Wednesday, December 31, 2014

2015-0010 (Dec 31 2014) 09:05

January Flash Blast

2015-0010 (Dec 31 2014) 09:05


0251 If Bad Men Come
0252 Duck, Chicken
0253 Let me rest now. I will rise later and tend to my affairs
0254 SOAP
0255 Currently, I am not listed in "The Lives of the Poets"

0256 There are a few, my dear, but positively not enough
0257 TRINKETS
0258 To the man who stole my last book, I -
0259 A kid in a baseball cap
0260 Most theatre nights, no-one is shot

0261 Tango Fucking Argentina
0262 She followed him out anyway
0263 Use your EARS, Goddamn You!
0264 Unforgiven Delinqencies
0265 Pfft!

0266 There, there, Sweetpea... Run it under a cold tap.
0267 Larry is a bit worse than very, very ill
0268 An opportunity to converse
0269 Did Hitler really like caged birds?
0270 The price of Gleaming

0271 A dark blue mailbox
0272 This is how I love them, snuffling, dreaming
0273 Too tired to chase flies, too hot
0274 Performance Poet, Leathers, Harley
0275 Not Even Noon.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Boot Camp January Blast




The Boot Camp January Blast




To start the new Year with a bang, a rush, we "Blast"

A Blast is an attempt to write a story/flash/poem a day (more if you can manage it)

The purpose of "Blasting" is less to do with producing publishable works
than it is to "open pipes".

However, the process of unremitting, fast writing, day upon day has a peculiar mental
effect. After 5-12 days, the brain "tunes-in" and the typical Boot Camper finds a new
literary gear. The brain and heart starts to "get it" and (usually) around this time there is 
a surge in quality.

This is a case of quantity BEGETS quality.


Flashing is about writing QUICKLY, writing without pre-thought,
about letting the sub-conscious take over. flashes often surprise the writer


If you write 31 pieces in 31 days, sure, 2-3-4-5/10 will not be great.

2 or 3 may be junk.

But a dozen will be solid enough, a tweak away from publishable

And 5-10 will be really good, at your top level or beyond it.





Alex posts a set of 25 prompts at least once a day (early morning UK time) but often posts a second or third set.

You can use one prompt, two, three, ten, or all twenty-five.

You can use them directly, word-for-word, or use them as triggers.

What triggers depends on your unconscious connections, sometimes they will be breathtaking.

Join us for january. No charge
January Blast

2015-0007 (Dec 30 2014) 11:50

















0151 Hold it up to the light
0152 We were immense, then
0153 I remember seeing you in a certain light and thinking, "Angel."
0154 Chappaquidick
0155 We move on brilliant silver wheels

0156 I would like her to be beautiful
0157 A Pink Volkswagen Camper
0158 Now the sky comes closer
0159 We played "pass-the-parcel" unwrapping you.
0160 Various girls who couldn't love me

0161 The you were removed and the room was fuller
0162 CORD
0163 What could you do with that kind of money?
0164 Are You Lonesome, Tonight?
0165 COBRA

0166 Well I would if I could, but I can't
0167 It is ten below zero
0168 You could always hold my hand
0169 I thought we were drowning
0170 THIMBLE

0171 I don't know how it started, only that it will finish
0172 Hail Mary, Full of Grace
0173 Save me. Stop talking and come save me!
0174 Life Support.
0175 My mother sewing, our mothers.

Boot Camp Flash Blast

Prompt Set 6

2015-0006 (Dec 30 2014) 08:00



















0126 Clouds assembling
0127 RIFLE
0128 Annoying the dog
0129 MARZIPAN
0130 Putting pennies on the line

0131 A railway station. No-one gets off
0132 The darker amber streets
0133 A hilarity of Christmases
0134 The police have been called, their dark uniforms
0135 The beat of Jungle Drums

0136 Unfortunately black
0137 She had the thinnest, thinnest waist
0138 PEACH
0139 Spitfire on Water
0140 Girl on a Motorcycle

0141 Before this road was smooth
0142 Tip-toeing under cobwebs, the floor scurrying
0143 MIAMI
0144 Perhaps a Pelican
0145 How glass and steel shines in the tropics

0146 The Spinster Kelly
0147 Slow down, shut up, think, now speak slowly
0148 How a glider glides
0149 Fifty Banned Words for 2015
0150 ITCH

Flash Blast prompt Set 5







2015-0005 (Dec 29 2014) 17:20

0101 A plastic-bag, throwaway sort of person
0102 Douse the fire, be quiet
0103 He is (most probably) the one at the back, far left
0104 PLINK!
0105 The crew is busy, but it will be all right on the night.

0106 My father would like to be dead; my mother agrees
0107 SYDNEY
0108 I have various feelings, slightly overlapping
0109 Show us your husbands!
0110 The differences between soup and stew

0111 A Box of Black Magic
0112 In a conversational way of speaking, Mrs Browne
0113 She says, Don't Ever Die. As if!
0114 Will y'be staying long?
0115 McLintock's Dream

0116 I miss a baker
0117 A story beginning, "Take a seat, pour one; this is the Goddamn Truth."
0118 Swift from the traps!
0119 I could work for Sky
0120 I've come for the payment on the bed.

0121 Dark stars on fire
0122 I do it for the weirdness, the weirdness
0123 Bread does not choose to rise
0124 Puppy, Dog, Old Dog, Memory
0125 Is it hot in here?

Monday, December 29, 2014

January Blast: Prompt Set 4








2015-0004 (Dec 29 2014) 09:20

0076 Two men, a tree
0077 The gladness of animals
0078 Bags of parsnips, 3 Fucking p
0079 Spike Milligan
0080 He was a hard case but she tamed him

0081 The simpler pleasures when I was young
0082 DOVE
0083 Poet and Australian 
0084 Assembled in the forum
0085 You will tell me you love me

0086 We could row out on the lake, picnic on the island
0088 Pots, Kettles, Saucepans
0089 The men are walking home
0090  The path through that wood is long since overgrown
0087 Say something dirty

0091 OMG, LOL, You WON'T believe this!!!
0092 Brownlee has fucked off
0093 She is beside herself and I prefer the other one
0094 Everyone has a favourite child
0095 Prime Minister, Pig, decent TV...

0096 You can kiss me once or twice, but don't get into the habit
0097 NAIL
0098 The annual child-cull
0099 Precious
0100 Now the saucers have landed

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Blast With Us

Join us in Boot Camp for the Dec-Jan Blast


Get your 2015 Writing off to a great start.

Dec-Jan Blast Prompt-Set 3











2015-0003 (Dec 28 2014) 09:05

0051 Why money is dirty
0052 PLUM
0053 It begins early, planes in the sky
0054 AXE
0055 A long, lazy street

0056 I think I'll go up the hill
0057 The kitchen shaking
0058 The bed not made, the room dank
0059 All day it's rained, and women are crying
0060 Brass bands but no homosexuals

0061 At the foot of the stairs
0062 That cruel, cruel month
0063 I would rather lose an arm than a leg. I would rather lose a finger.
0064 September. Sing!
0065 The train does not slow down

0066 We huddled together, not sure why
0067 Half a league, half-a-league etc
0068 THRUST!
0069 Rickety Bridge Ahead
0070 Like a wolf upon the fold

0071 I have met some at dusk, as if they were walking home
0072 I was so great a lover
0073 Let me see, take note. There was -
0074 How the fox metes death for the joy of it
0075 I tolled you so.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

January Blast, Prompt Set 2

January Blast


Prompt Set 0002





0026 They were away at 06:30
0027 She had no idea that she made the world work
0028 Banana-fish
0029 On a cloud I saw a child
0030 Weep!

0031 This should be funny
0032 Let's go to the lighthouse
0033 Explosion
0034 A Picture from Cardiff
0035 A Flux of Circumstances

0036 This Building is Alarmed
0037 How to Spring-Clean the Heart
0038 My Grandfather Looks Quite Sweet
0039 Five Hundred Sheets of A4
0040 On an Airfield in Italy

0041 In 1928, when I was nine.
0042 The Cruelty of Mirrors
0043 Trying to Swim the River
0044 The Formal Term is Consequential Loss
0045 I am tempted to say Friday passed without incident.

0046 More room in the kitchen
0047 The air swells like an anger containing
0048 I give you a book, you give me a book
0049 Walking towards me, you stoop now, walk like an old lady
0050 I have a new bookcase, the dogs have been walked

2015-001 Prompts

2015-001 Prompts


(We always start the New Year on 26/27 Dec...)


0001 That hour I was mostly who I thought I was
0002 I'm back again, I may be back again
0003 I will be milder, and then I will disappear
0004 This woman ate something

0005 Do You Eat Pie?
0006 No, of course it wasn't expected
0007 How lucky that we ran into each other
0008 So, Ghandi, mate, what do you do in your spare time?

0009 It always seem to be uphill, the wind always in your face
0010 She removed something from her hair
0011 I would like to be Japanese for a day
0012 Don't laugh, but people in 2014 thought they were free.

0013 I'd quite like to be a patient on House, coughing blood and stuff
0014 This is what I would write if I kept a diary
0015 There are mornings when you would like to fall downstairs
0016 Mama says NO!

0017 Sex is tyranny
0018 Think of me as a grapefruit, too long left on a shelf
0019 You were slowly edged out
0020 Billy Collins is OK, but prompts he doth not make

0021 Cold Monday morning, six o'clock, November
0022 The year looks too long, too big, too dark
0023 Fuck This!
0024 Or it might be about Badgers
0025 My Wife's Lover