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Here’s my contribution to the 8LW 2021 short story challenge: a holiday tale about a brand new start, featuring some or all of the prompt words: daisy, annoying, romantic, formula, country, careless, confidence, piano, fluent, guest, options, ivory, star, snow, blurry, and photograph. I think I got ‘em all! Snow White and the Three Kisses

We’re at the end of our 25 Days of Stories.  Here is the final story from years past, courtesy of 8LW Jilly. Enjoy. George and the Dragon The winter sun was low in the sky as Georgina Albion moored her sailboat at Stack Aerie’s small dock and picked her way along the slippery wooden boards,

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  Yesterday we had a heart-warming tale about the Dove Family. Today’s story is based on the same story prompt of “what if your character received an anonymous/ mysterious/ unexpected gift?” and includes the following words: northern, blinking, warm, kingdom, seed, social, knuckle, bittersweet, dove, bauble, pure, invitation, coat,

Welcome the final week of the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  So far we’ve had grizzly bears, pizza, snowy cabins, plans for elopement and a few “new beginnings” thrown in for good measure.  I hope they’ve inspired some of you to put your own pen to paper and give some of our random words a

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories. Today we’re sharing Part Two of the story that began yesterday, in which our heroine, horologist Sandy Sharp, searched for clues about her missing father and encountered a mysterious otherworldly character at midnight in the clock mechanism room of Big Ben’s tower.  Part Two of the story features

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories. We’re at the mid-point of our set of stories; I hope you’ve been enjoying them as much as we have.  Today’s story takes us to the Great Bell of London, where something out of the ordinary seems to be afoot.  This “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a

Welcome to the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  So far, our stories have included rhinoceroses, villains, celebrations, and love, with settings from Derbyshire to New York.  Today our story location will be “a cabin”, where we’ll be meeting Rob Smith (not his real name).  This “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday

Welcome to the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  In the early days of this blog, we kicked of our annual “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday Writing Sprints.  The resulting stories, which all started with a common prompt and set of random words, were as different as those of

Are you looking forward to the summer? Feeling ready for a break? Me, too. Apart from essential trips to the dentist and doctor, one decadent haircut last October, and daily sanity-maintaining walks with Mr. W, I haven’t left home since mid-March 2020. I haven’t even taken the tube into town, except for one unavoidable hospital

Happy Easter, if you’re celebrating today! Do you enjoy Easter eggs? Story ones, not the chocolate sort 😉 . In this context, an Easter egg is a bonus nugget—an object, action, character, or phrase—that isn’t critical to the story and may be overlooked by many readers or viewers but which is somehow significant and provides