Flashes of inspiration #2 – Challenge

February 2, 2021January 17, 2019 by Dion Winton-Polak

Writing prompt: A wooden table. Slanted slats like prison bars. A flower blossoming, poking through.

Morning all, and welcome to the second of my Flash Fiction contests.

If you want to catch up on what flash fiction is, and why it might be fun to join in, check out my previous post about it. The last contest has been edited to reveal the authors and the winning piece.

On to the next one, then. Things are pretty precarious out there in the world at the moment and frankly I could do with a glimpse of something else. Something…wondrous.

Once again, the images I post can be used any way you like to spark some inspiration. However, each of the word prompts that I post must be used somewhere in your writing.

Oh, and the screws are slowly tightening. Can you evoke wonder in a mere 400 words? The submission deadline for this second flash is midnight on Wednesday 23rd Jan 2019. Please e-mail them to dion@thefinetoothed.co.uk as my main address is still playing up.

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Writing hard

June 4, 2021January 10, 2019 by Dion Winton-Polak

Evocative image. Scuplture of miners, hard at work. Cramped. Struggling.

How do you earn trust?

The blog’s not been happening as regularly as I’d have liked. It stems from a number of issues but the root of it all is that writing is hard. Coming up with new things to say, or even forming fresh takes on old topics takes a lot of time and effort, and all the while there are voices in the back of your head saying things like ‘Who’s going to read this?’ or ‘Who’s going to care what I think?’

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Flashes of inspiration #1 – Entries and voting

February 2, 2021January 9, 2019 by Dion Winton-Polak

Writing prompt: Night. A transparent umbrella. A girl sheltering within, silhouetted against a fire.

[socialpoll id=”2533970″]

Time’s up on our first Flashes of Inspiration contest. (I say contest, but it’s all in good fun.) The rules were simple. All our intrepid writers had to do was produce an engaging piece of fiction, using no more than 500 words. Any genre, any format. The featured image was open to interpretation, but the piece must include the following three words:

Isolation / Bubbling / Tribal.

Let’s take a look at what came in:

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Flashes of inspiration #1 – Challenge

February 2, 2021January 3, 2019 by Dion Winton-Polak

Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to the first of my Flash Fiction competitions.

You can write in any genre, any format. Experimentation is fun so try to push your boundaries. The images I post might help to evoke a tone or a setting for you but they don’t have to be taken literally. However, each of the word prompts that I post must be used somewhere in your writing. I’d like your pieces to be no longer than 500 words, please.

The submission deadline for this first flash is midnight on Wednesday 9th Jan 2019. Email them to dion@thefinetoothed.co.uk please, as my main address is playing up.

Your image prompt is up at the top and here are your first batch of words, randomly snagged from the O.E.D.

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Flashes of inspiration

February 10, 2021December 18, 2018 by Dion Winton-Polak

Evocative image. Vivid flashes of lightning in a purplish night sky.

As wiser and more articulate people before me have noted, creativity is muscular; you need to flex it regularly to build and maintain its strength. Writers use many different techniques to exercise their imaginations, from notebooks to role-playing. There is no right or wrong way to do it, only what you find useful and what …

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