Flashes, Prizes, Early Starts

No sleep last night. Wife away and the kids had to get up at 04:00 to catch a coach to France at 05:00.

I was scared I wouldn't hear the alarm so dozed on the sofa (I wrote until 01:30 anyway) and watched SCRUBS.

05:30 in the morning and I've been to Tescos and I'm coming home. It's now I should go to bed but wow, look at all this extra writing time I have AND AN EMPTY HOUSE!


Below are Boot Camp's Friday Morning prompts.

When we get a long list of prompts I seek out one that has a voice that connects to me, open, with that and then just let my unconscious run riot (but always looking to "grab" another prompt.

Does this work? Can it produce good stories? Last year I had my lowest-ever subbing year but won three short-story competitions.

ALL THREE STORIES WERE FROM A SET OF FLASH PROMPTS AND USED EVERY SINGLE PROMPT.

They were all written in less than 75 minutes.

I remain convinced that writers write BETTER when they have no time to think.


Mind you, today's list would challenge a master!

HERE.

I visited the place where we last met

A Bus to Dover

Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended

Crisps, Lucozade, Ibuprofen

The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet

Blog-Wars

There was no sign that anything had ended

Three ball-bearings, a circlip

And nothing to instruct me to forget

Talking With Francine

The thoughtless birds that shook out the trees

Sky News

Singing an ecstacy I could not share

Picnic in Kashmir

Played cunning with my thoughts. Surely in these

Buzz

Pleasure there could not be a pain to bear

Hot Cross Buns

Or any discord shake the level breeze

Year of the Womag

It was because this place was just the same

That made your absence seem a savage force

Jelly Redux

For under all the gentleness there came

She likes to know the ending, especially twists

An earthquake tremor: fountain birds and grass

Chicken Soup and Murder

Were shaken by my thinking of your name

Girls in Gangs