Lilywhite

Entry B Removed, on request of the author

Entry A Help, Hinder or Neutral As the clock struck 10 o’clock Paul screamed. He had almost made it this time, but the purple light had caught him, and now the ten year olds greatest fears were chasing him down. He fell silent when he realised that all his screaming would do is enable his nightmares to find him. He hunkered down deeper into the blanket bundle and tried not to work out just how much he wanted his Mum. He heard a deep bell ring and a voice informing him that it was time, and he knew in that moment that he wasn’t alone in his own head. ***** ***** Since the earliest days mankind has been fascinated with dreams and the subconscious mind. Over time this has developed into a serious subject of study and interpretation. It was discovered that some members of the population could both manipulate their own dreams, and infiltrate the dream realm of others. Others, especially children formed, what had been termed the susceptible group, with a sleep time subconscious open to even a mildly talented dream walker. Private companies, and governmental groups had been created to review just what this might mean, and how best to exploit the potential applications of this new understanding. South of the river a motley collective of like-minded people had come together. We were bothered by the tone of all the news sparingly shared within the field of Dream Technology, as it was now known. Discussion about the ethics of dream exploration in others was limited, and it was felt by many, that it was safer and definitely desirable to remain out of reach of the conglomerate mentality. It was the underbelly of society that we wanted to help, the poor and needy, the hopeless and helpless. Mental health issues amongst societies forgotten wasn’t high on anyone’s agenda, but was well known to be “positively susceptible”, as Jo-jo put it, to dream guidance. My young friends, Jo-jo, Jenna, and Marcus had established a safe and non-intrusive way of both entering and manipulating dreams. It was a calling. When they undertook a dream walk a few of us non dream-talented friends would gather, and use our presence to keep the experience positive, safe and loving. We had helped quite a few this way, often only as a silent presence in the person’s sleep for a time, reassuring and understanding. ***** ***** Paul and his mother Netty had arrived on our doorstep from north of the river a few weeks ago. Anxious and clearly scared they had been made welcome. Netty had told us of young Paul’s increasingly troubled dreams. She needed our help. They had travelled with the sole purpose of finding the group that was spoken of on the quiet. All Netty had known when they set out was the reputation the house had for helping life’s errant dreamers. “He’s not mad. He’s troubled. I used to be able to ease it for him, but it’s beyond me now. I thought you could help.” Netty might be meek in many respects, but as a mother she was all protection and defence. “Troubled?” Marcus had asked. “Nightmares. Every night, through the night. A dark light is all He can tell me. Well scream at me is more like it. The dark light, the bell and the building near the water” “Dark light and bell?” Jo-jo sat up fast. The ever composed Jo-jo was clearly shaken. ***** ***** When lunch was finished and cleared, a handful of us stayed at the table, quiet in the background. Jenna and Jo-jo were talking by the sink as they washed up. “What’s dark light Jo-Jo?” Jenna asked quietly, Jo-jo’s reaction earlier still bothering her. Jo-jo rubbed her face as if to rouse herself, “All I know is that it’s a purple coloured light a child can see in dream state. I saw it the once when I was ten and it scared me rigid. That and the voice telling me it was time. There’s been a mish-mash of theories about it for years, but nothing conclusive.” Marcus had been typing at his laptop while the two had been speaking. He wanted to make some sense of what was being said. ‘Dark light’ and ‘purple light’ brought up modern myths and urban legends, amongst photos of bewildered children and worried adults. Strangers came, children disappeared, and communities forgot. Weird and worrying. It was established that Paul’s dark light dreams had started ten months ago, mild to begin with, but over time he had only the murderous chasing dreams to look forward to each night. For the past ten nights he had barely slept, so fearful of what he would see. Since their arrival Jo-jo and Marcus had been ‘visiting’ Paul in his sleep in an attempt to make sense of why he was so troubled. So far it was all confusing and inconclusive despite the dreams being so repetitive in content. ***** ***** We needed more information to know how to proceed. We decided on a more proactive approach when they dream walked tonight. Tonight was information gathering rather than just handholding. Dreams always held clues, all they needed to do was gather them and we would hopefully be able to decipher them. As Jo-jo, Marcus and Paul readied themselves for sleep, as the loose collective gathered round the big wooden table. Lamps went out as candles were lit, chatter diminishing until as one the group felt for and found the emotional friendship links that bound us together. We were ready. ***** ***** Sound and heat blasted Jo-jo as soon as she entered Paul’s dream. There were shouts and high pitched whines and a damp oppressive darkness that made her lungs feels heavy. Even in her worst dreams she had never experienced the sense of foreboding she now felt. She had to find Paul, and quickly. Marcus would find her soon enough, he always could, but an unusual feeling of panic was rising in Jo-jo. She felt out of control. Jo-jo got her bearings quickly, she somehow knew she had been here before, and headed toward lower ground. She knew that Paul must be close and looked for hiding places. A bundle of blankets and cardboard half hidden beneath an abandoned skateboard ramp looked likely. She made a dash for it and found herself almost falling on top of a trembling Paul. He was beyond terrified. A bell tolled, and a deep voice intoned “It’s time.” Shadows that seemed to obscure potential enemies were getting closer and with no sighting of Marcus, Jo-jo just wanted to get the blazes out of there. Grabbing Paul’s hand she made a move toward the rusting iron gates that seemed to lead to the river, only to be met by a wall of sound that hurt their ears, and flooded with a strange purple hued light that dazzled them into stopping. They rapidly backed away, despite the encroaching shadows and the sing-song calling. Marcus bumped into them as they retreated. He looked spooked. ”We need to get out of here. Now” He shouted to be heard. “I’m waking us up.” The sights, sounds and smells of the dream dropped from as each woke up. The sense of menace lingered. The group smiled warmly at them as one, then broke up the comforting circle that had accompanied their little dream trip. Most headed off to bed, while one or two of us lingered to hear about the adventure and the abrupt return. Marcus explained his decision. “There was a consciousness in that dream and it wasn’t ours. I saw a purple searchlight that locked onto you two straight away when you went toward the water, and that awful noise. Then there were the shadows and I kept hearing a loud voice say ‘it’s time’. On top of that every wall I passed had posters written in mangled French; Trouver violet clair. Aller à lieu vide.” I had been sitting quietly with Jenna, but wracked my brain for the translation in my own version of mangle French, “Find purple light. Go to empty place. Is that right? There seems to be two things going on here, and if Marcus is right with his feeling that there was an outside consciousness at work here we need to make some quick decisions.” While the others could work within dreams, my talents are more earthbound, and I wanted to throw that into the mix. If dreams are our subconscious, there is a conscious behind it, and I am great at human motivations and thought processes. I love a good interpretation, and having got to know Paul and his Mum, plus knowing Jo-jo and Marcus as I do, I felt between us we might make some sense of this. “Let’s play a game of ‘Help, Hinder or Neutral?’ You three have been in there, so ask yourselves what was helping you and what was hindering you and what stayed neutral in the dream?” I got a laugh for my age old way of assessing a situation. “The noise and light stopped us from getting to the water, but the shadows and calling was creeping us out, so we didn’t want to head that way either. I have no idea what the posters were about” Jo-jo was tired but played along. “From that we could say the light and sound hindered, and the shadows and voice did nothing but freak us out. Therefore were the posters trying to help?” Marcus looked baffled. “Something to sleep on I think”. I ushered them off to them respective rooms. Paul was soon snoozing in what appeared to be a dreamless sleep, his Mum nodding off in the bed opposite. I closed their door. Jo-jo and Jenna headed off to their room, while Marcus and I got a pot of coffee on the go. We spent the next few hours debating, discussing doing wild internet searches and running out the room to get yet another book or yellow pages or map. By morning and the arrival of the others we felt we were getting super close to figuring it out. The thing we couldn’t fathom yet was the voice and the French. “Ok, ok, let’s run through this one more time…..” Marcus was in full flow, all sparkling eyed and slightly manic. “The earliest mention of the purple light, or dark light in nightmares was about ten years ago. A ten year old girl was reported to be experiencing crippling nightmares. She and her family appear to just vanish within months, no further mention of them. We also have our very own Jo-jo experiencing a nightmare with the same stuff, about 9 years ago, just before the family moved. She was aged, guess what? Ten!” ”Travelling on down, despite the odd gap here and there I think we can safely conclude that every few months for the past decade children have been targeted by nightmares. All of these kids aside from Jo-jo have ended up disappearing, most often with their whole families.” Marcus sat back in his chair. “Yep, that sums up that part. The age thing is actually interesting as this study here,” I waved a sheaf of papers at him, “showed the susceptibility factor in humans was at its most receptive at around 10 years old, and it debates the ethics of making use of that fact. We also know that the early days of dream technology involved waves being transmitted to test subjects. The waves were interpreted as pastel light beams by the subconscious. This could explain the purple light, kind of.” I didn’t think it was a perfect fit, but it was the closest thing we had to a proper theory. “Now for the giant leaps that bring us home. Stay with us if you can” If it hadn’t been for a young boy sitting in front of me with dark circles under his eyes I might have said I was enjoying this. “‘Help, hinder or neutral’ last night showed us the light and noise hindered, the bell, voice and shadows did nothing but spook, which means that the posters in French are trying to help.” I did grin then, happy that my lifelong sorting method might actually crack this. “Trouver violet clair. Aller à lieu vide. Closest translation is Find purple light. Go to empty place. We decide to ignore that it was in French, which could be from any one of the psyches involved in the dream, but concentrate on the meaning.” Marcus took up the delivery. “We think that it means that we will find the source of the purple light in an abandoned building. Getting the maps out, and knowing that Jo-jo had felt it was all nearby, we threw in skateboarding and a riverside park and came up with three places that might fit. But then we saw the name of this one, Clair Violet Fashions. This just had to be our lieu vide! ” “That’s when it all came together. Around fifteen years ago CVF, as is was known had a huge advertising campaign, with the phrase ‘It’s time to get on trend’ and the toll of a big bell. “ Netty looked dubious, and Jo-jo looked dumbfounded. “So what’s actually happening then, and why?” ”We are pretty sure that CVF trialled some illegal direct advertising using their old phrase, but it didn’t work, or so they thought. A lightning strike on their old signal tower ten years ago corrupted the ad into a menacing mess that haunted youngsters, with ten year olds being particularly vulnerable to the intermittent signal. The only reason Jo-jo didn’t suffer the same fate as the others was that the family moved out of signal range soon enough.” “And the disappearances?” Netty’s larger fear rose to the surface. “Not disappearances at all, but relocations by the authorities who knew there was a problem, but hadn’t figured out the how of it. Marcus sent an email today letting them know where to start looking.” “So it’s over?” Paul had asked the most important question of all. “This messing with our minds is done with!” Jo-jo looked delighted for Paul. She leant down and gave him a hug. “It is sweet dreams from now on.” ***** *****

Hello All! Please find below the entries for the 2015 Short Story Competition. Yes, there are only two entries but I would like to thank the authors for their effort and I hope you enjoy their entries. Once you have read the stories, please answer the poll at the top of the page to indicate who you would like to win. Please feel free to leave your praise and encouragement in this thread. But be aware, there may be spoilers if you haven't already read the entries! I will leave the poll open for two weeks and the winner will be the story with the most votes at the end of the voting period. I will leave it up to the authors to reveal themselves at the end, if they wish to do so. Happy reading!

Thank you to those that entered. I shall be posting them for reading very soon.

Very few at the moment. I'm hoping for a last minute influx of entries

Final call for entries on this one. Closing date is tomorrow.

This has been my favourite book for many years. Nothing I've read has come close in my opinion.

What a cute bear! I love bears I just wish they were friendly enough to be social and I would be in my element. So far I've had a busy month and I've had to cram everything in on my limited days off work. Last week I competed in the Race For Life 5k and raised over £100 for Cancer Research. It was an awesome evening in Blackpool and I felt so proud to be able to contribute to such a great cause. Of course, being in Blackpool, we made the most of it and spent some time on the beach and playing in the arcades. It's almost the law really

Fiona Neill What The Nanny Saw When penniless student Ali Sparrow answers Bryony and Nick Skinner's advertisement her life changes overnight. She is catapulted into the privileged and excessive world of London's financial elite. At first everything is overwhelming - from twins who speak their own language to a teenage girl with weight issues and a son almost her own age. Then there is Bryony, who has one eye on her dazzling career and the other on Ali's failings. When boom turns to bust and a scandal erupts that suggests something corrupt has been hatched behind the Skinners' front door, their private life is suddenly public news. And as Ali becomes indispensible, she realizes she's witness to things she probably shouldn't see. But is she principled enough to keep the family's secrets when the press come prowling for the inside scoop? Or will she dish the dirt on the family who never saw her as anything other than part of the scenery? re is about to return. Started: 28/06/15 Finished: (abandoned) 31/07/15 Rated: 0/5 Comments: Unfortunately this was one of the rare occasions where I just didn't have enough interest to carry on. I got about a hundred pages in and felt that I didn't really care where this story was going. Nothing had grabbed my attention this far in and there were plenty more books on my shelf screaming out to be read.

How are we all getting on? Just under a week left on this competition. I hope you all have some wonderful tales for us

I love to make stuff. Some days it's cross stitch, some days it's knitting and other days it's being creative in the kitchen. It all depends on how I'm feeling at the time but I always get a great sense of satisfaction having achieved something at the end. Especially when that achievement is a yummy cake or a tasty biscuit to have with a cup of tea

As you guys are so keen, then I'm happy to extend the deadline for the competition. It doesn't seem to have generated any interest at all this time, so I'm hoping an extension will get entries in. I'll leave the competition open for another couple of weeks and hopefully you'll be able to put something together for us to read. Remember everyone. It's a short story competition, so it doesn't need to be too long. Start scribbling today!

Still time to get your entries in for this one!

I'd forgotten about that! I meant to watch it, missed the first few, then meant to find it on catch up and completely forgot again. Thank you for reminding me, I'll have to hunt it out.

Mo Hayder Wolf 'I believe, from what I can hear, that either my daughter or my wife has just been attacked. I don't know the outcome. The house is silent.' Fourteen years ago two teenage lovers were brutally murdered in a patch of remote woodland. The prime suspect confessed to the crimes and was imprisoned. One family is still trying to put the memory of the killings behind them. But at their isolated hilltop house, the nightmare is about to return. Started: 10/06/15 Finished: 12/06/15 Rated: 4/5 Comments:

She's a columnist mostly and has done some TV work as well. She's quite well known for supporting the feminist movement and love her straight forward, no nonsense approach to writing. You can really relate to her and her characters. I would definitely recommend any of her books that I've read so far.

Brilliant! The more the merrier

I'm excited! I love reading everyone's fabulous stories.

I have my favourite song lyric on the inside of my forearm. Whilst I love it, it did kinda look like someone had just written on me. Now I have watercolours in the background Which makes out look much prettier.

That is awesome Noll! What an incredible response and a very proud moment for Ireland. I'm just enjoying my last few days off work. The last two weeks have flown by and I still haven't managed to accomplish half of what I wanted to do. I have finished off the front garden though. We had the last of the stones delivered and O's raked them into place. So at least the front of the house looks tidy now. I also managed to do one run to the tip with old kitchen bits, which cleared out some space in the back room (soon to be dining room, if I ever get around to it). I have to admit though, that I have spent more time doing fun things, rather than DIY, so I can't really be surprised at not getting as much done. We went to the local park on a couple of days and played tennis on the courts there. This was my first time attempting tennis, so I use the term very loosely! It was so much fun though and highly amusing. We also took a trip to Manchester to get more work done on our tattoos. I've had some watercolours added to the background of mine to make it pretty. Needless to say, I haven't been doing much since then as it's still healing. Although we have been playing boardgames and catching up on TV during the rainy days. Tomorrow we are heading to Wembley Stadium to watch my football team in the play off finals. It's going to be a really long day but I'm hoping a win will make it all worth while. (My team have never won in the play offs and this is the 10th time we've made it, so hopefully we will break the pattern) At least I will be able to catch up on some reading on the journey. Hope everyone else is having a good weekend...

Mo Hayder Poppet The Maude is outside. It wants to come in. It wants to sit on your chest. The mentally ill patients in Beechway High Secure Unit are highly suggestible. A hallucination can spread like a virus.When unexplained power cuts lead to a series of horrifying incidents, fear spreads from the inmates to the staff. Amidst the growing hysteria, AJ, a senior psychiatric nurse, is desperate to protect his charges. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is looking for the corpse of a missing woman. He knows all too well how it feels to fail to find a loved one's body. When AJ seeks Caffery's help in investigating the trouble at Beechway,each man must face a bitter truth in his own life. Before staring pure evil in the eye. Started: 21/05/15 Finished: 04/06/15 Rated: 4/5 Comments: Another thrillingly, terrifying read from Mo Hayder. I love her books, they are so sinister and creepy. This one is part of the Jack Caffery series which ties in with an ongoing murder case from the last few books, along with this new case of the sinister goings on at the Beechway High Secure Unit.

10th Anniversary Writing Competition As part of the celebrations we are hosting a Book Club Forum Short Story Competition. Sharpen up your pencils and have your notebooks at the ready! All entries are to be emailed to me by Tuesday 30th June [Now extended to 14th July] and I will then post them anonymously on the forum. We will then have a 2 week reading and voting period before the winner is announced. The winner will be the story that receives the most votes in the thread. As this is the 10th birthday for our forum, the theme will be "10". That's all we are giving you. From here on in, your story is your own. Rules You can enter as many times as you like. Your story should be no more than 20,000 words. Your story should contain the selected theme. Your story should be entirely your own work and you should be happy for it to be published on the forum as part of the competition. Once the winning story is announced, it is then up to you if you would like to reveal which was your entry. The competition is open to all members and mods alike and if you would like to collaborate with another member, you can, although you will have to fight it out between yourselves for the prize. The winner will be the story that receives the most votes at the end of the two week voting period and the lucky author/s will receive a Mystery Prize ( I can hear you all Ooooohing and Aaaaahing) Once a vote is cast it can not be changed, so please vote carefully! The email address to send your entries to is katrinabower2000-work@yahoo.co.uk Please let me know in this thread if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them. Good Luck and Happy Writing!!

Kathy Lette The Boy Who Fell To Earth Meet Merlin. He's Lucy's bright, beautiful son - who just happens to be autistic. Since Merlin's father left them in the lurch, Lucy has made Merlin the centre of her world. Struggling with the joys and tribulations of raising her adorable yet challenging child (if only Merlin came with operating instructions), Lucy doesn't have room for any other man in her life. By the time Merlin turns ten, Lucy is seriously worried that the Pope might start ringing her up for tips on celibacy, so resolves to dip a toe back into the world of dating. Thanks to Merlin's candour and quirkiness, things don't go quite to plan... Then, just when Lucy's resigned to singledom once more, Archie - the most imperfectly perfect man for her and her son - lands on her doorstep. But then, so does Merlin's father, begging for a second chance. Does Lucy need a real father for Merlin - or a real partner for herself? Started: 11/05/15 Finished: 15/05/15 Rated: 0/5 (unfinished) Comments: This one has been a massive disappointment. I usually enjoy Kathy Lette's books as they are quite sassy and funny. This one isn't. It's just rammed with one liners and ridiculous metaphors that on more than one occasion, I actually forgot what she was initially taking about and had to go back and reread the previous bit. I don't like to criticise anyone, because I'm not a writer and I can't do it any better, but based on previous works from Lette, this isn't great. It's not humorous, it's not witty, it could be a great story but I couldn't get passed the sheer amount of one liners in there.

I think that's the general consensus on this one. As it's fairly new and has been thrust into the limelight by being nominated on three award shortlists, I think people recognise the cover, however, there hasn't been much discussion regarding the story. We only have the synopsis to go on.

Interesting list. Can't say I'm going to miss anything on the cancelled list, which is probably why they've been cancelled. I like the look of one or two of the new series, so I look forward to watching something new. The new Criminal Minds with Gary Sinise looks fab.