Do? here on WordPress, or over on my Reedsy profile.
The dogs were the first to sense it. Without them, who knows how it would have all turned out? Maybe it would have all been over within a few hours.
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And if you’re interested in my previous stories which won the competition, they’re called The Things That Do Not Float and Astro Naught. You can read the former here or here, and you can read the latter here and here.
Have a nice day, everyone!
Well, Halloween has been and gone! And what a great one it was! This week’s Reedsy theme was naturally focused on Halloween. I chose prompt #1 — “Write a story about someone spending the night in an old Victorian home-turned-hotel on Halloween.”
The title of my short story is I Am the Groundskeeper, and — as always — you can read it here on WordPress, or over here on my Reedsy profile! The story is set in one of my favourite places in the world — rural Wales. I had in mind the countryside around Llanon, Aberystwyth and Aberaeron.
The knife doesn’t slip in easily, I have to really force it.
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Hope you like the story, and I hope you had a great Halloween! I know that I did!
Until next time, peace out!
He was still between worlds. He could feel neither the warmth from the sun nor the blades of grass beneath his hands. The child suffered no panic; only resignation.
Charlie lay down between the headstones – not experiencing the cold morning dew dampening his clothes – and rested his head on his hands. He was tired. He didn’t think he’d ever been as weary in his life. Slowly, his eyelids began to close.
Just before sleep took the boy, he thought he heard a voice – his father.
“Charlie, where are you?”
And then a whisper. “I’ll keep him safe,” said Marion.
This is the final part of a larger story for Halloween. All sections are in the form of a 99-word story. Check out the links below for previous parts!
Previous parts:
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11 | #12 | #13 | #14 | #15 | #16 | #17 | #18 | #19 | #20 | #21 | #22
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