congratulations to the podium Top 3.. great stories. I’m pleased that I managed to sneak into the top ten. It was a lot of fun and I found our a lot about Mardi Gras. Here’s to the next one.

I saw the photo prompt post by molly and she asked everyone to tag their story with 'photo' but I can't see how you search by tag... am I missing something?

Thanks

And circled, whimpering

But then they

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.

That's wonderful news. I'd just started to read her series and it is wonderful,... Congratulations Anna

HI, as part of the upgrade, I understood we'd been made Platinum members but when I went to my interactions today, I see this ad. How do I upgrade if I'm platinum?

Quote by Mendalla

You might want to check your wallet. If they took your credit card along, things could get crazy. 😜

Headachy today but still survived two meetings, one of which could put a dead person to sleep. 🙄

I feel like I was in the same meeting... I know it's late but I'll have a cup of tea anyway... Earl grey if you have it.

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.

Woohoo. Looking forward to reading it.

No, it’s on the competition rules for this site but it mentions average score which doesn’t make sense if counting likes. It seems a strange rule to have anyway .

https://www.storiesspace.com/competitions/rules

8. Stories will be judged based on a number of factors. These include the average score received from members (stories need to have a minimum of 5 votes to qualify for the competition), but primarily, from the input of a selected panel of judges. The decisions on the winners are final, and no correspondence concerning any aspect of our choices will be entered into.

Good luck with the final edit, Annie.

I take it you don’t have to get the 5 votes any more since votes were replaced by likes?

Quote by Mendalla

Get thyself well, Gil. Nasty that it keeps hitting you like that. Hope this is the last time.

Good morning! Nice day here, though cooler than yesterday. Here in Ontario and some other parts of Canada, we get today off for "Family Day" which is code for "people wanted a holiday between New Year's and Easter so lets make one up".

Coffee is a nice Nicaraguan medium roast. There's Irish Breakfast and Black Currant teas in the teapots. Hot water is on standby for hot chocolate and other goodies.

A holiday in February is such a good idea as it’s such a long time between Christmas and Easter.

Funnily enough, Ireland created a new holiday this year at the start of February and it was really welcome. They made it Brigid’s day which was a stroke of genius as Brigid was both a pagan goddess and a christian saint. The start of February, St Brigid’s feast day coincides with Imbolc the pagan festival to herald in Spring which means the four pagan festivals of Beltane (May day) Lughnasa (august Harvest) Samanadh (Halloween) plus the solstices are all holidays.

I’ll have a coffee and one of those delicious looking cookies to go with it please as I check if there are any more last minute entries.

Quote by Mendalla

Three stories read so far and it's looking like a good, if small, field. I'll keep at it over the next few days. Good job, writers!

I've managed to read all the entries in so far and like you, I'm really impressed by the variety of stories and interpretations on the theme.

I got my entry in. I've never been to Mardi Gras so I'm afraid you're stuck with fecking pancakes.

Edifices-saying

Hi everyone,

Those Disney cookies look delicious and will go perfectly with a cup of coffee. Thanks, Sara.

It's hard to pick a Disney favourite, James. The Jungle Book has fantastic songs.. but then 'everybody wants to be a cat" from the Aristocats is so cool too... Not to mention 101 Dalamtions with the greatest screen villain ever in Cruella De Vil.

Rumour has it I'm working on a competition entry too, Not sure where it will go. Being Irish, we just sit around eating pancakes the day before Lent and I've never seen a Mardi Gras parade but a bit of research never does any harm... Thanks Google.

Looking forward to reading the other entries

Hi.. it says what we first think of is New Orleans Maris Gras but does the story have to be about New Orleans? Or can it be set somewhere else? Can it be about the beginning of Lent for example? Or is it parades and costumes you want? Thanks.

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with… uh-oh!

So.. we buy coins and tip the writers of the stories we like? I guess it sounds good in principle but for paid memberships, are we talking about paying to publish? or paying to read?

I noticed we have all been made platinum members. Looking at the site across the street, does that mean we all have lifetime memberships here already?

Congratulations Verbal, Ping and Katarina.. three stunning stories and worthy winners.

I’m delighted to make the top 10 in what was a really fun competition. I loved the added restrictions of the exact word count and the picture prompt. They really helped focus.

Thank you so much, Molly, for organising. Here’s to the next one.

I wanted to be free but didn’t realise the cost. 

Nollaig Shona to everyone. I hope to be around a lot more in the new year both reading and writing stories.

Sea Jay

Tavern - Raven

1973 was a very good year. Hard to decide between The Exorcist, the Day of the Jackal and this.. but Paul Newman and Robert Redford swung it. Loved the complexity of the plot.

I wrote with the word counter active in google docs and tried ti get around the 1000 mark. Then upped and downed as I edited. Was really interesting to have an exact target to aim for.

Woohoo.. I'm in too... well, I've submitted my story anyway.

Looking forward to reading the other entries now. I always like to get my story submitted before reading the others.

Well I asked if there was any way to get rid of the rather classy 1950s pink and blue options and they said..

“I can see your point, so I've updated your "gender" to "non-binary"which makes your profile icon yellow. I know that's not ideal, and may not be in line with the way you wish to express yourself, so please feel free to change it back, or make it something more acceptable to you.

In the meantime I can confirm this has been raised with the site management to see if they can offer a better option in a future site release.“

which doesn’t address the main point that gender icons and sexual identification are irrelevant on a story writing site.

Anyway, back to trying to finish a story 🤪

Watched Parallel Mothers. A beautiful film by Pedro Almodovar staring Penelope Cruz. Deals with friendship, motherhood and romance against a backdrop of the history of the Spanish Civil War.

Quote by Mendalla

It's a carryover from the base code and the other site that we seem to be stuck with. Not sure if there is a plan to deal with it

Who would know if there is a plan to deal with it?

I understand the mothership symbios has links to more adult orientated sites but Audible doesn’t look exactly the same as Amazon prime so why should a story site open to all including minors contain elements of a swingers site?

It just seems wrong. But I’m new here so pardon me if I’m stepping on toes.

I know I’ve only recently joined so maybe this has been discussed before but why do we have gender icons?

It puzzled me at the time and I read this today on another site and it made me decide to ask in here.

“Many female writers have adopted male nom de plumes, or otherwise gender-ambiguous pseudonyms, for a number of reasons: to publish without prejudice in male-dominated circles; to experiment with the freedom of anonymity; or to encourage male readership.”

we all know about P.D. James, J.K. Rowling yada yada yada so why do we so blatantly publicise our gender in here?

I’d like to be read as an author, not a male or female author and the stereotypical pink or blue tags (I do see the odd natty yellow one) just pigeon hole us immediately.

is there some deep dark reason that I didn’t get the memo about when I joined?

I’m in, yes. I think it’s an amazing idea

This was an amazing competition and I don't envy the judges with coming up with a top 10. Congratulations to Violet for an amazing story and I am shocked and delighted to be on the podium with two fantastic stories from Violet and JLA.

Thanks to Molly and everyone who organised the competition and I look forward to the next one 😊

inserted-gesticulate