Tell em What Yr Gonna Tell em

Tell Them What You’re Gonna Tell Them…


There’s a simple adage in giving factual talks: “Tell them what you’re gonna tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.

I am going to suggest that’s what happens with a good short story.

See? I’ve just told you what I’m going to tell you. Has any suspense been lost? Or are you set up to pay attention? After all, I CAN’T be right, can I?

My story “Ballistics”. Well, yes, the title tells you that ballistics will feature, so no suspense there, then, and the text?

A set of car keys, fat as a grenade, is arching towards your eyeball. The tip of one key, v-shaped will precisely pierce the dark core of your eye. You're not yet two years old but this won't protect you. You are not old enough to understand that these keys, thrown in anger, began their journey a year before you were born, that maybe, a psychiatrist will say, they began even further back when a mother left a father, or further back than this, when a mining foreman, bitter, too bad for drink, strapped his wayward son.

So immediately, my premise is set out. Nothing is accident, things are not chance. Everything we do has a consequence. The story goes on to detail the accident, what happened to the child, and then the adult woman, but not before, paragraph two, we hear: One day you will marry a much older man, a man with a criminal record for violence, who shaves his head brutishly short, who has his country's emblem tattooed on his chest, but nothing, nothing of this exists yet…

The story brings the girl now woman and the now older father together. There was an affair, anger, the father threw keys, but the young woman now wants to know about the other woman, did her father love her? Perhaps the story has become richer, but still, it’s ballistics, just like the title and the opening said it would be.


Another story, “Miguel Who Cuts Down Trees” is about a guy, guess his name and what he does. It opens:

When I was a little boy, I had a wooden truck. One day the truck began to move by itself. It went around the yard and then it came back to me. I went to sleep. When I woke it was just a wooden truck.

When I was fourteen I was flying a kite. I saw an angel alongside my kite. She was very beautiful. I found I could make the angel move by pulling the string of my kite, but then I fell asleep and when I woke my kite was broken and trampled with mud.

Ask yourself. Will this be a happy story? Is the boy to be man destined to be rich and famous? You know he’s not, but why? Hasn’t the author directed you? Sure, you expect a plot, not everything is pre-explained, but don’t you sense the essence? If I show you the third paragraph are you now in any doubt about Miguel’s life?

When I was fifteen I loved another boy. He was beautiful, almost as beautiful as the angel on my string. My boy kissed me when it was dark but then I was awake and my father sent me to a far island to be a fisherman.

Poor Miguel will spend a life, use, abused, lost. And how will he end up? From the title, do you think he will have found an accommodation with the world? Do you think he has powers, or sees things?

All these stories are winners of first prizes. What do you think will be the main element of the story: An Old Man Watching Football After Sunday Lunch? Go on, guess.

I’m an old man watching football after Sunday lunch. Earlier we went to The Sun in the Wood. I had Cold Turkey, Mary had Roast Lamb, her mother looked like mutton dressed up, with mint-sauce. There we were, lording it, our Sunday-best, our table reserved as usual in the annexe, four bottles of Chateau Neuf du Pape opened and breathing, waiting for us when we arrived. El Perfecto!

My grandson plays soccer. (The manager is a clown). It’s a crap day, wet, wind, and I have to remind myself I’m a volunteer, here to watch my boy. When he pulls on that red shirt I realise he is the most important thing to me.

OK, so he’s old and watching soccer, but do you really think that’s all it will be? Why not? We know he (granddad) has a bit of “an attitude”, likes a hefty drink. We know what he does every Sunday. We know what is the most important thing in his world.

Each paragraph establishes facts and sets us up for what will come. But one hundred words in, frankly couldn’t this story go anywhere? Well, no, not anywhere, but it needs narrowing in.

Let me back-track a moment. For my pains, years back I sold my one decent novel. Now I hack out lousy copies, shadows of that first one, and for whatever reason I still get booked to talk to writers. Yesterday I was in Wales, a shit-hole seaside resort called Porthcawl – a writers conference – and I found myself visiting the town’s Rest Bay Hotel, a hotel for gentle-folks.

There’s that “attitude” again, but the guy is an old writer with an attitude, and is it not highly likely the attitude, the grandson, the idiot manager will all come together to make the story’s point?

In my story Green Glass, do you think glass will feature, and what colour will it be? Exactly!

When you say it, finally say it, when you tell her you're leaving, when you finally realise that loving her isn't enough, not if she can bring you so much pain, your anger is so great you crush the wine glass you're holding. You watch as splinters embed in your hand, as a long, wicked shard of dark green glass hooks into the flesh of your thumb, your Mount of Venus, and you watch the blood from your palm, your arm, flow magically red to the floor.
The blood is everywhere, the rug, the drapes, but she laughs at your crucified hand, your slashed wrist. She says, "My, honey, so much drama for such a pathetic little man. Rush yourself to the hospital, why don't you?"


You know green glass will matter. You can see the end of a relationship. So the story will be about a guy finding himself again, and that glass will feature. But will he love women or hate them or be afraid of them? Will the answer to that create the story’s tension? You tell me. Next paragraph.

There is a moment so black you want to kill her, then kill yourself, but you don't. You just leave. You leave her without another word, drive one-handed to the emergency room, get fixed. The nurse is older, thin-faced, with small grey eyes, a nose so sharp it looks dangerous. She doesn't much like you and when she speaks, spittle forms in the corner of her mouth. "Suicide," she says, "you need the stroke this way." She thinks this is funny, "Up the arm, and it's better with a razor."

You try to say it was an accident. "Sure," she says, and you think two bitches in one day, Jesus.


Do you think now he’ll get on the road?



The first night is anger-easy. After Nurse Ratchett has sewn you up you start driving. Earlier, you had thrown your typewriter, a bottle of Southern Comfort, a clean shirt in the trunk of the car. You check into the first motel you see as soon as darkness begins to drop across your eyes, you pay cash for the room, then you take the bottle, the shirt and the typewriter indoors.

So you know everything. This will be about how he loses then how he changes. I shan’t tell you more… and don’t forget the glass.



Who do you think The Bastard William Williams will be about?

I’m making you think, aren’t I?

I am the bastard William Williams, late of The Universal Pit, Senghennydd, then Abertridwr, and latterly the cellars of The Commercial Hotel, as pot man. Now that the dust have slowed me I am easy to find. I am still lived next door to the English Congregational Church, Commercial Road, Senghennydd. I venture from my place only for the English Cong, and in summer, if I am lucky, a visit from a relation.

Until the coaldust on my chest confined me to my front room I have been known as a hearty man. My years is matched exact to the century and for the most part it have been a good life, wholesome. I think though, with what have passed, I shall not like to be here when the clock strike two thousand.

Very quickly we get the man, his Welshness, and importantly that he refers to himself as “bastard”.



That has to matter.



We get a little bit more of “Wales” and then: I am not one for writing, and never was much of a one for talking either. I would not tell you of this, I would just let it go, but Lord forgive me, I am writing it down. I have a good copperplate strapped into me at town school which has never left me; I have my retirement pen, my Quink, a pad to write this and enough hot in me to bore a new pit-shaft. I must record the visit of the man Allen Jones. If I am not to get this out of me, I will surely be bursted, so better or worse, it shall go down.

Allen Jones, with long red hair like a woman, a liking for his own voice and him on a fired-up mission to discover his past.

And there it is, the whole set up. But then there’s this bastard thing, which must matter. Why do we know it matters? Because the author “old us.” He told us by making his title and by having the bastard nature emphasised in the first sentence.

Openings and endings, of stories, lectures, books, are important. Also the beginning and end of a paragraph are important. It’s there in a lecture that we make our big-hit points. See how in paragraph one we get “bastard” at the start and “visit” at the end. In para two we get his health at the beginning, then his age and date at the end. Then see how the specific importance (the reason for him telling the story) is at the end of a paragraph, and see how in the last paragraph his visitor is described, then the mission.

Most importantly we have all the ingredients of the story “up front”.

Mother, Questions is about a woman questioning her mother.

Wow!



The first paragraphs do a lot.



Mother, can I ask, with you and Dad, my father, how did it happen, how was it? Were you frightened, excited, was he strong, was he clumsy?

You told me once, before you died, you said, "We walked out for almost a year and then, one day, on a bridge over the canal at Alt-y-ryn, he asked if he could kiss me." You said you laughed, couldn't help it. He ran home.

So Mum, how did you get from there to being my mother? How did that shy young man learn to make love? Was he your first, Mum? Nellie said to me once, (she was drunk on gins), she said you had a beau everyone wanted, but he was "a bit of a lad, a heart-breaker", wouldn't take no for an answer.


So we know immediately that the woman wants to speak about the father and sex (paragraph one) but then paragraph two shows us these questions are being asked of a dead mother. Is the daughter well?

Note too (end of a paragraph) that the father is shown refusing to take no for an answer. Why might that be?

Like with other stories, this one could still go in different directions, but the next paragraph is:

I always wondered, wondered how I happened. I'm here, some kind of me, and I'm you, the bridge across the water, my hopeless father. Am I my sisters too, am I my brother? If they hadn't come before me, you would have been different, things would have been different, nothing, nothing, nothing would have happened exactly as it did. I wouldn't be this me, I wouldn't be able to ask these questions. How can it be that I exist without it being necessary that I exist? But how could these loves, bridges, kisses, how could they have all made my history, made me this, put me here?

So, in this fiction we have a daughter, clearly tortured, reflecting on even being alive. And we know from earlier that she’s talking to her dead mother. Would it surprise yout to discover she was in a mental hospital? And is the tone not sad? Do you not have a fair guess at where this story is headed?


I’d like you to guess about the core fact in the story The Last Love Letter of Berwyn Price. Go on, try. Did you think it might involve a love letter? Do you think Berwyn is alive or dead?

So I have given away two-thirds of the story. Have I killed it? Well “Berwyn” placed second of 5,000 entries and has earned £1,150 to date, so maybe not?

The story itself opens unusually, with a Rugby Almanac entry which quickly tells us about Berwyn’s athletic life. We discover Berwyn was a famous rugby player and won a gold medal for sprinting. Then, right at the end of the entry is a small sentence: Son of Philip Price, Swansea & Aberavon, one Welsh cap.

This is fiction. Why on earth would we need that last sentence? Could it be that parents and children, the family line continuing, would be important?

Would you think that a rugby international, the son of a rugby international, might quite like a rugby international or two for sons?

And is Berwyn dead?

Mrs Bethan Price, if you're reading this, then it looks like I must have managed it, after all. I went and over-did it and popped my clogs, just like you and Doctor Llewellyn said I would. So bugger me, I'm dead, well what do you know? I'm sorry love, but if that's what happened, then it happened. I'll bet I died happy, though. Was it at the Arms Park? I bet all I could see when the moment finally came was red and white and green. I bet I could smell the lads and the mud, see the flags and hear Bread of Heaven!

I bloody well hope it was like that. I hope I didn't keel over on the way to the stadium. You and the girls…

So we know the man, his sporting history, that he was married, that he loved his wife, that he has died (and we think we know where) that he almost certainly wanted sons, but none are mentioned, and it’s about “men things”, sport, going there…

And does the tone suggest depressing or uplifting? Do you see how much has been given to you?

A story called The Quarry… Is it about a quarry where something is mined, or about a quarry being hunted? Could it be both?

It begins with a page of a young boy describing how to make a home-made crossbow. That description is straightforward but there are words underlined (emphasised to point them out to you.) What do they do or might they do?

This is how you make your crossbow. A piece of three-by-two pine [u]you got from a building site[/u], cut it up. Make a [u]crucifix[/u], two nails at the centre, otherwise the cross-piece moves. [u]You’ll have to buy[/u] the thick rubber, but no problem. [u]Get over the wall at the back of Feraro’s Chip Shop, steal a few pop-bottles, [/u]take them back in the morning for the deposits.

Nail the rubber along the cross-piece. Don’t put the nail through the rubber. It’ll split. Use a couple of nails each end, bang them in either side of the rubber, then smash them over the rubber till it squishes down. You have to do two nails, otherwise it can come out. That happened to Colin Hicks. [u]It’s why he’s got a glass eye.[/u]




Never mind the plot, think character. What kind of kids? Are they law-abiding citizens? Note crucifix and nails. What religion is the narrator?

Approximately one page in, the instructions finish. We then get this:

Practice a bit over the Gollers, hitting cans and shooting at the rabbits. You’ll have to be a dead-eye dick. You won’t get two shots.

You use your sister, practice in the front room. You tell Maddie it’s the only way. You have to get good because otherwise, well just, otherwise...

So we know these kids are petty thieves, make seriously dangerous home-made-crossbows, that something is dangerous as they won’t get two shots. We also know it involves Maddie and they must practice until they are perfect. While you can’t precisely know what comes next, you have to presume this involves the narrator, his mate or mates, crossbows, Maddie, and great danger.

They have or quarry or this happens in a quarry.




In L for Laura; L for Love the protagonist is an “OK”, but not too bright bloke:


Ay for orses, remember that? A for orses, B for mutton? C fer yerself, D fer payment? Not sure I could remember it all. I'm not even sure if that's right, A-B-C-D.

A is really for Alice, B for Billy Smith she ran off with. C is for Clown, me for not noticing. D is for Diane my second, after we had to wait all those years until I was officially deserted.


It’s a fair bet this is about “Laura” and love. But is the protagonist a lucky guy? We know almost immediately that he’s been twice-cuckolded. What’s the betting that what’s to come is a new woman? The question is, will he finally get lucky or end up cheated again. See how little is withheld.

Ford Maddox Ford’s novel “The Good Soldier” opens, “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” Let’s not settle down for a comedy, then!


Of course, being “up front” with the reader doesn’t always mean being direct and obvious.

But “what will come” can also be heralded subtly, with vague hints, with the tone and music of the piece as well as blatant “telling”.

In The Smell of Almond Polish the title is NOT a clue. We can only presume that almond polish and its smell will feature. And when the story opens:

Paddington, London, 1954

Bridie Collins steps down from the train, waits for the crowd to wrap her up. She looks above her; pigeons scattering under the great glass roof. Someone bumps her shoulder, rushes on. In the half-light she shivers, picks up her cardboard case and walks towards the ticket collector.


We get the date and an important character. But what about the tone? Happy? Sad? When you have decided, ask where the tone comes from, and how much does the tone steer the reading?

But why is Bridie here, and like this?

On the train, from Wales, Bridie had listened to the clattering songs in the track. "Did she do right? Well, did she do right? What could she have done? What should she have done? Was it right, was it right, was it right?"

After twenty-minutes, about an hour-and-a-half ago, the train had slowed down, clacking and slapping as it crossed points, then easing into the dark Severn tunnel. Bridie had felt her first real moment of guilt, then. How could she have left Pat, Jenny, Ronnie? And Barbara, Angela? Smoke had leaked in through an open window, but then the train emerged into light sunlight, bright, fresh English green, and she was excited. Now the rails whispered, "Of course it was right. Of course it was right. What else could you do, could you do, could you do? It was right. It was right. It was right."


We now have Bridie’s recent history. She has left home. Do we think she is a good person or a bad person? I think the tone and the music, and one line declares how she should be viewed.

But in the case of this story we do not appear to have the full story and outcome given to us (clearly OR subtly) but if this was a lecture on Bridie’s story, what is here would say “Bridie left her husband and children to run away to London, because she feels she had no choice. But still she feels guilty. My lecture will show how Bridie fights to establish herself but remember that the pull of motherhood is very strong.”

OK, in this case we have to wait and see, but nevertheless, note just how many alternative possibilities have been eliminated. The reader can be in little doubt as to the kind of read that is coming.


Should we empathise and sympathise with Bridie? Is she big and strong, money in her pocket, or tiny, timid, a leave in the wind?

The ticket-collector is a darkie. He smiles, has gold on one tooth. Bridie smiles back. Steam hisses somewhere, everything smells of sulphur. People push round her. She picks up her little case and walks out of the station into a damp morning. She has nowhere in the world to go.

Let’s hear it for Bridie!!


As I have said, many good stories, prize-winning stories can open with a clear direction and “almost instantly” declare themselves. I’ve also said they can be more subtle. This is a recent flash.

THREE BROTHERS, ONE BOAT


We are brothers, three old codgers on a shingle beach beneath a staggering moon. We are old, old, with our trousers rolled, and we are each of us and all of us, a little crazy.

We are escapees, illicit, sucking in a feeling as deliciously wicked as a hand up a sitting skirt beneath a coat, as glorious as stolen icing sugar and marzipan in a Christmas kitchen, as lucky as death pushed back again.

By now the word must be out. Discrete alarms ring or buzz, three Welshman and the night is cold – related yes, and all as mad as a cat – yes, yes, dead or alive will be fine.

There is nothing direct here, but what will happen to these brothers? Ask, what do we have. The title, gives us “boat” (and could also signify “in the same boat”. We hear they are crazy, they are “escapees”. The word death and dead occurs in the first 108 words.

Go on. Guess.[/quote]

Cover Art for My Collection

Prompts Friday for 21:30

My mistress asks for a bracelet

Bread Pudding, the top crisp and black

SPEAKERS

The moon was up, the lake was clear

Late August, and after heavy rain, the sun broke through

CHAIN

I remember playing musical chairs, and girls, Oh!

RED

Red sky at night, God is bored and showing off

I turn to ducks, I mean, really, ducks?

The call it the mother of the earth

Dreary midnight and I'm tired

Gently, pick him up, move him from the shadows

A fire in my head

This world is whacky, whacky, whacky

Jamaican philosophy. Am I a vegetable? I fink therefore I'm a yam

Red buses, throbbing black taxis, light overhead

Washing on the line, the smell of boiling clothes

Prompts Friday 20:17

Never such innocence again

This is our beginning; a picture

Someone will think there's a moral in this

I am not there. I do not sleep

Buds of chestnuts, ferns, birch-branch

Ice to river, river to sea

BONK!

I don't want you. Don't tempt me

But otherwise everything is fine

A book, but not as we know it, Jim

In black and white

I will, I think, I might, I am

From this, deliver us, to that, deliver us

SWEEP

The hills above the water, dark animals asleep

If you can keep your house, when all about you are losing theirs...

Dirty British Coaster

And the afternoons, the evenings, the nights

Very Black

Prompts, Friday 7PM

Beneath the Rubble

Why should not old men be mad?

How We Lived Then

Because we love the hills, the falling dark

Accidents in the Home

Here, pausing at the entrance

If anybody half as fair

I call on those who call me brother

I met this bishop in the Turkish Baths

Three old codgers on the beach

A murmur of too-soft words

The Dublin Gutter

There is safety in derision, the pack surrounds

The moon is staggering

How long will it take will it take, to hit the ground?

Much did I rage before

A noble horse, a dog, and faithful both, are dead

2300 Prompts

The Bee-Keeper

Quality, Quality

No added salt

The fire crackles; outside the trees strain against the night

Mr Bleaney slept here

I'm sure there's nothing going on

A big three-wheeler motor-bike

Asparagus? Nah, Chaffinch

Sometimes I stop and walk backwards for a while

I am trying to be smaller

Uniformed, uninformed, cerebral cortex hardly-formed

This little piggy

Prompts at 21:00 Thursday

Google "Glimmer Poo" and follow links until...


A story beginning, "If I had to fuck a bear, I'd choose Paddington"


A story ending, "If I had to fucj=k a bear again, I'd choose Paddington."


or use

A terrible beauty is born

We sat together one summer's end

The TV in another room

Around me the images of thirty years

You and I, and her. We talked of poetry

If I became a broken man

Let's enumerate old disputes

Murmur names, names, names

I have met them at close of day

A message arrives: PING!

I have seen the lights go out

Before the world was made, there had been a run on hope.

Three women, that'll do

Love like a cold night in November

Prompts at 20:00 Thursday

A story beginning, “You realise I will lie to you?”


A story ending “On my mother’s grave…”

Or Google “Toffee Penis” and follow links until something on the web prompts you to write a story


When I have those fears that I will cease to be
Extra Strong
Gary's at the match, I'll need to be
Whoever guesses, thinks or dreams he knows
NAIL
Methodical, wiping spit, a little sun cream
PIN
My life has waited in corners
Hey bud, I could commentate
There’s a certain slant of light
Potatoes
Sometimes you only hear about it second-hand, or fifth
April 19th, Driving
There are things we need and hate and need to hate
Fires & Human Behaviour
The burn after shaving
Catching Life by the throat
Coming this way on a different line
Why we have a navel
Mr Dickory and Jennifer Dock
Bunsen
Here, take my picture
Catch a falling star
Teach me to hear the mermaids singing
A catastrophe of charlatans
I love Sally Smith
One morning, I saw these three
You say Tomato
McDonalds, burning flesh upon the air
The difference between a grandson and a cactus

Calling all Ex-BootCampers and Gridders

I have a Facebook presence now as:


Alex Boot Camp Keegan


and I've set up a group:

Boot Camp Keegan & Gridders Alumini

(sorry about the spelling)


We are trying to link all those misbegotten souls who were with us in the early days (eg Mimi Carmen, Geri Borcz, Suzanne Proulx, Benjamin Graber) and all those who were with us when we were in MOVING PEN, then those who survived the SCRAWL WARS, those who were with us when we had the Yahoo Gridders presence, those in Boot Camp (not on Yuku) and lastly those in TLC at Writers Dock


Join us, link to me as a friend in Facebook and I'll invite you into the group



Alex

CiN Details

Children in Need 2008
For the last three years we've held Flash Blasts for Children in Need (CiN) and these have raised well over £10,000 for the charity.

The format is simple. We start at 1800 Hours on the Thursday and write non-stop until midnight Friday.

Naturally, only about half-a-dozen hardy souls manage the thirty hours, but the idea is to have SOMEONE writing at all times. Many write 1800-2400 both days, and a bit in the day on the Friday.

We raise money in two ways.

First there's an entry fee of £30.

This breaks down into

£10 for prizes (all the prize fund is paid out)
£10 for CiN
£10 for a copy of the anthology (may be 2 copies)

SECOND, individuals collect sponsorship for their writing over the thirty hours. They deal with this separately but we total the amounts

All the stories/flashes/poems arrive anonymously and after the Blast we select the best XX for an independent judge to choose the 1-2-3-4-5

PS I disqualify my stuff from the competition

An anthology is produced of the best stuff but we try to include at least one piece from each participant. Obviously sales of the anthology (£10) will raise further monies for CiN

With a large organisation like Writers Dock we could easily get 100 participants, and that £10,000 raised could like like chicken-feed.

I should say, for those who have never tried "blasting" the results can be incredible. Many first prizes have evolved from CiN Blast work


So sign up now

Next post will show the list of people (pseudonyms are OK) but we would like their place of residence

eg

04 Aristo Belgium
05 Tommo Northern Ireland

Children in Need 2008 (CLICK HERE)

I've been sick for two weeks so this is late but our charity fund-raiser for kids will take place again this year.


For those interested in face-to-face meetings and mutual support I'm opening up the Chapel in North Wales to all-comers

Old Pikkies, the Chapel

Just browsing and found some old old pikkies

The Chapel

We stopped for a few days in the Chapel this week, officially a holiday (ha-ha)

All that's left to do now is clean and polish the terracotta floors and put up a few more bookshelves.




There will be music and books in every room and I'm in the process of transporting more than a thousand books into the place, mostly good literature, plenty of craft books etc



There are four computers there, broadband, dining for twelve

Three showers, three loos, a bathroom and non-stop piping hot water

There's Sky HD-TV with all the extra channels, and an antique bar-billiards table.

Upstair Bedrooms

There are two bunk bedrooms upstairs.

I was about to post pictures but blogger won't play.

Watch this space.

More on the Chapel

The chapel's downstairs has three large bedrooms, a bathroom and loo, separate shower-room/toilet, and opposite, two more showers, a loo and a utility-room.

The double bedroom above is the smallest. It's hard to do justice. Even with a 17mm lens I can't get a full shot! The walls are about 2-3 feet thick (and then we had to insulate them to modern standards!) so there are gorgeous mahogany cill that have about the same square-footage as my first flat. (Plenty of scope for planting your books!





Above is the seating area of Bedroom 2, There's enough room for a full-size leather sofa (a sofa-bed) so people can "escape to their room". Only formally sleeping two, this room can sleep four (Mum and Dad can have the kids in there if they want to, or two singles can have a double each...)

And there's a computer, of course.



That's the second double. And very comfy it is too!

Chapel Update

The chapel in Wales moves ever closer to completion. This week sees the finish of the cosmetics, painting skirting boards etc and next week we have the stair banister fitted and then the stair-carpet. One thing holds up completion now, and that's exhaust fans in the bathrooms (don't ask me!)



Currently there are two straightforward double-bedrooms, and three bunkrooms sleeping a total of 13, but additionally there are five sofa beds. We did that because we never know what combination of singles or couples will turn up!

The table seats twelve.



The chapel's situation is great. The village is peaceful and sits close to the foot of Cader Idris but on the coast. There's a fully operational railway line that goes North to fairbourne, Barmouth, Harlech, Portmerion, Portmadoc, Criccieth and Pillwelli.

Travel South for Twyn, Aberdovey, Macynlleth where you change for Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury.

We've built this to live-in long term but while we can't it's a fantastic writers' retreat and I place where whole groups can stop. I've started shifting in hundreds (hundreds!) of Craft and How-to books, short-story collections, many, many lit-mags, biographies and autobiographies of writers, and of course, some good literature.

There is telephone and broadband there, at least four computers, a printer.

What I really hope, though, is to run writing courses there, the BC way. We had great success running course in Berkshire at Kingfisher Barn but that was always a squeeze. Here is perfect.

Nearest Cafe Five Yards.
Nearest Evening Bistro. Five Yards.
Nearest Post Office. Five Yards
Nearest Shop. Twenty Yards.
Nearest Pub. Seventy Yards
Nearest Railway Station. 500 yards

Mountains? Yes!
The Sea? Yes!

Monday Prompts

It is eighteen years to the day

In lamb fields, on dotted slopes

I see a playground, an ant-scatter of children

How do we know we aren't already dead?

Oh I have danced the sky as feathers

The life that I have is all that I have

The Farmer's Bride

There was a steady wind and the sky was pale

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the leaning trees

This is my country!

It must have been too cold for him, his soul gave out

Love's dances, Love's retreats, advances

And I was green and carefree, lying in soft fields

He with footstep heavy, her with sunny hair

When I was thirteen or so. green

But one by one we must move on, through the valley of pain

And more!

And More!

More Capel Bethel Pictures

Latest on Capel Bethel

Capel Bethel, Llwyngwril (between Dolgellau and Tywyn) gets ever closer to being finished.

I am looking forward to running weekend and week-long course there and already the place is stocking up with literature!

Here are some pikkies

Sunday Lunchtime Prompts

Without a hero
The sound of wind at night
An awful stillness, heat
She was good at faces
You could shoot anything you wanted, for a price
Strange weather
There's a man in the house
Barcelona
This is the first thing I noticed
So when did it all start?
Gigantic, fantastic women
We could go to Alaska?
It's not that I don't like you
There's a man I know, talks only of Jesus
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay
Two strangers on the bus, Grandma
Alone
Afterwards they were black from head to toe
Voices in the dark
Filler
On his knees, scrubbing in tiny circles
A wild justice
My mother and father are dead, or in Orlando
Boneshaker
On the other hand, not
I am like a sleepy fish

Friday Prompts

A small bird is taken by a hawk
It is a cold evening
RICE
An old man sits quietly netting
Porthcawl
A child looks from a train
He puts his hand to his face, unbelieving
SAGO
The air smells of fish
The sea is heavy, swelling
It is too dark
The road that used to go there refuses now
The headscarved women
History is bunk
You have to understand the fish
Only the poor can afford lots of children
CREAM
Does night change to day?
Stealing milk from the urn, scooping cream
Uncle Jonjo
For some reason, there are too many wheelbarrows
CARD
I want a dream kitchen, a kitchen to dream in
I eat fish we caught
We have too many books
No Matter What
Jennifer Eccles' Fat Sister
SALT
Call me and I will describe it.

Thursday Prompts

His Mam loves him to bits

Blue Lagoon

At my door is a square of yellow corn

Davies the Doom has burned the chapel down

What city is this?

My father and my mother and my brother and my sister

Let's burn some books

The wink and nudge of secrets in the pub

It starts to feel like Ireland

I'd rather not be American

Piano Man

Last night I dreamt I ate wire

Why do some fat men look strong, some fat?

Resonant Frequency

Stone, Stone, Water, Wind

I see people in old photographs

Sawdust

Suddenly we are lost

If you time it right, you can get there at low tide

A place without certainty

He used to be safety officer on the Titanic

You want ice with that?

What are we waiting for?

A meteor lands tonight, we all must die

May I borrow your country?

I think I'll play monopoly, or charades

How much I love my daughter

Moon

The smell of an old railway station

My mother

Waiters on roller-skates, meals on wires overhead

Wednesday Prompts

I turned on the radio and water came out
Hatches, Matches & Dispatches
Thirteen ways to look at it
Because it dissolves
The electrician is out of contact
Riding the Yellow Trolley Car
You were being silly
He disappeared in the dead of winter
I sit in a dive on 52nd St
Knowing each other too well to talk
Out of the blue I remember. My father playing football
The brooks were frozen, airports closed
An island five miles inland
DECAY
They are living off their reputation but it cannot last
Catch 18, and it's going to get worse
That's a lovely offer, but
You were right my dear, even when you were mad
Mayfly
The best of times, the shittiest of times
If I grow up, I'm going to be a boy
The room was suddenly rich with soft light
Whacky Posters
Go tell it on the fucking mountain
TIN
Building new homes at Buschenwald
TACK
Time was away and somewhere else
I have a desert but no camel
The waiter does not come
I asked my son when was he getting married. In the afternoon, he said.
The day needs a plaster, a bandage
I stand for old values. Give the black man a fair crack of the whip
I dream of being loved by a chorus-girl
My guru says
I am old and I have too may layers of paint
There was a camp here

SUNDAY PROMPTS

Tell us the story about the little boots

DONKEY

When Saturdays were only for football

Torn Envelope

And the pit-heads baths is a supermarket now

Death by Sunbed

There was a picture made of flowers

Dogs

He worked in the steelworks

How you can push, push with your anger

Tonight, January fog

How much that dies with them

A mother moves away to birth her lamb

Let the number be learned

In a few month's time I will stop and linger

Old men like monkeys

February Streets

In clear snow like laughter

I have known too many of the murdered

BELL

Mrs Blenkinsop keeps a tiger in her cellar

DISH

You wouldn't know the place now

EAR

Old, so old, and short of wind

We went on holiday to London with Mam

We who wait

The old sad things have been forgotten

When old age came he stood up and kicked it

On the wrist, a watch

SATURDAY NIGHT PROMPTS

It was love at first sight

Mullet

All day it has rained

I am amused

Love drips and gathers

Knobkerry

Dominoes, Woodbines, Senior Service

Spangles
A most curious device

TRICK
Raking through the ashes

BAR
I have learned to dream with the sound off

Sailors Killed it

I think we need to say goodbye

It takes sixpences

With my pockets full of money

BOMB
Cinder-fucking-rella

M-T-G-G

You roll away and show me your sullen back

The Loch Ness Mobster

I was young and easy then

The window is filthy

Shall I get drunk or eat a piece of cake?

OLOLAQICI82QB4IP

Time ate my love and farted, then you departed

Snakeskin

Recognizing a red kite

Put a shilling in the gas, your head in the oven

Last night I met my father

I am preoccupied

Words are my instruments but not my servants

The Lover & Her Killer

A house with bleached-white walls

How to Kill 101

Saturday Prompts

Barely a twelve month after
Tonto
Three old shops, all in the name Jones
Do not ask, "What is it?"
FOLD
Violence upon the roads
Two dark tractors, pausing
A pale light
sawdust bars, the sounds of angry men
BUZZ
A lovely piece of slate
There is a girl standing there
Our life is changed: their coming our beginning
Prophet
It was a soft October night, summer at last
His quick body
You can cast out past the fish
The sun used to shine, remember?
Leave, then
We heard a distant tapping on the road
A sunrise like military best
Smudge
She slipped away to die quietly
ITCH
I love this, as some day a child will love it
I have mislaid the key
For I have known them all already
Only an avenue, dark and nameless
I see the image of a naked man
We did not dare go near them
The entrance is blocked by brambles
Late in the summer the strange horses came

Tuesday Prompts

I told my son about my father
There's water still in the bath
Majestic
The pub quiz: it's all about winning
Bridge
Why not be a Brain-Surgeon?
Kite Surfing 101
There's a problem at the bridge
Trying to fix a light
Big Boy
Sudoku for the damned
The boys done well
A handy electrical gadget
A quarter ton of lego
The sound of cars passing in the wet
Why she doesn't phone
Whisky without the e
In the not too distant future, if all my dreams come true
This is a stupid way to die
With sawdust, string and patches
From the hill I saw a line of snaking tenements
Bush Meat
Under an awning, talking about nothing; rain
Peonies
Is surviving suicide a success or failure?
Two rooms done and the doors closed
A three-legged hippo
It may be pretty, but is it appropriate?
Holes
Arctic elephants are the same as African ones. But colder.
Treasure Island

Bank Holiday Prompts

Pictures of old London
Undercoat
Discovered by a monk
Futurama
It torments me, this injustice
Crayon
She is big and plump and happy
If you can keep your head
Refreshed every two minutes
Shifting the furniture
Glasses, but naff
Tea, biscuits, a rest
The sound of bickering
I need to be very drunk
16:16
Oh for a muse of fire
What bells are these that toll?
Fokkers!
Do NOT close the cupboard
Anyone can use them
I wondered lonely, under a cloud
City of Angels
The thing I like is overcoming
Another Monday!
Muscle for the wing
Just at that moment, Carol came in the back door
He lifted a bowl of nuts and offered them
Deep Blue Goodbye
The Edge of Reason
I’ve come for a payment on the bed
Why the vacuum cleaner makes me angry
Out of the Sun
What I’m saying is I’m a drunk, not an alcoholic
Electric Polisher
An amazing ending
Mother, mother, where did you go?
I try not to see my sister too often
He was a sort of commando
A thousand blessings, Effendi
I claim death
The difference between clams and mussels
The café is shut.

More Prompts

I've been away a few days, but here:

When all this is over, I shall give them the finger
The weakening eye of day
I saw an x-ray of a baby
AXE
Unwearied still, lover after lover
Not even in my thoughts
I did not think death could undo so much
DANDELION
She is beautiful. I dream about her.
The rain flies down the street, flaps outside our door
BLOOD TEST
All the sun long it was running
Appointment in Basingstoke
The stove’s heat mottling her legs
Moving the books
Her dead body wears the smile of accomplishment
I know where you are
Thinking of an old lover makes it hard
JUG
We renounce everything except the self
Uzi Wedding
Her floured hands at the baking board
Show me the kitchen, the knives
Three thousand years ago they didn’t give a fuck
GUN
I would like to be terminally ill
Red and yellow, silver-back, half-imagined things
16 GIG
I kept my wife’s heart in a canary’s cage
DUFFY’S TRICK
I’m going to sail round the world
I cannot speak to you
Horses passed from dawn into the night, horses, horses, horses.
PAIRS
We come to terms with shade, the principle of grey
One or two blackmailers, a poisoner
Unnatural Acts
Every fear is a form of desire
Use the back entrance

Tuesday Prompts

A sound of banging from upstairs
Keeping them apart
Although a true love never dies, it can become unreal
An empty can of Pepsi
Sailing in the dark towards Oslo
Perfect apart from the missing door
A slip on the stairs
I have come often to these open halls
Drained, empty
Where the streets have no name
Mark is at the door
The dark is rising
It’s a perfect size for DVDs
There’s published and published
The end one is split
In the not-too-distant future, if all my dreams come true
Majesty, Majesty
The legend of Luke McCauley
A swollen floor
Northern Lights
I’m gonna tear your playhouse down
Who Wants to Live Forever?
Air on a G-String
An angel of the great white way

Monday

December. Another Monday.
If we mattered they’d have to feel guilty
Bright-faced, her eyes darting.
A brush with drowning
He could see her in his rear-view mirror, long and slim
Her thoughts were filling the silence
There was darkness and a silence she could feel
It was “Teach Yourself Flying”
She was shoeless and massaging one of her black-stockinged feet
They went down to the canteen via the back stairs
You measured harassment by the square yard
They heard a quick rush of men’s laughter
My Billy is an angel
The rounded-down sterility that came from a ball-point pen
They were brewing up behind the bar
She was a tallish size twelve with shining black hair
A thin air job
She wished that she was running, right now
Remember, God sent me.
They can do it to us because we’re nothing.
This is the one. She likes me.
She lived alone on a quiet estate of Barratt houses
Perhaps she had smelt something burning
Thank-you for your co-operation
We’re looking for a man in a dirty raincoat
They were bound to talk about men
Her hands at ten-to-two on the wheel
They parked in a side-street
A massive oak tree
Sunlight flashed off bone
He’s magnificent!” she said.
Four or five hundred yards away to their left
The temperature had finally crept above zero
A dark green sheen on the grass
She twitched her nose, sniffing at the air.
I feel shitty if you must know
From the bushes he saw the two of them
He was in a Nike shell-suit and a pair of New Balance trainers
Then the women turned and walked away
He felt something cold snap around his wrists
We don’t fancy the paperwork
The parking’s crap in central Richmond
Man-hating would do for now.

Sunday Afternoon Prompts

A misunderstanding wings in
Bakelite
The spaces between people
Girls in the river, the water up to their waist.
Banana Salad
In the dark houseboats families were stirring
All our lives we must forget
Red Bus
The bride, holding her flowers too tightly
Drip-Dry
I predict my predictions are always wrong
Grief by instalments
On the muddy bank, boys are fishing
And still they die
I sit drinking, thinking. The coffee is bitter
Napkin
Prince Thingumebob, from what’stheplace
Wooden Crosses
What I am is not important
Fear swells the heart
Brute force will do
He trod cautiously over the dead
Champions
Dogs slavering behind barbed wire
Hammer
Syllable has too many syllables
A girl in exile
Pirates
Fool’s Gold still looks nice
Your daughter is accomplished, Madam
SKIP
What EXACTLY is in that sandwich?
Mistakes in Nightclothes
Things bin-men collect
A little bit to prove
The morning hits me like a fuck-off phone-call
What was left was fine
Some bastard stole my life and left my wife

Prompts For Sunday

My father, crying in St Mary’s
I am worn out with dreams
My love, I never spoke to her, but she heard every word
Smoke in the Valley
I am a man now
Al night in submarine light
My hands are red with the blood of the dead
I think about the FBI
We drove fast, singing, playing the Stones
I know that I shall meet my fate
He was a schoolmaster
Agnes fiddling with her rosary
Tread softly
A boy like a ballet dancer, poised
Oh love and you so far away
I draw your attention to the window
A sadness of penguins
Hair pale as a breath
If I should love a fat lady
Somewhere, on the other side of this wasted night
I took my son’s girlfriend home
How delightful it may be
Losing is fairly easy
I lost my father in Waitrose
Boogie-Bloody-Woogie
My friends rise up and chant
Yellow pissholes in the snow
I can name them all
Television and other necessities
Passing bells
My daughter is drawing a picture
We can get so far in this world
I once bathed in a bath full of eels
Time is a bastard
Shall I compare thee to a Lamborgini?
Isobel from the estate kissed me
When all this is over, I’ll retire
It’s a shame about the shadow
At night I do not know who I am
I walk through your rooms, wondering
Underground
I am acquainted with the dark

Saturday Prompts

In the depths of the Greyhound terminal
The soldier takes pride in saluting his captain
A white mare
My days wind out, aimless, hopeless
Pursuit
Old men and women, rich and poor
Pencil
Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold
A cricket bat, a box
Nothing to do with Hamlet
Two men in blazers
Crew
The boys are not well
It’s about the end of the world
Clear plastic
An aged man is a paltry thing
This is fresh
I shall hide behind being old
The fun starts here
We pace along the battlements, hoping
Two men have been found
Edgar wins!
A winding staircase, candles flickering
A Mexican green pepper
Without love, the world is too heavy
Rage-driven, rage-tormented
Swan
When we were young we had pretty toys
Tennis-ball
They are holding a public meeting
Silver
I started running weeks ago. I will not stop
Atlas
I’m trying to come to the point
On the cover of TIME
Through icy streets
There are places where I have not been
They reject spirit
This man can sing!
I imagine a land, rain-soaked

Friday prompts

Dogfight
There’s a problem with Mrs Evans
White on White
When you are old, if you should think of me
Yes, but apart from the race massacres?
Airfields
And they killed the cat
The edges of doors
Full English Breakfast
Katie is back soon
Rocked the cradle etc
Two single duvets
How do I love Theo? Let me count the ways
Twenty-eight hours
A lot of rough edges
No, THIS is a knife
Boil, carbuncle
It is cooler than we expected
I know she died, but how?
I keep my son awake
Go gently, go otherwise, but go.
We are arguing. Twenty? Thirty?
I don’t like how the wind comes through
My gnome has run off again
I heard he was Welsh, but OK
Blessings, Effendi
I may go, I may come back. But I will only come back if I went.

Prompts for Thursday Morning

(unless you are staying up all night)

Wednesday Night Prompts

Forgive me for naming you
Your dark geometry
Not British
A clean, white apron
The wars come and the wars come
Two Jokers
I have not sent you a letter and I doubt it will arrive
Howl, Howl.
When all is said and done, at the end of the day
A tall bird in a small tree
Ping!
On a motorway bridge
You never asked what he was like.
There are men seeking my father
If October comes
GAS!
A dull light shines behind a muslin curtain
I think we should finish now
Consider death
This is not a test I wish to take
In a bluebell wood, bluebells
We could meet at the station
Virgin Mary
I'm beginning to dislike mornings
Peanut
A small bird, impaled on a thorn
We know love, little by little
A shadow whispering
Chapel
He was part of the place

Wednesday Morning Prompts

This is the wind, the wind down a long valley
Sunlight is a thing that needs a window to be called light.
Have you heard something?
Leather
Battered by time and weather
Doors open and close with tinkling bells
I saw a thousand years pass
Two old men exchanging prose
Table, Glass
The gate is held together by wire
Gold
It will be always at a distance
I will do murder and then drink tea
Think of the spaces
Daughter, do not go where it is dark
I cannot sit in that chair
Cigarette Burns
I do not trust this light
Maybe we could get together on day, and talk about
Silver
There is a dance at Billy’s tonight
Report
These are indifferent streets
Credit
I think of my father emptying the grate
Vitamins
We danced on broken glass and sang
Dragged through streets at dawn
He is chained in an old subway tunnel
I need a sordid movie
Dreams cluster there and turn cold
There are light months and dark months
You are far away, dark in your small fields
Leave it to nature and it will sprawl

Struggling a Bit, and Prompts

A bereavement, three on holiday, one doesn't have time to do critiques, one off on business and suddenly the group shrinks. Damn! (This is why you always need twice as many as you think you need)

PROMPTS

You plan for it, have all the equipment
Telephone
Photographs do not burn like paper
Mixer
The smell of breakfasts over the dunes
Stork
I was too young, and old enough
ROBIN
On the hottest, stillest day of summer
Voice
The Collected Perms of Mariella Wilkins
Hi-Fi
When I was not a young child
Ball-Bearing
This is too long, too dry, I think we need to worry
Couples, Cardigans
Is that not how good stories go?
The evening is swelling
If love goes, was it ever there?
Victoria and Albert
All things can tempt me from my craft
Marmalade
Thomas was a fat drunken fuck
You could have gone back
Golf
Summer is late and autumn squeezed out
Shall I part my hair, or eat a peach?
I am looking for a river
We both lost, falling
Under my window, water runs
HAWK
The first word after a long silence
Here is a recipe
He calls to those who called him father
Three Hail Marys
I know seven ways there
And loitering within
Getting up early on a Sunday morning
Various Museums
Four dripping candles and a room full of sadness

Monday Afternoon Prompts

The courtyard is filthy
Blue Light
The tree frog croaks its far-off song
I love you Lady Singleton
Anon wrote it
There’s a fish that talks in the kitchen
Mosquito
I dare not remove my cap and let my birds escape
SIT!
I am having a breakdown in Marks & Spencers
I have a jolly, jolly gun
Am I the only person who finds snow desolate?
They are closing all the stations
Sergeant Brown’s Parrot
Though the night was made for loving
Dixon of Dock Green
The yellow half-moon large and low
Everything changes
Stop all the clocks. Cut off the telephone.
I see a man digging, moving holes
Elephant
Books on shelves, threatening to move
I wanna be your lover, baby
Birdsong
Last night I dreamt in Japanese
I lied to please the mob
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing
Hit Man is two words?
Aunt Jennifer made love to a tiger, and all was well at first

Sunday Night Prompts

I want to have another living summer
Cluster One
In February, digging his garden, planting potatoes
What do you want from me?
A ghostly batsman plays forward on a ghostly ball
It’s not romance, simply how things are
Poles apart
Yellow-Brown woman smelling of onions
Clearing a path through snow
Marooned
The same news in different houses
A great day for freedom
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing
Wearing the inside out
Come live with me and be my love
A thing of beauty is a joy until it’s obsolete
Take it back
Sometimes things don’t get better, ever
Coming back to life
The sun can melt a field of sorrow
Keep talking
I was born twice and died three times
Lost for words
The room, all of us, suddenly rich
High Hopes
It is too calm, something is wrong
Signs of Life
In Spanish he whispered, there is no time left
I am very, VERY fond of bananas
With smells of steak in passageways
Learning to Fly
Would you like to borrow my space-suit?
The dogs of war
Once in a finesse of fiddles, I found ecstacy
One slip
Bournvita, Bournvita, Bournvita
On the turning away
He breathed in air and breathed out light.

14 Signed, 37 Flashes, 5 Stories, 4 Poems 105 Crits

Rock On!

SUNDAY MORNING

Two More Signed Up over the weekend, but then two away on holiday!! Crits past 100.

TODAY WE WRITE A STORY, NOT A FLASH, OVER 1500 WORDS AT LEAST.

A Maltese Falcon
Be copy now to men of grosser blood and teach them how to war
The Lady Eve
And it was at that age that I awoke
Never give a sucker an even break
Every old man I see reminds me of my father
Wolf Man
The harbour lights glaze over restless docks
How Green Was My Valley
My credit cards are incandescent
Sullivan's Travels
Know then thyself
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack
The Outlaw
From time to time our love is like a snail
MOVIE
She is a sound in the air, whispered, soaring
No, I ain't got nothing but my horse
Citizen Kane
I have so much nothing. I have cornered the market
Woman of the Year
The trick is sleep till 12 then watch TV
Hanging breathless over the teletype
The sea is calm tonight
To Be or Not to Be
Don't be rude to alligators until you've crossed the river
Bambi
I place my hope on the water
Casablanca
The best are those who die quite young and stay pristine
Mrs Miniver
The peaceful waters of your mouth
The Magnificent Ambersons
Kids walking in the dark road
The Black Swan
I wish I could believe in something beyond
You, hope, my football team
Cat People
This is the dawn I was waiting for
An Old Serbian Legend
The crossed-out bits of Keats, the edits
Shadow of a Doubt
Cut me to pieces, birds will still sing and worms crawl
Obsession
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen
The Ox-Bow Incident
I Walked With a Zombie
Heaven Can Wait
The Raven
Double Indemnity
Bathing Beauty
The Woman in the Window
Arsenic and Old Lace
Ladies of the Park
Great Freedom Number Seven
Gaslight
To Have and Have Not
Cover Girl
Henry V

96 Critiques so Far

It's hard to comment/crit when you are working flat out producing but we approach our hundredth crit now

13 Signed, 37 Flashes, 3 Stories, 4 Poems

Going OK.

Here are some more prompts. I seem to have mislaid some!

Blind eyes like unshelled hard boiled eggs
There was a river
Parchment
An old man sits next to his beer
CHAIR
I have had lovers, all sub-prime
TABLE
Thinking of fish we have caught, almost caught
A Red Wheelbarrow
We took turns, and she said yes, then why did it feel wrong?
Pullman
Once, after a long day of unremitting rain, the sun
BECKS
What if the road you often took, was moved at night?
Scooping Cream
What if there was never surprise?
The nearest shop is miles away
The life of a leaf
Suddenly there are cattle, rumbling towards McDonalds
MicroLove
Shopping Carts and Rain, and amber light
Now something is in the air
I have heard, the children are returning
DIE, Bond!
If you could unwind history, where to stop…
CRANE
Of course the world is not enough
Late September
Once I asked my grocer for a perfect potato
Nobody there, just fruit on bramble
Stainless Steel
You said it wasn’t worth the trouble
Day Rises, and quiet
I caught a tremendous fish
I have loved three women, married others

12 Signed, 3 Stories, 33 Flashes, 3 Poems

The thing grows!


Here are some more prompts

Blind eyes like unshelled hard boiled eggs
There was a river
Parchment
An old man sits next to his beer
CHAIR
I have had lovers, all sub-prime
TABLE
Thinking of fish we have caught, almost caught
A Red Wheelbarrow
We took turns, and she said yes, then why did it feel wrong?
Pullman
Once, after a long day of unremitting rain, the sun
BECKS
What if the road you often took, was moved at night?
Scooping Cream
What if there was never surprise?
The nearest shop is miles away
The life of a leaf
Suddenly there are cattle, rumbling towards McDonalds
MicroLove
Shopping Carts and Rain, and amber light
Now something is in the air
I have heard, the children are returning
DIE, Bond!
If you could unwind history, where to stop…
CRANE
Of course the world is not enough
Late September
Once I asked my grocer for a perfect potato
Nobody there, just fruit on bramble
Stainless Steel
You said it wasn’t worth the trouble
Day Rises, and quiet
I caught a tremendous fish
I have loved three women, married others

Loads More Prompts

These are singled, the alpha-listed, then in reverse.
try reading it all, singing them, chanting

Wait for a voice to call you


PROMPTS

They have promised to send a train, and we will leave
Father Maloney’s stare
Imagine a tender gravity, falling
Decision
And if I am writing, I am not holding my wife
I would like to sit close to the doors
How Morning is, and quiet
Tock
I have told you all this to give you pain
Bamboo Squares
They bubble-wrap hearts now and sell them three for two
The cook’s boy, the cleaning girl
VENOM
Stone to stone, heart to stone
CHIME
The rustle of history
NAIL, Hammer
Time clears its throat
BALL
Days of great love; of destiny
Do mad people love? What are there letters like?
GRATE
Birds Eye Frozen False Tears are on Offer
Jack of Hearts
We will talk about great things, and football
TAXI
I am silly, filled up with sleep and want
One Potato, Two Potato
Hardly a Joker
Should you not have time to memorise these instructions
Flat-Pack Marriages
The Chemistry of Distaste
And then cracking twigs
And we all stared at the box, and it inside

And if I am writing, I am not holding my wife
And then cracking twigs
And we all stared at the box, and it inside
BALL
Bamboo Squares
Birds Eye Frozen False Tears are on Offer
CHIME
Days of great love; of destiny
Decision
Do mad people love? What are there letters like?
Father Maloney’s stare
Flat-Pack Marriages
GRATE
Hardly a Joker
How Morning is, and quiet
I am silly, filled up with sleep and want
I have told you all this to give you pain
I would like to sit close to the doors
Imagine a tender gravity, falling
Jack of Hearts
NAIL, Hammer
One Potato, Two Potato
Should you not have time to memorise these instructions
Stone to stone, heart to stone
TAXI
The Chemistry of Distaste
The cook’s boy, the cleaning girl
The rustle of history
They bubble-wrap hearts now and sell them three for two
They have promised to send a train, and we will leave
Time clears its throat
Tock
VENOM
We will talk about great things, and football

We will talk about great things, and football, VENOM, Tick-Tock, Time clears its throat, They have promised to send a train, and we will leave, They bubble-wrap hearts now and sell them three for two, The rustle of history, The cook’s boy, the cleaning girl, The Chemistry of Distaste, TAXI, Stone to stone, heart to stone, Should you not have time to memorise these instructions, One Potato, Two Potato, NAIL, Hammer, Jack of Hearts, Imagine a tender gravity, falling, I would like to sit close to the doors, I have told you all this to give you pain, I am silly, filled up with sleep and want, How Morning is, and quiet, Hardly a Joker, GRATE, Flat-Pack Marriages, Father Maloney’s stare, Do mad people love? What are there letters like? Decision, Days of great love; of destiny, CHIME, Birds Eye Frozen False Tears are on Offer, Bamboo Squares, BALL, And we all stared at the box, and it inside, And then cracking twigs, And if I am writing, I am not holding my wife

27 Flashes, Two Stories, More prompts

The tree-stump, devoured
OATMEAL
Sometimes everything I write seems a snapshot, with a thumb over the lens
Tomorrowness
Consider the grass growing
ECHO
Being a man and not a god, he leaves
Squawk
Once upon a time, there wasn’t
Much of my thinking is about loss
Postcards from Fiji
Blackberry, blackberry, blackberry
BASRA
Shut up. Shut up. There’s nobody here.
Shampoo
Running from Spiders
CHISEL
Peach or Mango
Two white, ripe girls on the tube
Last Supper II
Two a.m. bright moonlight, a train in moonlight, hissing
CARS
He sits with his absent wife
The sky ripped open
I stretch my arms
Fish know where to move and when
Furniture
One minute and forty-two seconds
Only the virus
Goodnight, and goodnight

More Members, More Prompts

We now have eleven signed up, twenty flashes and one story posted and approaching 100 crits.

Here are some prompts to cover the week. Loads more at BC.

Monday Prompts

The Gods That Failed
Seagulls
Goldilocks is Asleep
When lovely woman stoops to folly
Man-bag
She turns and looks a moment in the glass
On the cheap
And children suffocate
Pictures
No one scrambles over the sliding chalk
Bacon, bacon
On the divan piled, stocking, camisoles, stays
Unreal Cities
Hardly aware of her departed lover
A Silen Fan
A sea-fog like gunsmoke
DAMP
So now the Victorians are all in Hell
BREAD
Your favourite word is wee, and you eat Eccles Cakes

TUESDAY

An so de rain a-fall and a-fall
Black Ball
There I places I will never go
Married and not pregnant: there’s posh for you
MARZIPAN
Where can I go then, from the smell
STALYBRIDGE
Bless you Alpha-Doggie
Good Boys
Into the grave that we have dug
Dai K lives at the end of the valley
Sin-Cake, Sin-Eater
Books, books, books
Of the forests and smashed faces
A crowd flowing over a bridge
COLD
A drowning child
Blodwen is leaving
He ravishes the fiddle, screams when drunk

WEDNESDAY

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
GOOGLE as a number
The night we were struck, the night
Icing, meteors
Trains will run later, and fuck it
Cheesy Bond
September was when it began
Magic ingredient
A swarm of frogs, swollen, hideous
BERET
I can remember, see, my father walking home. I was never there
JUICE
Miss Marples, were they ever young and fucked?

THURSDAY

Blessing
You could try cheese
Mirror, mirror, on the fucking wall
The eighth dwarf
Crowds round the ticket barrier, a white face waiting
Death by Meteor
It has been said, that sometimes I lie, or bend the truth
Blind Faith
The very young T.E.
Was there a poster of me, with a moustache?
Blowing up the train
Poets only play with words, they always lie
We fight for something
There was an airfield here, the grass grows and leaves a pattern
Poppies
What is the opposite of E’s?
My father ran round the garden in the dark

FRIDAY

At least it’s something
September 1, 1939
There is no greater crime than leaving, except to stay
UNDESIRE
I may have been a Zulu, or wore petticoats
Mis-spelling, Miss Spelling
You can count on friends, but only to twenty or so
All I have is a voice
Aberyswyth
Accurate Scholarship is not of the soul
TS
But the corpse, alas, goes on dying
You do not love the dead, the word is LOVED
RAIN
After all you lasted longer
Practice hate, hate the village

SATURDAY

I sit in a dive on fifty-second street
CLINK
Truth-loving Persians
And where, exactly did the peach come from?
Why declare war?
TOM
Listen, there is a hum, and ticking
Through half-deserted streets
Tennis for the dead
Dogs skittering on polished floors
Snap!
And I have known the eyes already
Pop!
How the door clicks open
Crackle
Let us go and make our visit
Do I dare?
The soot that falls back down the chimney

EIGHT NOW SIGNED, Prompts

Eight now on board after 24 Hours.

Join Us.

Post at BC or email AK

Email to Snowball136 (at sign) googlemail.com

Here are tonight's prompts

Ten songs, one solid block of agony



Tourists, not Terrorists



Your father, in his terrible pose



Jill Dando



and inside the house, the bewildered child



Certainty



It began to snow at midnight



BOUNCE!



Where and when, exactly, did we first have sex?



BACK



Whose woods these are, I think I know



TAIL



the ragged road, the wood, the yearning



Kids on Stage



Breathing at my side, that heavy animal



Extensions



Back out slowly, step off your life



Samson



It's only a week, but you're slipping



Lighthouse



They have captured the moon, it's in a box



Getting There!



I will go back to that silent evening



BALL



When you have a plan, your life



You've been knocking a door, but it is just a door, nothing else is there



Acker Bilk, or the Other one



You could have just been another maggot



Rock's the cradle



ARIA



Finney, I will never forget

SIX SIGNED UP ALREADY

Various Boot Campers have still to respond, but already we have four guests signed up for the month, a total of six writers.

Flashes posted to date (well it IS early!) SIX

JOIN US! Here are prompts and some advice

Please note that there is no "rule" which says you must read "this" set of prompts "NOW" and immediately write a flash.



The purpose of flashing is to UNLEASH, to break your own pre-set rules

but all we want is for you to write fast, unthinking, instinctively, with the gut.



If that means reading lines of poetry or looking at pictures, or listening to music on repeat, that's fine.



If it means reading 1-2-3-4-5 sets of flash prompts, that's fine, too.



What is important is letting rip, writing free of constraints and without planning.



PROMPTS




Burning burning burning burning


Armadillo


Children's voices in the orchard


The Pub Quiz


Where the grey light meets the green air


Lost Voices


I have been here before


SAND


I remember now. I did not know if it was grief or love


Restless nights


It was now a soft October


BLOSSOM


I have gone at dusk through narrow streets


A wallet filled with fat


CHERRY


I will always miss her, miss her


Bike!


The winter evening settles down


Gently, gently


I will row into the current, towards the falls


Tomorrow, then


A South Wales Argus came swirling about my feet


The boys in new kit


Wipe your hand across your mouth, laugh


This hour or so, drinking


Among the Dead Cities


I remember the nights, and the sound of nights


I would like to gently

Your Chance to Blast!

Boot Camp is running an August Blast. (FREE)

This involves "EXTREME" activity to get us through the hardest month for writers.

It involves members (and guests) committing/attempting to write EVERY day (at least SOMETHING)
and attempting to complete a flash or story or poem EVERY day for the whole of August.

A set of prompts will be posted every morning and twice every evening (see explanations elsewhere)
and Members/Guests should try and produce a flash or story a MINIMUM of once a day.<

The trick is to try to write THREE!

For the five Sundays there is also a STORY deadline 8PM Sunday.

The ideal participant would write a flash every day, some days more than one, AND manage a story each week

PLEASE don't bleat and say it cannot be done. We KNOW it can be done. We know that the quality of work
IMPROVES due to the pressure, the hectic nature, the "buzz".

Boot Campers and guests (Children in Need, Previous Blasts, East of the Web) have been responsible for hundreds
of publications and more than twenty first prizes in competitions, all from "impossible" blasts.

There is something in the very nature of suspending all and crashing forward, a sense of fear moves to one of liberation

ALL WE CAN SAY IS TRY IT.

CURRENT BOOT CAMPERS, FORMER BOOT CAMPERS AND STRANGERS/GUESTS ARE ALL WELCOME. There are a number of "AUGUST BLAST" forums. Apply here (no charge) and Alex will arrange access to the other forums.

We ask a few things

1. Commitment. If you aren't prepared to "give it a go" don't bother applying.

2. A sense of constructivity, in work, commitment, mutual motivation.

3. A willingness to (briefly) critique flashes and critique stories (authors are anonymous) and NOT to respond when your own story is critiqued 4. NO Flames. I do not warn people. I simply delete them, IMMEDIATELY.

All the January Hits..

Here is January as a snapshot

11 Hits, THREE first prizes, two seconds and a third

$972


001 0,000 Dan in Print at Ascent Aspirations, US Mag with "Once in a Bloodless land"

002 0,001 Tom earns $1 for a poem in on-line mag http://www.geocities.com/theshantytownanomaly

003 0,100 Nancy wins $100 C-i-N Anthology with "Smollensky"

004 0,000 Cally Second in C-i-N Anthology with "The Creature Between Us"

005 0,600 Jason Jackson wins $600 First Prize at Writers Forum with "Final Knockings"

006 0,020 TomC gets twenty bucks from "Big Pulp" for "Skin Like Shining Armour"

007 0,000 Cally gets into print mag Aesthetica with "Waiting For Julia"

2008-008 Tom C places a poem at the shantytownanolmaly and earns $1

2008-009 Claire places a CIN poem at ezine "Apt"

2008-010 Another CIN hit, this time Rupert places "The Sparrow" at Southern Ocean Review

2008-011 Jason Jackson $50 3rd place at JBWB Short Story Comp

2008-012 Caroline wins $200 First Prize at JBWB (Poetry)

More Hits, Another First Prize $972

January finishes with a flourish...


2008-008 Tom C places a poem at the shantytownanolmaly and earns $1
2008-009 Claire places a CIN poem at ezine "Apt"
2008-010 Another CIN hit, this time Rupert places "The Sparrow" at Southern Ocean Review
2008-011 Jason Jackson $50 3rd place at JBWB Short Story Comp
2008-012 Caroline wins $200 First Prize at JBWB (Poetry)

Stats Update 2 2008 HITS $721

001 0,000 Dan in Print at Ascent Aspirations, US Mag with "Once in a Bloodless land"

002 0,001 Tom earns $1 for a poem in on-line mag http://www.geocities.com/theshantytownanomaly

003 0,100 Nancy wins $100 C-i-N Anthology with "Smollensky"

004 0,000 Cally Second in C-i-N Anthology with "The Creature Between Us"

005 0,600 Jason Jackson wins $600 First Prize at Writers Forum with "Final Knockings"

006 0,020 TomC gets twenty bucks from "Big Pulp" for "Skin Like Shining Armour"

007 0,000 Caly gets into print mag Aesthetica with "Waiting For Julia"



999 0,721 Dollars


Further NOTES (Small Hits)

CIN Anthology

Though many of the entrants are in-house BCers, there were still many stories to beat and a third of the entrants were not current BCers.

There is just the first prize to award (Nancy Saunders) but the awards would be 1-2-3 with only one prize per person

1 Nancy Saunders
2 Cally Taylor
3 Jonathan Pinnock (non-BC)

IMO the others are WORTH hits, but we should call them notes.

16 Smollensky - Nancy Saunders
07 There is Only One Story - Nancy Saunders
06 Creature Between Us - Cally Taylor
04 Dog Maths - Jonathan Pinnock
04 3-Headed Penis - Dan Malach
03 Click-Sparrow - Cally Taylor
03 8 out of 10 Cats - Antony Davies (non-BC but ex-BC)
03 Fig(ht) - Dave Prescott (non-BC, but ex-BC)
02 Sword in Garden - Nancy Saunders
02 Ignorance of Men - Tom Conoboy
01 Big George - Colin Upton
01 Grab Attention - Jonathan Pinnock (non-BC)
01 Heavy Boots - Jonathan Pinnock (non-BC)
01 Walking by the Beach - Tom Conoboy


Caroline has had two acceptances for poems at ????? which she prefers to recod as notes and not full hits

Stats Update 2008 Publications $1,020

2008


001 Eclectica: Alex, "Blinking at the Sun"
002 Eclectica: Cally "xxxx" ($100) First Prize
003 Eclectica: Colin, "xxxx" ($50) 2nd prize
004 Eclectica: Alex, "Cull"
005 Momaya Anthology: Cally, "C is for Cuckoo"
006 Momaya Anthology: Alex, "The Quarry." ($270)
007 Smokebox: Chrissie, "Bling"
008 Smokebox: Joel, "The Name"
009 Smokebox: Cedric, "Shape Shifting"
010 Leaf Books Anthology: Jenny Jackson, "Jared Williams Again"
011 Writers Forum $600 First Prize Jason Jackson Story

Update

172 Hits

$6,666


666, see what they say about Keegan is true...

More Competition Prizes

After thirteen hits posted yesterday, more good news!!


Joel wins $100 Third Place at WriteSpace

Cally gets $30 as a runner-up

Chrissie places a story at Doodledog

Which Takes Us To...

169 Hits

$6,536

13 Boot Camp Hits: $322

1 Jason picks up Third Place ($200) ad in the H E Bates Short-Story Competition (Print)

2 Joel gets Highly recommended in the H E Bates Short-Story Comp, also (Print)

3 Jason Jackson was shortlisted at Guildford

4 TomC is accepted for "Chaos Theory" ($10)

5 Cally earns $50 and a nice Oz publication in "Etchings" (Print)

6 Rupert gets into Diddledog

7 Christina has a flash accepted for Smokebox

8 Louise Cypher gets $20 and a pub in "Murky Depths" print mag

9 Jason Jackson earns $30 with a story at Espresso Fiction

10 Matt gets a story into January's "Transmission" (Print)

11 Tom gets a story into "Fly in Amber" ($10)

12 Tom has a story in "Balderdash" and earns a whole $2

13 Rupert has a story accepted for print-mag "Four Volts"

11 Joel gets highly recommended at JBWB

Saturday 04:00 Prompts

A beautiful building, an ugly one
A billion, more or less
A brave and rare man, Hungarian
A furious woman
A garden, a slum
A soldier boy, dark, and tall. He is marked with a target
Blodwen is pregnant
Does that explain it?
Double your money
Dreams must remain damp to lessen shrinkage
Driving West through Wales
Everyone prefers good looks to ugliness
Has anyone seen my sky?
He spent seven years in solitary, dreaming of fires
I am considering eating your budgie
I bitterly resented the way men grabbed me
I can, thenk God, walk forever
I cannot run more than a few yards
I have what every poet hates
I ought to be happy
I place my hope upon the water. It sinks
I think I had no self-consciousness
I took my looks for granted
Irish carpentry, American kindness
Lamplight, yellow windows, light bleeding
Love is liquid
May I borrow your gun? I have my own bullets
My body is wearing out
My friends started dying when I was quite young.
My immortal soul
Neither here nor there, and almost arriving
Now it strikes me as a huge joke
Outside yellow corn, yellow, yellow, yellow
Popcorn
Somehow made tolerable
Something is broken
Stone, harsh wind
The body, face, brain are all oneself
The dogs will stop me writing
The meteor is coming. It fills the sky
The street was lined with fish
The wife is twenty years younger
The world is emptier
War and the pity of war
What the hell did they mean wanting my body?
Whenever I phone, the answers come first
Where can I go to escape the smell?
Will there also be singing?
You decided to come in the back way
You know the people there.
You think of looks always in relation to sex. I don't.
You went out to buy cigarettes. I killed myself quickly then hid
You will know who they are by their absence
You wrote that a friend had died