Results of Morgen’s 100-word competition: December 2019

Hello everyone and welcome to the fiftieth month of this competition. There were 41 entries from 20 authors for the theme of ‘a winter job’. NB You can all send in three stories for a better chance of being picked.

One was disqualified for being 102 words because there was no space between two sets of sentences. Fortunately the author had sent two other entries which went through to judging. Another was 101 because ‘apart’ should have been ‘a part’. Again the author had submitted two other stories but sadly both were only 99 words – one was short, the other had ‘every thing’ instead of ‘everything’, so none for that author went through judging. A couple of stories didn’t fit the theme (a winter job) so weren’t successful for that reason alone.

The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way), or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly). Sometimes a story beats another because it has a stronger link to the theme so it’s worth writing a story to the theme rather than tweaking a story you already have to loosely fit it. Alternatively there may have been several stories on with same topic so I chose my favourite of those. With any competition, much rests upon the judge’s preference.

You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).

Apart from the top three and highly commended, there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.

*The theme for January is ‘a second-person story’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Friday 31st January. Details and entry forms on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition. So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.

*

First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £14 / $18):

Carol Allison with ‘The Christmas Tree’
He ponders the task before him.
He decides on the tinsel, that seems the easiest. Then he takes the colourful little wooden toys from the fragrant spruce and drags off the glass baubles. Lastly, the lights, always a difficult task.
There are a couple of chocolate tree decorations the children haven’t noticed and a sweet tasty gingerbread man which makes the job worthwhile.
Satisfied, he sits down to rest, it’s taken its toll on him. At twelve years old he isn’t as sprightly as he once was. Maybe he will just have a quick nap before his master gets home.

*

Joint second place (both winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £11 / $14):

Lesley McLean with ‘A Nutty Job’
A rich year indeed, copious amounts of delicious beechnuts rest in heaps below her drey.
Nutty usually works alone but this is an incredibly generous year’s end, so she calls out to others. Nutty and her chattering friends busy themselves, gathering and storing the nuts before the wicked groundsmen come along with their rakes and brooms to rape the land and pillage the precious supplies.
Soon the earth is awash with furry rodents. A scurry has assembled with the sole aim of collecting and burying, hoarding as much as possible to keep themselves and their families sustained until spring arrives.

*

Sue Massey with ‘Under the Doormat’
Magical. Pungent. Alive. I have to be very careful that I don’t maim, or kill. That would be unforgiveable.
I peel back a soggy door mat. It’s redundant but serves this purpose perfectly, by helping to retain warmth.
In awe of what I might find, I slowly remove the cover. A field mouse leaps to safety. Wriggling worms burrow into the darkness. Tiny beetles scuttle and scurry behind rotting vegetation. Snails retreat into their shells. Butternut squash seeds have germinated. Slug-nibbled cucumber grows a fur coat. Tea bags disintegrate.
Today’s winter job? Turn over the contents of my compost heap.

*

Third place (winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9):

Malcolm Richardson with ‘Afternoon Delights’
Since he retired, Fred found he had time on his hands. He’d met her Ladyship at the village post office; she needed a handyman at the Hall. He’d been active all his life and jumped at the chance. Two afternoons a week, the pay didn’t amount to much, although her Ladyship often had other requirements when his Lordship worked away. Digging the flowerbeds and vegetable garden, a cold and wet occupation in winter. The draughty greenhouse offered scant protection against the elements.
‘I say, Fred, any chance of planting some seeds upstairs this afternoon?’
A warm grin creased his face.

*

Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitions course worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9) – in alphabetical order:

• Elena Canty with ‘A Necessary Errand’
• Isabel Flynn with ‘A Wombat’s Work is Never Done’
• Kirtan Savith Kumar with ‘Christmas Morning’
• Sophie Toovey with ‘Match Making’
• Valerie Fish with ‘All I Want For Christmas’

*

Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:

• Jane Broughton with ‘The Bag, the Beard and the Wardrobe’
• Jennie Cordner with ‘Time to Give it Up’
• Lestie Mulholland with ‘A Seasonal Conversation’
• Paul Mastaglio with ‘Same Time Next Year’
• Richard Comerford with ‘What A Way To Spend Christmas’

Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.

If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.

Results of Morgen’s 100-word competition: November 2019

Hello everyone and welcome to the fiftieth month of this competition. There were 38 entries from 27 authors for the theme of ‘not his / her fault’. NB You can all send in three stories for a better chance of being picked.

One was disqualified for only being 99 words although there were two words (suit case) that should have been one so was actually 98. Fortunately the author had submitted a 100-word story so that went through. Another was 100 words except a hyphenated word (upside-down) shouldn’t have been hyphenated because it didn’t precede a noun, as https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/upside_downexplains. It was a shame as it was my favourite story from that author, who’d fortunately sent two others. Another (one of three stories from the same author) came in at 100 but had a word missing (had ‘of’ instead of ‘of the’ before a noun) so would have been 101 corrected.

Three had words that should have been hyphenated (chocolate covered, slipper clad, all important – before nouns) so went down to 99 words and were therefore disqualified. Sorry to the authors but I have to be fair to every entrant. Fortunately there were two other stories to choose from from each author but sadly one of the ones I ruled out was my favourite.

Two others, from the same author, were disqualified as they had rogue punctuation which, when reunited with the words they should have accompanied, made the stories 99 words. The third story then by default went through to the judging.

One story, though not disqualified, was discarded in favour of another of the same author’s stories because it had two ‘began to’s in it. While that’s not technically incorrect, where an action has ‘starts to’ / ‘started to’ or ‘begins to’ / ‘began to’ before it, most of the time they’re not needed because unless the action is interrupted, the verb alone works better / is stronger. An example would be ‘the phone began to ring’. If it stops without being answered then that’s fine (although it still rang!) but if not then just have ‘the phone rang’.

There was a story that was subsequently followed with a ‘corrected’ version. Although the rules do state that the first version of a story is the one accepted, I couldn’t see any difference and the original went through.

One story lost out for having a ‘his’ at the start of a sentence (before a verb) when it should have been ‘he’. Not the biggest mistake in the world but you should read your stories thoroughly before submitting. This was the only story from that author so s/he missed out. It’s always worth submitting three even if you think two are weaker than a third. I may think differently.

Another (from another author) lost a point for having words the wrong way round ‘said had’ rather than ‘had said’ – again this should have easily been picked up before submitting. Fortunately I preferred another story from this author so that was fine. Both stories were sent well ahead of the deadline.

The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way),or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly). Sometimes a story beats another because it has a strong link to the theme so it’s worth writing a story to the theme rather than tweaking a story you already have to loosely fit it.

You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).

Apart from the top three and highly commended, there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.

*The theme for December is ‘a winter job’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Tuesday 31st December. Details and entry forms on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition. So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.

First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £14 / $18) is below. I chose the following story for first place but was so smitten with one of Jane’s other entries, and as there’s only one prize per author, that I’ve chosen this second story too!

Jane Brown with ‘The Gift’
She was eight the first time it happened.
‘Mummy, there’s going to be a storm tomorrow.’
The next day, after the clean-up, they laughed. ‘She’s got the gift!’ they joked.
Soon they stopped laughing. The press took notice. Fires, hurricanes, tsunamis – day after day, she was faultless.
After the flood, people got scared.
‘She’s cursed,’ they said. ‘A witch. She’ll destroy us all’
She was placed in a padded cell, mouth taped shut.
A tear rolled down her cheek. It wasn’t her fault.
Her ‘gift’ was sight, designed to help, to warn.
And she had seen what was coming tomorrow.

***

Jane Brown with ‘The Typo’
Mr Higgensmith storms into the room, his face purple.
‘Well… we lost the Walkers tender. All because of a spelling mistake.’
‘Jim, you drafted this. Tell me why I shouldn’t fire you on the spot?’
Jim stammers, ‘Um…. Trevor edited it afterwards….’
Trevor glares at Jim.
Oliver from IT says, ‘Let’s just check the logs.’
He types some keys.
‘Ah yes. The file was changed yesterday morning. At 3am. By the user ‘m_higgensmith’. The ‘L’ from ‘Walkers’ was changed to an ‘N’.
The room goes silent.
‘Right. Back to work everyone.’ Mr Higgensmith says quietly. ‘Didn’t want the job anyway….’

***

Joint second place (each winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £11 / $14):

Darren York with ‘Another Promise Broken’
I’d made a promise to Mother that Richard would be the last. She wasn’t convinced though. I couldn’t help myself. I had a penchant for a smartly dressed man reeking of aftershave. Mum wasn’t happy. “Stop what you’re doing, Carrie. Someone will get hurt if this carries on,” she said, as I readied myself for the date.
Richard never saw it coming. They never do. He invited me back to his flat. It didn’t take long. He was dead before he’d finished his drink. It was his own fault for being so nice and asking me out. They never learn.

***

Laura Besley with ‘The Corrosion of a Marriage’
They sit in their familiar positions at either end of the sofa, remote on the middle cushion, dinner on their laps. Some evenings, like Tuesdays, they don’t even need to talk about what to watch (The One Show, Eastenders, Holby City).
At nine o’clock she goes to bed, reads, and is asleep by the time he comes up to bed after shooting at zombies on the PlayStation.
If you asked them how, when, or why they ran out of things to say, neither would know. It was an accumulation of big things and small, until one day, there was nothing.

***

Joint third place (each winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9):

Alan Barker with ‘A Perilous Profession’

Morgan paced up and down, cursing.

Since taking early retirement from his job as a miner, he’d embarked on a writing career. However, much as he enjoyed his new vocation, the lengthy silence from the publishers was testing his patience.

He was reaching for the phone when an email appeared.

*

Susan read with great sadness about Morgan’s passing.

In the short time she’d known him, he’d shown considerable promise as an aspiring author.

Then she noticed the date he died and hurriedly checked her outgoing emails.

Surely her letter of rejection hadn’t been the catalyst for his fatal heart attack?

***

Joyce Bingham with ‘The Grim Reaper’

It’s a thankless task, but someone has to do it, waiting in the shadows for the next soul. My mind plays tricks with me, although my body is no longer corporeal it’s like a phantom limb.

My very bones ache with the cold and the tingling of chilblains skitters across my non-existent skin. I wish I had some of the fires of eternal hell here to warm me up. I know for sure the man I await will lament that it was not his fault, but death does not care. He has already been judged and I want his soul.

*

Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitionscourse worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9) – in alphabetical order:

• Astra Lowelle with ‘Ashes’
• Carol Allison with ‘Happy Birthday’
• Isabel Flynn with ‘Daring Adventure’
• valfish56 with ‘Drastic Measures’

*

Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:

• Diana Hayden with ‘Mea Culpa?’
• Kirtan Savith Kumar with ‘The Watch’
• Paul Mastaglio with ‘Working Overtime’
• Sophie Toovey with ‘Blameless’

*

Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.

If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.

The latest batch of six-word stories

Hello. It’s been a really long time since we had any six-word stories. In fact it’s been almost a year; tenth November last year, since I posted any. That’s because I’ve only had four submissions since then. So without further ado, here they are:

From: Valerie Fish – Writing from the heart

• Born too soon, died too soon.
• Baby’s first steps; mum’s at work.
• Yesterday ninety, today my father’s gone.
• Even beds of roses have thorns.
• Writing’s saved me, thank the lord.
• Another month gone, another chance missed.

From: Susanne Stahley – writer, director, fiction, documentaries

• Even store perfume girls ignored Jeanne.
• Wintertime, snowbirds shunned the ripening blueberries.
• Without warning, the knife dripped scarlet.
• Angie flawlessly skated the ice electric.
• Waited… the dot never became plane.
• Red, purple, green. Worse hat ever.

From: Rehanna, connecting you with your audiences

• She stopped crying when she realised.
• Superglue never conceals damage to vases.
• Fee fi fo fum crunch burp.
• Pig uses bricks: enjoys wolf soup.
• As he fell, she jumped too.
• He gained confidence through attempting fiction.
• Nice hairstyle! It’s a wig. Chemo.
• Six words flash brightly on Twitter.

From: Maryam Kurbanova, writes poetry and essays

• Love it. Got it. Regretted it.
• Covered in chocolate. Got a smack.
• House on fire. Cousins came over.
• Last cookie. Time out. She started.
• I was happy, careless. A dream.
• Big shiny trophies. Mostly not mine.
• Bought the china. It collects dust.
• Tornado was here. Cleaned it yesterday.

From: Chong Teck SIM, Singapore, Bookworm, Volunteer

• Shaking bed. Vibrating floorboard. Annoyed neighbours.
• Fake watches. Unsuspecting tourists. Smirking businessman.
• Kidney stone. Flank pain. Distressed patient.
• Mentorship programme. Eighty-nine applicants. None successful.
• Graduation ceremony. Uninvited guest: acne cyst.
• Oxbridge summer programmes. Successful admission. Yay!
• Tomato-red soup. One spoonful: coughing fits.
• Spendthrift lifestyle. Little savings. Painful retirement.
• Speed dating. Pretty woman. No suitors.
• Wealthy family. Handsome lover. Still miserable…

Thank you everyone. They were fabulous!

Results of Morgen’s 100-word competition: October 2019

Hello everyone and welcome to the fiftieth month of this competition. There were 35 entries from 19 authors for the theme of ‘praise’. NB You can all send in three stories for a better chance of being picked.

One author sadly had all three stories disqualified for being under the 100-word requirement. Another entrant had one of their three stories disqualified for being 99 words. There was a word that should have been hyphenated but it still only counts as one word. Another of the same entrant’s story was 103 words for no apparent reason other than having too many words, which was a shame. Even more so that the remaining story was only 97 words so also disqualified.

Another ended up being 99 words because a time period hadn’t been hyphenated (two week break instead of two-week break). Fortunately the author had sent in two other stories, one of which I preferred anyway so that went through to the final judging.

The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way),or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly). Sometimes a story beats another because it has a strong link to the theme – and this is very much the case this month – so it’s often worth writing a story to the theme rather than tweaking a story you already have to loosely fit it.

You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).

Apart from the top three and highly commended, there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.

*The theme for November is ‘not his / her fault’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Saturday 30th November. Details and entry forms on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition. So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.

*

First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £14 / $18):

Jane Brown with ‘The Faulty Bot’

The first praise-bot rolls past. “You’re fantastic!” it says.
“Pass,” records Gavin, sighing. Quality control testing is just so boring.
More praise-bots roll by, one by one. Each spouting admiration.
“You are very intelligent.”
“Nice hair.”
“You smell lovely.”
“Great outfit.”
“You have a huge arse.”
“Stop test!” yells Gavin. “Fail.” he says, picking up the faulty bot.
Suddenly, Ted from Testing Room 2 runs in.
“Code red! We have a situation – a truth-bot is missing! Ah, there it is.” He grabs it carefully from Gavin’s hands and leaves.
Gavin trundles over to the mirror, examines his arse and sighs.

*

Second place (winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £11 / $14):

Jane Broughton with ‘Plant Life’
We talked to all the plants in a cursory way, chatting as we tended them, but we’d agreed to experiment by lavishing one with constant and continual praise.
We told it how beautiful, how clever, how strong it was and it responded.
It flourished.
Its stem thickened and its leaves became bushy. It was by far the tallest specimen and it even seemed to twist slightly towards the sound of our footsteps each morning.
That final day the first indication we had were the sharp blades of shattered glass outside the greenhouse.
We didn’t realise our mistake until too late.

*

Two joint third place (each winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9):

Astra Lowelle with ‘Hearing and Listening’
Willow had been playing violin for years. She knew she was a first-rate player, even if no one ever told her.
She knew because her music teacher nearly had a tantrum when she had called in sick a day before the recital. She knew because her mother had refused her a normal childhood ever since she had begun to take lessons. It was always one concert after the next.
But she wished someone would say she was good.
Even once.
But she realized they wouldn’t, so she’d learnt to really listen, and her violin told her each time she played.

and… Darren York with ‘First day nerves
I could see she was his.
They had the same eyes, same shaped face and the nose: straight, with a slight kink on the bridge.
I held her hand and led her to her chair at the front of my classroom.
She’d been crying; first day nerves getting the better of her.
She would be with me now for a whole year, a long time to be reminded of your husband’s infidelity.
I was a professional, these things happen.
She drew a picture of herself with ‘mummy and daddy.’
It hurt, but I smiled. “Well done, Stacy, that’s really nice.”

*

Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitions course worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9) – in alphabetical order:

• Carol Allison with ‘Living Her Best Life’
• Jennie Cordner with ‘Praise Be’
• Joyce Bingham with ‘The Humble Vegetable’
• Laura Besley with ‘Watch and Learn’
• Paul Mastaglio with ‘At The First Stroke’

*

Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:

• Alan Barker with ‘Badge of Honour’
• Ian Marshall with ‘Songs of Praise’
• Isabel Flynn with ‘Birds of a Feather’
• Lesley McLean with ‘Praise You’
• Sophie Toovey with ‘Meritocracy’

*

Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.

If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.

Results of Morgen’s 100-word competition: September 2019

Hello everyone and welcome to the forty-ninth month of this competition. There were 34 entries from 19 authors for the theme of ‘conservatory’. NB You can all send in three stories for a better chance of being picked.

Two were disqualified for being 98 and 99 words. Fortunately both authors had submitted other stories… yay. I offer a maximum of three because I enjoy reading stories but also in case one or more is disqualified. Oh yes, always half glass full. 🙂 One was 101 because there was no space between sentences so ‘it.Mum’ had counted as one word but obviously aren’t. Fortunately the author had submitted two other stories of exactly 100 words so they were fine.

Three others, sadly all from the same author, were 99 (two words should have been one), 97 (don’t know why) and 101 (because there was a word missing). The author was a regular entrant so there’s always next month. Another ended up being 98 because mother in law hadn’t been hyphenated (https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/mother-in-law).

One missed out because, however hard I tried, it had nothing to do with this month’s theme.

The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way),or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly). Sometimes a story beats another because it has a stronger link to the theme so it’s worth writing a story to the theme rather than tweaking a story you already have to loosely fit it. There are often stories similar in plot so some may have missed out being placed purely because there was another story that beat them purely for that reason.

You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).

Apart from the top three and highly commended, there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.

*The theme for October is ‘praise’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Thursday 31st October. Details and entry forms on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition. So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.

*

First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £14 / $18):

David Giles with ‘Keeping Quiet’ – partly because I love inanimate objects being the main character

The conservatory is the place where things are kept, maintained.
It remembers things. Things that were meant to remain secret. It remembers the shouts, the kicks, the slaps, the curses, the mutterings, the shot, the slump, the sawing, the digging, the wake, the comings and goings, and the purposeful plod of Detective Inspector Sparks.
And, just as Mr Sparks is about to give up his investigation, it will reveal its secrets: the creak and warp of a carelessly replaced floorboard, the steady release of a suspiciously putrid tang, the previously unnoticed stray hair.
And then the search team will arrive.

*

Second place (winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £11 / $14):

Chris Tattersall with ‘So Close Yet So Far’

 

He sat looking through the glass of the conservatory, admiring the flowers beyond. The colours were vibrant, the smells he imagined would be a sensual bombardment. He craved to pass through the doors into Eden but alas his condition wouldn’t allow it.
He placed a gentle hand against the pane where millimetres away a lily rested its petal.
She didn’t see a man that cared, she saw a vagrant, dirty palm on the glass and peering into the conservatory of her lonely isolated existence.
She screamed, he ran.
Their mutual passion could save them both, if only they knew it.

*

Third place (winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9):

Sophie Toovey with ‘Ruby’

He looked up at the clear panels of glass, held together by an iron web.
The stars were visible, though faint glimmers of light in the velvet sky.
The air was cold.
He brushed his hand against the rough carpet and felt the sharp pain sear his finger.
Sitting up, he retrieved the shard and pressed the wound.
There would be blood.
He looked down at the broken picture.
Ruby drops to mourn forty years he lost. He smiled at the grim irony.
Picking up a smooth stone, he raised his arm and watched the stars blink. Then he threw.

*

Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitionscourse worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9) – in alphabetical order:

• Alan Barker with ‘Touch and Go’
• Anne-Marie Latter with ‘Home Improvements’
• Carol Allison with ‘Afternoon Tea’
• Laura Besley with ‘When the Muse Refuses’
• Valerie Fish with ‘Rotten Tomatoes’

*

Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:

• Darren York with ‘Cold Caller’
• Isabel Flynn with ‘Those Who Live In Glass Houses Cannot Throw Stones’
• Katie Jones with ‘Top Secret’
• Paul Mastaglio with ‘Who Did It?’
• Rebecca Price with ‘In the Conservatory’

*

Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.

If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.

The free 100-word comp is open for October

Yes, September is closed and October’s theme of ‘praise’ is open, to be used however you see fit. For details, please take a look at the 100-word comp page.

It’s a free competition and you can win free …Editing and Critique or my Creative Writing Online Courses.

The page also lists the upcoming themes for the next few months so you can write them whenever you like but don’t submit early as they’ll be disqualified. Good luck.

Results of Morgen’s 100-word competition: August 2019

Hello everyone and welcome to the forty-eighth month of this competition. There were 44 entries from 21 authors for the theme of ‘escalator’. NB You can all send in three stories for a better chance of being picked.

A record (I think) ten stories were disqualified this month. Two for only being 99 words – one had the same word written twice the other had an ‘a’ missing before a noun (t-shirt in this case) which was a real shame because it was the only submission from a new entrant. Another had a word missing (don’t come to grief) so would have been 101. And another had ‘rude’ instead of ‘ride’ so lost points. Please read your submissions carefully before pressing ‘submit’.

One for 98 words because a describing adjective (soon to be) was not hyphenated when it should have been. Sadly the only entry from its (regular) participant. Another was 98 words for no apparent reason but did include ‘five-year-old’ (correctly) which could have been manually counted as three words. Fortunately the (new to this competition) author submitted two other stories although sadly one of those was also short: 99 originally but had ‘the the’ incorrectly so actually 98. Another was 99 because a word had been split when it should have been one (mismanagement). It’s a shame because it was a great story but the author had submitted two others (both 100) so my favourite of those went through. Another 99-worder was downgraded from 100 words because an adjective (dark haired) should have been hyphenated. It’s only fair to all entrants to have the same rules apply to everyone.

If you’re not using Word, please copy/paste your stories into the likes of http://wordcounter.net to ensure your story is exactly 100 words.

Another (one of three from a new entrant) lost points because it referred to an elevator (lift) as an escalator, which was a shame as it was my favourite story up to that point. Another piece had ‘stories’ for levels of a building, which is correct in US English (which it was) but we say ‘storeys’ here in Britain so not an error but it happens a fair amount in the UK novels I edit so worth a mention here.

The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way),or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly). Sometimes a story beats another because it has a strong link to the theme so it’s worth writing a story to the theme rather than tweaking a story you already have to loosely fit it.

You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).

Apart from the top three and highly commended, there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.

*The theme for September is ‘conservatory’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Monday 30th September. Details and entry forms on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition. So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.

First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £14 / $18):

Laura Besley with ‘Ships Passing’

Ascending: a girl, eyes bright and blue.
Descending: a boy, tired brown eyes.
Ascending: she checks her phone for work emails.
Descending: he plays a game on his phone.
Ascending: she looks up from her phone, sees brown eyes. Smiles.
Descending: he looks up from his phone, sees blue eyes. Smiles.
Ascending: she gets to the top, turns and looks down.
Descending: he gets to the bottom, turns and looks up.
On terra firma…
Briefly she hesitates, but then her phone pings and reclaims her attention.
He contemplates going back up, but he’s worried he won’t know what to say.

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Second place (winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £11 / $14):

Anne-Marie Latter with ‘Success’

Roll up! Roll up! Take a trip on the escalator of life!
That’s it, madam, step on at the bottom and hold hands with Davie, your perfect partner. Well, maybe not perfect, but you’re almost thirty and he will have to do.
Keep moving upwards because you have a wedding to organise and children to produce!
Now it’s time to sign these mortgage papers, don’t be shy! That house is all yours, as long as you keep paying the bank every month.
Throw your acting dreams over the side! You won’t be needing those anymore; dreams don’t pay the bills.

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Third place (winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9):

David Giles with ‘Harsh Lesson in Mortality’

Escalators used to terrify me. I was convinced that, should I make the slightest false move, I was liable to be sucked into the mechanism, dragged into some sinister underworld, and I would never get out again. One day I fashioned a little man out of a drinking straw and stuck him between the grooves, watching him disappear into nothingness. Where has he gone? I asked Mum.
To heaven, I expect, she replied.
When we went back down later, I saw him on the floor, all dirty and twisted, being swept into a dustpan. So much for salvation, thought I.

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Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitionscourse worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £7 / $9) – in alphabetical order:

• Alan Barker with ‘Down the Up Escalator’
• Ez Baril with ‘A Swift Kill’
• Lesley McLean with ‘The Mean Machine’
• Paul Mastaglio with ‘Read Between The Lines’

Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:

• Darren York with ‘The Chicken and the Fox Paradox’
• Valerie Fish with ‘Passing Strangers?’

Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.

If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.