What should he do? Claus paced ‘cross the floor.
Pond’rously pondering, he pondered some more.
A lump of coal – mean! No presents – so sad!
They didn’t have the impact he knew they once had.
This is part five of a larger story for Christmas. All parts are in the form of a stanza of a poem. Check back tomorrow for part six!
Well, here we are! Another month, another #BlogBattle! This is the final one of 2019! I can’t quite believe it… Well, here’s to 2020, and the stories we will tell!
The prompt for December was ‘innocent’. I knew exactly the kind of story I wanted to tell… I just struggled to keep it within the 1,000 word limit! You have to really cut away the fat when the story is this short.
The title for my story is Don’t Let It Feed, and you can read it here!
Ernest Kirby didn’t die in vain. The soft-spoken 73-year-old with painful arthritis and an inoperable tumour somewhere in his bowels saved twelve others on that bleak night in early December.
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I hope you enjoy the last #BlogBattle entry for the year! As always, please be sure to check out some of the other short stories, when they get posted! There’s always something for everyone over at the #BlogBattle!
All the way through, to Z straight from A,
The miscreant imps caused chaos each day.
As the spark left his eyes, the cheer left his cheeks:
“I’ll find a solution in the upcoming weeks.”
This is part four of a larger story for Christmas. All parts are in the form of a stanza of a poem. Check back tomorrow for part five!
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…
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!
Ah, you knew I couldn’t stay away from horror for too long! Last week’s romance story was just a palette cleanser! Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Hey, guys! Hope you’re all well and that NaNoWriMo isn’t stressing you out too much! Some might say that I’m crazy for maintaining these Reedsy stories whilst doing NaNoWriMo, and to those people I say… well, you’re not wrong!
This week’s Reedsy theme was ‘Once upon a time’. There was one prompt that immediately jumped out at me; #4 — “Write a story in which characters are warned not to go into the woods.” I love a good horror set-up! The title of my story is Forests of Bone, and, as always, you can read it here on WordPress or over on my Reedsy profile!
“You remember where to shoot ‘em?”
“In the head! Always in the head!”
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I had a blast writing this one! Sometimes you just know exactly where to go with a story. In fact, I didn’t want the story to stop, and struggled to stay within the 3,000 word limit. I hope you guys like it!
Until next time, guys! Have a good one!
Well, hi there! I know it’s been a while — I used to post every day, but with NaNoWriMo and other things going on, that just isn’t possible these days… I hope you’re all keeping well, though!
This week’s Reedsy theme was ‘Everyone’s an Expert’; I chose prompt #4 — “Write about something you consider yourself to be an expert in, but do it from the perspective of a total novice.” There aren’t many things I consider myself to be an expert in, but I think (as previously shared on here) I’m pretty good at songwriting — so that’s the direction I took the story in. I didn’t actually intend to write a romantic story… it just sorta happened. I don’t like to force my writing — if it’s horror, it’s horror, if it’s romance, it’s romance — I like to just let it flow… but I was a bit surprised at the tone. However, considering that I wrote this story after coming back from my brother’s wedding, perhaps the romantic tone wasn’t that surprising after all? The title is Honesty in G# Minor, and you can read it here, or on my Reedsy profile.
“Think of it like painting a picture.”
“I can’t paint, either.”
“No, it doesn’t matter. Just think of it like painting a picture.”
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I hope you like the story — I know it’s a bit unusual, compared to my usual fare. I think exploring new genres and territories is always a good idea, if only to give you new ideas. I wrote the piece in a very short space of time, even by my standards — I got back home from the wedding yesterday. Perhaps I could have refined the idea a little bit, but I still quite like it — I think the story has got a lot of heart.
Until next time, take care! I hope you have a great weekend!
joshuainsole.com 