Lady Agatha

Thanks for your entries this month, here’s my verdict: De Batz: I was really glad that you wrote this, and I presume that it is at least semi-autobiographical. The reason why I set this subject is to try and get help putting things into perspective. I seem to have been plagued by single magpies this year, and it has turned out to be an absolute pig of year. Now, everytime I see one, I get that “Oh no, what’s going to go wrong now” panic. Which is silly, as, like you, I’m a committed rational atheist. So, to read your entry showing that I’m not alone was helpful – thanks! Your piece was interesting, easy to read and I felt engaged with your experience. I think that you could easily develop this into a longer story which explores superstition and I would be keen to read this. LFT1: I enjoyed this piece too, as an example of how coincidences can cement superstition sometimes. Seeing 3 magpies and then having a baby girl – rationally there was a 50% chance that this would happen, but sometimes people grab onto the tiniest thing to prove their superstitious theories. As a story I enjoyed this – especially your ending! A lovely little tale, you set the scene deftly and got over a lot of information in a concise way. Despritdan: This was an amusing piece of fantasy and I like the character that you gave Algernon – magpies are maybe just a bunch of bullies! My 10 year old daughter has had a read – I showed it to her because of the 10 year old in the story. She laughed out loud on 2 or 3 occasions and said that she would read on if it was a longer story. So, you have an audience for this kind of story! Now I have to choose a winner, which I’m struggling with. Well done to all 3 of you, but I think that I will choose LFT1 as this month’s victor. My own take on the subject can be found on a new blog that I have set up called The Flash Diaries. I am to write a 360 word story based on things that I see or experience. Here’s my attempt to rationalise my fear of the single magpie! http://flashdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/one-for-sorrow-two-for-joy.html

Thank you Ron and Tallyman - I'll try and think of a theme over the next few days, and hopefully still be around for the judging! Mysterious how people keep disappearing though...maybe it's a conspiracy.

Mr Kite was our lodger when I was a girl. He came to live with us when Father’s overtime stopped. Father was too proud to let Mother go out to work. But he allowed her to run around after a paying guest. It was a temporary measure he told us, just until work picked up again. We were to look upon it as having a friend stay with us, who was helping to pay the bills. Father was careful to get the right sort. He insisted on meeting anyone who applied for the room – and he turned down the first person who came to look because their clothes were too shabby. But Mr Kite passed Father’s first impressions test and he was invited to stay. Just for six months. Work should be back on track by then. Mr Kite agreed to Father’s funny ways. Perhaps it was because we were so near his work and the railway station. He travelled a lot and he was always going away for the weekend. He was a very affable man anyway – he seemed to agree to anything and he never complained. In fact he was forever complimenting Mother – her cooking, her sewing skills, her hair, and her clothes. He approved of everything she did. And all this flattery perked Mother up; Mr Kite was a tonic to her. I remember her laughing with him in the sitting room in the evenings. Mother didn’t laugh that often. She wasn’t allowed to work, she was stuck inside all day with very little to do. She must have craved something different. I wonder that I didn’t see what he was at the time. But I didn’t know about these things. We were so innocent in those days. I knew that Mr Kite went and drowned himself in the canal. I knew that he left a note addressed to Mother. No-one ever told me what was in this note. Mr Kite was never mentioned in our house again. So finding it here in her things is like finding the solution to a childhood puzzle that you never grasped at the time. But now I see that he’d been hounded out of his job. He was being blackmailed. He tells it all in this note. His final words were instructions for Mother. She was to personally find a man called Gerald Burroughs at the given address, and give him a package. She was to tell Gerald that Mr Kite loved him with all his heart, for all eternity.

We're already friends on there Sarah! I'm the other Sarah - I think we connected via Twitter.

I'd never heard of Goodreads before - so thanks Sarah for introducing me to that. There also seems to be a creative writing forum on there where you can post examples of your work and link to websites. I'm still finding my way around - there's a lot to do on there - but it looks like a good site. Update: I've put an extract from my Seven Stories from the Seven Hills book on my page. Here it is: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/307208-seven-stories-from-the-seven-hills

Hello all I've not been around here much lately and that's because I've been both typing up my novella for publication as a blog and preparing some short stories for publication on Amazon. Both are up and running now: here's the links: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Stories-Hills-ebook/dp/B008FIBX82/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1340925132&sr=1-1 http://dearmrbetjeman.blogspot.co.uk/ I was interested to see this thread as now I'm wondering what to do regarding publicising these. I have another blog - The History Usherette - which seems quite popular as I get around 50 hits a day on it - mainly from the US. I've publicised the short story book on this blog but no takers from there so far. The only sales I've made have been through my Twitter followers - I now have about 290 followers so it has been worth spending time building that up and making contact with people on there. But its early days yet - I only published last week. So I'd welcome a discussion on how to publicise your work. Obviously social media is the big thing - has anyone tried anything else other than Twitter? Has anyone printed advertising flyers or taken out ads anywhere? Ideas and good/bad experiences welcome!

Well, Mr Blue Owl, I thought this month would be a foregone conclusion but you had some last minute competition! I thought that your piece was enjoyable and thought provoking. For all we know, life is simply a matter of chance. I like the superstition of the lucky coin - because the process of death is so uncertain it is tempting to weave all kinds of myths and superstitions into the little that we know. This was a compelling read and I really cared about what happened to Arthur, so well done. I think I should also comment on Ron Blanco's separate offering. I liked how this slid from humour into horror - this story plays with us much as the two children do. It was a bit Hammer Horror or Tales of the Unexpected - which is ok in my book! It also has a serious undercurrent - how many parents out there really can't cope and don't get help until the worst happens? A good piece of dark humour. greg2 - I loved your wonderful description of the car - especially the fuel consumption and the hilarious gear stick - I really laughed out loud at the thought of that wonderfully inventive piece of kitsch. You also did a great job of Mark's character - recognisable yet not cliched. A humorous, imaginative take on the subject. chem1st - A short piece about which I can find little to say, except that I think I might have seen it before on the back of a toilet door. I declare Mr Blue Owl to be the winner of this month's competition. Congratulations and I look forward to your theme for June.

In a way...I research & write grant applications for charities and voluntary groups. I think that it uses and develops my writing skills as I have to present projects in a way that makes funders want to support them. I like to think any talent I might have is not totally wasted anyway! I'm just reading 'The Paris Wife' about Ernest Hemingway. In this story he feels that his journalism totally gets in the way of his creative writing. I can't help thinking that he was very wrong to see it that way - surely the two aspects of his writing fed each other?

Just as an alternative idea for self publishing, I've decided to post my novella up as a blog. It's free and it just seemed better than putting it at the back of the drawer never to see daylight. Especially as I've been working on it for a couple of years. Now at least friends and family can read it. I'm putting up a chapter every month or so. I suppose it would be nice if loads of people read it (and clicked on the adverts!) but really I'm just hoping I don't get any nasty comments! I'll let you know how it goes. Let us know how your book sells, sharper fin - I'm sure we're all interested to see how well self publishing works. Lady A

Hi Sarah I've just followed you on Twitter. I'm @agathadascoyne

In the Dark As soon as the train left the station, I knew that I’d got on the wrong one. It’s them gasholders that told me. Even in the dark you can feel them watching. It’s like they guard the place, keeping an eye on who’s coming and going. Anyways, they’re at the south end of the station and I was supposed to be going north. It’s the blackout. And the smog. And they’re so damn cagey about where you are and where the trains are going. So anyways I notices the gasholders and I shouts out that I’m going the wrong way. This Tommy stood next to me laughs and says “Oh, you’d best get off at the next stop and turn yourself around then mate!” So I shuffles myself forward, stepping over all the kitbags and legs, and stands right next to a door, ready to jump off at the first stop. I just hoped I’d not got on an express up to the smoke, but somebody told me we were on a stopper to Bristol, so that’s alright, I thought. Anyways we comes to standstill, it’s still all dark and thick and I thinks to myself well we must be at Barker Hill station and I opens the door and jumps out. But there’s no platform and I keep going till I hit some track. Turns out we was in the middle roads at Barker Junction waiting for a signal. So this freight train bears down on me and that’s it. Kaput. I think I’m in about three pieces. I hope I’ve not caused too much trouble.

Thank you very much! I didn't know if people would think that I was just being lazy - but actually it was quite difficult. I wanted to make it very concise because I think that in that kind of situation, you wouldn't go all around the houses. I'll start thinking about an April theme then. Easter bunnies anyone? Well done to everyone - the competition was stiff.

The Lapse I’ve been here long enough to know better. Long enough to know that everyone would be touched by my infantile actions. How could I do that to my children? People would ask that of me if they knew what I had done. I ask myself the same question and I’m not sure what the answer is. I suppose that there are many contributing factors when a person succumbs wholly to their desire. My actions that afternoon were those of a woman intoxicated. Not by drink or drugs, but by self-loathing and an overfamiliarity with a dreary Tuesday. I momentarily thought that this would be the solution. As I stood in my clean kitchen eyeing up my prey, I collapsed into my senses, letting them annihilate my rational thought processes. I sat at my kitchen table and I ate those four Easter eggs, one after the other, contents included. I didn’t even have a drink. I left my children without Easter eggs. My husband had to go out and buy replacements that we couldn’t really afford. They were disgusted with me. But not nearly as disgusted as I was.

A serious writer doesn't do it for payment. You do it for the love of your craft, and the opportunity to have your work put into wider circulation is renumeration enough.

Hello Mark Sounds interesting. Have you thought of having a flash fiction section? You could perhaps look through our monthly competitions over the past year and make a compilation of those you like best. You can contact individual entrants with a personal message to ask permission to use the pieces. Speaking with my marketing/PR hat on it would enable you to fit in more people's work and that's more people who might be willing to buy a copy! I'll send you a short story of mine. Lady A