The task of writing Week 13 News fell to someone (me) who has made a habit of late of staring at blank pages. Bereft of inspiration (I tidy up and make tea and send out a load of emails to make myself useful) I’ll leave the wordy stuff to the reader/writers of Literally Stories.
I seldom get invited to poker games as I never carry cards but always sad short stories. Read ’em and weep. Now that we got that awkward first sentence out of the way I can begin summarising the past week.
Sweet Surrender by our Diane focuses on a poor woman with an addiction.
Last Tuesday featured a dystopian story about something which kills off most of humanity. Speaking of a thing which kills, Kill Switch is the name of Nik Eveleigh’s story. It’s bold. Not just because I wrote in bold but the story is also bold.
Following those two stories was a comedy called A Captivating Meeting by crazily Swedish tough guy Tobias. One of those three is not true.
The Thursday story came from Vic Smith. Its speculative theme resonates in modern technology and it’s called The Conscious Coward.
Finishing the week is usually Sunday, but not here at LS. It’s the Friday story (Well technically it’s this news update, but no one reads this). Des Kelly, who will become our most prominent external author, gave us Snow On The Ground. About the complexity of love between two even complexier persons.
The Story of the Week from 9th to 13th February 2015 has been decided. It was close. How close? Like a near-sighted dyslectic would spell clothes. Because he would write very close and also spell it close. The very definition of exciting couldn’t even begin to describe how inspiring and exhilarating this Story of the Week competition was. I guess that is the definition of exciting, so yes the very definition could describe it. It was very dramatic. It started from the stomach and ran all the way up to the throat. It’s a tie. But enough about my attire. The competition was a draw.
The winners are Talk To Me by June Griffin and Thinking In Nature by Tobias Haglund
Vote for your favourites and stop voting for Tobias. It’s the equivalent of voting for the Beer Party in elections. Go ahead and click on your favourite story.
I knew we built this ark for a reason. With our ark we managed to avoid drowning in the flood of stories, but don’t get me wrong. We live in an ark, in the middle of the desert in need of floods. Keep flooding us with stories and it will be smooth sailing for Literally Stories. Who is our Noah? Adam of course. Me? I am just a barnacle at the bottom of our ship, slowing us down.
Since we started Literally Stories last year we have been having a wonderful time. Adam, Hugh, Nik, Tobias and myself have spent hours, days, actually probably weeks, not only setting up our pretty website – which incidentally we are very proud of, but reading and discussing the stories submitted for consideration.
There have been some that we have loved, immediately and without question and all we have had to do is a quick re-format to make them work on our pages and choose a fun and relevant header image. There have been some that we have felt were not right for us for various reasons and then sadly we have had to send the horrible rejection emails (sorry). Then there are the ones, and no I’m not going to tell you which ones they were, which caused, debate, discussion, dissection and now and again just a bit of pouting!!!
This past week has been a smörgåsbord of thought-provoking pieces. Yes we are very international and know words like smörgåsbord and… international.
The stories have given us moments of fear followed by moments of deliberation. And speaking of moments, we started the week off with Lissa’s. Lissa’s Moment that is. For a moment it lasted pretty long, in fact by the time the sequel came out it could no longer be called a moment, it had to be called: Lissa’s Flight.
That can’t be true, you say. Yes it is. It’s the way Diane chooses titles and speaking of titles and things that are true. Desmond Kelly’s True was our Wednesday story.
How could you possibly do a segment to the Thursday story? It will not be easy, in fact I have already lost my train of thoughts. Where was I? Oh yes, The Whereabouts of Mrs. Trisha by W D Frank is a dark and twisted tale, recommended for readers wanting a frightful experience or for people named Mrs. Trisha who are currently lost.
“Lost” you say? A bit like Elsa, the Friday story, about a young woman making a life changing decision.
Lastly but least leastly the story of the week for 12th to 16th January. Without fixing the numbers or allowing the lobbyist too much say. The last week winner is: Literally Stories Week 7. What? That has to be the rigged results. No the real winner is: The Front Page by David Louden. Congratulations to David Louden!
Don’t forget you can vote for your choice of Story of the Week for the week ending 23rd January either here – right now – right on this page OR by clicking the link on the Header Menu or the cute little letter box in the side bar
Three Choices – No excuse – Come on support your favourite – please 🙂
Literally Stories Week 7!? Last I checked you were on Week 5. Yea, but then we had a Roundup and with all of the New Year’s Eve Updates who keeps track. Speaking of keeping track, that’s where we left you. At the tracks. The Front Page by David Louden generated a lot of attention.
So there we are, the first full week of Stories for 2015. We hope you found something that you enjoyed. Actually we hope you liked them all.
As you know we like to give all the stories a fair crack of the whip so the first Oscar for story of the week will only be handed out next weekend. Please keep reading, “liking” and commenting to make sure your favourite gets the nod.
Week 5 saw Literally Stories publish five Christmas themed stories. We started off with a beautiful, but different take on the nativity, Mary, Joseph and the Baby. Tuesday was kind of a daze, a funny Christmas Daze that is. Wednesday saw us publish the wonderful story The Lady in the Bauble which revisited a well known tale but gave it a very personal slant. . Thursday’s story was Season’s Greeting, where we witnessed a consultant losing hope of finding the Christmas Spirit. Finally the Friday story, Reminiscing, although not strictly a Christmas theme it was all about family and how the current generation will be viewed in the future.
Week 4 started at the bottom of a rollercoaster, always a great place to start because the only way is up. The early uphill climb of Any Crow In A Storm and Dracul’s Lair was followed by Pynchon McCool: an introduction in twelve chapters. Pynchon was unlike anything else we’ve published, the clever format condensed a novel into a short story. To continue the metaphor; it was a rollercoaster within a rollercoaster.
Week 3 saw Literally Stories publish two new, very different authors, Jon Green and Xavier P. Xavier.
In fact, all five stories – Do Eros Sevens Dream Of Jupiter And Mars – The River – Hep C And A Lot Of Codeine – The Elite Agency – Listening In , which featured during Week 3 were unlike any other we have published to date.
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