Are we allowed to have it critiqued before turning it in?

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Several pages were blank, and she thought about the writers whose stories they soon would bear. "Shall I cast creative spells towards them?" She sipped at her tea, then shook her head. "No. They're Hatrackers. Creative writers one and all. Ideas will come to them." She nodded to herself, took another sip of tea, and smiled.

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Are we allowed to have it critiqued before turning it in?

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The answer is, perhaps not clearly enough, here:

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Please do not put early drafts of your story through the regular F&F threads for first 13s, for that would destroy the anonymity of voting.

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I understand that crits would be nice, but not doing them to preserve anonymity does mean we're all at the same disadvantage.

(Further, the idea is not so much to win, as to get creative. Everyone who enters will be a winner, just by completing a story.)

And, everyone should get some crits, and it's possible too to revise the story after the contest and get more crits either in F&F or in Ready for Market.

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Anne, I will contact the WoW with your request. I could do with one myself ...

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"Your page is a bit blank, TaleSpinner," she said. "Just a few wisps of concept. You wrote the triggers. I'd a'fought you'd 'ave a story by now."

"You might have indeed thought that, but you'd be wrong. I wrote the triggers a long while ago, shortly after the last contest; I filed them, and forgot them. Other stories occupied my mind."

"Well, I'm sure you'll--"

"I was going to ask for a creative spell for Anne, me and a few others, but snapper tells me you miss sometimes. Is that right?"

The Witch o' Words smiled. A warm smile, the smile of a grandma's love.

" 'E never sits still, snapper; I fink that's why 'e's a lorry driver. He was young, fidgeting, and it missed, only grazed 'im. He now 'as a very creative teddy bear."

"Hmm ... Well, I've decided to use two of the triggers and have some rough ideas, but it's hard to tie it all down with a tight plot--one that will fit 2000 words. A plotting spell would help, and I'm sure a few other Hatrackers would appreciate some magical assistance ..."

She laughed.

"And 'ow will you develop confidence in your own talents if you write under a spell? No, me dear, you know as well as I that you're better exploring the magic of your own imagination. But ..."

If the story is finished, please feel free to e-mail it to me. Of course, if you'd like to let it sit for a while and revise it, that's fine too.

In a week or two I'll start a new thread in the Challenges and post first 13s as I receive them, together with information on how I'll create and distribute the anthologies, instructions on voting etc.

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Gan, that's great news.

If the story is finished, please feel free to e-mail it to me. Of course, if you'd like to let it sit for a while and revise it, that's fine too.

In a week or two I'll start a new thread in the Challenges and post first 13s as I receive them, together with information on how I'll create and distribute the anthologies, instructions on voting etc.

Me, I've made some good progress. I have an idea I'm happy with. All I need now is a beginning, middle and end, and to write it .

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I'm going to let it cool for a week, and then take another shot at editing it. I'm not sure if I'm happy with the way it ends, but we'll see. I'm fairly new to flash fiction, so its been an interesting experience.

I look forward to seeing the first 13's.

"Tough triggers," I said.

"Thanks," she said.

"I mean, it's hard to find a story that fits."

"Well it wouldn't be worth writing if it were an easy story to find, now would it, me dear. Cuppa tea?"

Before I could respond, a cup of Assam appeared at my side. Two sugars and a little skimmed milk, just as I like it.

"Do you have a story?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "Unfortunately, it's a novel, but I think I can cut a bit of it into a 2000 word sudden piece ... I think."

"I'm sure you can," she said.

"Um ..."

"Yes?"

"One of my friends would appreciate a spell, one of those creative ones ... chocolate was mentioned."

"Chocolate?"

"Yes."

"Anne doesn't need a spell--"

"But I didn't tell you her name--"

"Don't interrupt me, dear. She don't need a spell, not Anne, nor any of the Hatrackers. Well, not a creative spell ... No, she'll be fine. As will all the others. I'm seein' their progress in me tome. Some squirly, some taking shape, at least one in first draft. No chocolate required, me dear, you'll all write really super stories and I can't wait--"

Her doorbell chimed.

Can somebody please put a thread in the writers challenge area already!

I'm ready to go, I just need to know when and where, and that info should probably go in the writers challenge section.

But the end date is some while away, so you have time to let it sit and revise if you'd like.

Mind, if you do want to send it, I know a grand lady who's thirsting for a read ...

"Now what are you up too?"

She smiled, her black and green teeth poking past her gray lips. "I'm brewing another patch of my creative spells."

"Why?"

"The dearies are all falling behind. They need my help after all. This will be my third batch."
She held up a blue appendange. "Alien finger for Science fiction."
She grabbed a leathery fan with tiny scales. "Dragons ear for fantasy."
She lifted an eye ball, its brown pupil shifting about. "Zombie's eye for horror."
She reached into a box and dropped in a vice. "That is so they can compress their masterpieces under the word count limit."
Than she showed me a bottle of brown liquid. "Finally, shoe polish to shine up their prose."

I watched her pour it into the stew. Something didn't look right. I snatched the bottle from her grip and sniffed in the sweet aroma.

"You crusty old witch. No wonder why hardly anyones finished. It's molasses."

I've received one or two stories by e-mail so far.

I'm letting mine stew at the back of my mind for a while. I like the basic concept but the plot's not quite right. I face a long car journey tomorrow, and hope that it will give me time to consolidate my ideas ...

Yeah, I pictured her rather cool and elegant. I pictured her youngish, too, or at least ageless.

"I thought the story was too big for 2000 words," I said, sipping the tea she had kindly magicked up for me. "But I like it, and it's maybe an opportunity to set up a novella I've had in mind for a while. Same ideas, but now maybe tighter. It has a beginning, middle and end, and leaves the door open for being used as an intro to the novella -- which now has a richer backstory because I've incorporated some fresh ideas as a result of a couple of the triggers. Now, I plan to give myself a day or three plotting the details before finally sitting down to draft it. I've got a couple of weeks, until Feb 28th, right?"

"Yes," she said, slowly turning the pages of her tome. "We have stories, from honu, shimiqua, Bycin and snapper--"

"Which reminds me. Why do you appear different to snapper? To me you're elegant, maybe Victorian in style, and to snapper you're--"

She leered, dribbling foaming spittle from a mouth suddenly full of green teeth. Lifting her tea cup in both hands she slurped noisily, licked her lips, and then, as she put the cup down, morphed back into elegance with a big grin of even, white teeth. "Like that? As you know, TS, witches can change their appearance at will. When I first met snapper in his rather distant youth, he'd just seen the Wizard of Oz for the first time. He knew I was a witch and expected me to look like the Wicked Witch o' the West. I didn't want to disappoint him …"

We both sipped at our tea. Then she turned the pages of her tome once more. "Yours is taking shape, and four stories are finished." She giggled. "I do so love fresh stories. I'll read these later tonight ... I wonder what's happening with the others. They're all swirly on my pages--but none are completely blank, as far as I can tell …"

Yes, I thought, savouring my tea. I wonder how the others are doing …

I'm willing to do extra crits to make up for my late arrival, if that helps!

Yes, writing a short is a great way to push yourself, as many of us have discovered.

For the triggers, there's no hard and fast rule. They're really there to get our creative juices flowing, writing a story in territory that perhaps is unfamiliar, and discovering we can write more than we imagine we can. The trigger can be the focus of the story, or tangential, or indirect. It provides a constraint that, oddly, can drive creativity, by pushing one in unexpected directions, beyond the tramrails of our usual ideas.

Yeah, that's exactly what has happened to me. I had an idea for a situation, asked myself why the characters would be in it, and the darn thing expanded into a novella.

Not only that, it circled around to link up with some ideas I already had on the back burner for a novella. While I'm pleased about that, for the triggers have provoked the invention of a richer backstory, my challenge is to make what may become a new episode in the novella into a satisfying sudden fiction story.

I figured it would be a quick mornings' work to put down the product of my nighttime inspiration. Sadly, it was not to be. The gremlins of genius had fled with the dawn, leaving plain old plodding me to figure out the story for myself. I found large gaps in the story by daylight that hadn't appeared during the night, and I had no idea what to do with them.

Long story short (no pun intended ... well, who am I kidding, of course it was intended), I finally finished today. Now all I have to do is figure out of it's any good or not. I hope nine days is enough time for that project.

AMPAglut, yes there's room for you, and welcome.

I dare not speak for the Witch o' Words, but I imagine she'll tell us if she gets unhappy--and last time I saw her, she was reading our new pages with a smile ... a not unpleasant smile :-)