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.

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?

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

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.

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