Here we are at Week 333 – Half the number of the beast.
I realised that I didn’t know why 666 was the number of the beast so I looked it up.
I’m none the wiser! It’s a bit complicated.
Continue reading “Week 333 – A Maiden Amount, Some New Traits For Samael And Patches Isn’t Just About Dungarees.”
I was wondering this week if I should offer my seat to older people when I am on the bus? What if they are younger and fitter than me but just don’t look it? Granted that might be difficult due to my white beard, fucked side, bags under my eyes, limp and general scowling.
Continue reading “Week 194 – Reincarnation, Twin-Tubs And Diane Checking Out A Bell-End.”
This week, I thought I’d give you all a wee bit of insight into a part of our process. It is regarding acceptance and rejection letters.
Now just like being on the hunt for an interested person of the opposite sex, it is easier to be accepted than rejected. Not many of my rejections had ever been written, normally a ‘Fuck off’ would suffice. In the same way none of my acceptances ever produced a letter, just a very grateful me and a lady that I would later judge. (OK, I may have written some poetry, but it was the eighties and I had hair.)
It’s easy to say yes to a submission but we wouldn’t be doing anyone any justice if we did this as a given. So we try to keep the site’s integrity.
Continue reading “Week 185 – Letters Of Acceptance, Rejection And Diane Biting.”
In my quest to find something interesting to say in Hugh’s absence this week I did a quick Google search for the significance of the number 179.
As you can imagine the results were thrilling.
I can confirm 179 is a prime number – an Eisenstein Prime no less as it is indivisible even by complex Gaussian integers, and Chen Prime because it is 2 less than the next prime number.
Continue reading “Week 179 – Borders, gateways and tales to tell our children”
Here we are at week 171. The site is healthy and any challenges we have had, have been interesting and caused much debate.
Here we are at week 165. This is one of the most up to date postings that I’ve ever written.
Continue reading “Week 165 – Professor Hawkin, Kicking Stones And…Two In The Dead.”
Before I start we would like to appeal to all of you who we haven’t met yet. I’m talking about the readers who don’t comment. We see the same images besides the ‘likes’ but you are all silent.
Perhaps it’s shyness. You know what is said about being shy? (Well you don’t because you wouldn’t ask.)
…A shy ostrich who buries their head in the sand and sticks their arse up in the air isn’t shy for very long.
We would like to invite you, for one day only, with no commitment, to have a wee comment.
It doesn’t need to be deep or meaningful, it just needs to be anything. Even a ‘I liked this’ would do. Don’t depend on a thumbs up…Put your own thumb up and let yourself go! Normally that phrase would have went somewhere else but I want to encourage and not scare away!
I’m even giving you a week to think on it as we are looking for these comments on our Saturday’s Posting on the 18th November. This is a special day for us as it is our 3rd year anniversary. Please get involved and send us a message.
So: Whippoorwill, Little Fire, Writerlady, Roy Dorman, Sue Vincent, xprettylittlethingsxo, therebemonstershhere.com, the drabble etc. We would love to know what you think of the site, any favourite stories and more importantly what you get out of it.
And we are not forgetting about our regulars and some like Orvillewrong who is reasonably new but is someone we now look out for. In a way, we are trying to express our thanks to you all and we want you all to realise that we appreciate you being around. You keep the site alive!
All of this made me think about shyness whilst writing. Is there such a thing or is it self censorship? If you feel so strongly about a subject that you would never write about it, surely that passion and those views should be used to do exactly that!
If you are a wee shy soul and don’t want to use those dirty words like ‘Boobies’, ‘Bottoms’ and ‘Cunt’ just shut your eyes whilst you are typing them and imagine a Unicorn is dictating.
I always wonder what the difference is between shyness and not being assertive. I think that the assertive phrase is for the successful and the shy phrase is for the common people. It’s a bit like being called ‘eccentric’. They have money and stay in an affluent area whereas a ‘nutcase’, has a drug problem and stays in an effluent area.
Even a ‘paedophile’ is income driven. A skint one is a pervert in the system living next to a school watching and wanking. Whereas a rich pervert who is wanking the system that they themself hide in is called a Politician.
Ah, double standards, inverted snobbery, deviants and censorship have been my ‘go to’ writing topics for so long!
So now onto this weeks stories. We had two new writers for you, Tom who is getting ever closer to number fifty, and a fourth and eighth timer.
Our topics were as diverse as usual. We had self acceptance, war, a life change, illegal gambling and advertising to the extreme.
As always our initial comments follow.
On Monday we had Jack Coey who added to his three previous stories with ‘The Callback’.
‘The setting was well done and the characters were believable.’
‘I loved the style and structure.’
‘The parallel is excellent, it is beautifully subtle.’
One of our new writers was next up. To both of them we welcome them and hope that they have fun on the site. ‘Step by Step by Step‘ was Deva Meri’s début.
‘This made me cry. The segment about him going down the stairs and realising that he couldn’t go back to his life was heartbreaking.’
‘Brilliant imagery and a harrowing central tale.’
‘So many layers. You felt for all the characters.’
Our second newbie had their first story published on Wednesday. ‘Captain Corn‘ from David Howard broke the back of the week.
‘Very enjoyable and well constructed.’
‘I was intrigued from the start.’
‘Everyone of us found merit within this skilful piece of story telling.’
There is nothing that I can say about Tom Sheehan. His word count bombs us all out the water. His class is a pleasure to read. On Thursday, ‘From One War To Another Without Choice‘ was another wonderful example of his work.
‘The writing is almost hypnotic.’
‘When the ending comes you feel as if you’ve just emerged from some odd dream. It is beautiful and sad.’
‘Excellent. The acceptance and despair about war was harrowing.’
That brought us to the end of the week. It was held on a Friday. Larry Lefkowitz added to his excellent back catalogue with ‘Caesar’s Shade.’
‘The fickleness all makes sense.’
‘The cynical and greedy dialogue is very well done.’
‘This is a clever idea beautifully executed.’
That’s us well and truly rounded up.
As I’ve said, next week is our three year anniversary and we would love for all our readers and writers to contribute so please give it a go.
And even if you are a wee bit apprehensive grab that Unicorn by his horn and let fly!
Although that would be easier if a Unicorn had shagged a Pegasus. But maybe if you grabbed him by the horn, he wouldn’t want to move, only twitch a bit!
Hugh
Banner Image: Pixabay.com
The literary legend we know simply as Hugh Cron is taking a well-deserved break from proceedings this week and has entrusted me, his faithful Welsh sidekick, to come up with a few choice words to sum up the week that was at LS Towers*
* not an actual tower – more of a chateau really.
I can neither confirm nor deny if Hugh is adding something extra to his Irn-Bru over the course of the weekend but I can at least confirm that from a roundup perspective what I lack in wit I more than make up for in lack of wit.
Continue reading “Week 128 – Fathers, Flagsticks and Strictly Perseverance”
I’ve began far too many of these posts with this type of comment:
All of us at Literally Stories send our thoughts to those affected by the atrocity in Manchester.
Our football season is coming to an end and that is normally a sign of summer finally turning up. Only in our country does it make sense to play sport in the rain and snow.
Anyhow back to the summer, we don’t handle those three days in June very well. As soon as it’s bright we put on our Speedos and head to the beach. The men don’t dress much better.
Unfortunately a bright day doesn’t necessarily constitute heat here in Scotland but our NHS services are wonderful and on that bright day they are well geared up with survival blankets and hot soup.
Continue reading “Week 125 – Speedos, Trifles And Rooting Rhubarb.”
I had a spare ten minutes at work and I thought that I’d give this post a go to see what I could come up with. It was such a productive ten minutes, I would have been as well working. Nothing! Zilch! Bugger All!!
For me, my job spoils everything. I like to eat but I won’t eat at work because I enjoy eating and I can’t enjoy anything whilst I’m there. I also love to read a paper. I know that this is a dying art. But you do still see some dinosaurs going into the newsagents of a morning, buying a paper and tucking it under their arm. I’m not sure if anyone under thirty even knows what a paper is. If it’s not their phone, it’s nothing!
Continue reading “Week 114 – Acceptable Pyromania, Hairy Lollipops And A Fungal Infection.”
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