Another failed competition entry! This was a workshop challenge for Leaf Books - there was a word limit and the idea was that old adage - 'show don't tell.' It is prose as opposed to being a story so whilst I always welcome comments, please bear that in mind. This was enjoyable and a good exercise in and of itself. The subject matter is an individual I have 'used' in my writing before and one who, on reflection, obviously had more influence on me than I realised. That in itself was an education.

lunchtime

George Tully walks home with one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen but, as always in his extraordinary love-life, there's a catch... / The seer, Siobhan O'Grady tries to relax at the Brenin in the full knowledge that something is reaching for her and she has no choice but make a dreadful decision...

This is something I came across in one of my 'work in progress' folders when I was looking for something else. It's fairly slight and written a long time ago, but on re-reading it I thought maybe it wasn't too bad and I may as well let people have a look.

take your sick bag with you when reading this - it's absolute mush xxx

I took all of it in, his very white skin, his muscular arms, his strong hands with their long fingers, coming nearer and nearer.

It is what it is.

Tamsin once again returns to Slovenia where Ana struggles to believe the strange stories of the strange foundling and the idea of Intelligent design whie in return, Tamsin finds herself a new sister and a new brother called...

When you owe the local heavy mob, and that debt's never going to go away, desperate measures are required...

Heather Sifford spends some time with the Goddess of Ayr Street and finds out a little more about astral projection than she would have liked - about 4,000 light years worth - amongst the...

Of questionable pace. Prose Challenge Late Entry: minor edit, now well out of word count, don't bother.

Flash prose - winner of this week's weekly challenge *preens* What would you look for in your ideal woman?

As tension mounts, two VERY different stalkers move in on the friends of the Lewises... (warning: contains mildly explicit adult scene)

This was a lot harder than I imagined - not too sure I succeeded and I was under the word count (which I will make up over the weekend) - I think it still needs a lot of tweaking

This is my submission in response to Pombal's challenge in the Prose Discussion/Workshop forum – to create a piece of writing in which the pace seems to make time pass more quickly for the reader.

How good it was to see it together.

I know what I think is wrong with this, I know what I've been told is wrong with this, tell me what you think is wrong with this.

Siobhan meets with Elinor Smith, the proprietor of the famous Brenin Hotel - ground zero of the Transcending. They catch up on the day's events and a rare piece of positive media coverage of Gemma Lewis rescuing twenty people from the disaster on the ...

A story about someone taking the wrong path

just writing this so as to have a long term project. It will never see the light of day apart from here...

About giving flowers

Edmund Bridewell - undertaker, Friend to the Prophets, hater of the House, deals with a paranormal incident the only way he knows how - by getting hammered - but the message he was given cannot be suppressed... / Meanwhile, the Americans sieze the chance to terminate Gemma Lewis - big, big mistake...

'The Kingdom' is an experimental piece in which each paragraph is written as a separate story. This is the first paragraph... more to follow soon.

(Might do more with this...)

The ordinary resisdents of the town watch on in bemusement as the fascist Citizens Party clash with the enraged cultists of the House in running street battles. As the CP speakers, Wittier and L'Auteur try to flee they are met by the sinister Head of the Department of Security in person who cages the...

Tamsin returnes from her idyllic other life in rural Slovenia to learn that her sister and cousin are now the centre of a media firestorm... Doctor Ferris has seen many strange things in the Valley butnothing as strange as the Changeling....

A story about a band.

This is about trying for voice, sense of place, a writing exercise more than anything, don't expect to get much out of it.

Entry to this weeks comp - it should have won but the judge took issue with my length ...

A short one...just keeping my hand in!

Jakob Cvetko finds himself with a dilemma: a child delivered unto him apparently by an angel of God whom he takes home and introduces to his daughter and tells her of the Changeling and the holy task placed upon him. Whether or not his daughter takes on the abandoned waif is entirely up to...

Not too sure about this one - it seemed ok when I wrote it - I read it again and it feels a bit contrived ...

Well, toot my vuvuzela - we may have been well thrashed on the pitch (again) but at least this World Cup has produced one genuine star - and he's English!

Cithis is farmed by the Graingers, relatives of the Lewises with the gift of 'land divining' that makes them exceptional farmers. Harriet Ramos has married Joe Grainger and is the happiest she's ever been but even here in the middle of the farm, they cannot escape the CP rally in town, the voices of amplified hate drifting over the....

entry for the weekly challenge

A story of love, grief and disillusionment.

There's many a story in an old coat.

Vigil, the Second shepherd of the House of All Faith is losing patience with his programmers and their sophisticated AI known simply as the Book - a super-computer that connects and converses with millions across the globe. Meanwhile frustration at its failure to deliver the Great Revelation and persecution by the thugs of the Citizens party leads ordinary members of the House to believe that violence may be the only option left open to them...

I think I've gone a bit over the top on the alliteration ...

(Wabenzi has an entry in the OED. This is not flash fiction, but I couldn't think where to put it. 451 words.)

Nathan and Claire Price are hammering down the main roads with Gemma and Amy Lewis to get to their daughter and her friends who are trapped in Library Way at the mercy of the thugs of the Citizens Party. The Design moves and they find their way blocked by a huge road accident. Unable to see any alternatives, Gemma turns to Amy and suggests a...

The irish-American psychic, Siobhan O'Grady, is arguing with her over-protective mother, Eileen. She is trying to explain to her mother that predicting one person's future mght be acceptable to the Design but altering the course of history itself is another... only the Design moves to restore the Balance - which means that Siobhan and everyone she loves are now surplus to Creation and her visions intensify...

In this, his first catalogued adventure, Captain Carruthers and his trusty sidekick Lt Gaye venture to the Land of the Pharoahs in search of a missing woman - and a very special one, at that. NB Beware! Carruthers is a straightforward, no-nonsense pipe-smoking sort of chap, whose forthright opinions on those unfortunate enough to have been born female, sexually deviant or simply (And this is the worst of all human failings) non-British may cause a fit of the screaming habdabs in those of a liberal or genteel disposition. Reader, you have been warned!

This weeks competitiion entry. Inspired by one of the recent forum topics ...

Tamsin is home safe with her parents but the doors of trauma - and the terrible memories behind them - cannot remain locked for long...

What does it mean to be free and to live the life of our own choosing? Is this our greatest challenge?

Enticed by the rare prospect of a shopping trip, Alicia Lewis and Heather Sifford head to the Capital Mall with their boyfriends, Aaron Stoker and Kyle Williams - Apprentices to the House, and two Department agents. They are spotted in a store and then pursued by merecenaries working for the Sharpe Foundation only to leap from the frying pan into the fascist fire....

"I got him! I got him! Right between the eyes!"

The Midden Man MEMORIES OF YEARS GONE BY.

The chapter where we find something way more serious than a rat ...