Thank you ☺️ Yours is good too!

It was a house both abandoned and inhabited: window grime crusted into continents, one pane smashed by a child long-grown and maybe dead, hot pie steaming on the table. At night, polystyrene ceiling tiles hummed harmonies to distant lorries, and door handles turned with no hands on them. #WriteCBC

I put the papers back in the drawer at midnight. Hidden under the stack of journals, I spot the faded yellow cover of a school notebook, with a name on the cover that’s no longer mine. Deep down I hoped Jack might be nosy enough to find it one day, but he was far too polite. #WriteCBC

Sheffield, UK, English and I prefer ‘miaow’ because it feels more insistent than ‘meow’, like the cat opening its mouth wide and demanding to be fed. My cat-obsessed daughter spells it ‘meow’ though.

Thanks for the shout out!

She worries she has strayed too far ahead of him and as she turns a corner, a long-necked gilded virgin rises from her plinth like a great gold cormorant surfacing. Beneath her cape-wings shelter supplicants, hands pressed in prayer. Tara presses hers as if to join them. #WriteCBC

Amy is waiting to pick Mum up from church when the message arrives.
‘Possible maternal half sister,’ it says, ‘add to family tree?’
The tap of the old woman’s cane on the flagstones echoes closer and closer.
Amy shoves the phone back into her pocket before God can see.
#writeCBC

That does sound tricky. I guess you could write 100 words of what your characters would have thought of your course, if your head is still in that space. It would count as character development, right?

I think the multicoloured too - because real books come in lots of colours!

The darkness becomes beaks and bones and coal black wings and you recognise the half-rotted crow corpse you hid beneath the floor boards because you couldn’t resist the scratchiness of feathers filling your mouth. It is now many, multiplied. The unseen breather is whatever gave it life.
#WriteCBC

The air-con in the lab thrums an octave lower than on my salesfloor above. Disembodied hearts beat out a harmony. That, and the syrupy scent of blood, always make me imagine I'm entering the belly of a beast. But she is there, hands slick with gore, smiling. The lab is her safety. For now.
#WriteCBC

Ugh that sounds really stressful! I hope your knee heals soon 🤞

The flame grew wings; a head; a tail. A fire dragon flew from Ella’s hands to join its icy twin who stood before her.
She recalled Mum’s fear when she’d created them, one lonely snowy day when she was six.
“Don’t worry.” Ella embraced her. “At Christmas, even humans love magic.”
#5ActFestiveStory

Ella felt ice mix with the fire she held in her heart. It did not melt. The fire burned strong.
An ice-crowned figure took Mum’s hand.
“You knew this day would come,” he said gently.
“Arise, Ella, warm-hearted Queen of Winter. May your rule bring the Christmas mine could not.”
#5ActFestiveStory

“Jack Frost fears only fire,” Mum chanted between sobs. Ella ripped a branch from the Christmas tree.
They ventured out into the snow, makeshift torch blazing ahead. Ella glimpsed an icy face amid a tornado of snowflakes.
“Your father!” Mum gasped as their torch was snuffed out.
#5ActFestiveStory

“You wouldn’t know her,” Mum said. “Don’t matter anyway. Let me down fifty years ago. Let me down today.”
“She must be here in the village,” Ella said. “The road’s been blocked for days.”
“Nowt to do wi’ me if she is. Get yoursen home for tea. Leave me to my lonely Christmas Eve.”
#5ActFestiveStory

Ivy twisted her ring as she peered out the window to glimpse the card’s deliverer. Outside she saw nothing but an unbroken blanket of snow. She’d already known anyway, when she saw the robin perched in front of that familiar church. This card could only be from a ghost. #5ActFestiveStory

Thank you so much! Now to decide which of my stories is worthy of Kat’s attention…