Writing: The Boot Camp Diaries

Prompts Aug 24

2008-08-24T18:45:00.001Z

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

Prompts

2008-08-16T10:12:00.001Z

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

But

2008-08-15T08:04:00.002Z

2008 has been miserable for me writing-wise.

Boot Camp has shrunk to an all-time tiny and that's a problem because it has a certain 'critical mass" (around 20-25 members, 12-15 active) when all the buzz interacts and energy spirals.

under ten members the opposite happens. it goes quieter, duller, I get depressed and my input is less inspiring.

i stopped logging the hits (after 5-6-7 years of doing it), a few more left, one old member without even saying goodbye.

This August (only announced July 31st at 22:00) I thought "Sod this!" and launched the AUGUST BLAST, a one-month kick-ass attempt to write X words, X flashes, X stories.

My target was

31,000 words

31 Flashes
31 Subs
05 Stories

as of midnight Thursday 14th I had achieved

22,020 Words

16 Flashes
01 Subs
05 Stories
02 "Poems"

The big issue with "blasting" is, "What about quality?"

Does working harder, faster reduce quality? Most would presume, "yes."

BUT THEY'D BE WRONG. Some of the best Boot Camp stories have come from flash nights, or Children-in Need (24 stories in 24 hours) or Blasts like this one.

I've written one not-so-good story (but probably publishable), one short which is a bit throwaway (works but a bit so-what?) and two very iffy poems. But the rest is strong and getting stronger as the month goes on.

it's as if the "Just Do It" attitude releases tensions, removes fears and the brain-muscle exercise starts to pay dividends.

In a few months I will list the stories and poems and what happens to them.

I predict I will place 90% of them, 20% "well" and win at least two first prizes from the batch.

Wanna bet?

Alex

OOPS!

2008-08-15T07:58:00.002Z

This was a good blog, then I got distracted trying to finish off the chapel in Wales. (Still trying)

But now that I'm here...

We are running an "August Blast" in Boot Camp (guests partake free) and though it's a long way from the most active we've ever had we have crept up to 53 flashes, a few poems and seven stories for the month.

My own output exceeds my output for the first seven months of 2008

Interested? Go to Yuku's "BootCampKeegan"

I'm away today (so will be writing about 10PM - mustn't miss a day!) and usually the prompts are better than these (I trawl books, letters, poems and so on and "react"

These are a little less inspired

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.

Naturalistic use of language

2008-03-05T19:51:00.002Z

Over in Boot Camp, where I learn my writing craft [writes Tom C], we're having a discussion just now about writing styles. I quoted this, from Don DeLillo's Falling Man, describing the moments after the first plane had crashed into the Twin Towers:

He began to lift, his face warm with the blood on Rumsey's shirt, blood and dust. The man jumped in his grip. There was a noise in his throat, abrupt, a half second, half gasp, and then blood from somewhere, floating, and Keith turned away, hand still clutching the man's belt. He waited, trying to breathe. He looked at Rumsey, who'd fallen away from him, upper body lax, face barely belonging. The whole business of being Rumsey was in shambles now. Keith held tight to the belt buckle. he stood and looked at him and the man opened his eyes and died.

This is when he wondered what was happening here.

This, I thought (and think) is a good example of sparse writing. We have a bit of a tendency within Boot Camp to try to write like this - aftercarveritis, it might be called, but we often get it badly wrong and it comes out like Janet and John writing - "I did this. I did that. She did that. I didn't like that." And so on...

We agreed that this is a decent example of decent writing, although Alex suggested ways it could be improved. Nancy provided another quote - from Philip Roth's Everyman:

He was in the hospital for thirty days. The nurses were mostly agreeable, conscientious young women with Irish accents who seemed always to have time to chat a little when they looked in on him. Phoebe came directly from work to have dinner in his room every night; he couldn't imagine what being needy and infirm like this and facing the uncanny nature of illness would have been like without her. His brother needn't have warned him not to let her go; he was never more determined to keep anyone. Beyond his window he could see the leaves of the trees turning as the October weeks went by, and when the surgeon came around he said to him, 'When am I going to get out of here? I'm missing the fall of 1967.' The surgeon listened soberly, and then, with a smile, he said, 'Don't you get it yet? You almost missed everything.'

Wow! Isn't that even better than the DeLillo? The way it flows. The naturalness of it, the way everything has a point. Take the turning leaves, for example. How often do you read completely pointless descriptions of weather or seasons? Here it provides a bit of colour, a bit of freshness to the language, but it also means something. It tells us something important.

And, as Alex noted, look at the pacing of this extract, how it is a crescendo rising to that ending. As Alex says, "the best writing is brilliantly invisible." What better description could there be of that Roth passage?

Tuesday, Some Prompts

2007-10-30T08:14:00.001Z

A fat alarm clock
A fire is lit
A hedge
A hotel room in New York City
About to sit down with my half-pint of Guinness
And always tucked his daughter up at night
And the flesh of each other
Blue-backed, silver-bellied, half-imagined things
Brought back to me that September evening
Chanting, chanting
Drawn like a moth to the darkened black room
Dumb as a cloud
Her parents love her eyes, how hard she works
His donkey-jacket on the kitchen chair
I am sailing the world
I cannot speak to you.
I died first, I think
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I took myself on for the hell of it
I'm trying to remember as best as I can
Irish Daisies, Yorkshire Nightingales
It begins as a house
It's almost impossible to be here, you kneel
Later he moved quietly to deeper sleep
Light through trees
Like a dwarf on stilts
Men hurrying back across the river
My father decoded the world
My father, drawing the fire
My fellow inmates praise him
Nothing has turned the wood
Our baby's heart, fluttering
People stop me in the street
Right into the mountain
Rockall, Malin, Dogger, Finisterre
She moved him to the hospital
Sometimes in autumn
That other country? Where was it?
The boat chugged up to the little stone jetty
The doors between the days fall open
The past fades like newsprint in the sun
The Unit
The village gossiped
The voices carry from everywhere
Then dusk, and someone calls
Then I gave myself a fright
We were joined at the hip.
When all this is over, I mean to travel north
With ten minutes to kill and the whole place deserted
You do not scorch the sheets or wake your wife
You wonder if it's lovers

A BC Thread

2007-10-29T08:35:00.001Z

Recently a Boot Camper asked, "Does anyone else get scared?"

He was asking about writing from the deepest parts, how scary it could be.

My first answer was: it's a straight choice. How honest do we want to be? How true? I am only happy when I feel my work is lifting a rug (5% of the time, tops)

Later said:

It ISN'T necessary to directly use your own experience, however painful, however true, or deep or "drama-worthy"

And if you DO directly use something, it's IRRELEVANT whether it's therapeutic, makes you happier or sadder

What matters is the TEXT and what it brings to others

It doesn't matter AT ALL whether 100% of Ballistics is factual, only that it's TRUE. It can be true even if it's 100% fiction.

When you use "your past", your own pain, your own memories, really, the THINGS aren't all that important. What's important is the feelings, and what the events whether directly or indirectly used, SAY, make us feel.

If I use a personal experience directly and try to stay "accurate" I will lose truth. The world and exact accuracy usually kills message.

And later:

Lots of these things are hard to prove, but think like this.

When "a little brown dog" starts glowing, some memory or link to memory, either some maturing part of you thinks it's ready to discover, or some older part of you maybe wants to relieve an internal pressure, BUT THAT IS JUST ONE THING (presume for simplicity)

I suppose it's possible that the conscious and unconscious brain between them choose one single item. one discrete memory, but is it likely?

My belief is that the more we right, the more we try to unfuzz our history, the more we "go there" (I mean in that drifting, available, state) the more things might start to emerge.

The idea that I might isolate ONE and one only (one that might "REFUSE" to ever come out) seems crazy.

When memories and ideas come make sure that at least the emerging tip is not lost. RECORD THEM ALL.

many things may happen her

Example you are imagining/believing that this memory of a squashed cat REALLY MEANS SOMETHING but last week you remembered a
snippet of a song, or an image of an old radio, or someone's shoes, or a car. I have no idea. MIGHT IT NOT BE THAT THE CAT WAS A WAY IN BUT NOT THE KEY? Might it not be that one of you "lesser" ideas/memories will, in the end be more important?

RECORD THEM ALL. LET THEM INTERACT

And later still:

I NEED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING, WARN YOU

Do NOT presume that all this "must be" an unearthing of your specific past.

It does not have to be YOU or something that happened to you.

Example. Imagine that once you saw, as a kid, a kid getting bullied. You vaguely noted it. It was "gone." Years later you also vaguely note that the kid committed a heinous crime or suicide, or became famous or rich (it doesn't matter). MAYBE you realised the two were the same. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you connected the two bits, connected the relationship, the cause-effect, maybe you didn't.

When these things are pointed out to us we can make a CONSCIOUS, intellectual cause-effect/wondering link. BUT WHEN THEY ARE NOT POINTED OUT TO US, ARE THE LINKS THERE UNDERNEATH SHAPING OUR FEELINGS, OUR EMOTIONS, WHAT WE CARE ABOUT, WHAT AROUSES OUR ANGER OR SYMPATHY.

so a thing might be part of our personal history, first hand

a thing may be part of our history second-hand, ie seen and heard in others

a thing may be part of our psyche THIRD hand, a news report of the above, a book, a play

a thing may, arguably be part of us FOURTH hand, cultural, like "paedophilia" and peadophiles loom so much larger in consciousness these days than they did when I was a kid... or "save-the-planet" or back in the sixties-seventies the fact that most of us went round half expecting a nuclear holocaust.

So memories do not HAVE TO relate to bad or good things you did or had done to you

Now whether or not you have a Hannibal Lecter past or lived with Jesus and ate honey and ambrosia every morning and your shit came out in perfumed bags, you conscious and unconscious pick up EVERY DAY the subliminal links to millions, billions of incidents.

When you read Alex Keegan you read (somewhere in there) HIS past, some of his sensibilities. How much of Dickens' psyche lurks in the bowels of his books... so the more we read and write the more we slowly accumulate "pressures"

if you read a current-vogue book about someone being abused, read absorb, "forget" how do you know, even if your life has been perfect, that this little nugget won't be eating away at you colouring your view of possibly EVERYTHING until you die?

We have many lives now. We absorb from news, poetry, shorts, novels, plays, films, video, TV, the web, in a way people never dreamt of even fifty years ago

but note this... what tweaks you, what sticks with YOU, does so because you are particularly susceptible, receptive to that image or idea

THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT and that's why you have to take an instant snapshot of the "thing" put it on a whiteboard and keep it alive.

If not, if for example, your psychic guardians 'don't want you to know" it will be gone, probably forever in 24 hours.

Think of it as a little fall of mud outside a cave. Mark the spot before mud covers it up.

But remember that it is not "inevitable" that the event or memory or feeling energising this connection is SPECIFICALLY something that happened (physically to you). It might be a combination of things. You might never have been touched by the creepy paedophile from next-door who hung himself when you were thirteen, but maybe you heard his name once when you were out drinking with the office-girls and a childhood friend went white, you FELT.... but the group were playing X and now when you hear X you feel torn, twisted.

It could be anything (or nothing, just an accumulation of juxtapositions and pressures from images, words, ideas from your reading/watching.

If demons made someone write Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now and hundreds of others, what happens to US when we watch them (even if we laugh)? IF those writers were exorcising their demons (if) what do we absorb?

And

So... I access a feeling, a hurt. a memory and I write about something else.

Yes, that's one way. Often directly writing about something merely energises the defences and we get shut down, anyway. But if we can sense the ache-pressure-fear-disgust (or exquisite pleasure) and find some literary outlet that seems to reflect the feeling, it may well be that what we write will be suffused with the "power" of the partly-unearthed memory.

Say I had walked in on my mother fucking the neighbour and not only that but she looked horrible, told me to fuck off (and then extrapolate)

Yes it may be possible to one day unearth the actual memories and write about them as fictional or actual autobiography but often these writings fai because the memories are bitty and we obsess on the missing parts "wanting to tell the truth"

But if, from the feeling we write about a parent betraying a child, a FICTION, we then can use the pain we felt.

Later someone asked, about these recorded "cues", should they keep one warmed up, ticking over, or should they have many?

Of one I said:

No

IT IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING YOU COULD DO

I have many things on the go so the one that wants to can begin to fester and expand. Second two things or more may choose to interact.

Note the verbs. the thing wants to, the thing chooses

NOT the author

One BCer posted this:

It might be worth reading this article which Alex posted on the BC blog.

It came from the notes from a Kingfisher Barn course a couple of years ago, and talks about using half-memories:

http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/little-brown-dog-in-rain.html

and then

http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/theme-truth.html

Note, I am not trying to write (or post) "perfect" articles. I believe that we don't learn so well from the perfectly-formed, but learn better from bits-and-pieces, spontaneous responses which generate questions and then, hopefully, answers.

Friday

2007-10-25T22:30:00.001Z

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
All day, all night, all weathers
April is the cruellest month
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Everyone suddenly burst out singing
Footworn and hollowed and thin
For I have known them all already, known them all
Groping along the tunnel, step by step
Had we been lovers
I believe there were no flowers then
I have come from the borders of sleep
I lay with my young bride in my arms
I lent upon a coppice gate
I love it as a child might love it
I see the image of a naked man
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I was much further out than you thought
It was after the war
Let us go and make our visit
Love without hope
Move him into the sun
No one is twisting her arm but there it is
Nothing but wild rain
Now it is autumn, falling fruit
Once we had toys, pretty toys
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me
Ten minutes to kill
The darkness crumbles
The fascination of what's difficult
The flood subsides, and the body
The staggering girl
The trees are in their autumn beauty
The troubled midnight
The voices carry from everywhere
The whitewashed wall
The words we have for things that die
There is one story and one story only
There will be time, there will be time
They sing the dearest songs
This is my first time here, a stranger
Turning. And turning and turning
We are at the races now
We drank coffee, talked for an hour
We hired a private nurse
We shall pick his bones, whisper
When she rises in the morning
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Why have you made this life so intolerable?
You did not walk with me
You would not know him now

Wednesday Prompts

2007-10-23T23:27:00.001Z

A broken flower-stem, a broken vase
A man riding horseback raises dust
A thousand mountains without a bird
At last his guilt became apparent
Autumn in California, mild, anonymous
Before the end they chatted with friends over a glass
Careless for an instant How we edge away
Clean, white, starched sheets
Flung across a room An old man, black face
Four or five years ago Romance never returns
From the scrotum of the Yak
He doesn't care he looks strange
He let tears fall and wandered off alone
He speaks from the corner of his eyes
Hours are a small thing A lighthouse
I am a man with few ambitions and no friends
I can stare at him, ashamed, shameless
I have a standing order called "surrender" in case of war
I have surrounded you, I was as cold as stone
I must go back to her, to her embrace
If only we could throw you away
It is impossible to see anything
It is your loneliness, not mine
My head, my shoulders, my arms
Night came and they became more anxious
Nobody knows what love is any more
Pedro has the shoes
She poured the tea. Vaguely I watched her hands
She's big, and big, and full of love
So whisk me off out of here and down some road
Sympathy comes between shit and syphilis
The day before he died Rising from the toilet seat
The ebb run and the flood flow
The isolation hospital Suicide isn't always easy
The morning changed grew chilly and transparent
The nervous hum of danger
Then stand, say nothing; nothing you believe
Then the lights went out Unpacking
This was once an innocent country
This was the end of a man who also died
Twice daily, maybe thrice. It depends on luck
Under a winter streetlamp near a bus-stop
We banged on the pipes, but no-one knew the code
We beat it shitless
We know what's funny and unfunny
We look for communion A wind is blowing
We slept naked, on top of the covers
When I grow up I want to be connected
When she was still alive, we often walked

Tuesday Prompts

2007-10-23T08:31:00.001Z

Only the Lonely

Long, thick, creamy fingers

Bloodless coup a real letdown

Pressing the smoothness out of cushions

Leaving Birmingham behind

It pulses sometimes. It throbs.

Bob Marley rises from grave

The bathroom on the bus is Out of Order

The boy with a sparrow in his hand

Friends Reunited

A difficult woman

Night at the end of the tunnel

Monday prompts

2007-10-22T09:54:00.000Z

Sad stories of the dearth of kings

Moods of the Sea

In the footsteps of courage and catastrophe

Pi

He did not lift the sheet

Four Cows

Purr

The year shifted a little. The blossom fell.

Lit only by a sunbeam

Pure

The smell of the unburied dead

The peacock had gathered its courage

Puree

Warning my father

Purse

You are History. You are Legend

Pursed

Sunday prompts

2007-10-21T11:33:00.000Z

Can you handle the angry?

The bustle of waitresses and the chink of silver on china

The second thing that killed my father off

Saturday morning film club with Angela Dawkins

A sweetness of powder and scented things

He stepped around the pie in the driveway

I wish you'd rub my legs and talk to me

Gospel truth

Everything was swept away

Crackling

Killing sparrows was the most festive event

Fingermouse

Prompts for 20:00

2007-10-19T06:59:00.001Z

There's some of yesterdays here and some openings to novels.

If there's not something for you here, you're DEAD

At sunrise, the small expedition meets beneath a giant fig tree.
During the war years when I was still in school,
Fear presides over these memories, perpetual fear.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream.
I am a white man and never forgot it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.
In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contracted, King said yes when he knew he should have said no.
It was in the summer of 1988 that my neighbour, 71, confided in me that he was having an affair with a 34-year old cleaning woman
Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
My name is William Warlick House, residing at Chokoloskee Island, in Lee County, Florida
On the went, singing "Eternal Memory", and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.
Sea birds are aloft again, a tattered few.
She was deeply embedded in my consciousness.
The day didn't begin well.

A stag, proud as a screaming penis
Aardvarks
Abracadabra
After all, he was Welsh
An itch
Avocado
Between you and me
But you, of all people, should not
Cats are contradictions
Chestnuts, Chestnut hair
Cold marble
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
He was lost in thought as he steered his Sierra through the quiet streets
Hobson's Choice
Horses, snorting, sensing deaths in the field
Human ash is a fine fertiliser
I am considering becoming an astronaut
I count on you naturally I remember, I remember
I dream of gas chambers
I thought my youth would last forever
It's not my vault Let her finish as calmly as possible
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
Moira was in the computer room
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
My five senses
No financial disasters
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Of those at the table in the café
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow She must not be anxious
Richmond was a good hour's drive
She could smell it!
Steam spitting from stainless steel pipes
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric The tiny fish enjoy themselves
The buggy lurches in frost-stuck ruts
The first movement is singing
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter This is glorious news
Trees grow like insults
Visiting the poet
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Who will honour the city now?
Why soffits are brown, black, white and never pink
You without beginning, you always in between
Your official membership is enclosed
Your sweetness and patience and kindness

Three Flash Blasts Tonight!!

2007-10-18T17:48:00.000Z

and the first is at 7PM

(then 9PM and 10:30)

Here's a list

A brief sickness, a need to get to Paris
A cruising milk-float, the clink of crates
A gap between money coming in and money going out
An itch
As I know with my whole heart
Between you and me
Cats are contradictions
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
Evelyn, dear
First there was silence
Heroes
I always have plenty of month left at the end of the money
I am a nice, affable woman
I am bored now, with the condescension of my inferiors
I am sending you this little cheque
I cannot ever thank you enough for your generosity
I count on you naturally
I do not want to leave
I gloat and also mourn
I remember, I remember
I thought the Nile was blue, and sane bright yellow
I wanna be a star, I wanna go far
It dripped off though on Octover 22.
It's not my vault
Let her finish as calmly as possible
Let me know if anything grave happens
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
No financial disasters
Oh to be in England
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow
Saris hang on the washing line
She must not be anxious
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric
The small things can ruin one's nerves
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter
This is glorious news
Unless I am sure you two are OK
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Your sweetness and patience and kindness

And More Good News

2007-10-18T08:04:00.001Z

Not "Boot Camp" but great news for Joel in Finland who wins a top advertising First Place and cash. October is looking pretty good and the drinks are definitely on Joel.

Next up Matt has been awarded £3,000 to launch a magazine in Brighton. (Please note, should any Boot Campers place in Matt's Magazine they will NOT count as hits.)

Third, yours truly will be judging next year's City of Derby Short-Story Competition. This year's second and last year's second were Boot Campers! Boot Camp stories will not be eligible for the comp.

$500 Second Place for Joel etc

2007-10-18T08:01:00.000Z

Congrats to Joel based in Finland for his $500 second place in City of Derby's Short-Story Competition

Following are the last few hits. That's a thousand bucks won this month!

OCTOBER

142 Joel wins $500 Second, City of Derby

153 Lexie wins HISSAAC $500

154 Tom named shortlist in HISSAAC
155 Jenny Jackson shortlisted at Leaf (and in print anthology)
156 Jason Jackson shortlisted at Guildford
157 DMW's flash "Zombie Jesus: taken by Four Volts Print Magazine

DON'T CHEAT. Prompts for 22:00

2007-10-17T19:41:00.001Z

I'm not feeling brilliant so may not last until 10PM

So here are the prompts

He sold the caravan to a melancholy priest
Kissing old women
A cruise missile passing, just below our balcony
I saw a poodle, crucified
Ten million rooms, all smelling of cigarettes
When you woke, you were more or less insane
The art of losing isn't hard to master
Flour
Driftwood blackened by old fires
A year ago I fell in love with a tailor's dummy
Bogies
Listen to me. I know a lot about melons
We were going to drive to Wales
I inspect her room while she's away
Home is so sad
You passed me as if you hadn't seen, but then you stopped
I think you're an asteroid
Chinese Taxi
Pill
My husband and I
Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday
Answering Back
Zurka the pickpocket was sitting on a bench in a Budapest park
It all started the day of Frankie's accident
Lily once told me that…
Is there anything sadder than an empty station?
I met Eric when he was thirty-eight and I was turning forty.
"I'm here to see the owner."
"So, Franco…"
I served in France, you know.
Every morning she comes on deck early.
A Little Pussy
Honey, I saw your note and understand you're a little upset.
David Time's view of himself began at the station platform, his polished boots.
The Moon has eyes, a nose and a mouth
My greeting protocol is faultless
We live in a cabin next to the river
I am obscure, middle-aged, heterosexual and white.
I'm holding Mamoo's hand. I can't stop shaking
He lay in bed listening to the cat-flap clacking
Social Workers!
He was thinking about Michael Jackson again
She writes her name in ketchup
When I got to school this morning there was dogshit all over the grass.
I grew up like any other clown
On Jericho Beach
I'll tell you a story about two soldiers
They tell you a lot about a person, their stains.

Prompts for 20:00

2007-10-17T18:40:00.001Z

All these years and I still don't understand
Acorns
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Dogs etc
Eggs, unfertilised
Fuck You
Great Britain
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me.
Hassocks.
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
Jesus Smith, Traffic Warden
King Fred
Lose it before you use it.
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Names so silly they must be made up
Oh for a muse of fire!
Pissing on the flames
Queen Anne
Roasted Hedgehog
Someone tossed a condom into it
He used a lot of vowels
UP
VERILY, verily
XXX Love Hilary
Yanks
ZZZZZZZ
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
I felt like a quartered chicken
A year ago, I stood at the window, crying
I remember him best with my skin
An unfortunate accident with a circular saw
If they piss you off, shoot the fuckers
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
We do not die
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
Now that the year has come full circle

Wednesday Flash prompts 1800

2007-10-17T17:04:00.001Z

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
BYE BYE MCLAREN?
In my craft and sullen art
In the undergrowth, a woman's clothing
In which nothing need happen particularly
It can't be October already?
It is the road now, but I know not where it goes
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Later, bikes leaning against an old tree
Lay your head upon my pillow
Let's go, knock on a good woman's door
A deer, trapped, the dogs loose
A sherbert fizz
About suffering…
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
As the door closes, as the dark envelopes
Before, before there were souls, what then?
Black handprints
Brass Band
Bright and early, fine in his intent
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Cycling for bluebells near St Mellons
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I am not respectable or industrious
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had somewhere to get to
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I have heard that freedom exists
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by MFI
I'll come, no matter where you're going
In an effort to keep day and night together
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Midgets demand their cake.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My dad just left it by the shed
My mother waits too long
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Not everybody's childhood sucks
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators

Flash Tonight?

2007-10-17T06:44:00.000Z

Boot Camp wil have two flash sessions tonight (Wednesday) at 8PM and 10PM

Prompts will be posted here. Why not try this? Give yourself around an hour and just freewheel, unplanned, driven by some response to one or more prompts.

You'd be amazed. Many BCers get their best work from flash sessions.

Post an answer here if you'd want to join us for the evening

alex

Morning Prompts

2007-10-17T06:43:00.000Z

A sherbert fizz
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
I remember him best with my skin
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
In an effort to keep day and night together
It can't be October already?
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators
People die in fires, the unlucky ones live
She giggles and pulls the trigger
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The musky smell of urine
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
This story had a happy ending but it was going to be too long
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter

Too Good?

2007-10-16T15:58:00.000Z

A question to more experienced writers...

Over the last X years I've experienced the black hole which (I think) is between good beginner/intermediate work and serious writing. You can improve the quality, depth and breadth of your short-stories until they become too good to pick up the previously-regular prizes and publications but you're either not-good-enough or not "in" enough to break into the seriously big places.

You start out a wannabee and sub, sub, sub, then begin to hit. Flushed with success you get a higher ratio of hits and in better outlets. You win a lot of prizes.

Then, suddenly, it dries up.

But you KNOW that this story blows away that winner, and that. You're experienced. You edit, judge, critique, teach. Frankly you can now "churn out" the kinds of stories you had to work hard to create (and then won prizes)...

One obvious answer (wrong, but obvious) is that you, as a writer have "disappeared up yer own arse". You fancy yourself, you've forgotten what story-telling is.

EXCEPT THAT YOU STILL DO PRODUCE PUBLICATIONS AND PRIZE-WINNERS It's just that they are casual, "throw-away" flashes or "games" or fun-stories. Easy stories which gratify very quickly and are soon forgotten.

MANY MOONS AGO I always entered three stories in every competition. In Boot Camp we grade stories and give a mark based on craft, the plot etc. I used to predict the following.

The top scorer (the "best" story) would place NOWHERE.

The intermediate story would make the longlist/shortlist/final.

The LIGHTEST, most trivial story would win a prize.

That must have happened for 75% of the competitions I entered.

One possible explanation is this. READERS for comps.

What level of writing and critiquing skill will most competition readers have? If they are "Joe Public" do they seek to choose absolute quality or "an easy read"? The bigger the comp and the larger the entry the more the problem (if it is a problem) is enlarged. Readers have to read fast and often and QUICKLY choose YES-NO... Do they therefore not have the time to savour the more subtle stories or stories that challenge?

Have YOU Blog-Reader sent more than one story in to a comp and found your makeweight winning while your classy pieces disappear without trace?

Second thought is this, especially where readers are beginning/intermediate writers. I bel;ieve that beg/Int WRITERS will choose writing which is close to what they believe they could write on a very good writing day, downhill with the wind behind them. That is they RELATE to this level of writing. It's currently SLIGHTLY beyond them (but not by much) and so they feel good about the work, identify-with/relate-to it.

But send them a serious work, a slightly heavier work or a very talented work that in the next writing year they could not DREAM of writing, what then? My belief is it scares them or makes them angry, or "pisses them off" or "makes them uncomfortable". The quick and easy solution is to reject.

I know in my own reading, when I was developing as a writer, I "rejected" the great writers as boring and pompous, and over-rated. I began to read stuff that was good general fiction (but not literary) because that felt "classy" but achievable.

That is, what I felt I liked and admired was what I could REALISTICALLY aspire to write. I believe now, looking back, that I rejected truly great work because it made me feel desperately inadequate. No way would i write like that (ever) so what better than to reject it out of hand?

I seriously worry that the UK market for short-stories is not a market for readers of shorts but a market for beginning amd intermediate writers. I read many of the magazines and though stories are often competent it is a very rare story indeed that stays with me for as long as an hour.

They are bland, safe, easy to read, quick to absorb.

I believe that if we modernised a Chekhov story or posted a Ray Carver story, or Alice Munro, or Saul Bellow, or William Trevor, or any one of twenty-thirty recognised top names THEY WOULD BOMB IN UK COMPETITONS.

If Boot Camp is having a flash session (usual max time 75 minutes but often shorter) and I join in, bang out a really fast story, sometimes using all the prompts as a challenge... if I remove typos but don't edit, if I send out that rough, there's a very good chance it will win something or place somewhere.

But if I WORK it. If I write, draft, build, sculpt. if I produce something that's ten times more satisfying, then it will take years to place.

And don't think it's lack of editorial skills. On countless occasions I've pointed out flaws in stories (in Boot Camp, in Seventh Quark submissions, in my work editing for payment and do on). I know what I'm doing.

I'll return to this, but would love to hear YOUR thoughts.

Alex

NOT Happy

2007-10-16T15:54:00.000Z

Today has been TORTURE, not very typical of my writing emotions.

Since starting this blog I've become far too aware of process and now I feel it's stopping me writing fresh stuff

Day Seven (Day Three of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)

888 007,670 Words Other Writings

999 017,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,445 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

Latest on Children in Need

2007-10-16T13:54:00.001Z

01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England
12 Ralph New Zealand/London
13 Dave Prescott, Herefordshire, England

Tuesday Prompts at 08:00

2007-10-16T07:02:00.001Z

An artificial tiger
And now look at the results
Dad had gone out in the rowing-boat
Darkness like tunnel walls
Each day we must reckon
Eggs in the cuckoo clock
God is writing a novel
He felt there wasn't enough guilt in the world
He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers
He wakes, he calls her name
His staring glass eye
I have never visited him in his quarters
I try to imagine "poor"
I went into the bathroom to see
It happened much as he expected, but he was wrong about when.
It was a strange atmosphere on the plane.
Jumping barbed wire fences on an old German motor-bike
Life is a hospital ward, lovers in every bed
Love of art, not others
My mother's wedding ring
Next to her deathbed, a large white fish
Nine months and then you let me out
On top of a wardrobe, his old vest
She screamed for England but lost to a Pole from a dark forest
She was cleaning
Sun. And sky. And in the sky, white clouds
The ankles were tied
We should plan ahead for being dead
Yet you have come here to rescue her
You confront yourself
You had a fancy coffin, go fast stripes

Monday Morning 07:50

2007-10-15T06:51:00.001Z

Big isn't it?
Blue and Green is not unusual
By the St Lawrence
Cousins
Dark Blue Jeans, White T-Shirt
Does Your Mother Know?
Early Morning Coffee
Edward was explaining to Carl about levels
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Get Up, Get Up, Get Up
Goodbye Argentina
Grasshopper
He always wore one glove, carried the other
He had a heart attack and crashed his bus
Here, have this loaf of bread
I AM communicating with you
I am Old Enough to leave, So I Will
I think it was St Mary's but I'm not going to argue
I'm not DENYING anything
It was in those days when I wandered about hungry.
It's a nice addiction to have
Keep On Running
Learning Kung Fu
Leaving the Yellow House
Looking for Mr Green
Marjorie and Emily Short-cutting to school
Miss Jones wants to make love to me
Neighbours
Potassium Permanganate
Reading Chekhov
Sensible Shoes
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Sign Here, and Here, and HERE
Sometimes, I think I can hear him
Standard jewel case
Tears Flowed at the Chapel Funeral
They live in cracks, under, behind
Tigger!
Today we have a fire drills
What Kind of day Did You Have?
Whose side, your father's or your mother's?
Whose turn for the shit
Without Poetry it just isn't the same
A Silver Dish
A theft
A very small bone, broken
Air on a G String
Angel of the Great White Way
Bellarossa

Sunday Morning prompts

2007-10-14T06:01:00.001Z

Handkerchiefs from Auntie Maisie

Memories of Birthdays Past

Recycled cards

Bumps

Mouth Like a Parrot's Cage

Daddy, I made this for you …

Rumbleguts

Why Josephine Can't Come to the Party

Annual Excuses

How many candles?

Cardigans and Slippers

The Skin I'm In

Conspicuous Consumption

Four Weddings and a Birthday

Not Old, Merely Mature

The Man Who Saved All His Wrapping Paper

Forgetfulness

Eleven Children in Needers So Far

2007-10-14T05:54:00.001Z

One more this morning, 11 so far

JOIN US!

One more, Ants Davies from Leeds

01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England

prompts at a Ridiculous Time

2007-10-13T03:58:00.001Z

A breakfast egg and Otis Redding
A particularly hard stool evacuated from an aeroplane
At gravesides priest will say, "I don't give a fuck."
Bad dreams of old cars
Cream Crackers
Dermatitis
Everytime
Fish and chips on winter nights
Gathering
Girls in bikinis, moonbathing
How she sews.
I have, here, in my pocket…
I want to paint murdered kings
I was born in the village of Much Bickering
If I was ever faithful
It's not true, there ARE intelligent women
Jeffrey Archer, Poet Laureate
Jelly-babies
Kill the thing
Loose
Moths and Lamps
My father planting potatoes
Negro postmen, money, dreams
Old poetry books turn brown and make me remember sadnesses
On a tour of public lavatories
Pick yer Paris Tunnel
Please don't put out the light
Quickly, Press
Refuse
Schoolgirls waiting at a crossing
Since there is no help, let us kiss and part
The dead will quietly bury the living
The first daffodils of autumn appear
There it is, word for word
This line of thinking brought me back to his letter
Tiger!
Tonight at noon
Truth limits man
Untamed Danish Pastries
Virgin
We are waiting for the end of eternity when this guy turns up shouting
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
When the room is emptied, heat remains
When vegetables retreat
X marks the blemish
Yesterday I believed
Zoo

Friday Prompts 0800

2007-10-12T07:00:00.001Z

.
Clarity is brief, the world is mostly dark confusion
Clothes not immediately in use etc.
Do not stand at my grave and laugh
First rehearse the easy things
Fish understand
Glass
He slept with his suitcase which didn't snore
he was knocked down by a rabid dog, bitten ten times
Hendre Hall
Hide behind trees, climb into wardrobes
His rapid growth has left him less rugged
Humidor
I have been walking by the harbour
I have purchased Tom a low steamer trunk
I should like very much to have him keep it under his bed
IF they build a by-pass
My nephew was in Germany and had a terrible time.
Night reunites the house with silence, death walks
Blessing
Not the memory but remembering
Now nothing is scattered, nothing divided.
Tell lies: I love you. I'll be back in half an hour. I'm fine
That was his favourite chair, that his book
The abdominal muscles are still weak
The dogs have stopped barking
The sky is deep but welcoming
Tom's sister died in just such a pool
Unless it is an infringement to the rules
We don't know why Brownlee left, only that he is gone
We have a prejudice against quarry ponds
We hope, in a few years, he will be completely normal
You wake up taller, the day presses you down

CIN Update

2007-10-11T16:04:00.000Z

We now have TEN. We'd like FIFTY

01 Alex, Berkshire

02 Claire, Cumbria, England

03 TomC, Yorkshire

04 Joel, Finland

05 Dan, England

06 Caroline, England

07 Britbird, Brighton, England

08 The Secretary!

09 Colin, England

10 Missy, England

Thursday Afternoon Prompts

2007-10-11T16:01:00.001Z

Pink!
We should have been gallopping on horses
Chocolate Eclairs
Their hooftprints splashes of light
Red Wine
Hauling up lobster pots in a wake of sparks
PERK!
We should have been doing more with our lives
Hunger
She ate monotonous food and thought the world was flat
If I knew, I'd SAY
A card game where a nose was broken
TINSEL
A wedding where the bride punched the groom
BRASS
or a child's purse full of anything
FEWOSHUS
A few peanuts, an orange
HALT
Stop all the clocks
JAM
A wristy buisness
They have dragged the river but my heart is still missing
A one-legged man always puts his best foot forward
Did you say gas?
Father, brother, husband, lover, friend
I smell his shirts, the toilet seat is always down
Since you died, I notice things
After the hospital rang we sent Dad's stuff to a jumble. It was a wrong number
Cars white with frost
I don't feel well
The vacuum-cleaner sulks in a corner cupboard
I expect him many minute now

Fresh Prompts

2007-10-10T19:53:00.000Z

Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Billy Fucking Bremner
Dai K lives at the end of the valley
Eventually it feels like Ireland
GUN
Everyone hates the English (and so they should)
From Wales, the mostly English sector
SPATULA
He said I had a servant's soul and spat into the grate
He seemed like a hollow oak-trunk, covered in ivy
THREE CARDS
I had a coffee, one coffee, with Marilyn Munro
I live in a spelling error
I thought it made me look more working class
It was your lightness that drew me
TURKEY
My father and mother, my brother, my sister
My six year-old said "bomb". They sent an armoured car.
Old damp soaks through the wallpaper
Sewing machine
She makes a quiet breakfast for herself
GONG
She must be from another country
Some say love's a little boy
Three weeks of bad drugs, badass jazz, bad religion
SEVEN
Two fairies skittered behind the bar
We will know who they are by their absence
ROUNDABOUT
What are we waiting for, assembled in the form?
What manner of dying is this?
Where a gunshot scatters acres of birds
Yes, that is the door and behind it they live

Eight Signed Up So Far

2007-10-10T15:43:00.001Z

01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!

CIN Night Diary

2007-10-10T11:37:00.000Z

TomC recorded his experiences of CIN night last year

http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com/2006/11/children-in-need-writing-d_116377669694740422.html

CIN Night Sign-Ups

2007-10-10T11:23:00.001Z

We already have:

01 Alex, Berkshire, England (Writing for Wales!)
02 Claire, ?? England
03 TomC, Yorkshire, England
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, ??? England

99 The Secretary!!!

CHILDREN IN NEED NIGHT

2007-10-10T06:18:00.000Z

For the last few years Boot Campers have joined with other flash-writers to write their hearts out and raise money for UK Charity "Children in Need". Last year I said "Never Again."

Never say Never!

CIN Night is Friday November 16th but we have a lot of practice nights!

The basic format is this. people sign up to write as much as they can (shorts, poems, articles, flashes) between the hours of 6PM Thursday and Midnight Friday (15-16 November)

They do so inspired by emailed prompts which also appear on a few sites.

The prompts will be posted on a one-hour cycle and a 90-minute cycle.

A number of members attempt the straight thirty hours, others 24 Hours, some do both evenings from 6-12,

What is important is that THE GROUP is active for the thirty hours.

We tie up with magazines who print the best stories and we also produce an anthology either in-house or via a publishing house. Two years ago LEAF produced the work in an amazingly short time.

Many of you reading this will know of "CIN NIGHT", how it works and the amazing work it produces. We are still getting "hits" from work written for CIN last year. For some reason the intensity and craziness produces a lot of very very good work!

WHAT WE ASK OF PARTICIPANTS.

Entry itself is £25 or $50.

This is broken down as follows.

£10/$20 for Children in Need
£10/$20 for a prize fund. 100% payed out.
£5/$10 for a single copy of the anthology (overseas post extra)

We also ask participants to raise sponsorship independently. Two years ago we raised over £10,000 and we would like to beat that this year.

WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF IT?

It's a big challenge, very exciting and demanding.

It teaches you something, that stories WILL come and they will surprise you. More than a few participants have told us that they wrote their best work ever in the 30 Hours of "CIN"

You have a life-experience.

You raise money for Children.

WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE?

We raise the troops. Nobody is registered without the payment as otherwise we get a lot of "time-wasters"

We open up some forums on line for practice nights

We practice (many practice stories are sold)

Some choose to meet up in Newbury at Kingfisher Barn for group-support on the night.

We post actual totals raised, and projected sponsorship amounts

ON THE NIGHT

You get prompts every thirty minutes. use them as you see fit.

You forward stories to the secretary so that they are anonymous, unnattributed.

You write write write.

AFTERWARDS

The group works on line reading and rating flashes to shortlist them down to 50/100/150

The stories are rated "author-blind"

The magazines/publications read (say) the top 100 and select from these, award a prize.

Previously this was done by "Eclectica' a top ezine.

We also produce the paper anthology which will of course be for sale.

Last year we sold 500

WE STILL HAVE ANTHOLOGIES FROM LAST YEAR AND 2005, AVAILABLE FOR £5 EACH PLUS £1 POSTAGE, SHOULD YOU WISH TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE.

YOU CAN ALSO LOOK AT THE CIN FLASHES AT ECLECTICA. (GO TO ARCHIVES)

To join us email Alex at

alex.keegan (at sign) btinternet.com

Payments can be made by bank transfer, UK cheque or PayPal

Please note the bulk of monies raised (the individual sponsorships) go direct to Children in Need as we have no desire to handle tens of thousands of pounds. We only deal with the entry fees.

JOIN US!

Prompts 07:17 Wednesday 10th

2007-10-10T06:17:00.000Z

A one-eyed troll in front of a joyless fire
As we fall into step I ask , "A penny for your thoughts?"
As we made love for the third day running, as it rained and rained
Because you didn't go. It's because you never left.
Deep, far off, in the strangest pits
Eeney Stannit!! Eeney Stannit!!
For this, and this reason only I will return your deposit,
He finds the public phone is vandalised
Her lightness drew me, after so many heavy, dark days with you
I feel extremely disappointed that you have to lie and hurl unfounded accusations.
I have put the dogs out, hosed away the shit
I trust we need have know further dealings from this point forward.
If, at your desk, you put aside your work
In front of the mirror in my parents' room
In the middle of the night, if we got up
it is my house, yet one room is locked.
It will be sent to you in the form of a cheque.
LINEN
MUD
No sacred amulets, just a memory of fields in spring
Pity is for the moment of death and the moments after.
Prams, supermarket trolleys, mattresses
Sea-fog, gunsmoke
Since you left, since you left, why, better, better!
Suddenly, after the quarrel
The next day I am almost afraid
The point is how to find a use for anger, like in Monsters Inc. but that was fright.
They are at that stage where the desire that comes between them is obscene
They were queueing for their pensions. It came out of nowhere.
What do you think of my hat?
While the room's stillness deepened, deepened
You gave, and now you say you're poor.
You make a noise like a dog dreaming.

Tuesday 9th Prompts

2007-10-09T07:03:00.001Z

Children, fresh as new candles

I am not making a fool of myself

I heard a man shout "Jimmy!" across the street

District & Circle

Escalators, ascending, descending

Corpus Christi

I first learned to swim in my father's study

Long fat summer

You saved me, you ought to remember me

I come from my childhood

At the lake's edge a young man whoops and throws his hat in the water

In the schoolyards, in the cloakrooms, children

The landscape flowed away

He knocked downy soot through the bars of the grate

A wooden turtle

My daughter and me, a manatee

His khaki tie was perfectly knotted

Spring has been postponed

In Kosbad, during the monsoons

In my dreams I have two legs, two arms, you love me

My granny read my future, then left the room in tears

Cheese

Monday 0800

2007-10-08T07:02:00.001Z

The machinery of grace is always simple

Snow on the roof

The effortless gadgetry of love

Even before I've left I long for this place

Only by moving do we balance

"Missing you already"

I walk with ladies who throw stones

He was walking where he knew it was safe

So much agility. desire and feverish care

Blown downward to the dark

Where the old man was run down

daisies, cowpats

The frost is touching everything before the sun

Like old photographs

by dusk, a clearing

Each shadow sticks

Like a freshly cleaned bathroom,

The whine of distant bandsaws, the creak of dying trees

Prompts for Sunday Lunch

2007-10-07T11:32:00.000Z

Food, Glorious Food

The greatest of these is pity

Boiled Beef and Carrots

Isidro's bouffant cock

This is a man

Macho does not prove mucho

Stumbling from one puddle to the next

The women in the woods

Jack wears trousers with an elasticated waist

It's a wrap

Dead souls driven before the wind

I know my parsnips

Down the sides of the sofa

Class

The bitterness of pomegranate pith

A catechism for the 21st century

More Hits and News of Old Members

2007-10-05T11:47:00.000Z

After Lexie won HISSAAC we've now heard that TomC was also on the named shortlist

Jenny Jackson is highly commended at Leaf and goes in the anthology.

Another member is shortlisted at Guildford (Results TBA)

And we've just heard that an ex Boot Camper who was with us for a long time and is going from strength to strength (cliche-warning!) has won a very nice $2,000 prize in a highly-prestigios competition. Result not yet formally announced.

Friday Prompts 0800

2007-10-05T07:01:00.000Z

I wouldn't say my brother in law was fat

Amoeba

After seventeen pints of lager

I asked my wife to fill in a questionnaire

In his dreams his hair turns into snakes

There are spelling mistakes on the wall

I've been wondering about drowning

My mummy bought me an armadillo, I kept him under the bed

TOAST

Who the fuck is Jimmy Greaves?

LADDER

There's a monster in the cupboard

My killer's girdling me

How we fall

The machinery of grace is always simple

What country, friends, is this?

When I wake, the rain is falling.

The difference between a racing bike and an omelette

Death Duties

That Fucking Checkhov

After the fair I'd still a light heart

A sound like lifting an airtight lid

Thursday 07:30 More Prompts

2007-10-04T06:33:00.000Z

The safe is forgotten.

They'll courier it tomorrow.

I know what the Spanish lady means.

The guilt came in waves.

When they lock me up I will hit a guard.

The first time I saw Annie was at the Pacific end of the Eastbound Interstate 80, about midway between San Fransisco and Salt Lake City.

She was crying at the window.

There are more pigs than people.

When I am asked, I say I'm a quiet lad, I pick no fights.

The school sat among maples on a hillside that sloped down to a river.

No it's the same price as last time.

She passed a sun-dark field-worker

Ian had brought fresh crusty bread from the bakery

She dropped to her haunches, waited.

But adrenalin was there now, phtt-phtt; good old flight-fight-fuck juice.

Behind her was the sea, empty sea.

Red light rushed up through her.

The woman stared. Her mouth was slightly open.

After the efficient cleanliness and the painted lines.

A wire-meshed door in the side of a blob of cream concrete.

This was a quieter week.

The doctor has warmed the speculum in her latex-gloved hand.

The chief engineer was a big, self-indulged man, about forty.

inside the restaurant had been shuttered-gloomy.

The Mother Question.

The museum is quite busy, with tourists and school groups mostly.

My mother sleeps.

I wish, sometimes, I could get at my DNA.

I've made the final cut.

Cold. Grey dawn breaking in a silver line. Lobster pots, fishing nets.

Boot Camp's Tenth First Prize of the Year

2007-10-01T23:07:00.000Z

Lexie wins HISSAAC $500

add on Jason Jackson's small hit

and newbie Matt Plass at Twisted Tongue takes us to 153 Hits for the year

$5, 714 earned

Prompts 07:50

2007-09-28T06:52:00.001Z

Today, Tuesday, I decided to move on

There may be flaws in this whole, if examined too closely

Peejay & the Strange Seed

The mouth has slackened, and the chin

It lately happened that I found myself rambling about

We come in peace from the third planet

Trapeze

We brushed the dirt off, held it to the light

Mother Tongue

The two beautiful hawthorn-trees, the hedge, the turf

One Man, Five Days

an ugly, dark monster of a tunnel

and all those buttercups and daisies

When I had been let out at the platform door

We have paid you in the year

I left the place with a heavy heart for a walk all over the town

DO NOT DESTROY

Of what use on earth is a single man?

A was an Archer and shot at a frog

Coming into Chatham

Contraption

I can see back to my very earliest days

She was skilled in music, and the dance

Plain

The seven day war that put the world to sleep

Simple

Ice on the window. the dogs whimper

150th Hit, $5,214

2007-09-27T06:42:00.000Z

A few more hits for September takes BC earnings to $5,214 for the year

Some of these you will have seen, newest at the bottom

SEPTEMBER

138 TomC Poem at Mythic Delirium
139 Alex makes final in Glimmer Train with "My Son, Going Under"
140 Jason Jackson story at Liars League
141 TomC gets a story at Liar's League
142 Joel 1/2/3 Results TBA in good Comp Individual Totals (??? $$$)
143 Matt at "Bound Off" with "In response to Your Presentation"
144 Lexie 5th place at Writers Bureau ($100)
145 DMW places paradise Lost at Black Ink ($10) Print
146 TomC places "Carnival of the Animals" at Clockwise Cat
147 "Rupert Merkin" places "Final Rest" at Paper mag Nossa Morte ($40)
148 "Louise Cypher" places "A Warm Touch" at web mag "Coven of Shadows"
149 Louise Cypher story into Coven of Darkness
150 Jason Jackson 2nd in National Writing Comp (Durham) $200

Prompts Thursday 07:40

2007-09-27T06:40:00.001Z

The winter sun creeps into the cracks between stones

How would you have met me?

A Standard Life

Hearing shingle explode, seeing it skip

Shit!

He knew he was the wrong listener

Three Kings, 2007

Blessed are, blessed are, blessed are

CHUNK

I saw three ships go sailing by

OK, Let's go, me and you

What could be hurting so much

Let's mock the great and good, stick pins in Mother Theresa

The northern sky rose high and black

There was this man and he was the strongest

And the day was plucked and tasted bitter

He gritted his teeth like a cliff

All the women in the world could not move him

Grandfather's Watch

Eyeless and mouthless

Her promises took the top off his skull

A dull axe chunking in a dark wood

He loved her and she loved him

despite everything, morning comes

Safe and sure for ever and ever

One man, a deserted platform

Waiting, while she brushed her hair

Kettle

Love will pass, good will come

New Blood

2007-09-25T06:57:00.000Z

Welcome Wayne (and thank-you to the recommending writer) our latest recruit, poor soul. Wayne joins Margot, with us just three weeks and says (to the bewer newbie: "Ive written more and learned more in this three weeks than in the previous three years."

if you're interested in Boot Camp this is a good time to join. We have two newbie BCers, two more who have nbeen with us just a couple of months. I promise blood, sweat and tears (etc)

Prompts Tuesday 07:55

2007-09-25T06:56:00.000Z

The boy, fine in his desire, feeble in his grasp

JULY

You'll need your passport

Jigger-Jagger

He'll spend his life in the busy pit

January

They're sending in their regional inspector

Just

The risky fleeing and the rope breaking

Jimmy Brown

Call our new number, shown here

Jack & Jill

There are worms in the dark recesses of my gut

Jennifer Eccles and Her Sisters

If undelivered return to

Jesus Smith

The thrill that runs through my head like a neon filament

Jaguar

Two tablets left

Juniper

Two lips that would drink from love itself

Jelly & Blancmange

As simple as squeezing you between these two fingers

Jumping Jacks

Saving lives is against orders

Jankers

The owl-faced schoolmaster behind his desk

Juggernaut

How to drive a bayonet through the gut

Jam

The patented shit-mop

Jumper, Cardigan

How many times have you eaten here before?

Jones's Problem

All other taxes and duties are unchanged

Monday Prompts 07:40

2007-09-24T06:40:00.000Z

Come on then, my sweet, let's be cruel tonight

telephone! Telphone for McTravers!

We close the door, shut out all sound

Various problems with the penis

Peek-a-boo

You set the olives down beside the feta

I am the scent of a feather falling from the sky

LEATHER

The funeral empties every farmstead, every farm

Like water finding its level, like dying

GRAPES

She sucked the happiness from his life and left him flaccid

MOUSE-TRAP

Ripped the heart to bloody gobbets

Love: Modern Theories and Criticism

She has child-bearing thighs and lungs full of dust

BERI-BERI

Her voice on the phone from a far country

Intelligence and Women: A Short Book

If I could run a mile

From Merseyside, I reckon

There's plenty of maintenance going on

Friday Prompts 0800

2007-09-21T07:02:00.001Z

In the night each one of us is alone

That fucking armadillo

The book still rests in the palm of your hand

Is this acceptable?

The blind scraps are inter-weaving

Groaning, as though he was hauling the whole earth

Lashing

Tea? Coffee? Knife in the back?

The hens scattering across the yard

A thorn in the side of our field

By whose ordinance?

The bitch's heart pounds in her black chest, a hammer in the ears

Network

Until your sudden smile lingers and holds

Without the towers

A table with its shadows rises from the dust

My lover was a wonderer

Higher than the gull and the bite of the brine

Feeling the too-blue blaze of noon

They were fleeing from the bull of Bryncelyn

When the sun's on the mountain

If you ever sleep in a grave

Wheeling, and wheeling, and wheeling

Geese goose-stepping in terror, their hissing peevish from the sedges

Tugged on a tether, to the timid heifer

prompts, Thursday 07:55

2007-09-20T06:58:00.001Z

He strode young, into the landscape of old age

Waiting for the call

A miracle, waking every morning

I like pie. She likes pie. Do you like pie?

To Serve Them All My Days

And arriving with the light, there she is

The rickety footbridge

Nearby a girl sits on a tombstone

It might be Thursday

Words, words, words remain

It's not an Armadillo

Microsoft

Love's knotted under her apron now

Opening a tin of beans with a banana

Welcome to the service desk

The Special One

Six bundles, brown and vulnerable

She is able to leave her other self behind

and her hair balled tightly under her cap

Everything closes in

I think of how I lay here as a lad

BREW

The evening light falls

CHISEL

After a hammering of light

I am close to my people, the smell of wet wool

CHECK

The cafe owner, an Italian

Left but not sinister

2007-09-19T09:13:00.002Z

Boot Camp Keegan was formerly on ezboard but has been migrated to YUKU

At the moment YUKU does not have a delete membership function that works.

This means, currently, that if a membership lapses or someone actually leaves, I have to BAN them!

So please if you've temporarily left and you return to find yourself "banned" it's just an admin thing

Alex

Prompts Wednesday 10:10

2007-09-19T09:13:00.001Z

From the mists came sounds of moving

But is it an Armadillo?

The mansion claimed by clambering bramble

Martin Evans

Steamrollering over a life already extinguished

No one lives in Bettws now

A breath-taking whiteness of flowers, flowers

Sewage & Water

A green lad from the life-spring of his home

Zydol

The whole of doghood I have seen in my time

The rejoicing of waters

Danger, Existentialists operate in this area

The dog ate the contract

Were you ever a stranger in these parts?

He said he was a poet

Extra for cash

He was sitting on a bench at the foot of Moel Cadwgan

Bethel is between the slagheap and the factory

Twisted, bitter, and long-living

This is the first time I've seen a song

I daresay death was no more than a gentle subduing

Sexually Explicit, and Broccolli

His great-great-grandfather came from Wales

In the restaurant at the sea's edge

Sunday Promptsat 0900

2007-09-16T07:55:00.001Z

Pick up a copy

There are things I cannot prove

I have to do this

One day Robert-Robert awoke with a cold.

The doctor has warmed the speculum in her latex-gloved hand

It is clear we are at a crossroads

I remember your fat, blubbery shoulders, the freckles, the way you swam slowly

Zulus boxed in their glass cases

When I am asked I say I'm a quiet lad. I pick no fights.

There are more pigs than people

The first time I saw Annie

Sure, there are minor inconveniences

New York City all the way

She's so close the air feels compressed

A lonely old mother died and left her sprawling house to her twin daughters, Chalk & Cheese.

A row of white crosses

Once upon a time, a single language

Picture me resplendent

The school sat among maples on a hillside

My mother is sleeping

I think I'm still pretty good-looking, considering, I mean.

Contrary to popular belief, people think during sex

I've made the final cut.

Cold. Grey dawn breaking in a thin, silver line

The first picture is of oak trees in spring.

So, apart from a couple of hitches, Plan A was working out fine.

I learned to write in school five years before they came.

We sized each other up and decided to be best friends.

Always be aware of your hair.

Saturday Prompts 07:20

2007-09-15T06:22:00.000Z

She is perfectly acceptable. I am afraid of her

On Turds

There was a man who Sorrow made his friend

Seven Types

Some knives are beautiful

George

I passed along the water's edge

Love, Sex & Tragedy

How shit dissolves

We will moor our loney ship

Riding the Yellow Trolley Car

Big, black and very alpha-Dog

Come near, come near, come near

The Black Pick-Up

Owain was ill today, and tonight, delirious

Go there and light a fire

The mathematics of sunshine

We who are old and gay, old and gay

Pointing at us with a black stick

The brawling of martins in the rooftops

Listen, darkness is dripping

Pen, Pencil, ruler, divider

I am sitting in a strange room, listening

There was a girl riding a white pony

Service desk edition

You ask how it is. I will tell you

There was a black hill I knew. Known as Aber Mountain

Listening for the wrong baby

Stats Update

2007-09-14T07:48:00.000Z

I think I mentioned we have a BCer 1/2/3 in a comp shortly to be announced, so more pennies won, and I may have mentioned newbie Matt Plas with his second hit since joining BC, at "Bound Off"

Need to add Dan who has a paying print pub in BLACK INK

and Lex who picks up $100 for 5th in a comp.

That takes hits for the year up to 145 and payments through the $5,000 barrier.

BCers have got lazy reporting their publications but from what HAS been reported we've crept up to 73 known this year, the latest, Tom and RVJ in print mag Parameter.

Friday Prompts 0845

2007-09-14T07:46:00.001Z

The Bad Joke gene

This was your place of birth. This daytime place

Black was the without eye, black the within tongue

Rocks, Moss, stonecrop, iron

The clouds cast moving shadows on the land

Screaming for blood, crusts, anything

The woman in the kitchen making tea

Are you prepared for what the night may bring?

See the life stab through, a dream flash

The game is finished when he plays his ace.

He tried a step, then a step, then a step

Turn out the light and I'll explain

How strange it is to have a loveless heart

Herded mountains, steaming

The word inside the word, unspoken

Kick up the fire, let the flames break loose

The bullet oozes from the gun

To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk

After knowledge you expect forgiveness?

Don't talk to me of love, I've had an earful

Yellow smoke creeping to these windows

A soft October night

Full of high sentences but a bit obtuse

Have the memories rearrange to fit the mood

The Town Clock. Drunk in Residence, Creative Writing Class

It hurts

Laughter tinkles among the teacups

Strode across the hills and smote them

He was much possessed by death, but hearty for all that

It's something you say at your peril

Thursday 0720

2007-09-13T06:20:00.001Z

Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again.

Are you not afraid they will misunderstand?

The jurisdiction thing was borderline.

While we eat we think.

We approached our last house high up on the hill.

Busy old fool.

A sunrise does not last all morning.

BEEP!. …. …. …. … beep.

We sang at castle walls

She lay down, naked in the curtained bedroom, thinking.

Pantomime.

One night I woke from a dream of peace.

Don't say shirt-lifter.

He had my heart. I have his in a jar.

A shoe hitting the table.

He was as suspicious as a rat near strange bread

She wondered what Tom would be up to, right now.

Anemone

Dead friends like jewels in my hand.

Dog

She is, in fact, exquisite.

Some of the accidents really looked like an accident.

December, still, trees.

She might have been the love of his life. Might have been.

Tuesday Prompts 1655

2007-09-11T15:53:00.000Z

I have eaten the plums

There is a garden at the heart of things

She walks in beauty, like the night

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore

Death did not come to my mother like an old friend

Will you walk a little faster?

So I took her to the river

Come lovely and soothing death

They arranged things so they never met.

Dirty little coaster

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight

He always tucked his daughter up at night

Up! Up! And quit your books!

My lover has bad manners when in bed

He was a deaf-mute beggar with a black beetle body

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough

The bars are only available in a kit

Did you ever see a goat so big?

A clown and ragged dandy

Porthcawl

We heard his musical gurgle approaching

Sacré Bleu!

This is a strange music

Dealing, administration and clearing, as appropriate

Tuesday Prompts 0730

2007-09-11T06:32:00.000Z

And the last sound, your father arriving home late, late
Letters
We talked in spurts, in desperate whispers
Camera
You look at them flashing their indicators
Egg
I have fallen. I am somewhere between melancholia and frenzy
Nikon
Every day is a fresh beginning
Tomorrow
While the cars and the taxis and the lorries go by
SNIP!
I don't know when I'll get to London
The dogs are barking
It made me suicidal just remembering E.H.
The School-Run
The burnt-out ends of smoky days
I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three
And then the lighting of the lamps
A South Wales Argus came swirling, about my feet
A Royal Disaster
I cannot endure this hideous, wicked, stupidity
Lay your head upon my shoulder
A chocolate Brillo Pad, pink custard
Our president is a disaster. The next will be worse.
Cheap Cheep
Who cares what they say of you after your dead
Before me a wall, high, insurmountable
There are protests everywhere
Don't always be a thought ahead
She is so desperately frail and old, but still interested
Out of step
They build the world of love from sex, after-the-fact
I've finished a joke Mexican novel
The girls arrive in their belted mackintoshes
Reading Banville

Monday Prompts 15:42

2007-09-10T14:41:00.000Z

It's going to be very terrible, Rabby.

Rear Window

I love you. That's the main thing.

If people turned to stare at me in streetcars.

I arrived yesterday afternoon on what turned out to be the last plane.

I have never been a monk,

Everything looked normal.

Unfurl the bed, vacuum the sheets, pretend nothing happened.

Sabbath.

I saw a huge silver bomber, low and slow just wandering around.

I travelled penniless.

I have your little passport picture in my purse.

If this sounds like a poem.

She dreamt she was eating a giant marshmallow

Here, take my last black tulip

Choke

The Derby game against Wednesday is Nottingham on Thursday

I do not know who lied, but I lied.

I met my heart in the hospital museum

My father and all his tobacco

I almost love them; they are my children.

I have been dead already. It is dark.

The moving finger writes and having writ can always be tippexed out.

I shall persist.

Monday Prompts 7:16

2007-09-10T06:16:00.001Z

When I stepped, at the hour of sunrise, out of doors

Why such harsh machinery?

It is l'heure bleu

Vanity keeps prodding us to lift ourselves skywards

I managed to mend the lawn-mower

Give me the lover who yanks open the door

VULTURE

Nothing teaches me not to miss my mother

STICK

The whole thing disgusts me. Fuck it.

In my opinion, which is very old-fashioned

TEA

You think of looks always in relation to sex

Chin up, duck! There are always people worse off

COFFEE

Tell me just how fucking good I look

A kind of brown. Sad.

ARSENIC

But I was joyless, uncosy, the stern daughter

From the window I saw horses

TRUMPET

Now there is nothing to think about except Vietnam

Because one feels, sees, and must speak

PICKLE

Please find enclose one registration certificate

I caught an amazing fish

Sunday Prompts at 2111

2007-09-09T20:10:00.000Z

Mother, may I?

An old man sits netting

From a train, boys in a field

This road holds no surprises

I remember thick cream, purloined from silver milk-churns

The president presumes all Americans are moral imbeciles

He chucked it all in, just left one day.

Punnets

I have abandoned the dream kitchen for a low fire

Let me describe it

They are fourteen weeks on Tuesday

A woman drawing, light

SKUA

Cowslip, Marsh Mangold, a boot

I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes

Blackberries

Nobody in the lane and nothing, nothing but blackberries

Every year you said it wasn't worth the trouble

It is a recommended exercise, bitter homework.

They will try to silence the press.

It is perfectly all right to continue killing those gooks

Betsy, I am tired.

Here, one can see Oliver Reed's testicles impaled

Since it is absurd to weep, I can only laugh.

Prompts 1925 Sunday

2007-09-09T18:20:00.000Z

and the stars and the angels

we were children, not lovers

Translated from the polish

Once in a room in Blackpool, we

My wife, combing her hair

idiots, feeling safe, holding nothing back

Uncertainty is more beautiful, still

For some reason, there is a camel in the dining-room

There would have been signs, signals

I look at lamplight through the leaves

A man eating soup

She lay on the carpet, plumped out

in this strange quiet

My mother bought a piglet, my father, a pig.

He has dangerous tools in bulging pockets

Remembering Gravity

Batman

I have had worse partings

Prompts 1716 Sunday

2007-09-09T16:16:00.001Z

It was Union Square, I remember.

Perhaps you'll tire of me.

There is a kind of love called maintenance

That fucking Hemingway

Quiet, by the window of a train

If you were to read my work; all of it I mean.

I give the secret sign.

Of Onions.

You are the bread, the wine, the knife.

I would thank you not for a Valentine

Wallet

Every time I play solitaire my partner beats me

I simply could not be a good army wife

Less than a pound in change

Seeing you make me want to lift up my top

I am breaking in the new maid for the master of the house

Quiet, drinking wine together, one smokes

I remember the nights and the sound of nights

I look at the mountains. Everything seems flat by comparison

By this axe

Thou shalt know my chosen by their ASBOs

Oh Allen, come and hold my hand.

As far as I know they were working in France.

Darling we've been out a little longer than Columbus

They eat sand eels

Prompts 1445 Sunday

2007-09-09T13:44:00.001Z

Bloody men

Let me never be a father

Single, Ticket

Exactly what I am

He burst from the cake, naked

He was captured in the valley of the women

Jenkins, all too clearly it is time.

Pinnochio

It was late September, wet

I had just poured a glass of wine

It was then that I started to scream.

In the park, daffodils

He put one hand on my manuscript, the other down my dress

BLOOMERS

When I was young I believed in intellectual conversation

A good-looking secretary, blonde

CHICKEN

The groans men use

BLACK

Smooth as a swan, and as vicious

RED

Prompts 1300 Sunday

2007-09-09T12:01:00.001Z

When I was twelve I used to lie on a church roof and look at curtains

Now let him go to sleep with history

He assumed he would, someday

I am NOT frantic, or doubting, or hysterical

Stinking of gasoline

There has been a lapse of two hours

Afternoon light slices down, and her in two

Silver-black cars

I could so easily terrify you and turn you away

Morris, dancing.

Let us compare our mythologies

MARMITE

The diary of a 42-year-old Norwegian salesman

11p

He has been walking a long time

I hear a man climb our stairs and cough as he passes

You must be happy

Crumbling cities and galloping horses

I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap.
I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me.

Define, "Maiden".

Her name I may or may not have, made up

Motor

It is very ordinary, and very moving

Spender

If your neighbour disappears

Sparrow

I will not hold my breath

Death by egg-whisk

Black Dog, Red Dog

You have lovers, many, nameless

I think everything seems harder than it really is

A man carries a bundle of firewood along a path

Prompts 0830 Sunday

2007-09-09T07:25:00.001Z

There's an awful lot of God in the ordinary bloke

David, David, you couldn't have been named anything else, could you?

At noon, in the dead centre of a faith

It is so lovely and so right.

Plague victims catapulted over castle walls

I am in my workroom but there is no question of work.

A cow and her two calves.

I do not know how to think or what to think.

When I put my ear to the hole.

The unread mail, the patients.

Maud went to college.

First I worked for Hopkins, then there was that book.

The wind, turn your back and push.

I think Ernest was something I deserved.

You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies.

My mother said once: When you were young, you killed small things.

The Green Man on Hello Street.

And now I will finish this long story.

One night the tide went out, and didn't come in.

1,124 nights.

I must remember where I lay.

It was written on top of my slavery.

The brave do not have to be cruel. They can be gentle.

His name was Robbie Cox, a butcher's son

Light splashed this morning

Prompts 0600 September 9th

2007-09-08T21:12:00.001Z

There was once another country

Barrels of chains

Darling this letter is secret equals US Top Secret

Families, Tribes, Nations

Something unbelievable has happened. I have fallen in love.

Bracken, Gorse

The Radio station is filled with goats

It starts in the pub, in a back room

I know so little about all this, due to my failed and sheltered life.

Not even bishops

Bewildered, frightened, rather wobbly.

Severn drunks talking

Four days later I am able to sleep again (via Secconal)

The time of fools is coming

Tell me lies about Vietnam

I am elated and in despair

Take a length of steel

Could you kill a man? Eventually...

A bird, no song

I did not have to make any excuses or say anything

Not in the top ten

Near the fickle Post Office

From Israel, hoping.

I am irrevocably opposed to marrying anyone

Saturday Morning Prompts

2007-09-07T21:39:00.001Z

The season turned like the page of a glossy magazine

Hell is a kitchen

Everything looks too beautiful for me

A man who wears corduroy

Man, dolphin

I never saw such a place anywhere

Oyster cocktail

All afternoon, through the tall heat

Telephone

Night before last I went. by full moon, on a ship to Kotor.

The ache of marriage

Welcome to Cheese

The Copper IUD

First, are you our sort of person?

Thirty-six years to the day, after our wedding

£19:99

Think of coming in, on an absolutely still, flat sea.

We should get a room, somewhere to iron

I did it. I did it. I did it.

Before I was a virgin, I...

If I was somebody else, I'd ring me.

How deep?

When I was in Bled.

Friday's Prompts, and Stuff

2007-09-07T05:49:00.000Z

Boot Campers are playing catch-up after the school holidays so have set themselves daily writing targets and daily "writing-before-we-log-on" targets.

I have to log on to post prompts etc but once this is done I disappear until I have written 500 words or a complete flash.

BYE!

Prompts

About two nights ago I found myself with four or five of them

SALT

Now is poised above time

The Hell with the dogwood

SUGAR

Nothing whatever is by love disbarred.

Sherry

All the trees (named flamboyante) are scarlet

Perfume, for a briefest moment

Climbing the style with the girls

Black

Women in light summer dresses

If it was grey

And were we innocent then?

When I'm among a blaze of lights

After a while it seems too goddam silly to eat

With tawdry music and guitars

Ths social life here is limited but odd.

And women dawdling through delights

Pelota is the best ball game I ever saw.

And officers in cocktail bars

The Mood Watch

The Car hire office was closed.

Brown-orange, artificial

Chesepeake

NEW MEMBERS, Kingfisher Barn Course

2007-09-06T06:53:00.002Z

We have one member now with us 6 months, two with us less than that many weeks, and a brand-new newbie shivering in the corner. This is a good time to join Boot Camp. Newbies bring energy and remind those here slightly longer that they really HAVE got better.

Incidentally six-month man has now had half a dozen hits and one very good prize and one of the 6-8 week guys has had two hits, one paying.

Contact alex.keegan at btinternet.com or answer here.

PS There is a face to face course at Kingfisher Barn, Newbury

01 November Thursday
02 November Friday
03 November Saturday
04 November Sunday

05 November (Monday available if anyone needs follow-up work)

The first two days do not expect any prior knowledge (of KB Courses) then we roll into a tough weekend. Newbies thus do 4 days. Monday is available

Alex

Thursday Prompts

2007-09-06T06:53:00.001Z

You will be happy to know that in the Hausa language "Oho" means "Who cares?"

Manhole

She is smaller than you and weighs about eighty pounds

This is not chick-lit

The airplane has rendered land travel extinct

Ladder

Her husband, a brutal man, gave her syphillis as a wedding present when she was 18.

xxx

How can I escape from this boring, scrofulous layer of white civilisation?

Colander, sieve

How can I get a sense of country?

Razorbills, Shags, Guillemots.

We have tested and tasted too much, lover.

NUT

Her attitude to and about God somewhat chills me.

The dry black bread and the sugarless tea

Last night I finished "Out of Africa".

Ken is doing the levels.

The Happiness Self-Assessment Form

For the difference that sets an old phrase burning.

Oyster

Mexico is almost totally corrupted now.

Tuesday's prompts

2007-09-04T14:12:00.001Z

Paparazzi people

Red - the colour of blood, not of roses

Hurricane!

Becoming a ghost before he's gone

The first day of term

Cary Grant and spinach pasta

Return to Sender

Lady in Cement

Father Figure

Unmissed, Unmourned

I love you when you're sick

A padded silk headboard

Feeling at Home

Monday's Prompts

2007-09-03T09:59:00.001Z

Why don't we say goodbye right now, pretending we are well

It was in those days when I wandered about hungry

Facts, stories. repeated rumours and gossip

Like in "On the Beach"

I hear a clock strike six downstairs

Marvellous, the rain pattering on the roof.

You wil be able to sort it out, of course

As soon as i opened my eyes I started wondering

I am not dispassionate

They have killed you over many a night, when they were younger

Good Friday, after consuming copious amounts of a port-type wine

I started reading the ads over the door

Please note carefully, the last sentence of their letter regarding unauthorised connections

There are American refugees

I opened the window and looked out

Once we had enormous moral credit

It had been going steadily downhill for me all along

There is no God who saves Americans

The air was filled with voices

Everything looks too beautiful to me

I am going to write bits of conversation as I remember them

Critique Central!!

2007-09-02T18:07:00.000Z

8 stories posted Friday night or Saturday morning

45 critiques already, 80 discussion posts

alx

How Tight Do You Write?

2007-09-02T08:08:00.001Z

I can often cut a BCer's story by 50% but my own stuff starts out much tighter (he said).

But two recent comps demanded specific word-counts. I reduced one "FINISHED" 35660-word stroy to 2,995 and a 2250 story to 1500. Both those stories I was happy with before the cut, but I now think they are improved.

It's a good exercise when a story has been tightened well enough to send out to look again and ask just how few words could this story be told in. Sometimes a much-tightened story still feels like the same story only tighter, but sometimes the new, slimmer piece feels like a fresh story.

Years ago, a raw writer I had a story "Postcards From Balloonland" which was a monster 5,800 words. I trimmed it to 4,999 and made the last 150 in The Ian St James Awards but then Cosmo had a comp and I reduced that 5K to 1,999 words (TOO stripped out IMO).

I then "let-out" the 1,999 words to 2,150, won $1,000 and published the story 4/5 more times.

More or less (but this isn't absolute) if you can say the same thing in less words, the short version will have more power and resonate more.

alx

Three More Hits, Another Prize

2007-09-02T08:03:00.000Z

September is another "Blast" month.

We've started with eight fresh stories (25 critiques already) and three hits

Jason & Tom have stories being performed by Liars League and Joel (on these boards as a BC virgin earlier this year) is first, second, or third in a larger competition, results TBA later in the year.

Our 142nd hit in 2007, our 51st prize in 2007

Alex

Shoot the Rhino

2007-08-31T16:18:00.000Z

A new article of mine is up at The Internet Writers Journal

http://www.internetwritingjournal.com/articles/shoot_the_rhino.htm

The analysis of Gladiator is an occassional element of the theme course at Kingisher Barn (Newbury, Berkshire)

Almost Back

2007-08-30T09:28:00.000Z

The last two months have been a bit sloppy, so September we'll be blasting. There's room for a few new BCers if you're interested.

Meanwhile...

PROMPTS

Deadwood, Dead Wood

Merde Happens

You Drive Me Crazy

How Many Saucers Do You Need?

The virgin with the child; the birth

It is another country

Riding the Yellow Trolley-Car

So there was nothing?

MARGARET FUCKING THATCHER

I want you to know how it was.

She turns paint to flowers

Two Black Labradors

Three boatloads of Dublin's unemployed

The Credit Check

The meaning of everything

Middle, no middle

The scene you must imagine is a square, and inside, circles

SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES!

Ich, Ni, San, Shi, Go

Prize Update 50 REACHED!!!

2007-08-24T14:31:00.000Z

FIRSTS

001 Fleur wins $2,000 Guardian/Virgin Trains Prize

002 TomC wins Mary Gornall ($150)

003 TomC wins Grace Die Writers ($400)

004 Caroline wins Blaenau Gwent ($170)

005 Cally Joint Winner BBC Sedbergh Prize (Broadcast)

006 Cally wins $400 Lancet Prize and publication.

007 TomC wins $200 Pier Pressure Short-Story Prize

008 RVJ wins $200 Pier Pressure Poetry Prize

009 DPJ wins Momya

SECONDS - Runner-Up

001 DaveP RUNNER-UP in Biscuit. WINS Digital Voice Recorder ($84)

002 Cally runner-up in Cotswold Prize ($50)

003 Jenny Jackson $100 second at JBWB

THIRDS

001 Lexie 3rd in Grace Dieu ($100)

002 Fleur 3rd in Charnwood Arts

003 Alex in Cadenza $100

004 RVJ 3rd in Liverpool Comp $20

005 RVJ 3rd in Yeovil Novel Comp $200

FINALS

001 Colin named shortlist at Happenstance

002 Lexie Highly Commended at Cafe Writers

003 Cally HC at JBWB

004 Caroline HR runner-up at Flashquake

005 BCer shortlisted (results TBA) at Philip Good

006 Cally shortlisted in Biscuit

007 ColU shortlisted in Biscuit

008 Joel shortlisted at Tonto

009 RVJ shortlisted at Earlyworks (1)

010 RVJ shortlisted at Earlyworks (2)

011 RVJ HR'd at JBWB

012 Cally HR'd at Twisted Tongue

013 Caroline HR'd in Spring JBWB

014 TomC shortlisted at Earlyworks

015 Alex named shortlist Cadenza (Santiago)

016 Colin named shortlist Cadenza (Jared Williams)

017 Cally HR at Writelink Weekender

018 Joel longlisted at Cadenza

019 Joel shortlist at Writelink

020 TomC at Kings Lynn - 1

021 TomC at Kings Lynn - 2

022 TomC at Kings Lynn - 3

023 Lexie at Kings Lynn

024 MJH at Kings Lynn

025 JJ HR at Frome

026 MJH Rec at Leaf Books

027 Cally HR at Momaya

028 RVJ shortlisted in Liverpool comp

029 MJH shortlisted, Pier Pressure

030 TomC shortlisted Pier Pressure

031 Debbie shortlisted Pier Pressure

032 RVJ Finalist First Writer ($60)

033 Alex last 3% in Glimmer Train

August

2007-08-24T06:31:00.000Z

August Hits, tidied up

03 First Places
01 Third Place
05 Finalists

09 TOTAL

15 Total Hits, seven paying $ 981 earned.

AUGUST

125 TomC wins Pier Pressure Short-Story Prize $200

126 RVJ wins Pier Pressure Poetry Prize $200

127 TomC (2nd story) shortlisted at Pier Pressure

128 DPJ shortlisted at Pier Pressure

129 MJH shortlisted at Pier Pressure

130 DPJ wins Momaya Short Story Prize $260

131 TomC story taken by "Behind the Wainscott"

132 Jason Jackson acceptance at 3 AM Magazine

133 TomC at Written Word Mag ($6)

134 MMW places "Rupert's Arms" at Afterburn SF ($30)

135 AK places at First Writer $60 Free Year

136 RVJ 3rd in Yeovil Novel Comp ($200)

137 Matt Plass into Flashquake $25

138 TomC Poem at Mythic Delirium

139 Alex makes final in Glimmer Train with "My Son, Going Under"

Back to Work!

2007-08-24T06:11:00.000Z

Fifteen days, no posts. If I ever get the time I will try to fill readers in on everything that's gone on in the intervening fortnight, a strange and trying time personally (and a quiet time for Boot Camp.)

HITS

I think our last hit was number 133 for 2007

134 was DMW having an acceptance from Afterburn Scince Fiction Magazine and a payment of $30

135 was RVJ making the finals at First Writer and getting a years subscription ($60)

136 was yours truly $200 3rd at Yeovil for "The Bella Archipelago"

137 was Boot Camp NEWBIE Matt Plass getting his first-ever hit at Flashquake , and it pays! ($25)

138 was TomC's first-ever poetry hit at Mythic Delirium

139 was moi, a very near miss at Glimmer Train (see below)

Dear Writer, Although your work did not make it all the way to the top 25, it did make it a long, long, LONG way through the judging process (top 3%) and you are a finalist in our first Family Matters competition--nice work!
(If you log in and click on "My Submissions," you will see that designation.)

Be sure to mention your finalist status as you send your stories out into the world. We'll look forward to reading more of your work!

All best to you, Linda -- Linda Swanson-Davies, co-editor

That story was a strange one for me. A little while back my son had a nasty broken wrist requiring an operation and I wrote about the complex thoughts and emotions I experienced at the time.

The most difficult moment was that as my son went out, under the anaesthetic, he whispered, "I love you Dad" and at the moment it felt the same as seeing him die. I was hit for six, then endured 3-4 hours of agony while he was operated on and then waiting for him to come round.

A few days before that I had been witness at 3AM to a vet putting down a deer. That found its way into my consciousness also, and somehow to I flipped everything in my head and saw ME dying with my son standing and saying "I love you Dad."

A few other things "impinged" too, and though the piece meant a lot to me, I believed it was far too messy and difficult to place anywhere.

I was wrong, and the last 3% at Glimmer Train is a damn good hit.

Moral, submit, submit, submit.

Alex

Thursday prompts

2007-08-09T04:52:00.001Z

Great crowds are fleeing from a major disaster

For as at a great distance of place

The spaces between houses

Hideous bridesmaids

The Cucumber Story

How comforting it is, once or twice a year

The smell of fresh earth, improvised crosses

I will never come down

A small boat, tugging on its rope

Runt of the litter

Before she was a virgin

Either lunch or dead soldiers

The Money Tree

Cheating in the pub quiz

Whether I live or die, what proceeds

I sold him a toothless, beakless, canary: sucker!

Pedigree chum

Despatched with a mattock

My Own Beach

Fearing Tigers, Snakes, Malria, Lost Japanese

And in the red corner, hate

We don't like your white cottage

It's not because yer dirty, it's not because yer clean
It's becaise you live in a council-house and eat margarine

Prompts, Tuesday

2007-08-07T05:26:00.000Z

Rib Cage

Hamilton has the answers

Alarm set for six

Half of a yellow sun

But will you be COMFORTABLE?

I am sure I would not survive

Miscellaneous Words

This season you'll need both

When can we expect to see you playing again?

Rich and Ugly or Poor and beautiful?

Emotional Sat-Nav

Meat Pies and Toothless Men Shouting Abuse

The first step into the unknown

Haunted Hero Tired and Emotional

Bread Pudding

Buried, Burried, Berried

Oop Narth

Trams and Pies

She shows she has what it takes

Monday Prompts

2007-08-06T12:53:00.001Z

Young Male Drivers
Lethal Injections Can be Painless
On the other hand
A thorn is a thorn is a thorn
Six or so hills
Ring my wife, she has my number
Notes on Performance
Driving age set to rise
The Game
Blackmailing Mother Theresa
Offer applies to stickered items only
Set inside the four walls
Chug
Hair to Dye For
Ten Thousand Hungry Vultures
Don’t be a goon, Boris
Rapid Breakdown Recovery
Sewage! Minister Steps In!
Horrid Henry
Winds Create Pacific Dead Zone
After Five Years of Suffering I Have No Pain
In Times of Doubt Listen to Kipling
The Jag or the Land-Rover?
Hello Dolly
Enhance Your Retirement, Consider the Options
We’ll Work Something Out
Chief Plots Next Step
Creaking America
Bald Guiseppe

Another Hit for Tom

2007-08-05T08:12:00.000Z

TomC clocks BC's 133rd hit of the year, a story taken by Written Words Mag and paying!

Question is, how many meals out does £3:20p cover?

Sunday's prompts

2007-08-05T08:11:00.001Z

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff

An apple fell

The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see other boats

I waited for the duty sister

He looked down into the water and saw tiny fish

Night Sweats

Pretending to work, I retire to my office

Today will have three parts

It is not what they built. It's what they knocked down.

The days come too early, they move slow

That's why I went and kicked the bucket

Even your name is ugly

I look up at a strip of grey autmn sky

We fuck them up. In return they kill us.

The business of floating

Motorised Mirrors

Ring of Barbed Wire

Moth Balls

Loada Prompts

2007-08-04T23:27:00.001Z

I love you as one loves certain obscure things

Sipping a cup of camomile tea

I would like to watch you sleeping

When rain is needed

I bought a brown paper bag of peaches from a boy at the end of the road

Our shutters are shut, our fire is low.

I loved my father most as he walked home from work

Why don't we say goodbye right now?

I may love you so I've hidden my shoes

An apricot commode is forever

Pink rubber gloves moiling in dishwater

Lucy lives behind this house

Children kill their parents many times

The many difficulties of being alone

Because my mother hurt my father, I will abandon you.

I gave my dog a stone.

In your sleep you mumble those things you almost said when you were drunk

A Martian came in through a window and sat on my bed last night

What silence when you are here!

A wife shoved a bayonet into her husband's head

When I looked at my parents I never thought of tragedy

I sit still, overwhelmed, worn out by the night

Three times in my life, my heart has opened, closed.

Insomniac Prompts

2007-08-03T01:13:00.001Z

At Smollensky's we drink words and smoke

Oyster smacks, crabbers, the dead

Like my father's rose-bushes

Gerald Gerund, Thinking

Ivan Ellavanitch and the Recalcitrant Flea

Candled Eggs, Lovers

My smile is ingeniously camouflaged

Asleep on a razor-blade, trying not to wake

I sit quietly on the bed and think

Because animals are slaughtered

Great White Bollocks

Guy Ropes

Under My Kilt, Another Kilt

This is the story of the dead

My date waits outside the organic butchers

The long curtain, the short

Notice, I do not have grace

My father, as his boot comes down

Old rotten planks, rope

You do not know how long you have been here

Yes, and my answer is this...

Everything should be fifty-fifty, six of one

Wise words come true

2007-08-02T11:53:00.000Z

TomC writing:

Back in May , AK wrote on this blog:

I knew I'd be away for the last 8 days of May and we were a long way short of our monthly subs target when i left, but I'm happy to note that for the third month in succession the subs target has been met and exceded.

It takes 6-20 weeks for the effect of this subbing to show, but it will show!

Look at the rush of hits that BC has posted in the past few days - it works...

Latest Hits Stats

2007-08-02T07:43:00.000Z

BC Prizes and payments now total $4,543

I have finally put this on a spreadhseet and discovered we were abnnouncing about $300 less than actual.

Congrats to recent prize-winners and also to Tom who has an acceptance from "Behind the Wainscott" and Jason who has placed a story with 3AM Magazine, a very tough market

We failed to separate June-July (34 total hits) fractionally better than one every other day (see below) whereas Agust has got off to a flying start with EIGHT hits earning $660

JUNE-JULY

091 TomC story in Ballista (Print)

092 Alex places collection at Salt (print)

093 Jason Jackson places at six sentences

094 NW places at six sentences

095 Tom places at Underground Voices $30

096 Amy places at six sentences

097 Jason Jackson places at Smokelong

098 TomC paces at Defenestration

099 Cally at Liars League

100 Alex places at Parameter (Print)

101 TomC shortlisted at Earlyworks (print anthology)

102 Joel in Pen-Pusher Magazine (print)

103 Alex Named Short-List at Cadenza (Santiago)

104 Alex 3rd at Cadenza (Sparrow)

105 Colin Named Short-list at Cadenza

106 Cally HR at Writelink Weekender

107 Joel named longlist at Cadenza

108 Joel shortlist at Writelink

109 Cally Joint-Winner Sedberg Prize

110 TomC shortlisted at Kings Lynn (1)

111 TomC shortlisted at Kings Lynn (2)

112 TomC shortlisted at Kings Lynn (3)

113 MJH shortlisted at Kings Lynn

114 Lexie shortlisted at Kings Lynn

115 JJ Highly Commended, Frome

116 MJH Commended Leaf Books SF Comp

117 Cally story at "tobereadoutloud" ($100)

118 Chrissie at Smokebox

119 Chrissie

120 CallyHR at Momaya (Anthology)

121 Joel in Twisted Tongue

122 RVJ places 3rd and shortlist in Liverpool Comp

123 Cally a First Place Winner at Lancet $400

124 BC Member places in comp. Results not yet public

AUGUST

125 TomC wins Pier Pressure Short-Story Prize $200

126 RVJ wins Pier Pressure Poetry Prize $200

127 TomC (2nd story) shortlisted at Pier Pressure

128 DPJ shortlisted at Pier Pressure

129 MJH shortlisted at Pier Pressure

130 DPJ wins Momaya Short Story Prize $260

131 TomC story taken by "Behind the Wainscott"

132 Jason Jackson acceptance at 3 AM Magazine

Prize Update. Nine Firsts $4,234

2007-07-31T16:52:00.000Z

Now NINE First Prizes for the year

and 47 Prizes/Places in total

2007 winnings now $4,234

FIRSTS

001 Fleur wins $2,000 Guardian/Virgin Trains Prize
002 TomC wins Mary Gornall ($150)
003 TomC wins Grace Die Writers ($400)
004 Caroline wins Blaenau Gwent ($170)
005 Cally Joint Winner BBC Sedbergh Prize (Broadcast)
006 Cally wins $400 Lancet Prize and publication.
007 TomC wins $200 Pier Pressure Short-Story Prize
008 RVJ win $200 Pier Pressure Poetry Prize
009 DPJ wins Momaya

SECONDS - Runner-Up

001 DaveP RUNNER-UP in Biscuit. WINS Digital Voice Recorder ($84)
002 Cally runner-up in Cotswold Prize ($50)
003 Jenny Jackson $100 second at JBWB

THIRDS

001 Lexie 3rd in Grace Dieu ($100)
002 Fleur 3rd in Charnwood Arts
003 Alex in Cadenza $100
004 RVJ 3rd in Liverpool Comp

FINALS

001 Colin named shortlist at Happenstance
002 Lexie Highly Commended at Cafe Writers
003 Cally HC at JBWB
004 Caroline HR runner-up at Flashquake
005 BCer shortlisted (results TBA) at Philip Good
006 Cally shortlisted in Biscuit
007 ColU shortlisted in Biscuit
008 Joel shortlisted at Tonto
009 RVJ shortlisted at Earlyworks (1)
010 RVJ shortlisted at Earlyworks (2)
011 RVJ HR'd at JBWB
012 Cally HR'd at Twisted Tongue
013 Caroline HR'd in Spring JBWB
014 TomC shortlisted at Earlyworks
015 Alex named shortlist Cadenza (Santiago)
016 Colin named shortlist Cadenza (Jared Williams)
017 Cally HR at Writelink Weekender
018 Joel longlisted at Cadenza
019 Joel shortlist at Writelink
020 TomC at Kings Lynn - 1
021 TomC at Kings Lynn - 2
022 TomC at Kings Lynn - 3
023 Lexie at Kings Lynn
024 MJH at Kings Lynn
025 JJ HR at Frome
026 MJH Rec at Leaf Books
027 Cally HR at Momaya
028 RVJ shortlisted in Liverpool comp
029 MJH shortlisted, Pier Pressure
030 TomC shortlisted Pier Pressure
031 Debbie shortlisted Pier Pressure

Make that NINE Firsts

2007-07-31T16:50:00.000Z

We thought this morning's mail was pretty impressive with two first prizes and a number of near-misses.

In fact our news about Momaya did not include the fact that Debbie P-J had in fact WON FIRST PRIZE of £130.

We prid eourselves in BC but I think three first prizes on the same day is definitely a first-timer!

Alex

Latest Prize Statistics

2007-07-31T12:19:00.000Z

Now EIGHT First Prizes for the year

and 47 Prizes/Places in total

2007 winnings now $3,974

FIRSTS

001 Fleur wins $2,000 Guardian/Virgin Trains Prize
002 TomC wins Mary Gornall ($150)
003 TomC wins Grace Die Writers ($400)
004 Caroline wins Blaenau Gwent ($170)
005 Cally Joint Winner BBC Sedbergh Prize (Broadcast)
006 Cally wins $400 Lancet Prize and publication.
007 TomC wins $200 Pier Pressure Short-Story Prize
008 RVJ win $200 Pier Pressure Poetry Prize

SECONDS - Runner-Up

001 DaveP RUNNER-UP in Biscuit. WINS Digital Voice Recorder ($84)
002 Cally runner-up in Cotswold Prize ($50)
003 Jenny Jackson $100 second at JBWB

THIRDS

001 Lexie 3rd in Grace Dieu ($100)
002 Fleur 3rd in Charnwood Arts
003 Alex in Cadenza $100
004 RVJ 3rd in Liverpool Comp

FINALS

001 Colin named shortlist at Happenstance
002 Lexie Highly Commended at Cafe Writers
003 Cally HC at JBWB
004 Caroline HR runner-up at Flashquake
005 BCer shortlisted (results TBA) at Philip Good
006 Cally shortlisted in Biscuit
007 ColU shortlisted in Biscuit
008 Joel shortlisted at Tonto
009 RVJ shortlisted at Earlyworks (1)
010 RVJ shortlisted at Earlyworks (2)
011 RVJ HR'd at JBWB
012 Cally HR'd at Twisted Tongue
013 Caroline HR'd in Spring JBWB
014 TomC shortlisted at Earlyworks
015 Alex named shortlist Cadenza (Santiago)
016 Colin named shortlist Cadenza (Jared Williams)
017 Cally HR at Writelink Weekender
018 Joel longlisted at Cadenza
019 Joel shortlist at Writelink
020 TomC at Kings Lynn - 1
021 TomC at Kings Lynn - 2
022 TomC at Kings Lynn - 3
023 Lexie at Kings Lynn
024 MJH at Kings Lynn
025 JJ HR at Frome
026 MJH Rec at Leaf Books
027 Cally HR at Momaya
028 RVJ shortlisted in Liverpool comp
029 MJH shortlisted, Pier Pressure
030 TomC shortlisted Pier Pressure
031 Debbie shortlisted Pier Pressure
032 Debbie shortlisted Momaya, makes anthology

Annual Prize Day?

2007-07-31T12:08:00.000Z

A whole string of prizes to announce including three first prizes

Britbird gets $400 for her first at The Lancet (is this a joint first?)

TomC wins $200 first in Pier Pressure's Short-Story Competition

RVJones wins $200 first in Pier Pressure's Poetry Competition

TomC, Debbie, and Michael J Hulme made up 3 of the 5 shortlisted stories in Pier Pressure

also Debbie announces she has made the Momaya Anthology

SEVEN Prizes/Places!!

Prompts 07:00 Wednesday

2007-07-25T05:59:00.001Z

The telephone rang

Beauty of the body

Not Welsh enough, too rich

Mary had a little car, it caused her jubilation

Your own FOLBOT wherevere you go!

Sturdy. No maintenance costs. Easily transported

Rallie Health belt Tones ASbdominal Muscles

She read Nurse Drew's little book and is now "happily married" in the true sense.

Are your teeth worth threepence each?

The onion is a friendly plant.

For sheer dependability give me "Craven A"

Made specially to prevent sore throats.

As used by Donald Budge, World Champion

Do you know that chocolate grows on trees?

Has explored Amazon in search of Col. Fawcett

One of England's hardest-working women.

An aunt of mine, now, alas, dead.

A mexican Life, One Pound, ten shillings.

My dear, he thinks life is just one lark after another.

Talking to Heinz

I have nothing in my pocket

Ploughman's Breakfast

My dear, I bought the most marvellous hat

But she used to worry sheep

Prompts 11:27 24-07

2007-07-24T10:26:00.000Z

A high fever and hot blood

About mountains it is useless to argue

And began pacing back and forth in its cage

Clear, pretty sure they're green

Half-closed to focus better on the drawing

He heard that there were other places

He is alone. It is Christmas

I am a man now

If you had made it smaller

Mummy and Daddy, in various disguises

Quiet at first, stretched out in its cage

Remember the dark wood

She looks at her subject

She was having trouble with the shading in her drawing

The black panther at the zoo

The curtains have been drawn

The girl made a noise with her easel and her chair

The machines are laughing

The panther spotted her

The view from half-way is nobody's view

There is no time here