HE66 6LL

Glad THAT's Over


It's been a horrible, horrible, nightmare four months. I divorced in August 2013, then the new house fell through (I went to Spain briefly, then ended up at the ex's!)   Eventually I found a place but the Landlady's new PostCode was HE66 6LL and it didn't work out.

Took forever to find my fourth place to live (well, one I could afford) and though I found one, I couldn't really afford the move. Then my daughter went back to UNI and my son moved out. OMO for the first time in 40 years!

So I've been traumatised, frightened, broke, physically ripped up, mentally a joke, and as for writing, what's that?

So now I have to re-start, kickstart, get going. I feel empty, lacking affect, but it's October, so I've decided, not to smoke (I never have) and not to drink (argh!), and of course, to begin writing and kicking some Boot Camp arse.

I'll probably be OK for 30 Days or so.

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 02 (01-10)

 Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 02 (01-10)

25 Guesthouse for the hard of hearing

26 A kind of mean joy

27 How shame impregnates

28 Let's pretend that we are talking

29 I will come back as a lawn-mower

30 No, this is my satisfied face

31 The hills swell

32 You tasted of salt

33 My legs are happy, my arms happy

34 A Daily Mirror came swirling

35 The soot that falls in the fire

36 There is plenty of time to make mistakes

37 Those women? I have known them all.

38 He has slept in the bed of a pederast

39 Life is short. Awake!

40 The blood in your eyes

41 Flat 3A, Ivory Tower

42 I repeat myself. I repeat myself.

43 A clock with flesh, pulsing hands

44 Picnic on Iceberg 779

45 She will probably remarry

46 The pathetic echoes of the half-filled bed

47 It's broken, isn't it?

48 Best not interfere

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 01 (01-10)

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 01 (01-10)

Posted by 19:30 Tuesday, September 30th

01 Why we stumble and sometimes fall

02 Be brave when it is cold and dark

03 Inside the light

04 Sometimes there is nothing to do but sweep the yard and wait for chickens

05 At least two strokes

06 We could try dancing?

07 This is a good sound, listen

08 The phone isn't ringing

09 Tell me something I don't know

10 A rocking-chair on a porch

11 I need to shave

12 That's the thing with mortality

13 It's warm, close, heavy, and something is dying

14 Remember, Winter is coming

15 45's, LPs, Covers, Dansettes

16 The sweet accident that is us

17 The girl I loved when I was twelve

18 Chasing the Vixen

19 Never letting his dogs off the lead

20 How the boys want to be close, imagining love.

21 It all holds together, even when nothing is true

22 When the mountain turns to ash

23 There are more eloquent ways to say this

24 I could be a woman, I guess.

Don't Watch! JOIN US!

October Blast

We start today, but officially tomorrow, our October Blast.


Prompts posted every day, at least one set, often two, sometimes three.

Participants aim to write a MINIMUM of 31 pieces (Flashes, Stories, Poems) but with at least four stories (over 1,200 words) in the set.

Why not join us in Boot Camp Keegan for (another) great experience?

Thatcham Era Prompts 06 (30-09)

Thatcham Era Prompts 06 (30-09)

She fears him, but it's more than that

PEANUT

Some shit about a wheelbarrow

Google "FHG5" and follow links until you're inspired

To love one is to be filled with emptiness

Speak!

You want me now, but there's more than this

Living on fish

My father shaving in the kitchen, porridge flupping.

A story beginning, "I lie a lot, but"

And now I am too scared to live

MUG

Then there was Grandma Elkes

A soft light, a line from an old. old story

A story ending "He closed his eyes and waited."

The last man failed, now you.

NAIL

A crow above a snowdrift

BLANK

At midnight, somewhere, sweeping as a century moves

GREEN

I would say "awkward but sincere"

BLUE

I have had a letter from Idaho

Thatcham Era Prompts 05 (29-09)

 Thatcham Era Prompts 05 (29-09)

Walking forever through mud

Samson

Up early but never early enough

Moses

I think where we live is getting smaller

Ruth

How the sky comes ever closer

Judas

A few smooth white stones

Nail

I need to go home now

Crisp

All the stolen children

Pinocchio, rotting

Could you repeat that?

Wagon

The sweet promise of a new book

Tank

I'd like to go down to the harbour and wait until it rains

The sound of night horses

He was probably an actor

So Mrs Jesus, right?

Dark chocolate with raspberry infusion

Thatcham Era October Blast Warm-Up 04

Thatcham Era October Blast Warm-Up 04


PROMPTS


The slowly developing art of living alone
Download and Update
I can't remember your smile
Speaking French is rarely a good idea
The Smell of Dog
Must we like our own poetry?
Tumour
There are good and bad murders
Yes, but what the fuck IS art?
The cities crumble but wild horses still race against the moon
Chains
Wednesday Night is Tesco's Zombie Night
To Kiss a Soldier
My wife naked
Raven v Dove, Home and Away
The splendour of perfectly bald heads
FLY
Let us burn villages, the forests, then mountains, then the rivers
I am on my knees
The twentieth
I am having a small, outrageous thought
Remember the last kiss that actually mattered?
Fog doesn't leave a mark

More Prompts

Turn left at the bench

Gravestones, chapels, old lanes

Candy Floss

The sad farms, the shotgun in the corner

Blodwen is pregnant

You've confused the issue

Too many episodes of Friends

If there was no water between Wales and Ireland

Olives

There can be fire without smoke

Ninety-nine bicycles

Cabbage Consciousness

But first, as the man said, name each part

Golf and other jokes

You will know me better when I'm gone

RED

My father had a brother who knew my uncle

A pistol to the face

There are honest and dishonest rivers

Stand here, the wind will come

Stone, wind, dying

The day starts, stops, hiccups, then begins again

Versions of Alone

The Thatcham Era?

THE THATCHAM ERA



I am now based in Thatcham, three miles from Newbury, on the A4 towards Reading.

So why "Era"?

I've been writing now, almost full-time, since 1992. I say "almost" because I was a house-husband, too, and did a bit of computer consultancy here and there.

I have been trying to write for more than 45 years. 1992 was year 23. I began hopelessly, unsure of myself, a terrible over-writer, trying my hand at SF, while at the same time vaguely wanting to be a British Updike, but when I finally broke out it was with five "Caz Flood" crime novels, even though writing crime wasn't what I instinctively wanted to write.

In November 1990 I go together with D, we had two kids, but in August 2013, D and I divorced. This last year-and-a-bit has been difficult, including living at four different addresses and struggling to (a) maintain my own writing, and (b) keep Boot Camp ticking over.

In this difficult time, the publications dried up somewhat but I managed one first, a second and two third prizes. I'm not dead yet.

Four moves in 13 months is not there best base for writing, but I think, finally, I have found a secure base and yesterday I got my dogs back!

I suspect it will take a month or two before my writing self will re-achieve consistency, but this is a new time for me (and for Boot Camp), ad "era" feels like the right word.


Watch this Space!

The Thatcham Era Prompts 002 22-September 2014

PROMPTS




You're wondering if I'm looney

Think!

Three times round the lake

Christmas edition

I summon up remembrances

As a plane goes silver, slashed across Heaven

Bonjela

The small towns we could have stopped in

BUZZ

There are no red lights in the desert

RING!

Time is at its loudest when unheard

CHEESE!

Uphill there and most of the way back, and the wind is always in your face

Two Dogs

The political possibilities of the metaphor

Duck-Rabbit

He Hair was Yellow, Her Eyes Were Blue

NAIL

Oh rose, you're not that well

Why you roll away

A tornado in Erinsboro

Hah, line one was supposed to be:

You're wondering if I'm lonely

The Thatcham Era. Prompts 001 20-Sep-2014

Prompts




All That Is

From the archives of The Illustrated London News

Ways of Hanging Pictures

Why I sleep late

Negotiations on the matter of your move

The New iPhone 28

When an Easy Depth Comes Closer

Far From the Madding Crowd

Learning to play the triangle 

The States, in Disorder

Poppity Ping

Carnation

Not Giving a Fuck About Scotland

Cute Pictures of Cats

Ache

Rise up, take up your things, and begin walking

A Way of Not Dying

The Eternal Quadilateral

Mauve

The Noise from the Kebab Van, Pigeons

SKY

When Some Disappear

Picnic in Burnley

This Equipment May Require Adaptors