Category: Latest News

Here we are at Week 413 and it’s my turn again.

Having a conversation with my mum this week brought up a sort of weird writing idea from me and that was about setting a story in a time.

Continue reading “Week 413 – Once Were Wedding Presents, A Part Of A Half Billion Cabinet And A Wee Fellow Nervous In The Showers For A Lot Less.” →

Here we are at Week 400. I’m quite sure I’ll use that number a few times throughout this post.

I honestly can’t believe that we’ve reached this amount of weeks of publication!

It’s just a pity that the hundreds and the anniversary don’t tie in, I think it did on our second year but then dates and weeks and holidays buggered everything up. Our 8^th year anniversary will be in a few week’s time, Week 403 on the 19^th November.

Continue reading “Week 400 – 400 Weeks, Halloween And A Hospital Visit.” →

Here we are at Week 395 and let’s be honest there has only been one event that has been covered.

I wonder if the world has ended and no-one has told us. They have been too busy reporting on a long line of … (Insert your own phrasing here)

Only those Brits (I’m a Scottish person and for so many reasons would not include myself with them!) could put the queue in queen. (Please don’t capitalise that word Diane, it will make me cry!!)

Continue reading “Week 395 – The Great Wall Of China Isn’t The Only One, ‘I’m Still Standing’ Isn’t Appropriate And Thomas Dolby Isn’t Anonymous!” →

We have now reached 2000 followers (At the time of writing) which I am so proud of. But in the whole scheme of things, that isn’t that much. If I was a Kardashian holding a puppy with my nipple out, I’m sure that number would be in the millions in less than a day. I think I used that line when we reached a thousand but as that was about three years back I thought I could get away with it once again.

Continue reading “2000+ Lovely People, One Arse For Number Ten And No, I Didn’t Forget ‘Pulp Fiction’, I Wanted It In The Title.” →

Thanks to Leila for holding down the posting fort over the last few weeks.

I see that very little has changed.

We are still getting in some excellent stories.

We are still receiving courteous submissions.

But!!!

We are also still receiving initial pig-ignorant submissions where the person hasn’t even had the decency to glance at the site that they are sending to.

Some folks, even when we gently point them towards the guidelines, they still ignore our request.

If we build up a relationship with a writer, then we are happy to come and go with some quirks and mischievousness but if you are new to this, do yourself a huge favour and check out guidelines and type of stories being published.

And this is a huge bug bear of mine, if someone asks for feedback, we all spend time and effort in doing so. I don’t think it is much to ask that a simple ‘Thanks’ is headed our way.

I wonder if this is a ‘sign of the times’ thing, you know, bad manners or are we just unlucky with some arsehole type behaviour??

Censorship has also reared its ugly head yet again. There is a Scottish Comedian called Jerry Sadowitz (The man who played Ebeneezer Good in the song by ‘The Shamen’ Seemingly they just wanted to chant ‘E’s are good and using his name was a way around promoting drug use) His show was pulled due to racist remarks. Now here’s the point, the billboard to his show announces that there will be offensive material so should anyone take offence. You can’t get away with saying well that wasn’t offensive to me, but that was. It is all relative. But you had been fucking warned, so don’t go if you can think on any topic that would offend you as sure as hell, that will be mentioned.

I wouldn’t go and see Jerry Sadowitz not because I’m one of the powder puff, snowflake professionally out-raged fuckwits – I wouldn’t go simply because his humour doesn’t appeal to me.

Connolly, Boyle, Carr, I love to listen to them work. Jimmy Carr actually has a section called the career ender, you can imagine what is in there and if you can and you couldn’t handle it then don’t be a tit and go just to complain.

Political correctness and wokeness (Is that a word??) will be the downfall of stand up comediennes. Even if they tried to make sure that it isn’t their POV they are using, it somewhat gives you an idea of where the story is going when it starts ‘A racist walks into a bar…’

Franky Boyle once said that he was asked if he was being serious about the subjects that he talked about. His answer was, ‘Serious, I’m a fucking comedienne up on a stage playing to an audience, telling made-up jokes, what do you think?’

If you are a level minded person, jokes won’t offend as they are ‘meant’ to be jokes. They shouldn’t be taken as anything else. Some you will laugh at, some you won’t, that’s as much thought as you should give them.

Censorship is a form of discrimination. It is discriminating against the intelligent who can separate a made up story that is told to amuse against a rant that is caused to incite!

Okay into this week’s stories.

This is a bit different as Nik has already done an introduction to them, but I can still let you read our initial comments for our first ever themed week, which really just happened more than was planned.

…We are not that organised!!!

…Truthfully, we don’t do prompts as we would all get bored reading the same type.

…Hell for me would be a romance week – All those idiots writing about chiseled torsos, heaving breasts, and green eyes would give me the fucking boak!!!

I was first up on Monday – Fuck knows why I took this on, probably because I am slightly masochistic and hate both genres so I gave it a go. But it was an absolute privilege to be included with the other five amazing writers. (I could never forget you Mr Henson!!!!!)

On Tuesday we had our only new writer Kat Hutchson with ‘Becoming Human‘, so a huge welcome to her to the site. Kat has two plaudits, one for being accepted and secondly for being included in something that we’ve never done before.

‘Very well done. There is something creepy about this machine!’

‘For an AI story, this was excellent.’

‘The characters were unlikeable and the whole thing was nice and gruesome. I loved it.’

On Wednesday we had the genius that is Mr Marco Etheridge. Now as I have said, we don’t do prompts and this was a one off. BUT if there is ever such a person as a Historian of the site, they will know that Marco has been tempted by comments before and taken them as prompts. And the man has knocked every sodding one of them out the park!!!!! To do this shows a writing brain that is up there with the best of them. I tip my hat to you sir!!!!!

‘Created Image’ was Marco’s twentieth outing for us.

‘Marco got every reference in. He must have had Hugh’s post open!!!’

‘What a clever writer!!’

‘This is a brilliant story, even if you don’t know the origins!’

Ailbhe Curran was next up on Thursday with ‘Magical Demise‘

This was this wonderful writer’s second story for us.

‘A parable for the loss of imagination done brilliantly.’

‘There is an excellent point being made.’

‘A little bit of weirdness that I really like!’

And we finished off the week with our wonderful fellow editor Leila. I think, I hope she lets me know if I’m wrong, this is Leila’s 111^th story for us!

Now I have been hanging on to second place with 116 from the legend that is Tom Sheehan (200 and still submitting!!) but I will admit defeat into third place sometime soon. Leila’s imagination is too tuned for her to dry up. Me – I have no imagination and would need to do a helluva lot more people watching and eavesdropping for me to continually write. My liver would be fucked and I may be punched a few times as a pub is my source of inspiration…And I’m getting to that age that the folks I talk to talk about thickness of pads and early bed-times!! (Whit a source of inspiration!!!)

Leila doesn’t need anything like that, her amazing imagination takes over and I’ll be happy to hand my silver medal over to her.

I honestly wish I had even a tenth of her imagination!!!

‘I, Feckwit‘ completed the week.

‘Brilliant!’

‘I read this with a big grin on my face.’

‘Loved this to bits!’

Usual bit here guys – I do need to thank a few more folks who are getting involved with comments – I can’t thank you enough.

I also spotted an old friend, Darnel commenting – Great to see you back!!!!!

The Sunday Re-Run…Well there is no point really as no-one takes us up on this. It is all promise, just like the lady with the padded bra or the guy with the sock down his trousers, all talk and no substance.

Just to finish off…

I see that the baldy prince thing and his straight up and down wife are sending one of their spawn to a school that costs £50 000 a year.

That figure is beyond my comprehension but I wonder if you are allowed to be stupid?

At Dalmilling Primary where I went, you could be stupid. You could be down right backward and you were told so in no uncertain terms.

We had daily remedial classes for the ‘thick as mince’ weans and some of us were told, ‘I knew your dad and he was stupid, your mum, I knew her and she was thick and now I have you. Guess what you are?’

If you didn’t answer, ‘I’m an amoeba Sir’, you got belted for insolence. You also got belted again for knowing the word ‘amoeba’ as that was being contradictory to the teacher’s point.

If you (Sorry – Us the fucking public) are spending that kind of money on your offspring, do you want to hear that your kid is a pot of soup, of the vegetable kind??

What would they do if you asked for your money back as the kid’s stupidity should be taught out of them, especially at fifty grand a year.

I feel sorry for those teachers because some of the kids in my day just need a little persuasion to learn. That persuasion took the form of violence and humiliation. But how can you beat up a sprog if it’s over-privileged fuckwits of parents are paying that kind of money?

Also you can’t beat those specific kids up as the Met will shoot you.

So the simple solution is, let them pass all of their exams as it’s not as if the fuckers will end up doing anything worth-while anyway…Unless you include them procreating and having more sprogs that will go to the same school at the taxpayers expense.

Hugh

All throughout my life I have been able to give tips, whether they were wanted or not!

Continue reading “Week 385 – Only Waiters Appreciate, If You Have Nothing To Write…Don’t And The Birds Will Nest Well This Year In London.” →

And here we are at Week 338

First question for anyone who would like to answer – I was wondering, do any of you actually make time for writing either each day or even a few days of a week?

Continue reading “Week 338 – Time And Motion Has Never Been For Me, Loads Of Words And Huge Testicles.” →

Here we are at week 381.

Everyone thinks this was Barry…See title!

‘Booze was my first love.

And it will be my last.

Booze for the future.

And booze of the past.’

Depending on your outlook you may think that is a lot of pish.

It isn’t!

And yep, I bastardised the song…..So did Barry!

But what I would say is we all have ways of handling things and no matter what, no matter how fucking destructive, we handle things in the way that we do.

For me, booze and writing are what keep me sane but you need to realise what it does for you.

The mad thing is if you write whilst really being emotional there is a lot of raw creativity there.

Is that a good thing for you as is….Who knows???

I think trying to write emotion when not feeling or having felt it, is very difficult. A reader can spot lack of knowledge, experience or sincerity a mile away. That is why a lot of YA writing is only suited to that audience. They have a different outlook that isn’t always backed up with experience. There’s nothing wrong with that if that naivety is the focus. No writer can wing things that the reader has had more exposure to and expect it to be credible.

We also get a lot of writers who do try to write about addictions, prostitution and all those harrowing topics that should only be left to those who know or have been affected. (Or the writer has done a shit load of research with those who know or have been affected and they have LISTENED.)

Dave Henson states that he likes reading these posts as there are a few tips throughout on what we are looking for. So here’s another one for those who need it. (Not you Dave!!) If you take on these subjects, really pay attention to the dialogue that you use. Never anywhere in the world would you hear something like –

‘Gosh this heroin is good.’

I’m not saying that we have had that exact line but we’ve had a lot like it.

I reckon if I read the word ‘Gosh’ anywhere in a submission, it will be a straight red card from me!

I’d also like to address the ‘perturbed’, those are the folks that send us a passive aggressive email after we have sent them a refusal. (And they have also probably used the word ‘Gosh’ in their story) If this makes you feel better, you go for it, we really don’t mind and we do understand. But I reckon that you’d be better to take that passive aggressiveness, turn it into full blown anger, get drunk, swear the real swear words and try to write something else – It may surprise you how it turns out!!

Okay Doaky Mrs Coaky, I’ve a herring in my socks…Everyone should read Kettle and Christine’s ‘Beau Peep’, now onto this week’s stories.

We had four new writers and a man who has had more stories than four of most writers!

Not really sure if that makes sense but I know that you’ll know what I mean.

To our new folks, we welcome them, hope that they have fun on the site and most importantly, we want to see more of their work!

As always our initial comments follow.

Strangely enough, the start of the week was Monday (Unless you work for your local authorities and for whatever fucking twisted reason, they start on a Sunday – There must be a financial gain for them in some way!) and we had our first new writer, Anmitra Jagannathan with ‘Autumn Eyes Lost, Autumn Eyes Found.’

‘The MC has a fine quiet voice.’

‘The tone and emotion are very well done.’

‘There is a lovely quirkiness to some of the phrasing.’

Chitra Gopalakrishnan was our next débutante with ‘Bulls And Blood, Line And Lineage.’

‘This made me smile’.

‘A bit different.’

‘The delivery was perfect for the location and setting.’

There is no introduction needed for the gentleman who broke the back of the week. All I need to say is ‘Burial Of A Dark Charger’ by Tom Sheehan was next up.

‘The POV and setting were interesting.’

‘This was touching.’

‘Tom doing what Tom does.’

Thursday was after Wednesday, it normally is and we had David Patten with ‘Volunteer.’

‘This is very strong.’

‘Great flow all the way through.’

‘This says plenty without passing judgement.’

And we finished up on Friday with Fang-Liu House by Sonny Chen.

‘This was like one of those surreal dreams.’

‘Some good weirdness in this.’

‘Strange but there is nothing wrong with a bit of strange now and again.’

And now for the usual ending guys.

Really sorry but there are things that need to be re-iterated. If we keep chipping away by reminding, maybe one day it will stick.

Please comment. Not commenting makes the devil happy and jesus have diarrhoea. He’s had that much jollop, he is more medication than figment.

And cheers Dave (Three mentions in the one posting!!!) for sending in a Re-Run. Follow his example folks and send in a spiel for an older story that you’ve enjoyed. Throw in a few questions and we’ll publish what you send us word for word. (Try not to use ‘Gosh’ as I would be in a state of conflict!!)

Just to finish.

Many folks have been quoted as saying sport and politics should never mix.

That is a fair and noble idea.

But I do think that the LIV golfers will have caused this ideal to be thrown up in the air and I think this debate will grow more legs. (Maybe those legs will run away with a lot of sponsorship??)

I have my own thoughts but no matter what, I’d put them beside our royals, chancellor, cabinet to name but a few, in a list I like to call –

How much fucking money do you really need?!!!

Hugh

…Not that anyone asked!!

The answer to The Cringe on my last Saturday Post:

He said – ‘Buff my low sole chair.’ (Buffalo Soldier)

Well Hugh – my guess wasn’t that far out at that 🙂 dd

Image: – Pixabay.com