Seventh Quark Magazine On Line

December prompts 009

2010-12-09T11:47:00.001Z

I have decided to be a dog

The soft eyes close

We take our shoes off at the door, we smell lavender

A small English boy wearing a German helmet

Can you move the Mini?

Mr and Mrs Wales are Dead

Digging up Bones

An island of Apples

Press button for laughter

Barely thirteen months after

We have sold the horses and bought a tractor

Yellow Peril

Should we kill the chicken or wait for eggs?

Do not expect applause

How long does the sound of an accident linger?

Wearing Shorts

December Prompts 006

2010-12-06T11:13:00.001Z

PS Anyone toying with the idea of joining BC in 2011 remeber there's a half-price deal close December AND you dodge the VAT rise

PROMPTS

A blessing be upon your house

I am sure I have known this before

The Humbling

We could, of course, simply ignore it

The A-Team

The Broccoli Issue

Advanced Mail, Second-Class

Losing the Dogs

Where I'm Calling From

Citizen 14356

The Baker, the mother, the child

Poems for Strange Times

I have it! I have it!

The Women's Century

There were five amazing sisters. There was a brother

Voices of Silence

The Rise of the South

In the interest of consistency lesson five and six will come before three

Every person find something and be ready

There is no music now, in the whole of Oklahoma

Prompts December 3rd

2010-12-03T10:10:00.000Z

Why not join us at BC for a month of flashes and stories.

IT's FREE!

Email to Aimee

What a joy to climb into bed

BILL

Five and half million white plastic bags

STALINGRAD

I don't have a best side, take my picture in the dark

SHADOW

It's hard for a girl being rescued

TOUCH

Two sided triangles going cheap

BOMBER

In the falling heat of a late August night

1939

Who's turn in the barrel?

I know it, you know it

His anger pervades this place

Class 4N made Daisy cry

Known to bite.

Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up

The winter evening settles like talcum from a child

Borzoi

One Saturday, we went down to the river

December Blast! Absolutely Free!

2010-12-01T09:14:00.001Z

BC is free for the whole of December 2010

Why not join us for our December "BLAST" where we all attempt to write at least one piece a day, or 31 in the Month, refusing to wind-down for the last month of the year.

Prompts every day, flashes and poems and stories posted anonymously via a secretary, feedback from everybody on everything posted.

TRY IT (You know you want to!)

http://bootcampkeegan.yuku.com/directory

Go Here

2010-11-30T08:04:00.001Z

http://bootcampkeegan.yuku.com/topic/12840/master/1/

Free BC!

2010-11-30T08:03:00.001Z

Part of Boot Camp is open to all-comers for the month of December 2010
and then, for any 2011 memberships taken up before the end of 2010, we are offering 2-for-1

Normal costs are £66 a month. Buy one, get one free

Pay for a month, get two
Pay for two months, get four
Pay for 3 months get six

Get eight months for the prices of four, 10 months for the price of 5, or pay for 6 months and get the whole of 2011

http://bootcampkeegan.yuku.com/forum/newtopic/id/63

Prompts

2010-11-09T07:52:00.001Z

It is 1939 and we are tired

Lies, Damn Lies

Six rechargeable batteries, one not in line

07:42

Who sleep and wake, who murder and intrigue

What Innocence? What Guilt? Are they my fingermarks?

PIN!

The hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket

Integration!

Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

And rain

Forever is shorter than you think

Two Pens

Perhaps, there is always an alternative, as there is always dying

First you need to know the gradient, then...

Iron Man

Twenty boxes of past its sell-by date coffee

You could use the books

Beautiful boys with bright red guitars

Prize poet lost for words

Above the baking tits of St Tropez

I only met her once, at Cliveden

The guitarist's writer-wife

Pills to brighten up your day

Lord Miles is caught up in something fishy

One Village at a Time

2010-02-20T12:54:00.000Z

Changing the World

One Village at a Time

Alex Keegan: alex.keegan@btinternet.com

My wife works for BT but has been working on secondment with Global-Ethics and One Difference. Global Ethics works by selling products and using all the profits to fund good work in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently Debbie went to see how just £7,000 can transform the life of a community by giving a village access to clean, safe water.

I became interested, not solely because I care, but because I can see a way to raise money, and directly understand the result. Supporting huge charitable organisations is, for me, soulless. They are all, no doubt “worthy” but I have no emotional sense of my money or my effort doing something specific.

I love the simple beliefs of Global Ethics and “One” and I want to raise as many of those £7,000 units as I can. To be able to start with nothing and end with a specific village, real people, and know we have changed lives and saved lives, that is just fantastic.

That’s where the “I” stops. Now about US.

March 22nd is World Water Day, and quite naturally Global Ethics will be holding various events. Here is OUR event, on behalf of G-E and ONE, us, Joe and Jane Soap, getting together to aim to build one pump, two pumps, four pumps, ten.

IN ONE DAY.

The idea is simple. It is aimed at both READERS and WRITERS. We want a thousand people to commit to just one 24-Hour effort on March 22nd.

Think, if 1,000 people pledge £7 (the joining fee) we have a Play-Pump. If we get 2,000 people and they raise sponsorship, of, say, £70 each, that would be 22 Play-Pumps, twenty-two villages, thousands, THOUSANDS of people whose lives we change for the better, forever.

HERE’s the DEAL.

Starting at midnight March 21st (00:01 on March 22nd) a group of writers start writing stories. They write one an hour, and they try to stay awake, writing, for as much of the twenty-four hours as they can. Sure many will need to take a break and sleep, but some hardy souls will last the 24 Hours (only the first six hours are tough) helped on their way by the knowledge of what they are achieving, and that they are being read (more on this later) and that at the end of it there will be an anthology of the best work, and their name, their achievement posted in perpetuity.

We have run such “crazy” marathons before raising money for various causes. In one we had a THIRTY hour marathon. Half a dozen hardy souls managed the whole thing and we raised more than ten-thousand pounds.

But that was an impromptu, shoe-string, just-tell-friends congregation. Think how different this could be with Global-Ethics and ONE behind us, and with some truly spectacular prizes for readers and writers.

I am visiting Global-Ethics on Wednesday 24th February to tie-up the prize-structure and some truly wonderful opportunities for supporters of “One Village at a Time” the marathon itself.

What Would You Have to Do?

WRITERS

1 Sign up as soon as possible, pay just £7 to join, direct to G-E or ONE.

2 Tell your friends what you are doing.

3 Beg steal and borrow sponsorship

4 Start at 00:01 and write a story.

5 Continue writing or take breaks, trying to write as much as you can.

6 Post on the Facebook and other forums and be enthusiastic.

READERS

1 Sign up as soon as possible, pay just £7 to join, direct to G-E or ONE.

2 Tell your friends what you are doing.

3 Beg steal and borrow sponsorship.

4 Read stories and comment (they will be anonymous)

5 Continue reading or take breaks, trying to read as much as you can.

6 Post on the Facebook and other forums and be enthusiastic.

We are in discussion on the specifics but G-E/ONE will be offering superb prizes in a number of categories, and one will be spectacular, involving shiny airplanes, and crossing the equator.

Visiting one of the villages and seeing the children, seeing them having fun on a play-pump, seeing all that beautiful, clean, safe water… that is a life-changing experience. It could be yours.

The Suggested Categories might be…

Best Story or Stories (General)

Best “African” Story or Stories

Best Poems

Best Motivator, Best Helper

Top Sponsorees

What Do I Say to My Prospective Sponsors?

WRITERS could ask for a fixed amount, or a payment per story, or so much a word, or could ask for so much “per hour I stayed awake.”

READERS could ask for a fixed amount, or a payment per story read, or could ask for so much “per hour I stayed awake.”

Prizes will be funded from Story Fees. I believe prizes are necessary as they give the writers a genuine challenge, a competitive field, and help raise energy levels.

But we want to raise money for the charity, AND have fun.

You raise money for the charity by

(1) Paying the joining fee and
(2) Asking Friends and Family to sponsor you.

If you then are entering a story or stories in the short-story writing competition “in the normal way” you would pay a fee for that, but note ALL entry fees will go to prizes. That is, if we collect £10,000 in entry fees, we will pay out £10,000 in cash or goods.

Payments will go direct to Global-Ethics/ONE

Please note you might write 2, 5, 10 or 24 stories. We hope you would send them all in, but you would NOT be required to enter every story in the competition!

As the maximum theoretically possible would be 24 stories at £5, I would suggest that any writer raising £120 or more in sponsorship would be allowed to enter his/her stories free.

Thus some contestants could raise money in £5 amounts, others raise money by persuading friends to sponsor them.

Prizes and Prize-Giving

This will be arranged, probably in London, by Global-Ethics

Look on Facebook for:

GROUP: One Village at a Time

EVENT: One Village at a Time

Please, only join the group and/or the event if you are prepared to actively participate. Firstly, pay that £7.

Don’t “just join” the group or the event. Putting your name on the list tells us that you are serious and want to build these Water Pumps.

There will be a lot of news forthcoming in the next week. Prizes will be firmed up, the Prize Day will be announced, and details of the anthology will be confirmed.

Please SIGN UP. When you sign up, post your targets as a reader or a writer. Please post and say, “I have signed. I pledge my £7. I will raise sponsorship and I am aiming for £X,XXX
We can build a Play-Pump

We can build another.

We can change the world ONE VILLAGE AT A TIME

Neat!!

2009-05-30T17:32:00.001+01:00

Check Out

~THIS~

http://saltpublishing.com/

They have a neat video "VIRTUAL REP" and Ballistics gets featured twice. COOL!

Save the Short-Story Publishers

2009-05-20T17:50:00.000+01:00

Folks, I heard on the grapevine that SALT PUBLISHING
have had a serious drop in cash-flow and really need some urgently

If we could all of us buy just one book
(but I guess a few more would be a good thing)
that would surely help a lot.

If you don't have a copy of Ballistics order one today, PLEASE.

I think if you order direct it's better for them, but you can order through Amazon or a bookshop, anywhere

Ballistics: Alex Keegan

ISBN 978-1-84471-477-3

Maybe you could buy 1-2 of mine as presents, help two causes at the same time?

(Smile at this point)

Save the short-story. Support short-story publishers.

Alex

Capel Bethel Web Site

2009-03-13T23:23:00.001Z

The Beta of Capel Bethel's Web Site is now up

http://web.me.com/snowball136/Site_2/Welcome.html

Prompts

2008-12-15T12:14:00.000Z

It begins as a creaking, a sort of ache

CROWS

The skyline bristles, the sky behind is red

BRAZEN

The gate will not rest

Grave men, who when near death, see with a sharper light

The magic of the persistent question

I am not sure if I'm still here

The without eye, the tongue within

There are walls that stand and walls that will crumble

Why the giraffe? Why the elephant?

He pulls at the cloth and cups spill

Sucking the decayed breasts of death

There are leaves on the water, but the water is pink

He spreads his knees, he laughs

OK, let's go!

The soot that falls from dead cold chimneys

The ship of fools is in dock

Falling and Flying are the same: only the landing is different

My father in my mirror

Black book, blank book, blank look

A Hanging

Whose woods are these?

BELLS

A confederacy of the delusional

PUS

I me a traveler, a simple soul, and quiet

SLICE

That Easter I was late leaving, things to tidy up

RAZOR

MORE INTERVIEW

2008-12-14T15:10:00.000Z

MORE INTERVIEWS AT

http://www.vanessagebbiesnews.blogspot.com/

Interviews Galore!

2008-12-11T19:37:00.000Z

I'm on a few radio stations tomorrow (see below)

an also on Vanessa Gebbie's Blog

http://www.vanessagebbiesnews.blogspot.com/

BBC Radio Berkshire between 0720 and 0800

http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/local_radio/

and

BBC Radio Solent at approximately 0815

http://www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire/local_radio/index.shtml

I'm also on

BBC Southern Counties Radio, some time between 7 & 10
_________________

Interviews

2008-12-08T11:06:00.000Z

There's a long interview of mine being run over five days on BBC Southern Counties Radio

Fred Marden's early-morning show (0700-0900)

I suspect that interview will focus on the Clapham Crash (Dec 12th 1988) and maybe the writing will get a mention on Friday.

A much more detailed interview starts soon on Vanessa Gebbie's Blog, starting Friday 12th and running for a number of days

http://www.vanessagebbiesnews.blogspot.com/

SUNDAY PROMPTS

2008-08-31T07:48:00.001+01:00

Tell us the story about the little boots

DONKEY

When Saturdays were only for football

Torn Envelope

And the pit-heads baths is a supermarket now

Death by Sunbed

There was a picture made of flowers

Dogs

He worked in the steelworks

How you can push, push with your anger

Tonight, January fog

How much that dies with them

A mother moves away to birth her lamb

Let the number be learned

In a few month's time I will stop and linger

Old men like monkeys

February Streets

In clear snow like laughter

I have known too many of the murdered

BELL

Mrs Blenkinsop keeps a tiger in her cellar

DISH

You wouldn't know the place now

EAR

Old, so old, and short of wind

We went on holiday to London with Mam

We who wait

The old sad things have been forgotten

When old age came he stood up and kicked it

On the wrist, a watch

Saturday Prompts

2008-08-30T06:56:00.001+01:00

Barely a twelve month after
Tonto
Three old shops, all in the name Jones
Do not ask, "What is it?"
FOLD
Violence upon the roads
Two dark tractors, pausing
A pale light
sawdust bars, the sounds of angry men
BUZZ
A lovely piece of slate
There is a girl standing there
Our life is changed: their coming our beginning
Prophet
It was a soft October night, summer at last
His quick body
You can cast out past the fish
The sun used to shine, remember?
Leave, then
We heard a distant tapping on the road
A sunrise like military best
Smudge
She slipped away to die quietly
ITCH
I love this, as some day a child will love it
I have mislaid the key
For I have known them all already
Only an avenue, dark and nameless
I see the image of a naked man
We did not dare go near them
The entrance is blocked by brambles
Late in the summer the strange horses came

Tuesday prompts

2008-08-27T08:06:00.001+01:00

I told my son about my father
There's water still in the bath
Majestic
The pub quiz: it's all about winning
Bridge
Why not be a Brain-Surgeon?
Kite Surfing 101
There's a problem at the bridge
Trying to fix a light
Big Boy
Sudoku for the damned
The boys done well
A handy electrical gadget
A quarter ton of lego
The sound of cars passing in the wet
Why she doesn't phone
Whisky without the e
In the not too distant future, if all my dreams come true
This is a stupid way to die
With sawdust, string and patches
From the hill I saw a line of snaking tenements
Bush Meat
Under an awning, talking about nothing; rain
Peonies
Is surviving suicide a success or failure?
Two rooms done and the doors closed
A three-legged hippo
It may be pretty, but is it appropriate?
Holes
Arctic elephants are the same as African ones. But colder.
Treasure Island

Bank Holiday Prompts

2008-08-25T16:25:00.000+01:00

Pictures of old London
Undercoat
Discovered by a monk
Futurama
It torments me, this injustice
Crayon
She is big and plump and happy
If you can keep your head
Refreshed every two minutes
Shifting the furniture
Glasses, but naff
Tea, biscuits, a rest
The sound of bickering
I need to be very drunk
16:16
Oh for a muse of fire
What bells are these that toll?
Fokkers!
Do NOT close the cupboard
Anyone can use them
I wondered lonely, under a cloud
City of Angels
The thing I like is overcoming
Another Monday!
Muscle for the wing
Just at that moment, Carol came in the back door
He lifted a bowl of nuts and offered them
Deep Blue Goodbye
The Edge of Reason
I’ve come for a payment on the bed
Why the vacuum cleaner makes me angry
Out of the Sun
What I’m saying is I’m a drunk, not an alcoholic
Electric Polisher
An amazing ending
Mother, mother, where did you go?
I try not to see my sister too often
He was a sort of commando
A thousand blessings, Effendi
I claim death
The difference between clams and mussels
The café is shut.

Prompts For Sunday

2008-08-24T19:44:00.001+01:00

I've been away a few days, but here:

When all this is over, I shall give them the finger
The weakening eye of day
I saw an x-ray of a baby
AXE
Unwearied still, lover after lover
Not even in my thoughts
I did not think death could undo so much
DANDELION
She is beautiful. I dream about her.
The rain flies down the street, flaps outside our door
BLOOD TEST
All the sun long it was running
Appointment in Basingstoke
The stove’s heat mottling her legs
Moving the books
Her dead body wears the smile of accomplishment
I know where you are
Thinking of an old lover makes it hard
JUG
We renounce everything except the self
Uzi Wedding
Her floured hands at the baking board
Show me the kitchen, the knives
Three thousand years ago they didn’t give a fuck
GUN
I would like to be terminally ill
Red and yellow, silver-back, half-imagined things
16 GIG
I kept my wife’s heart in a canary’s cage
DUFFY’S TRICK
I’m going to sail round the world
I cannot speak to you
Horses passed from dawn into the night, horses, horses, horses.
PAIRS
We come to terms with shade, the principle of grey
One or two blackmailers, a poisoner
Unnatural Acts
Every fear is a form of desire
Use the back entrance

More!

2008-08-07T09:45:00.001+01:00

These are singled, the alpha-listed, then in reverse.
try reading it all, singing them, chanting

Wait for a voice to call you

They have promised to send a train, and we will leave
Father Maloney’s stare
Imagine a tender gravity, falling
Decision
And if I am writing, I am not holding my wife
I would like to sit close to the doors
How Morning is, and quiet
Tock
I have told you all this to give you pain
Bamboo Squares
They bubble-wrap hearts now and sell them three for two
The cook’s boy, the cleaning girl
VENOM
Stone to stone, heart to stone
CHIME
The rustle of history
NAIL, Hammer
Time clears its throat
BALL
Days of great love; of destiny
Do mad people love? What are there letters like?
GRATE
Birds Eye Frozen False Tears are on Offer
Jack of Hearts
We will talk about great things, and football
TAXI
I am silly, filled up with sleep and want
One Potato, Two Potato
Hardly a Joker
Should you not have time to memorise these instructions
Flat-Pack Marriages
The Chemistry of Distaste
And then cracking twigs
And we all stared at the box, and it inside

And if I am writing, I am not holding my wife
And then cracking twigs
And we all stared at the box, and it inside
BALL
Bamboo Squares
Birds Eye Frozen False Tears are on Offer
CHIME
Days of great love; of destiny
Decision
Do mad people love? What are there letters like?
Father Maloney’s stare
Flat-Pack Marriages
GRATE
Hardly a Joker
How Morning is, and quiet
I am silly, filled up with sleep and want
I have told you all this to give you pain
I would like to sit close to the doors
Imagine a tender gravity, falling
Jack of Hearts
NAIL, Hammer
One Potato, Two Potato
Should you not have time to memorise these instructions
Stone to stone, heart to stone
TAXI
The Chemistry of Distaste
The cook’s boy, the cleaning girl
The rustle of history
They bubble-wrap hearts now and sell them three for two
They have promised to send a train, and we will leave
Time clears its throat
Tock
VENOM
We will talk about great things, and football

We will talk about great things, and football, VENOM, Tick-Tock, Time clears its throat, They have promised to send a train, and we will leave, They bubble-wrap hearts now and sell them three for two, The rustle of history, The cook’s boy, the cleaning girl, The Chemistry of Distaste, TAXI, Stone to stone, heart to stone, Should you not have time to memorise these instructions, One Potato, Two Potato, NAIL, Hammer, Jack of Hearts, Imagine a tender gravity, falling, I would like to sit close to the doors, I have told you all this to give you pain, I am silly, filled up with sleep and want, How Morning is, and quiet, Hardly a Joker, GRATE, Flat-Pack Marriages, Father Maloney’s stare, Do mad people love? What are there letters like? Decision, Days of great love; of destiny, CHIME, Birds Eye Frozen False Tears are on Offer, Bamboo Squares, BALL, And we all stared at the box, and it inside, And then cracking twigs, And if I am writing, I am not holding my wife

BLAST IT!!

2008-08-01T01:32:00.001+01:00

Boot Camp is running an August Blast. (FREE)

http://bootcampkeegan.yuku.com/

This involves "EXTREME" activity to get us through the hardest month for writers.

It involves members (and guests) committing/attempting to write EVERY day (at least SOMETHING)
and attempting to complete a flash or story or poem EVERY day for the whole of August.

A set of prompts will be posted every morning and twice every evening (see explanations elsewhere)
and Members/Guests should try and produce a flash or story a MINIMUM of once a day.<

The trick is to try to write THREE!

For the five Sundays there is also a STORY deadline 8PM Sunday.

The ideal participant would write a flash every day, some days more than one, AND manage a story each week

PLEASE don't bleat and say it cannot be done. We KNOW it can be done. We know that the quality of work
IMPROVES due to the pressure, the hectic nature, the "buzz".

Boot Campers and guests (Children in Need, Previous Blasts, East of the Web) have been responsible for hundreds
of publications and more than twenty first prizes in competitions, all from "impossible" blasts.

There is something in the very nature of suspending all and crashing forward, a sense of fear moves to one of liberation

ALL WE CAN SAY IS TRY IT.

CURRENT BOOT CAMPERS, FORMER BOOT CAMPERS AND STRANGERS/GUESTS ARE ALL WELCOME. There are a number of "AUGUST BLAST" forums. Apply here (no charge) and Alex will arrange access to the other forums.

We ask a few things

1. Commitment. If you aren't prepared to "give it a go" don't bother applying.

2. A sense of constructivity, in work, commitment, mutual motivation.

3. A willingness to (briefly) critique flashes and critique stories (authors are anonymous) and NOT to respond when your own story is critiqued 4. NO Flames. I do not warn people. I simply delete them, IMMEDIATELY.

The Last Ever 7Q Comp

2007-01-10T21:38:00.001Z

The Phoenix Prize Saga

I received the email from the balancing judge at 12:54 December 16th. His 1-2 was the reverse of mine (so another decision to make!)

The final results were posted on the Seventh Quark Blog on December 18th.

I left for California on December 19th

There was no promise, nor would there ever be, to pay the prize "the instant" the prize was announced. What magazine does that? 7Q5 was scheduled for the end of January and the prize would have been paid out at the same time. I consider that normal practice.

I returned from the US, severely jet-lagged, the afternoon of January 1st and was in London again January 2nd. I wrote to the winner on January 2nd saying how rough I was and asking her to chase me Wed-Thurs. I received the confirmed address at 15:18 on January 4th. Yes, folks, six days ago. I had the confirmed address six days ago, less than six days before the payment was physically received by the author.

Jet-Lag and a family illness, wife off work, kids off school, and we are all still groggy and to add to my workload I am running an intense five day course at Kingfisher Barn which begins tomorrow, Thursday January 11th.

And yet, according to some I have been avoiding payment of the prize!

The prize is paid just three weeks after the results and that is SLOW?

I have waited more than a month on more occasions than I can remember. Peninsular Magazine routinely sent payments with the relevant publication. Payments I receive from The New Writer come in the same envelope as the magazine.

Checking with Boot Campers, many wait a month, months for prizes. Maybe, just maybe, magazine editors have lives?

Phoenix Prize Result

2006-12-18T20:25:00.001Z

Final Judging (blind) by John Ravenscroft

WINNER

Irrigation T Williams, Brighton

Second

Dave Eggers Stole My Suitcase David Prescott, Hereford

Third

A Good Day For Trumpet Fish David Prescott Hereford

Fourth

The Power of One Hazera Forth, Befordshire

Fifth

The Big Enigma Mel Fawcett, Cumbria

Phoenix Prize Problems

2006-12-04T18:48:00.000Z

The response to The Phoenix Prize (and to the previous Frantc Flash) was very poor.

Seventh Quark (meaning ME) lost money on the Frantic Flash.

As entries stand we will lose money on the Phoenix, also.

This is a fantastic opportuntiy for any half-decent writers to win a first prize. Get your entries in NOW!

We need 13 more entries just to break even (a £200 first prize and no place prizes) but I am not prepared to lose on two consecutive competitions.

I'm thus keeping the comp open a little while longer in the hope that the various promised stories arrive.

The following is a FIRST PASS (meaning it's rough and positions could change) which gives an APPROXIMATE standing (in bands) of the stories. The list is to show you ROUGHLY where your story stands but please note that within a band, just because you are first doesn't nmean you are top of that band.

IRRIGATION
A Good Day For Trumpet Fish
The Big Enigma
Mechanical Animals
Saviour of Mons

The I in the Sky
The Truth Game
Soul Kill
Final Knockings
Not Los Angeles

Cold Bones
Elixir of Youth
Taking Care
Sea Songs & Bladderwrack
The Leg or Oliver's Lamp

Strangers
Glass Jars
Rough Justice
Poor Daisy
Growing Pains
Crossing the Bridge
The Visitor
The Good Deed
Clouds
Perpetual Paradise
The Assessment

Unmarked

The Power of One
The End of the World is Done

No Internet

2006-12-04T18:47:00.001Z

(Monday)

I've had no web access Thursday-Sunday so am now behind.

Hope to catch up tomorrow

Alex

Competition Deadline

2006-11-07T07:58:00.000Z

Please note that the deadline for The Phoenix SS Prize is now November 30th

Entry is £6, First Prize £200

Details at http://www.7thquarkmagazine.com

NO Frantic Flash 4-5 November

2006-10-30T06:09:00.000Z

We are up to our ears with the Children in Need Marathon
and demand for the FF is not that high (most are in CIN)
so we wl not hold the Frantic Flash on November 4-5

The next Frantic Flash will be held 3-4 December

AK

Seventh Quark Issue 4 Posted

2006-10-06T12:02:00.000+01:00

I was shocked rigid by the extra postage cost under the Post Office's new charging system.

new system means "everything costs a lot more"

Worse, of course, is they don't like A4

Anyway all 7Qs have gone out (second class mail)

The costs of some to the US were £3:50 ($7) and that's just MADNESS

One envelope with 4 mags and 4 CiN books cost £11:50 ($22) to send

DONE! (Well, Almost)

2006-10-02T18:17:00.000+01:00

Picked up 7Q4 from the printers this morning, all stapled and folded but they weren't trimmed, so I'm back there first thing and they should be going in the post tomorrow

Alex

Top 12 in Frantic Flash

2006-10-02T00:57:00.000+01:00

Here are the top 12

TOP FIVE

Taking tea with the other woman
China
Waltzing Down Main Street
Forgetting About Fudge
A Quiet Drink

The Next Seven

098 Safehouse
097 The Strange Case of Jeremy Browne
095 Hiraeth
095 Roy
093 Cash Corner
093 A Faint Cold Fear
089 Gin

A decision will be made very shortly on the top 5.

Frantic Flash Prompts 2100 SUNDAY

2006-10-01T20:52:00.000+01:00

Read all the prompts QUICKLY.
Now read them bottom to top.
Now close your eyes and remember them
Now read them again

Can you hear one prompt and its voice?

Start with a voice if you can.

PROMPTS

The Hosts of Rebecca

USURY

Sleeping With Fudge

RATIONING

Great Britain, Ha-Ha-Ha!

GULAG

The Idea of Home

PRUNE

I Love You, Miss Tavistock

REVEREND

Why Hoss Cartwright Never Got the Girl

CHEESE

Song of the Earth

MOON

Those Magnificent Girls & Their Sewing Machines

MOVIES

Rape of the Fair Country

MR BLUE

Wolves Eat Dogs

CHANCRE, MR PEPYS

Saturday Night Feature

RESCUE ME

A Faint Cold Fear

THE ICEMAN COMETH

Jeremy Browne's Guest

Frantic Flash Prompts, 1800 Sunday

2006-10-01T16:39:00.000+01:00

Still not that many entries, so a great chance to win

PROMPTS

The Bastard Jones and His Bastard Cohorts

CHINA

Eleven Lucky Breakaways

CHECKMATE, Mrs Smith

How to Charm a Weasel

My Penis & I

The Hay-on-Wye Mafia

CALF

The Regina Monologues

Death in East Grinstead

Police, Popcorn, Pomegranate, Policy

BIRD, SAIL

Don't Worry, Dear. It's Been in Greece For Nineteen Years

Probably Not Benign

The Remarkable Battle With Basingstoke Colts

Courses For Horses

Cafe au Saint Germain-en-Laye

I Think She's Upstairs, But Don't Quote Me

German Kissing

Twenty-Four and Three-Quarters

Eloise Believes Different

Petticoats, Daisy-Chains, And Soft Summer Falling

0900 October 1st Frantic Flash Prompts

2006-10-01T08:49:00.000+01:00

Here are the Frantic Flash Prompts for 0900 Sunday.

Remember you can use one or as many as you like.

TIP, try COMBINING prompts in unusual ways. My favourite technique
is simply to use any prompt in ":any old sentence" right at the start
but "finding a voice" then to simply cast around for a second
prompt that "answers" that opening.

You'd be amazed how often this triggers amazing connections
and genuinely fresh material.

Meanwhile, please email if you're "in" for 09:00

You have 75/80 Minutes

Alex

PROMPTS

They Shall Know Us By Our Velocities

Bloody Foreigners

The Ancestor's Tale is a Tail

An Inconvenient Truth

TRAMP

You Never Had It So Good

Black Rain

When Scots Were Irish

The Lost World of Frieze-Green

NO

Waltzing Down Main Street

Five Out of Seven in Guildford

A Bridge Not Far Enough

Song of the Earth

Howling at the Moon

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Chicken-shit

Bus to Malpas

The Importance on Not Being Earnest

Cheep!

Blessings, Bleedings, Songs, Leeches

CROUP

Taking Tea With the Other Woman

IMPORTANT NEWS

2006-09-29T07:13:00.000+01:00

7Q4 ("Right") is printed and should go out this weekend/Monday.

Just waiting on the folding/stapling from the Printer

IMPORTANT NOTE

If you are a 7Q subscriber please email Alex Keegan and confirm
your subscription and current contact details. 7Q is only being sent
to those subscribers who do confirm and are checked off

REMINDER THE 7Q FRANTIC FLASH

Saturday-Sunday the Eleventh Frantic Flash

£6 Entry, or 3 for £15 pre-paid)

Minimum Prize £100
(50% of Entry guaranteed, average 65%)

Sign up as a possible entrant so we have your Email address.

Prompts sent 0900-1800-2100 Saturday and Sunday (UK Time)

You then have 75 Minutes to write your story and email back

80 minutes if you reply immediately and say "I'm in"

Shortlist at the latest Midnight Monday

Low Entry (typically 20-40 stories, so a great chance of winning)

It's a great way of accessing the unconscious (no time to make mistakes)
and the quality is surprisingly high.

Any surplus goes to fund Seventh Quark Magazine

If you would like to receive the emails, email

alex.keegan@btinternet.com

*******************************************

Just the FF-11 Details

2006-09-19T13:16:00.000+01:00

The Seventh Quark Frantic Flash Competition.
(Sept 30th & Oct 1st)

TWO Entry Days ("First weekend of the month")
SIX separate time-slots. (0900-1800-2100) (UK Times)
SIX sets of prompts. (6-20 prompts)
Entrants can enter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 times with appropriate fees.

£6 for a single story.
3 stories for £15 if pre-paid.
4 stories for £20 if pre-paid
5/6 stories for £25 if pre-paid

Please note there can be no refunds if writers are blocked or ill.

It's too complicated to deal with!

NO word limit, minimum or maximum.
75/80 Minute time-limit for added pressure!

All entrants can access all stories for discussion (author-blind)
Within 30 minutes of story time-slot closing.

Titles scored and updated on website in real-time with scores
Short-List by Monday Midnight.

Independently Judged Results by Thursday Midnight
or
A Reader Vote, Shorter Short-List published in Seventh Quark

£100/$200 guaranteed First Prize.
Prizes updated on line as entries increase.

Minimum of 50% of Entry used for prizes, average 60% before costs.
To date:
3,527 in Entry Fees
2,130 in Prizes = 60.4% paid in prizes
Costs are taken out from the 39.6% surplus
All surpluses go to Seventh Quark magazine

Peer feedback available on all stories, if desired.
Feedback from Alex Keegan available on all stories
Note this is done privately so stories are not "published"
Any entrant can request their story NOT be seen by the group.
All stories are author-anonymous

Up to ten stories may be published in Seventh Quark Magazine
(maximum to date 5)

Run by a team that between them has won almost 40 first prizes.
Readers have won almost 100 First Prizes

More on Flash Compettitions

2006-09-19T12:10:00.000+01:00

There are many flash competitions out there for writers to cut their teeth on, some free entry but with small prizes, others members only.

Here are the ones I could find.

Below these more details of the 7th Quark 11th Frantic Flash
(30 Sep-Oct 1st)

You will see that the 7QFF has a number of unique selling points.

www.chapternverse.co.uk Every Friday (24 Sept)
£0 Entry £5 prize 300 Words No Time Limit

writersbillboard.net (25 Sept)
£2:50 Entry No cash prize! 400 words. No time limit.

www.atticdwellers.org.uk (26 Sept)
£0 Entry. No cash prize! 300 Words No Time Limit.
Members Only

www.allaboutwriting.co.uk/flashcompetition.htm (28 Sep)
£0 Entry. No cash prize! Monthly. 60-500 Words No Time Limit.
Winner gets booklet

www.chapternverse.co.uk Every Friday (29 Sept)
£0 Entry £5 prize 300 Words No Time Limit

www.flashwriters.co.uk Monthly,
Members Only (30 September)
£0 Entry £20 prize 100 Words (3 prompts) No Time Limit?

www.mmminc.org/html/contests.htm (30 September)
$10 Entry. $200 Prize < 1,000 words. No Time Limit

www.rhyminromeo.com/page2.htm (30 Sept)
£0 Entry £50 Book Token 300 words. No Time Limit
Flash starting with a given line...

www.redpens.co.uk Members Only (30 Sept)
£0 Entry £30 Prize 500-1,000 Words
No Time Limit
Title MUST BE "Mind Your Language"

www.thewritepath.co.uk/competition.htm (30 Sept)
£0 Entry Gift Certificate or Book of Choice

(I couldn't get this URL to work)

www.twistedtongue.co.uk/competition.htm (1st Oct)
£1:50 £?? Prize (Percentage of entry fees are shared out)
Minimum 500 words. No Time Limit

The Seventh Quark Frantic Flash Competition.
(Sept 30th & Oct 1st)

TWO Entry Days ("First weekend of the month")
SIX separate time-slots. (0900-1800-2100) (UK Times)
SIX sets of prompts. (6-20 prompts)
Entrants can enter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 times with appropriate fees.

£6 for a single story.
3 stories for £15 if pre-paid.
4 stories for £20 if pre-paid
5/6 stories for £25 if pre-paid

Please note there can be no refunds if writers are blocked or ill.

It's too complicated to deal with!

NO word limit, minimum or maximum.
75/80 Minute time-limit for added pressure!

All entrants can access all stories for discussion (author-blind)
Within 30 minutes of story time-slot closing.

Titles scored and updated on website in real-time with scores
Short-List by Monday Midnight.

Independently Judged Results by Thursday Midnight
or
A Reader Vote, Shorter Short-List published in Seventh Quark

£100/$200 guaranteed First Prize.
Prizes updated on line as entries increase.

Minimum of 50% of Entry used for prizes, average 60% before costs.
To date:
3,527 in Entry Fees
2,130 in Prizes = 60.4% paid in prizes
Costs are taken out from the 39.6% surplus
All surpluses go to Seventh Quark magazine

Peer feedback available on all stories, if desired.
Feedback from Alex Keegan available on all stories
Note this is done privately so stories are not "published"
Any entrant can request their story NOT be seen by the group.
All stories are author-anonymous

Up to ten stories may be published in Seventh Quark Magazine
(maximum to date 5)

Run by a team that between them has won almost 40 first prizes.
Readers have won almost 100 First Prizes

Win a Prize! Free Entry

2006-09-19T11:15:00.000+01:00

Talking of prompts (and see the Boot Camp Keegan blog most days for BC Prompts) I took a scan of my email trash and found this lot in about two minutes.

A bit like those "found poems"

IMO these spammers are wasted. They should be writers.

Anyway, an Alex Keegan Novel of your choice to the best story using some of the below as inspiration. Second prize is two AK Novels...

I'll judge FIRST on quality of story and second on ingenuity.

TIP: prompts work by "letting them happen" not by tortuously engineering texts to fit them in.

LOOK!

Your cash, orange throated
Your future, oyster tree
Your future, pearl hardening
Hi, narrow-necked
Your money, palm honey
Hi, much-branched
Your Health, North-Seeking
Your cash, olive family
Better future, woman movement
Hi, pale bark
Your health, pale reddish
Aggressor Punk
Guesswork Numb
Order status mid-thoracic
Top-hat letter-size
Encore hot seat
Out, his ferocious stars that about you have to us back
Gasp overtime
Bonjour/Salaam from marrakesh
Unauthorised Access to Your PayPal Account
Merciful
Spelled try different key words
Clutton Bunfight
And Maybe it's yours about
Fire hydrant
News maps
Wails on Sunday
Typo Merciless
Narcissism Predisposition
New Moderator Needed
Lard Ass Blake
South-East Yesterday
Axis of Two them, Appeal to Buy Off Enemies
Join Alerts Create
Mountainous Curse
Monday and Strikes
Sure Words
Substantially
And tackled him
Floodlight Anglican
Canal people
Overpower Acrobatics

Seventh Quark Issue 4

2006-09-15T07:22:00.000+01:00

Good News Bad News?

A New Issue of 7th Quark goes out next Friday (Printer Dependent) and I have some time on my hands (oh time, time) so expect to see Issues 5 & 6 following close behind.

Still desperate for GOOD material.

If you look at a piece abnd think, "Yeah, I could send that..." it ISN'T good enough.

Winning Writers. We are happy to reprint comp 1-2-3s as part of our policy of showing aspiring writers what wins comps.

PS read the "winners" of a large international competition last week. One was utter DRIVEL and of the rest I don't think one was good enough for Seventh Quark

PS Today's hits take the BC total to 164 for the year.

Alex

A Few More Prompts

2006-03-16T09:49:00.000Z

National Service

ZULU

His Latest Paperback

Ripper

Architectural design

Poetry, the Basics. Lesson One: Love

Scotland 1-2-3

Plain Omelette Without Eggs

Biker! Biker!

Susan and the Sauna

I May Be Your Brother

Problems!

2006-03-14T10:19:00.000Z

It is easy to fill a magazine with "OK" stories, run-of-the-mill, me-too stories.

It's easy to think, ah-well, at least that's another issue out there.

When we started 7th Quark Magazine, our brief was to break away from the "Disease of Competence" swamp, from all those magazines we collect and often don't read, or read and don't finish.

I have barely ever finished a "typical" literary magazine, and even when I have, only one story in a hundred truly effects me or stays with me.

The small magazine market in the UK seems to be far more aimed at developing writers than aiming to be a source of real quality. Instead of holding up great stories for intermediate writers to aim at, the market seems to display stories which are barely above the good beginner/intermediate level.

I see stories winning competitions that wouldn't make a "par" score in Boot Camp. I see 30 minute flashes winning story competitions.

But how often do we see a story that wins a competition, that MOVES us, CHANGES us?

We are under no illusions that Seventh Quark is the New Yorker, but we HAVE to aim high. There may be room for another me-too forgetable magazine, but that's not what 7Q intends to be. If we can't find higher quality work to print then we don't go to print. We are happy to print solid decent work in our virgin spot, but for the rest, our standards are tougher.

To date we have had support from top writers, Steve Almond, Karl Iagnemma, George Saunders, Curtis White, Fay Weldon, Gina Ochsner, DT Max, Will Self, Tim Lott, Peter James, Jim Crace, Alice Elliot Dark and others.

We have featured a string of competition winners and seconds , and will continue to do so. We will continue to publish good craft articles.

But we are finding it seriously difficult to accumulate fiction of sufficient quality to fill the magazine on any sensible timescale. Publication dates move back and back and back.

The magazine is not subsidized. We have no Arts Council Grant. As yet we cannot pay contributors.

To date we have managed to partly subsidize the magazine via regular monthly competitions, but support for these has remained fairly low, creating work but little financial return.

Delays, delays, and now we have had a competition winner withdrawn, we are set back another story, another week or two.

7Q4, 7Q5, 7Q6 will appear, and they'll appear as fast as they can be filled, with good material, not "filler". When, is anybody's guess.

If you are a current subscriber and unhappy with this state of affairs; if you wish to cancel your subscription, please email me at alex.keegan@btconnect.com, or telephone.

Alex Keegan

FF10 Sunday 2100 Prompts

2006-02-05T21:01:00.000Z

Frantic Flash 10, February 2006

PROMPTS

SUNDAY EVENING 2100

75 Minutes to write your story inspired
by one or more of these prompts.
An extra 5 minutes if you email and say "I'm in!"

Superman is Unwell

Dream Team, Nightmare Coach

The Loan Arranger and Tom Toe

The Gossip at the Village Well

OC OC IC

Witchfinder Specific

OLOLAQICI82QB4IP

Pink, if you Like

Singing to the Choir

Sheila, on Saxophone

She Sells Sea-Shells on the Sea-Shore

Police Report: Hamelin

Bronchial Adventurism

Cider

There is a Tide in the Affairs of Men
(While Ladies Paddle?)

Frantic Flash Prompts Sunday 1800

2006-02-05T17:17:00.000Z

Frantic Flash 10, February 2006

PROMPTS

SUNDAY EVENING 1800

75 Minutes to write your story inspired
by one or more of these prompts.
An extra 5 minutes if you email and say "I'm in!"

The Lake County
Digging in Ireland
Blessings
Fear of sailing
Beauty & the Best
A Man, Four Women, A Lift Shaft
The Blacksmith's Legs
Going done the Beer For a Couple of Pubs
The Penis Mightier Than the Sword
Sardines, Probably
Thomas Thomas and His Little Problem
Black is the Colour of My true Love's Heart
Helen the Magnificent (Deceased)
Tripe
The Difference Between Onions, Leeks and Shallots
Peeling Potatoes

FF10. prompts Sunday Morning

2006-02-05T08:59:00.000Z

Frantic Flash 10, February 2006

PROMPTS SUNDAY MORNING

75 Minutes to write your story inspired
by one or more of these prompts.
An extra 5 minutes if you email and say "I'm in!"

The Stones, The Stones!

Drinking With the Harlequin.

Married, and not Even Pregnant! (There's Posh For You!)

Jones the Post

Creating the Perfect Green

Child Found Floating in Basket: Authorities Investigating

Curried Spouts & Other Natural Disasters

Taking the Dog For a Drive

Nightingales

He Sniffed Glue, Once

Breakfast With the Queen

Brain Found in a Bush

Chimp, Chump, Chap

Ecstasy

Frantic Flash 10. prompts Saturday 2100

2006-02-04T21:02:00.000Z

2100 Saturday Prompts.

Roof Torn Off
Choosing Between Coffee and Chocolate
12x1
Imagine, President Bush Thinking (Try)
Punts
The Chaucer Clinic
The English Lung Wage
Brackets! she exclaimed.
A story beginning, "As you take the top off it
Captain Morgan, Saint
Saturday Night, Bethlehem, Trouble Brewing
The Afghan Affair
Why Kittens Taste Nice Boiled
Black

Time Again to Get Frantic

2006-01-28T08:15:00.000Z

Next weekend (February 4th & 5th) we get back to the normal Frantic Flash schedule and from then on we we'll have Frantic Flash Weekends on the weekend that includes the first Sunday of the month.

The recent FF had just 27 entries, virtually all old-hands at Flashing, and we rarely get more than 40.

This is policy. I like to run lots of small, regular competitions for the buzz, but not have competitions that are so large and have hundreds of entries that take me away from my own writing for too long.

Just to remind you. You receive an email (if you have signed up) at 0900, 1800, 2100 on both the Saturday and Sunday. The prompts are in the email plus they are displayed n my blogs and the 7Q site. You then have 75 minutes to write your story and submit it. If you email immediately to say "I'm in! You get an extra 5 minutes. Entry is £5, Prizes are Half the Pool, typically £50-£100.

All timings are UK Time.

Here are this morning's Boot Camp Prompts.

Email: Wrong Number

The Sadness of Weddings

Her Family Tree is a Willow, I am Pine

One or Two Natural Wonders of the World

Last Tango in Basingstoke

One Hundred Million Pounds

In His Cottage Kitchen, Just Talking, About Books

After They Leave

Lawrence of Bulgaria

The Bitter Things, and Time

FF Provisional Results

2006-01-16T00:45:00.000Z

TOP 3

Britain's Smartest Rodents
Tennis With Dennis
A Spill of Moonlight

Close Up

A Big Fish
I'm OK, You're OK
Toot, Half Welsh
Outside, Alive
Power of One: Eleven Reasons
Is It That Time Already?
One

Final Set of Prompts 2100 Sunday

2006-01-15T19:37:00.000Z

16 Prompts. Good Luck

This is Harry, Mr Privation Officer

An Officer and a Gentleman (When Sober)

Tea or Coffee? Cocoa? A Kick in the Nuts?

Jasmine Jones and the Delicate Odour Problem

Ordure

The Philosopher & The Sewage Farm

OC

Casablanca, Lawrence, Just 39 Steps, My Friend

The Power of One

They're Not Hanging Level, Jones

Why It's Obvious God is Welsh and the Devil Was Born in Lithuania

Las Vegas is a Carbunkle

Tarzan and the Tool-Eater Jaguar

The Boys Who Stole the One Ton Safe From the Local Post Office

Life is Just a Towel of Cherries

Blue, By Blenkinsop, Wagstaff White,

Alex

1800 Sunday Frantic Flash Prompts

2006-01-15T17:13:00.000Z

Losing Chelsea

The Long Winding Road Through Wales

Atilla the Bun

A Gooseberry in a Lift

Laughter From Another Room, The Light Fading

Tollpuddle

It's a Flower, Pink, Looks Like a Daisy

Jenny Jenny and the Junipers

My Name is eddie, I'm a Coward

Meeting After the White Gate

Shall I Compare the To An Outside Toilet?

A Gazzunder Goes Under the Bed

Black & Bright

Tosser, Screwit, Furkup and Soddem, Solicitors

OK, OK, OK-OK-OK

Brighton Bag Ladies' Annual Conference

0900 Sunday. Frantic Flash Prompts

2006-01-15T07:51:00.000Z

Here They Are and Good Luck.
==================

Up Too Early, A Day to Die

The Open University Tutorial on Terrorism 101

How Not to Read

Deadwood, on Stage

The Mouse That Thought

Choose China, Charming Charles

A Rose, a Name, By Any Other

Thou Art Whole, and I, I am Undone

If Music Be the Food of Love, What's a take-Away at One in the Morning?

Tennis With Dennis

The Budgie With a Badge

The Scent of Chrysanthemums

Here Cum Dee Train

General: Did You Come Here to die?
Soldier: Nah Sir, I cummed yer Yester DIe

Nuclear Chocolate

Alex

Saturday Night 921:00) Flah Prompts

2006-01-14T20:31:00.000Z

Here they are!

Enjoy!

Dinner With Saddam

The Mother of All Headaches

Bluetooth and Other Bastards

Ice-Skating for Lunatics

Swimming to the Azores

A Blessing, a Dressing, a Settling, and Down

Toot!

Half Welsh, Half Scottish, Half Irish, Can't Do Sums

Twice a Half of Two-and-a-Half

Kissing Barney Stone

A Kidney? You're Kidding Me

You Put Your Left Leg in, You Bring Your Left Leg Out, But Still Your Yogi Doesn't Love You

Brown, Vicar

Alex

18:00 Frantic Flash Prompts

2006-01-14T17:45:00.000Z

A few more prompts to play with. 75 Minutes, and good luck to you all

Moldo the Magnificent (on his nights off)

Jack in the Doldrums

Circumnavigating the Globe Solo With a Friend

Peach, Vanilla, Peach

Seven Lucky Breakaways

Acceleration is On

Chimney Cheese

The Invoice

Focus, In Focus, Out-of-Focus

Blarney

Jimmy Jewell and The Travers Girls

Silent Night, What a Fight

The Soft, Slow Drip of Blood of Night

Frantic Flash Prompts

2006-01-14T08:57:00.000Z

Eczema and Other Joys

The Blonde, the Redhead, The Brunette, and Two Pounds of Butter

Cortisone

The Nigerian Who Really Did Have Millions to Get Out of the Country

4AM, Tea, Self-Pity

Jack Spratt, Would Eat No Fat

Run It Up the Flagpole, See Who Salutes

Cake, Lobotomy

Gently, Gently Down the Stream

Acid, Sugar, to Mars, Ping-Pong

Fifi the Flea, Fell in Love, With a Clown From a Flea Circus

In a Hole, Still Digging

OR SEE BELOW

SCREEN OFF CHALLENGE: With screen on, type: The Light is Red, Weeping, Bleeding

THEN, SWITCH OFF THE SCREEN AND WRITE FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES "BLIND'. (IF YOU CAN'T SWITCH THE SCREEN OFF SET THE FONT COLOUR TO WHITE, OR COVER IT). TRUST ME, THIS IS FRIGHTENING FOR FIVE MINUTES BUT ULTIMATELY LIBERATING.

people using this prompt may take an extra five minutes (to tidy) BUT MUST SEND IN THE RAW VERSION OF THE STORY (UNTIDIED) AT LEAST FIVE NINUTES BEFORE THE NORMAL DEADLINE.

That is you must send in the unedited version by 70 minutes, but have until 80 minutes to send the tidied up version. WE MUST RECEIVE BOTH VERSIONS, ONE IN 70, SECOND WITHN 80. (This is to prevent cheating).

Good Luck

Alex

Frantic Flash Advice

2006-01-14T07:46:00.000Z

(74 Minute Warning)

Frantic Flash Prompts will appear at 0900

When Boot Campers and others raised money for Children in Need, they wrote a flash an hour for up to 30 Hours straight. Already 35 of those flashes have placed and many others are out there under submission.

In my own case I think at least half of the flashes are solid/good and maybe 5-6 are really good. Those I have sent to good competitions.

For those who have never tried writing fast to a deadline, consider it. You may "freeze" the first few times, but once you learn to "let go" your unconscious will surprise you.

THIS was a flash, and THIS and THIS

Flashwriting (one word) releases ideas and attitudes that often surprise us. We break away from the obvious and predictable. The unconscious is a powerful place. We should use it more!

When you see prompts, don't dive in, but also don't think too hard. Read all the prompts and "stay loose". Allow the bizarre combinations to enter your spirit. Roll them around, join prompts together. The harder you think, the more concrete, the worse will be your story.

Good Luck

Alex

2006-01-13T00:14:00.000Z

Frantic Flash This Saturday and Sunday

Seventh Quark has had 7 Frantic Flash Competitions and one FF for an iPod. After a little break they are back, this weekend and again at the beginnig of February.

There are six time slots.

9AM
6PM
9PM

Saturday and Sunday

Entrants get the prompts by email (and they are displayed on the 7Q site and here). They then have 75 minutes to send in a story using one or more of the prompts. If they email me to say "I'm in!" they get until the 80th minute.

Marks are posted very rapidly and the shortlist should be posted around midnight Sunday.

Entry is £5 per flash (£5:50 if paid by PayPal) and the prize is guaranteed to be £50 or higher. Currently we have 20 sign-ups but some may well enter more than one story. The Prizes may reach £100 if the usual last-minute entries turn up.

Contact Alex at alex.keegan@btconnect.com

Alex

Bits & Pieces

2006-01-05T07:08:00.000Z

The Interior of One of Alex's Log Cabins in Wales!

Just a reminder that Seventh Quark is always looking for good material up to 5,000 words, art-work for the covers (we are not paying yet but we might run a competition soon for photographers!)

Keep an eye on 7Q On Line for news and good writing. The Frantic Flash Competitions are back and there's one the weekend of the 14-15th January.

Way back we had some great shots taken in Venice but they were lost in a system crash (back-up, wossa back-up?). Photos neend to be very high resolution (even 4 Megapixels is dodgy when printed in A4) but should be INTERESTING, quirky, catch the eye, make us think.

Questo Perfico Mico is after your flashesbut we are only interested in great work. Here's a tip. If your story has a twist-ending, then print it off, dip it in gasoline, set fire to it and shove it down your pants.

This cuts out the need for me to come round.

(Take a look at the links over on the right).

Alex

Gethseminal

2006-01-04T23:42:00.000Z

I’ve made the final cut. The blood wells in the narrow gash, a burgundy meniscus rising, filling, tipping, dripping. I watch, fascinated.

I’ve sliced it the right way this time, but I don’t know what to do next. It’s pooling on the bathroom floor tiles. What’s black and white and red all over? In ancient times they knew how to do it properly; their multitudinous baths incarnadine and all that. Seneca, wasn’t it, who sat in a warm bath and opened up his wrists, or was it Archimedes? No, he’s the one who measured his bulk in the bathwater. If he’d cut his wrists as well I wonder if the results would’ve been the same. Eureka, I’ll never do it wrong again; I’m in control. I’ve taken medical advice.

He was full of useful information last month, that callow Dr. Singh, the emergency department physician. He breathed biryani across my narcotic bed, his gaze lazily sashaying from my medical notes and down the deliberate cleavage of the suturing nurse.

‘She’s been in here before, what, twice? Classic cry for attention. Look, nurse, it’s a transverse cut, not very deep. See the stutters, the false starts.’ I wasn’t there to him, the ugly unseeable appearing unhearing. ‘If she’d been serious about it, she’d have cut deeper – a longitudinal cut over the radial artery.’ It was as though the contents of my triple chin had oozed out like a gelatinous worm and coiled itself into my ear like a plug. ‘Finish up here and I’ll arrange her discharge and medication.’

Ah, yes, those round white discs of redemption ... the pills that tuck a fleecy blanket round me while I lie in half an inch of stagnant water at the bottom of the ditch. They cover me up but underneath they’re wicking, and it isn’t until later that I’m drenched in the stink.

Longitudinal, he said. Lengthways, like the stripes that people like me shouldn’t wear lest we look as wide as a barcode or a zebra crossing. I was lovely once, when my breasts stood proud beyond my belly and I’d stare down each passing male as he glanced up from my nipples to my eyes, shooting him with a tensile arrow of sexual possibility. Look at me now, draped in the swags and tails of outrageous corpulence. Blame it on my mum, my genes, my glands; blame it on him, his withdrawal, his derision and disgust; blame it on cakes, chocolate and cappuccino; blame it on misery, self-indulgence and greed; blame it on me and my liposuccubus.

‘Oh that this too, too solid flesh should melt,’ or is it ‘sullied’? No matter, no difference, grey and drooping both like outsize grubby knickers hanging out to dry. ‘Inside every fat person, there’s a thin person screaming to get out.’ Why should fatties have the monopoly on stereotyping? What about ... inside every fat person there’s a fat person happily guzzling chocolate, or there’s a thin person hiding because she can’t stand being touched, or there’s an obese person screaming with hunger? I’m not even obese except on their scales. Hath not a fat person taste? If you prick us do we not cream? I’m not freak-show fat, I’m Rubenesque, just big enough for smarting little kids to ask, ‘Is that lady going to have a baby soon?’ Just fat enough to make a perfect trophy ex-wife.

It’s difficult to cut your wrists with a safety razor; the plastic ridges get in the way. Ask me; I’m a professional. A longitudinal, deep cut – that would require a different choice of weapon. So down to the study I went, our old study, our fertile thinking room, past arena for the thrust and parry of our sparring. The tongue can sometimes cut unkindly as a sword.

The light-table’s still there, on the old desk with the legs that wobble where I sawed them in half and nailed them back together again to get it through the doorway. Its cloudy glass is criss-cross scarred in wax and masking tape from countless flickering night time hours of paste-up, slice-up, make-up. Such precision we insisted upon, points and picas, shade and balance, bordering and justification. Such perfection we’d achieved together as our lives fell into disarray around us. Such an astounding child we had nurtured here, offspring of my fertile brain, of the marriage of two minds. I always meant this room to be a nursery.

I reached into the top drawer, into the sturdy cardboard box with the torn label hinging its side, searching for a small flat paper packet. Little square flat packages – I remember them well: barrier and protection. Smoothing and moulding with sensual rhythmic fingers, I loved to build a rubber barricade and watch it stretch and grow. Pointless, even comical as I look back, those teaspoonfuls of wasted potential were beaver-dammed into a silicone bulb and flushed into fertilizer at the sewage plant. My throbbing rhythm always lagged a beat behind. He seldom noticed, or acknowledged that he did. Maybe if we’d felt each other more, our marriage would have lasted.

No, these packets sheathed rapiers of a different sort: scalpel blades, sharper than razors, fiddly to grip. My fingers fumbled, bracing a steel sliver against its malevolent will to fit into the safety handle. It slipped, spiked, sliced my fingertip. Ridiculously, tissue-wrapped, I searched through the first-aid tin, patching my body’s premature leak with a woven pink plaster.

What is an artery, anyway? Nothing more than a pulsing, blood-filled tube. So simple to open – just slice along it with a sharp blade. So why are my darker, buried female tubes so irretrievably blocked? Why have my eggs been sent to an all-girls’ boarding school when they are dripping in vital eagerness for their cherry membranes to be popped by any blindly poking male? So pointlessly, pleasurably ineffective was all that grunting, thrusting, pumping power when even Dyno-rod couldn’t have flushed my pipes clear. You entered me, you bastard grim reaper of future souls, with your dirty little fornicating disease, and crippled my femininity, my fecundity with your second-hand inter-city weekend break bacteria.

‘To cease upon the midnight with no pain.’ My wrist doesn’t hurt. It stings a little, like a paper cut. Suicide is painless. And has God ‘fixed his cannon ’gainst self-slaughter’? When I was a child, I thought as a child; I thought that meant God would shoot you if you tried to kill yourself. I’ve often wondered which would get me first. My soul doesn’t hurt much, either. To die will be an aptly big adventure; life is a dictionary of famous quotation, vicarious sensation.

I didn’t write a suicide note. And when they see that no-one asks to read it they’ll understand why I didn’t need to write a note.

I could leave a cryptic message in blood on the white squares of the chessboard floor like a prisoner. I could scrawl ‘Only you’ or ‘Calais’ or ‘Burn in hell’. I can’t be bothered, to be honest; my energy seeps. Will they burn me? They’ll need to put the coffin on a rack like a farm-bred duck and catch the dripping in a pan below, else spattering flares could set the audience alight.

‘On my count, one ... two ... three ... heave.’ The appalled bearers will invisibly grimace and slide secret glances at each other. ‘Lend us another pair of arms, mate. Need wheels with this one.’

My ex-man won’t offer to help. He’ll sit impassive in his trenchcoat and unblack tie, hiding his glittering green amusement beneath hooded eyelids. His beautiful, mobile mouth will move in silent commentary. He’ll be playing ‘had her, had her not’ at any female arse that dares to take a seat amid the sparse congregation. He always loved to watch my friends come.

She won’t be there, his swollen baby-soft gloating tricoteuse. She’s fostering a changeling, sole progeny of my heart, my art and my hands-on intellect, into her pc world with its sliding guidelines and snap-to rules. She’s emasculated it, growing out its severe crew-cut into fauntleroy curls and dressing it in designer logos. It’s too late for it now; she’s soft-focused its rigorous exactitude. I’ve exchanged my copyright for a mess of sugared porridge. No, she won’t deliberately disturb the still calm centre of her equilibrium, not for me.

Bitch-sister might come. Black always did suit her. She’ll languorously drape her length along the blind pew, twanging her thong between her cheeks and twisting her high-skirted black stockinged legs into unanatomically becoming positions. She knows how to angle. She’s always nicked stuff out of my bedroom. Maybe they’ll glance at one another in sympathetic mock-sorrow. Maybe they’ll go gladly together to a hotel where he can forget the rounding cherub left at home and turn her into his latest silk-tied arched angel, wings spreadeagled from the iron bedhead, singing out in seraphic ecstasy. Just hear that heavenly organ blow; celebrating life, of course.

I yearn. If he would stop and turn and look at me with yesterday’s eyes, even now I’d dam this welling tear. I walk the fields alone forever gloved, loveless, missing so much. Nothing remains but choice, ultimate autonomy. I offer up my arms for oblivion; Lethe accepts me as I am.

There should be music, beautiful music. There should be a full moon mirrored in the black clotting pool, metallic like the bonnet of his Porsche, a headlight dipped into the darkness. Moon River? The Pathètique, perhaps, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky? While my Guitar Gently Weeps? I Know that my Redeemer Liveth? Angels? From the sublime to the anodyne, the slowing beat pulses vacantly through my skull.

I’m on quite a pleasant high now. There’s a frilly vagueness to the edges of things, and tiny targets keep floating in front of my eyes. Pot shots at a fairground, cross-hairs sighting the lambent end of the long littleness of life. My arm is marble white, blue veins deflating. My fingers feel only a weary cold detachment, a blessed inevitability. The bloody waterfall has stayed tidily between its banks, no meanders, not an ox-bow lake in sight. It’s slowing now; the well-spring must be drying up, but where it flowed from is an Easter scene: pouting, puckered open beaks of flesh, a row of three white crosses standing proud.

That young doctor was right about the stuttering. The blade went in easily. It was like slicing a tomato – start with the point of the knife; make an entrance. It was the scar tissue that held matters up, prevented the single samurai slash that would have proclaimed its purpose. It was a drag. First I tore across the oldest scar, the kitchen devil cut, the impulse bite, the only one I did in front of him. Yes, of course it was a hopeless cry for attention, for sympathy, for anything but indifference.

The second attempt was vodka-fuelled, sad, pathetic; I took myself to hospital with that one, driving one-handed, the other swathed in perforated sheets of bounty. I only did it so I’d fit in with their common statistics, pandering to the mean. The third – that was a look back in anger moment. It wasn’t enough that he’d stolen my youth, my sanity, my fertility, he had to take my work as well, and win our prizes in their name. I saw them smirking on the telly, saw that fruitful, burgeoning belly, and the monstrous green-eyed life director called out ‘cut’.

A row of white crosses. Three graves – faith, hope and charity; the weariness, the fever and the fret; Conley, Weightwatchers and Atkins. Three cold preprinted rejection slips when I first tried to write alone. Three little deaths of hope when my pee left the wand blue. Three times I knowingly took him back inside me, basted with the juices of an earlier bird. That intolerable, fatal betrayal as his cock crowed for the third time.

One for sorrow, two for absolution, and three for me.

Alexandra Fox

Seventh Quark actively seeks prize-winning material to reprint. Gethseminal was First Prize Winner, The Momaya Prize 2004 and printed in the Momaya Anthology before being reprinted in Seventh Quark Magazine.

Photo by Hazera Forth

Observant?

2006-01-04T14:47:00.000Z

The picture of 7Q1, the only jpg I had handy, has the name Simon Brett" on the cover. In fact, when the issue went out, there was no Simon. But we had some incredible help from top authors including Steve Almond, Alice Elliott Dark, Peter James, Gina Ochsner and Jim Crace.

You can read the following on my personal blog:

Seventh Quark Frantic Flashes!

In 2005 Seventh Quark ran Seven "Frantic Flash" competitions. These were originally scheduled for the first Sunday of the month but then we added the day before! That is NOT "The first Saturday and Sunday of the month because we might have 31st and 1st.

We missed the beginning of January so we are running a Frantic Flash, FF8, on January 14th and 15th.

There will be six available time-slots 0900, 1800, 2100 on both days (Saturday & Sunday) - UK Times.

Interested parties register that interest with AK and then go on the mailing list. At the six appointed times all "entrants" receive a set of flash prompts by email, plus they will be displayed on the 7Q Web Site, here, and in the Public Area of Boot Camp.

Entrants will have 75 Minutes to write a flash and submit it to AK and/or the competition secretary.

We ask entrants to confirm they are "in" as soon as they have received their emailed prompts. In the event of a blow-out and no story we would stil like the £5 please!

Finalists are announced by midnight Monday. Winners & Places within 2-3 days.

Entry is £5 by UK Cheque, £5:50 by PayPal.

Entrants can enter 1-2-3-4-5- or 6 slots but a payment is due for each time. Because some people enter 4 or more times we do NOT limit entrants from winning more than one prize.

Unusually, all entrants can meet up after the sessions and on the Monday in a private forum and discuss the stories and the process. This will be a non-public annexe of Boot Camp.

Prizes will be at least 50% of the entry pool and are expected to be £50-£100 in the first few competitions. Winners and places are eligible for publication in Seventh Quark Magazine ans shortly you will be able to see some early winners/places on our sister blog, "Seventh Quark Mag On Line".

Alex

Welcome to 7Q On Line

2006-01-04T14:16:00.000Z

Issue One was January-February 2005. For a full table of contents, scroll down past the white space I can't get rid of!

While I wait for permissions to republish various stories, here is one from me.

In 7Q we try to publish at least one competition-winning entry from without 7Q. Mother, Questions was a Joint First Prize-Winner in Buzzwords (along with John Ravenscroft's Watch With Mother and an article by Buzzwords Editor Zoe King.

Such comparisons and editorial commentary are typical of what we aim for in 7Q.
To entertain, yes, but to teach at the same time.

MOTHER, QUESTIONS (Seventh Quark, Issue 1)

Mother, can I ask, with you and Dad, my father, how did it happen, how was it? Were you frightened, excited? Was he strong, was he clumsy?

You told me once, before you died, you said, "We walked out for almost a year and then, one day, on a bridge over the canal, he asked if he could kiss me." You said you laughed, couldn't help it. He ran home.

So Mum, how did you get from there to being my mother? How did that shy young man learn to make love? Was he your first, Mum? Nellie said to me once, (she was drunk on gins), she said you had a beau everyone wanted, but he was "a bit of a lad, a heart-breaker", wouldn't take no for an answer.

I always wondered, wondered how I happened. I'm here, some kind of me, and I'm you, the bridge across the water, my hopeless father. Am I my sisters too, am I my brother? If they hadn't come before me, you would have been different, things would have been different, nothing, nothing, nothing would have happened exactly as it did. I wouldn't be this me, I wouldn't be able to ask these questions. How can it be that I exist without it being necessary that I exist? But how could these loves, bridges, kisses, how could they have all made my history, made me this, put me here?

You said once, you said Bill and Nellie were going to get married. You said you were on a tram going up Cambrian Road. You were opposite sides of the aisle and Dad shouted across at you, "We could make it a double wedding!" You told me that you laughed. You told me you said yes, but you didn't know why. Mum you could have said no.

I remember you talking about the trams, the way they were always full, the way they clanged. You said they were big and solid and real. Your eyes were always alight when you talked like that, I loved that look, but it wasn't there when you talked about saying yes to Dad. On the day of the wedding, on the day of the wedding, you wanted to be anywhere on earth rather than St Mary's. You said that. Mum, how did it happen? How could you have let it happen?

My memories of you don't come in a line, Mum. They're like flashes of sunlight through trees, but I'm on a train going in circles, I'll maybe get to come round and see again. I have your photograph, the one from the war when you were in your ATS uniform and still had puppy fat, but I could see the woman in you, the deep heat men seek but can never understand.

It's black and white - well, brown, more like, and you and the other two girls, all that life-power, and yet the three of you look so soft, so quiet, just waiting. Did all women wait then, Mum? Did they just contain? I don't know how else to say it - you know I missed a lot of school - I don't always find the best word… But contain feels right … but I can look at your picture and see you with history waiting in your belly. I can look at that picture and I can see my life, all of it, see your grandchildren, your great-grandchild (Pat's Jackie had a baby boy - pretty little thing), I can see everything, all the good things, everything.

Now you know what life is Mum, was it all to come, was it pre-set, was it laid out, was it a book and we just flicked pages? Does he talk about it as if it was all so obvious, what else could have happened, does he, do they? What is it Mum, I mean what's there, I mean do you now think it was all a landscape and we just felt our way forward, we weren't doing anything? Does that excuse the things we do, things you did, Dad did?

They probably knew about DNA when you were still alive Mum but we didn't talk about it. Now we do, we talk about it, about inevitabilities, about tendencies, predispositions. Some people say there's no free will, not really, even choosing or not choosing is wired into us. That's what I mean when I say contains, it's all in the belly, it was all there in your picture, you, and I guess my father, his father, your father, mothers and fathers, all the way back as far as we can imagine. Someone made my father my father, he didn't. Someone made you, you didn't. You could have said no, but you didn't. That was wired in too, I guess.

I wish sometimes I could get at my DNA. That would be something, eh, Mam? I could go in there and tinker. I could give myself cancer or make myself big enough to fight. Imagine I could have done that when I was ten, before you left us and ran away to London? Imagine if I'd been big and strong.

They tell me what happens, happens and it's not our fault, but that how we are made, that makes a difference. It's whether we're built to withstand things or whether we are soft. I guess they'd say I was soft, but Mum, when you say something, people should believe what you say, not decide your DNA has some wrong bits, not decide to rush volts into you while you bite a piece of wood, make you eat pills until you're someone else.

I know you ended up here once, Mum. They said you had a nervous break-down, didn't they? They said you lost your purse and couldn't cope, that you started crying on the number three bus and they stopped the bus and rang for an ambulance. But you just rested here a bit, didn't you? Got away from the house for a while, from Dad. And I know what really happened to the money. I don't blame you, Mum. Dad used to bet on the horses.

They brought me here the first time when I was thirteen, Mum, thirteen. Now I'm forty-eight and how far have I got, just round and round on that train, looking for the light through the trees. I was here three years, meat, and they took away someone from inside me. When I looked in the mirror I was old, old as a child, Mum, grey and sick with sores round my mouth.
And it's all to do with you, Mum, my mother, and Dad, my father, and DNA, and fathers and mothers and monsters, way back to when there were caves and we made things out of stones. Mum, have you ever thought, all those deaths in childhood, diseases, wars, tribal sacrifices, fires, people falling into pits, and yet my father, his father, his father and fathers, fathers, fathers, not one died before he made a child. Here I am, forty-eight a mother and a child and I connect to when we were worms. It's amazing, Mum.

Pictures are funny things, Mum. If you look at them they move, they swell up and then they go back again. People in the jungle say pictures contain the soul. Oh, I've said contain again. There's a picture contains your soul, your you, and your you contains everything, including me, and my little Jenny, she would be in a picture of me, in my belly, in our histories.

You would have liked Jenny, Mum. She's dark like you, has the Irish in her, the light. How, I'm not sure, but I think it's real enough. I read once that genes only pretend to divide themselves up, that sometimes they leap about in packs. If that's true I can understand it. Mum, sometimes I think my Jenny is you.

Here, when they go on at me, one of the things they talk about is circles, things going round, things repeating, me saying the same thing. Were they like that with you, Mum or did they just know you were resting? They go on at me as if circles are bad things, as if me noticing the way things come back round is bad, but I don't see it, Mum, I really don't. We are mothers and daughters, that's a circle, and we're pictures, and we contain, don't we? You were a picture, I was a picture. Then Dad came along for you, and Jimmy, Pat, Sharon, me, we all happened, it's all circles; then I found myself a mother and back there again, round and round and round.

But why do they think I'm a liar, Mum? Why do they think way back then, when I was still just twelve, I was a liar, why now do they think I'm a liar? Did they think you were a liar when you said you'd lost your purse? Did it matter? You needed a break, so you started crying and wouldn't stop, and they pulled the bus over, called an ambulance, took you away for a rest. Nobody said, "Stop crying, you liar! We don't believe you, pull yourself together!"

Mum, I guess you know now. I never lied.

I remember something. the Lido. I remember your fat shoulders covered in freckles, the easy blubbery way you swam.

I didn't want to go in the big pool but Dad laughed, grabbed me, and took me in. It was cold and there were leaves in the water, twigs. Someone had burst open a packet of crisps and they floated on the water. At first I held on the side of the pool. You were in a good mood, it was a sunny day, and you said something and swam away. That was when Dad pulled my hands from the edge and took me out into the middle. I cried and he said if I didn't shut up, he'd drown me. You swam back. You said something and then Dad let me off. I went in the kids' pool with the others.

You were such a good swimmer, Mum. I only ever remember you as big and brown, solid and safe. You looked like a whale, a ship, a raft. Like when you said the trams were huge and warm for you, well that was how it was with me and you. Nothing is solid now Mum, nothing has been big and safe, not since just before I was thirteen.

I know you had to go Mum, you had to run away. I don't know exactly why, but I do understand. I understood. Even then I could feel things, know things, see circles of life. I knew you were spiralling down, down and something had to happen. I don't mean I could say that, then or that I can tell you now what exactly I knew. But I knew.

When they go on at me here, they tell me this kind of knowing isn't a proper kind of knowing and that's why I'm here, but it's easy for them, they have their trams, their fat mothers, churches, mountains, they aren't like I am. They have to be here to know. I don't mean just here, I mean here, where I am head-wise, in my sad shoes - well slippers, they won't allow shoes. They were never thirteen, taken to the room, sent black in a second. They never woke tasting wood and blood with the world in a cupboard.

It was just before bonfire night when you suddenly weren't there. One of the flashes is Barbara and me, coming down Gaer Hill and she's telling me and I wouldn't believe her. Dad cut himself shaving and hit Pat. We had burned toast with the black scraped into the sink where dad's blood was.

Porridge and burned toast. We had porridge as well, Quaker Oats. You did porridge usually, soaked the oats overnight, let them get fat and soft. I remember fat and soft. You, I think of fatness and softness and roundness and you big in the pool, swimming away, then coming back to rescue me with a light laugh.

When dad was on six till twos he'd do some overs, come back through the park at Mendalglief. We'd run down when we saw him coming. If they made a film of dad now they'd show him coming up through the trees (the monkey-steps short-cut) dark with oil and steel, a dirty paperback under his arm. It would be sunny, there'd be Hovis music playing and we'd rush to him, he'd pick one of us up. His smell! He was darkness, tobacco, the steel, and some man-thing men don't smell of now. Pick me up, fly me, Dad.

On six-'till-two.

On ten-'till-sixes, the housenight was colder, echoey, but we just got used to it. Kids can get used to a lot, Mum, you'd be surprised. They didn't take us away because Pat was old enough to do stuff and I was able to help with bits and pieces, but then she went too, off to London to be with you. But the ten-to-sixes were OK.

When dad worked two-till-tens he never worked overs because he wanted to go up the Plough before they closed. He used to go to the Plough, have a few Ansells before coming home. Sometimes he'd bring us all chips.

I think of you Mum, when I think like this, I think of you, how you were big and brown, a house, a tree, a river, safety. I want to be with you, why can't they understand that.

2,287 words.

Previously published in Buzzwords

SCROLL (way down) for Table of Contents)

From Seventh Quark	7Q
Finding the Story	Alex Keegan
How to Leave Iraq	George Saunders
Maura's Arm	Emma Darwin
Annie, California Plates	Jim Crace
Letters	7Q
Like it Was	Vanessa Gebbie
Heirs to Munch	David Prescott
Punctuation; a Lexicon circa 1999	Gina Ochsner
Picture Me Resplendent	7Q
The Falls	George Saunders
Another Day in Paradise	Mark Watkins
Watch With Mother	John Ravenscroft
Mother, Questions	Alex Keegan
The "Mother" Question	Zoe King
Why They're Not Talking to Me	Cedric Popa
How to Write Sex Scenes	Steve Almond
Gethseminal	Alexandra Fox
The Carpenter's Wife	Katherine Pirnie
Pictures at An Unattended Exhibition	Martin Roxby
Dead Simple	Peter James
Green & White	Chris Bleach
Young Writers Section	Nicky Singer
Embodiments	Alice Elliott Dark
Angel	Bridie Peejay
STUFF	7Q
Hair Manners	Nancy Saunders
Sensitive New Age Cripple	Glenn Fowler
Cheese Penis	7Q
Inside the Back Page	"Mary Trafford"