Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 10 (03-10) 12:00

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 10 (03-10) 12:00

221 Two girls, laughing
222 iMac, Check. iPad, Check! iPhone Check. Wife?
223 Twm Barlwm
224 Flower buds like nipples
225 I want you to realise how much I am gone
226 The underground
227 Let's not mention being in love. Pretend we don't like each other
228 I have just discovered that, in their twenties, my parents had sex.
229 I do NOT believe it!
230 Come to me on tip-toe, whispering
231 When you are old and grey and full of cancer
232 When you're nodding off, senile, thinking of Napoleon
233 When, briefly you remember books
234 As the last light in your eyes goes out
235 Just remember, now fuck off
236 I have found the hole in time, that isn't there and can't be found
237 What attracted me was the heft of you, the way you knew
238 It's looking clearer, fourteen days in
239 I loved you in Paris, I lost you in Berlin
240 The light above the executioner
241 The smell of vegetable stew
242 These, these, are my people
243 The Williams Shoes
244 The thick air beside the dance-floor

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 09 (03-10) 06:30

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 09 (03-10) 06:30

197 Love poems for a change

198 Setting up the market at 4 AM

199 In front of the camera, which lies like a watch salesman

200 Focus!

201 Love me for nothing but love

202 I wake alone

203 Cheese

204 Parliament of Crows

205 Because you tread on my dreams

206 Fog in the mirror and I am nothing

207 An obstinacy of scales

208 I am going to be a virgin

209 Tank!

210 I could not find my arm

211 It could be Ebola

212 When it is dark I follow your scent

213 A mis-set alarm

214 Cabbage for the boys

215 No, really, I need the gym

216 The dark call of woman

217 Now my voices are arguing whether I'm worth it

218 Who fancies Mars?

219 It's official. 

220 A new way to die

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 08 (02-10) 12:30

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 08 (02-10) 12:30

173 Life is not a joke, though it may be a riddle

174 Something to do with economics

175 Crusty cobs, butter, ham, two slices of tomato

176 I think about squirrels

177 Last night the boss set up a competition

178 Skipping Games

179 The hand that rocked the cradle etc...

180 OK, we'll get that sorted for you

181 Cool, clear, water

182 Degrees of Grey

183 There are various possible adaptors, madam

184 Migraine

185 There were missiles here; before that soldiers

186 Tiredness like a yoke

187 Various dogs, various frumpy walkers

188 Chanel!

189 Free Coffee

190 We could build a monument

191 Dead is, well, DEAD

192 The Practical Behaviours of Ms Emily Jane Bickerstaffe

193 Stowaway

194 I am considering Peru

195 The oldest tree in the park

196 Semolina

 Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 06 (02-10) 00:05

125 I have a confession to make

126 A mountain of fat

127 For a while I didn't think I was me

128 Is this your phone?

129 It will probably surprise you, but I like it.

130 After the operation, we...

131 Have you looked in a mirror lately?

132 Driving West

133 Let us confront ourselves

134 Does the moon look square to you?

135 Roundhead or Cavalier?

136 Yes, I left the party, and yes, I wasn't alone

137 As far as we know this is the last one on earth

138 It takes effort to be this ignorant

139 WAVE!

140 It's about time

141 My father, his father, and his father's father's father

142 Bucket

143 Pea & Mint Soup

144 A Home Perm

145 Now is the winter or something

146 When they made him dead, they REALLY made him dead

147 The four of us, sitting on a leather sofa

148 It is time to get off

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 05 (01-10) 17:55

 Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 05 (01-10) 17:55

100 Flowered Curtains

101 We sit in the dark

102 The sound of rain on tin

103 The music of the mountain river

104 Really, it's about how you say it

105 We race across rooftops

106 I think of towns I have visited, places I stayed

107 Night Falls

108 The river leaves us

109 I like skies, but not all skies

110 Sunlight on a perfect lawn

111 Not answering the phone

112 A playground for the dead

113 I have been translated from the German

114 Nothing should dazzle us

115 Not blue, not green, but it was a colour

116 I step on our marriage like an insect on to water

117 We are, at least, the same tribe

118 I count steps, stairs, calories

119 Worn with pride

120 I was born. I'm sure of it.

121 The starched children at the college gates

122 I have been thinking about my mother

123 Sandstone

124 Someone tell her to stop

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 04 (01-10) 07:45

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 04 (01-10) 07:45

73 The sound of cold diesel

74 I am trying to remember woodwork classes, chisels, planes, shellac

75 I do not go down to the cellar and the attic is nailed shut

76 We should all spend a day as a plastic bag

77 If I was a calf I would be veal.

78 The gobble-snort of the fattest pigs

79 While you are out fishing

80 My Hitchhiker

81 I was trying to get home before the kids went to bed.

82 My head in my hands

83 Pumpernickel

84 Why would anyone DO that?

85 He has changed his first name to Galway

86 Listen to these sounds: sofa, fog, cinema

87 An outrageous, toxic, tiramisu

88 I won't give my daughter away, but you can have her for the price of a meal

89 Linen

90 We have been called to table

91 This is the blue hour. It may involve potatoes.

92 Squatting, like a peasant shitting in a field.

93 Can we have a little light in here? Give me pink, air!

94 I'm wafer over cornet any day.

95 Oops!

96 I have remembered to leave on the gas, remembered to not lock the door, and what phone?

97 Breadcrumbs

98 My father takes me to the pictures

99 The sea is dark tonight.

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 03 (01-10)

Thatcham Era October Blast Prompts 03 (01-10)

 49 Late enough. The fat girls have all gone home

50 I saw a hyperbole as big as a mountain

51 What we take for love, what we take

52 I have no baggage. It's arriving tomorrow on a truck

53 There are things we will never see.

54 Where there's a will there's a fucking argument

55 Between, Here, There, and Everywhere

56 My various deaths

57 This is one of the bad days

58 Slaughter!

59 Woman is full of sorrow, even when she thinks she's happy

60 A Miner's Snap

61 Happily wagging like a double-decker dog

62 Tyrant

63 It's an emptiness, a hollow day

64 The Fruit, the Whole Fruit, and Nothing but the Fruit

65 I'm as reliable as an IKEA Bookcase

66 Lego

67 Pirate School

68 A skirt, a shirt, the rubble before the war

69 What he keeps in his tin

70 Lack of Moral Fibre

71 An Angry Rain

72 Merioneth

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

June Blast 69 Jun 30 19:22

June Blast 69 Jun 30 19:22

 

I suppose a kind of accountant

A decision by 6PM

Dollars & Cents

A cold bath might help

Lunch-break and a football

Why dogs lick their balls

It is contradiction that makes us whole

Soul-Surfing

A good looking woman but with brutal hips

Football Kit

No doubt the Greeks have a word for it

A quiet house, just before dawn

Her neck

Too vivid, too strong. It makes me weep.

The broom cupboard

The luck of my comrades

Email

The way hunger overwhelms

Feather

I'll decide on reincarnation next time round

Officially, an accident

Naked

I dream of pink mornings and red sunsets

On the beach

Reading Ian Fleming

June Blast 68 Jun 30 07:55 (Last Day)

June Blast 68 Jun 30 07:55 (Last Day)

In the first, a scream from blackness
PEAR
Love, say it, Love
The early train to Sheffield
The shining black cars oozing superiority
CHICKEN
France will get it in the neck.
SILVER
An error that must be rectified
MARZIPAN
Slaughter, Slaughter, Slaughter!
PIG
Paris in the spring, Fountains in Rome
CLOCK
The dark rags of death
KITCHEN
Girl soldiers in black pumps
POLISH
Skill, speed, courage
A Dozen Cardboard Boxes
Something lighter, balloons, laughter
I am very dizzy
BELT
All the women in the world
Jennifer Eckersley is coming back home
Diaspora