In Search of Perdition

And so we start to veer towards the Christmas season. Whilst the supermarkets have had their decorations up for a whole month already, we in our household shall uphold tradition and not put up our sparklies until 1 December. Santa Claus is firmly in the mind of my son and, with all this in mind, I do have to ask all my visitors, have you been naughty or nice this year ;-) Having read the entries this week I think I know the answer to my question. So, who has been the most devious? My winner this week is Mr John Xero with Wildwood . John, this was an absolutely perfect example of how to do horror in 100 words. MR James would have been proud to produce such a piece and I can hear the trees whispering as I walk past them on my way home of an evening now. Excellent! My runner-up this week is Sandra Davies  with It's not me, it's hymn . Sandra - I loved the way that this initially felt like a kitchen sink drama, a loveless marriage leading to years of drudgery, but t...

As my friends across the pond celebrate Thanksgiving, I thought it only right to offer a word of thanks to each and everyone of you, irrespective of nationality, that visits my humble blog each week for The Prediction. I stalk follow a number of you on social media outlets and often see comments about how the community here has spurred people on in their writing endeavours when those voices of doubt about writing ability have crept into people's heads. Do give yourselves a pat on the back and take my thanks for coming by each week to read, write and comment. Speaking of social media, Cindy Vaskova is celebrating the 1 year anniversary of her blog . As a one off special, she is inviting people to drop by before Sunday and offer three words for her to write a 100 word flash. She will write a flash for EACH set of prompts given. I urge you to go visit as I am sure the resulting tales will be amazing. One more quick plug and then the winners, 99fiction (where my fla...

So, it's NaNoWriMo at the moment or, as I believe it is called, National Novel Writing Month where people have one month to write a novel. I am envious of people who are capable of doing this as it takes me ages to craft such a thing. However, I would be really interested to hear from any Predictioneers who are taking part and how they are finding it. What I do tend to do quickly though is flash and I was pleased that 99 Fiction decided to published my flash fiction piece Screamless this month. Take a look here and see what you think. Right, you read that, back now, good. That brings me on to this week's winner which is.....drum roll please..... ......well I've got joint winners as I just cannot separate them, both being so good that it wouldn't be fair for one to 'lose'. My winners are AJ Hayes and Zaiuregrey . AJ - I loved The Ladies In Hats . There was something about the way you intertwined the exquisiteness of the fine Sunday morning dining and the...

So Halloween has been and gone. I trust that you came through it with your souls intact and your demons sated. Now before I go into judging mode I want to make note of a couple of things. The first is, for those who didn't clock it in the comments section last week, that our very own John Xero came runner-up in The Times' 50 word ghost story competition out of a field of about 1,500 entries. Our sincerest congratulations to John, the talented bugger, whose story can be found here: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/competitions/article3580545.ece . And secondly, I have not paid tribute to Sandra Davies for her long running serial The Blacksmith's Wife. For 41 episodes (which is equivalent to ten months!) Sandra kept us enthralled with the tales of our headstrong heroine. Some of us, me included, were unsure if she would survive the end of episode 41 but our worst fears were realised. A toast to Sandra whose complete work can be found here: http://sandra-linesofcommuni...

And so we approach that annual witching hour that we call Halloween where spooks and spirits seek to suck our souls to hell (depending on what beliefs you subscribe to). Me, I see this as a gloriously wonderful time of year where the scary gets celebrated and we get the chance to see some glorious tales to chill our very cores. I'm hoping that the Predictioneers will all rise to the challenge this week and give me something with a ghostly tinge to honour this time of year. But before then I am sure you want to know who the winner was from last week. After much deliberation I have decided that my winner is......RR Kovar with Impact. Rebecca - this is a tale which I confessed in my comments that I didn't grasp at first (my dimwittedness rather than your writing) but when I understood the fullness of it, boy was I blown away. Clever, clever stuff which I would encourage everyone to go back and read. My runner-up this week is Matt Farr with his two takes on Only the Mundane V...

Hello all, my apologies that this will be a brief piece from me this week. Sadly my grandmother died recently and I have been away for the funeral which was later in the month than anticipated. Therefore I hope you forgive me my lack of commentary this time and I will post pictures of Lily and I plus review of FantasyCon next week when normal service will resume. My winner this week is Matt Farr with In the Midst of Death. Matt - as I said in my comments, really good imagery and some emotionally charged stuff to boot. I loved the concept that the devil's playground is the war ravaged plains of Earth rather than some subterranean cavern deep below. Runner-up is Sandra Davies with her two latest installments of The Blacksmith's Wife. Sandra - you left me shell-shocked at the end of both pieces and I doubt there was any other reader who didn't feel the same way. I fear for our heroine and yet am desperate to see what happens next (peeking from behind my fingers). Congrat...

This weekend I am off to brush shoulders with some of the great genre writers of our time at FantasyCon in Brighton. I shall also get to meet the wonderful Lily Childs in person for the first time. I shall be sure to send her love and warm feelings from The Prediction gang.   Now, how the hell do I judge last week's offerings? Each one would normally have been a winner in its own right on any other week but it seems that the changing of the seasons has inspired you all into even higher levels of literary excellence. So a winner there must be and that winner is....   .... MuckieDuckie with Riven . MD - you tugged on my heartstrings here to great effect. So much heartache throughout this piece, touching pieces of sentimentality littered throughout that work so well, and that final line just had me welling up. I will hug my son hard tonight. A well deserved win for an intense tale.   And my runner-up is, well I have two. Firstly Antonia Woodville with...