Boo ... I'm sorry for not visiting as much as I should, I blame that on the three year old of mine. Actually on vacation, now that the schools have gone back. Lol, we thought the Australian Alps would be a bit cooler, but it's been 37 C every day. To be fair, these Alps are nothing like those of any other country (apart from possibly the UK,) they are low as.

Cruises, I did one as a fifteen year old, from Vancouver to Alaska on Celebrity with my parents and one brother. We all loved it, the unusual animals both at sea and on land took my breath away ... like who needs kangaroos, cockatoos and koalas. Parents loved it too, and have done more cruises subsequently, and think of Celebrity as a great all rounder cruise line.

Take care, all, these are troubled times.

Fabulous , I really enjoyed every entry and didn't envy the judges with this difficult decision. Congratulations to Verbal, ShyThespian and AnnaMayZing, for their podium places. Also congratulations to everyone who entered, read, commented, judged and organized this competition. Well done all.

I've now read all the stories and this has been such an excellent competition with so many different takes on the theme. Looking forward to seeing what the judges think.

Quote by Mendalla

Welp, I'm all caught up again. More! We need more!!

Your wish is my command ... 'Just-in-time' Annie has submitted.

Molly, when you say "Tell us what that sparks in you," are you referring to the previous paragraph: "If you’ve ever been outside alone in the snow, you know that silence is like no other. We’ve heard it said that the silence in the snow is so loud. It can even feel a bit unnatural or unsettling in the right setting. (my bolding added.) "  

Or referring to the first paragraph “the utter absence of auditory distraction(s)” however that absence is caused, i.e. snow isn't essential and one could for instance be say underground in a cave or wearing noise cancelling headphones?

Congrats to every one who entered and especially the podium. I've been on vacation so I am tardy in both reading and posting. I will read those that I haven't in the next few days. ❤️

Poetry? Seriously!

Lol, well I channeled that Welsh git, you know the one ...

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And there's a villanelle loaded under my name which I will tinker with over the next couple of days. It's not Dylan, but that's not surprising, after all I'm no poet. Many new writers start with poetry; why, I ask, it's literally the hardest writing task of all?

Congrats to all, especially TheShyThespian and JamesPBear (I love Beckett so you can imagine how much I liked the Godot reference.) Thanks so much to WriterGirl for organizing this little competition and your generosity.

Trust a redhead; eye-catching décolletage flouts winter’s dreary buzzkill--eight million stories in the naked city, none worth a stone-cold detective’s dime.

Summer’s sob story: sweet sister’s dreamy singing; Mafia’s speakeasy injustice. Mystery rulebreaker packed heat; murder most foul!  

Emerald eyes sparkle, the siren’s call to ante-up, yet she needn’t drop another dime. Sultriness flambéing grayscale has the gumshoe-moth flame focused, a femme fatale’s reputation for misdirection now cynically discounted.

I've started my third attempt. Binned the first two and am going back to an idea I used somewhere (you know where) else. It's a late start so we will see if I get it done. Nowadays, I only seem to be doing competitions or micros; my toddler would like to make it clear it isn't his fault. And anyway, momma knows what to do, just supply more ice cream.

Quote by KatarinaTechgoddess

When my kids were little, we took them and some of their friends to a baseball game. My youngest was about five at the time, and she enjoyed the pregame activities, popcorn, hotdogs, and such. But a few innings into the game, she turned around and asked me when the game was going to start. I told her it had already started and that it was the middle of the third inning. She looked at the field again and back at me and told me the guys weren't moving. I nodded and agreed that there hadn't been much action yet. A minute later, she turned around and said, "Are you sure this is a sport?" I thought the guys behind were going to piss themselves laughing.

Ladybug cookie sounds yummy! I'll have one, too, please, and a lemonade.

Lol, that is so funny - instantly one of my favourite posts. God forbid if Himself ever informs his father (or grandfathers) of a similar sentiment about cricket. I've watched a little (very little) baseball on TV, it doesn't seem that boring but there again I'm not five.

Save me a cookie (am I allowed to call them biscuits) for tomorrow, its late on Friday evening. Went out for drinks and nibbles, earlier at a wine bar; life changes when you have to keep to an 18 month olds routine.

Congrats to all who organised the comp, wrote a story, read, commented, and judged. Competitions create a buzz around the site which is fun to be part of. Special congrats to Pnin, KatarinaTechgoddess, and OpheliaTusk for their podium finishes. ❤️

Quote by gillianleeza
We both still have coughs and are unnaturally exhausted.

All the best, they are indeed the residual symptoms of Covid so a change of scene and getting outdoors will so help.

Quote by elizabethblack

A wonderful event to celebrate. AnnaMayZing has had her manuscript approved for publication commercially. It's the one on The Nurses. A fantastic book indeed. So very happy for her. She will be putting out an announcement, but she said I could tell my friends and you are all my friends.

Congratulations Anna. Nursing is a wonderful topic for a story.

Quote by Susie_de_Vil
It’s a beautiful sunny frosty day here in Ireland. Just been for a walk with the dogs and I’d love a cup of coffee to warm me up.

Good to see you here Susie.

Thanks to those who have read my competition story. Well done to everyone who wrote one; all the entries are great.

Quote by DenimAngel
SPRING TRAINING GAMES tomorrow

Lol, my messages are full of North Americans talking about snow and ice and school closures. Also, I thought the baseball season had just finished, clearly time moves slower for the aficionados.

Quote by SeaJay
Did you know there is an international standard for making a cup of tea? It's ISO 3103. Ireland was the only country to object to the standard on the grounds that it didn't include warming the teapot first.

Lol, I don't know whether to laugh at the idea of a cup of tea standard or cheer for the Irish - of course a teapot needs to be warmed. Most teapots in cafes have t-bags in them, I've never thought to ask if they have warmed the pot.

Lol, I wasn’t last! Left it late, but got it done, well except for being unable to attach a pic.

I’ve read all the stories, just excellent, though interestingly more horror (including Verbal) than I was expecting. James’s ending gets the prize for most horrific ending, though Brad’s was more horribly realistic.

Interesting to see what the judges make of this. The Mardi Gras parade in Sydney is on Saturday, the city is full of colour and the summer weather is great, should be excellent and hopefully not at all horrific.

Done and submitted. I hope not, I think the five votes was a feature of that other site.

Lol, while you lot are seemingly enjoying holidays. I'm trying to beat the competition deadline. The first draft is completely done, the editing half done. We will see, I have taken advice: the closing time in midnight in the UK which must be 24 hours or so away. But today I'm working so not much will be done in the next 10 or more hours.

Christmas to Easter is effectively summer down under, and is the peak holiday period especially between Christmas and Australia Day on 26 January. February is more about those without school aged kids taking time off as destinations are much less busy with the school year having started.

So sad about Larry, he was one of the first to support and encourage my writing. I so looked forward to his comments on my stories and to reading his. He had a long history of being generous with his time and supportive of newbies.

Yes I was the same, surprised and delighted on 1 January to get a Top Story badge added to my profile here and to my competition story, as the most liked story in December.

I was I confess then totally embarrassed when the results came out as my story was last (or second last) in the competition, lol, so in reality far from being a top story.

Like that you can sort 'top stories' by genre too, interesting to see on both sites what my highest rated genre stories are.

Not sure about this current competition, have done 700 words, but hit pause to write competition elsewhere, which is taking a while to get done. Toddlers are not writer-friendly, but himself is so adorable and I'd have it no other way.

Quote by verbal

I did spend a night in jail during Mardi Gras, back in the day....

Now I so want to know more about how that came to pass.

As always things are a little different down under, Mardi Gras is synonymous with a celebration of the rainbow community cumulating in the LGBTQI Mardi Gras Parade. A writing well I have drawn from before. But, lol, I suppose I can't just polish this a little and submit:

Finding Pride on Oxford Street

Quote by verbal

Thank you, Molly, for organizing all this and giving us a fun way to pass the time during winter break.

What's this winter you are talking about?

Congrats to all, particularly Verbal, Ping and Kat for their wonderful podium stories. Thanks to all who organized, wrote, read, commented and judged. ❤️

Just 50 minutes left of this year. Happy New Year to you all, looking forward to reading and writing in 2023.💖

A dozen really good stories. Thanks to those who read and commented on mine.

Eight hours to 2023, Happy New Year.

Mars bars taste so divine

Merry Christmas ... keep safe, if the weather is rough where you are. I shall be around after Christmas, not leaving Sydney for the traditional summer holidays period, maybe February when the schools start back, which will certainly be less crowded.

Quote by JamesPBear

.

OTOH, Stephen King, in his semi-autobiographical book, On Writing, says that he rips through the first draft of a book, then circles back to slash about 1/3 of everything he's written.

So, he would start with roughly 1333 words, and edit it down to 1000.

Therefore, most of us are within "normal" bounds. Brad is just an outlier!

BTW, I started with about 1,450 words, eventually sweating it down to 1,000.

But that's fairly standard for me because I'm a wordy bastid…

You are a better author than mathematician James:

If Stephen King slashes 1/3 of what he has written, his first draft is 1500 words and he loses 500 which is a third to get down to 1000.

Which goes to show you and Verbal are well within Stephen's limit.

Nearly all my stories for competitions are right on the word limit. I used to be hopeless and go way over in my early drafts and have to edit hard. But nowadays I'm getting more accurate from the get go; indeed with this story I naturally hit 1000 +/- five words all through the drafting and editing stages. Though I do find Grammarly suggests more hyphens than I instinctively use.

Both Word and Google docs have the same word count I've found. I tend to write in Goggle docs as I'm doing more on my phone nowadays (I'm sure those who know me will know why,) but generally I copy the story into Word and submit from that, as it holds the formatting better than submitting from Google docs.

The word count increased when I submitted my story here, by one word, not sure why. I thought I understood the mechanics as the last time on the other site, the word count went up by the number of words in the one-liner. Not this time.

Quote by verbal
I wrote extra-shaggy

What a great expression, I'm going to borrow that.

Morning all, I know better that to complain about our cold snap, its 'only' about 21 degrees C, though expecting closer to 30 leading up to Christmas Day.

The jacarandas are gorgeous as usual, though this far into December flowers have mostly fallen. The pic below is a stock one, there are a lot of trees around Sydney, but not to this concentration that I've seen.

Enjoying the competition stories, hope to see more published in the next few days. Thanks to those who have commented and voted on mine.

Summer showers

Hope those in the north are coping with the cold and snow. Its a little cooler here today, but will get back into the 30's (C of course) apparently in the lead up to Christmas.

My competition story should be with you shortly, once it gets through the approval process. Take care and have a great weekend.