John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Dec 7, 2009, 3:08 pm
I just knew you were trouble the moment I— Only because you have no ear— Who is giving the orders? If you have to ask. I will report you to the sponsors...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Oct 10, 2009, 7:18 am
Will you love me tomorrow? Yes. How much will you love me? Enough. Enough? Yes. But I want love for eternity. A love they write books about. I t...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Oct 8, 2009, 5:52 am
'Is it true daddy', asked Jake with the honesty of innocence. Before we die perhaps we regain that humility and hope.             George, his father, thought he knew better. 'I...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Oct 5, 2009, 3:35 pm
  'We met on the 9.42 to London from...from...I forget,' said Keith, wiping his brow in the heat.            'It was from Hitchen. Station gone...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Oct 3, 2009, 10:58 am
'Hände bis, Englische hunde.’            Sir, if they don’t shoot you, I will.’ 24 Hours earlier I'm sorry Sir, but I think using Elefanten erinnern...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Oct 2, 2009, 3:04 pm
  I knew as my hand touched her, she was ill; the skin was too scratchy for a woman who had others cook and clean.              'Please take a seat, ' I said, weig...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Oct 1, 2009, 12:13 pm
'Did you see that?'              Christie prodded Keith             ’What, Its only six.’             'Look. The woman behind the l...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 30, 2009, 7:13 am
I looked down at the dead body, her green dress mingled with the red of blood. Looking back  I was too silent, the body as stiff as hers, both our eyes dry. I longed to scream, as once we did between...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 25, 2009, 3:19 pm
Two teenage friends in the 1940’s Fredrick : Why can’t boys kiss? Harold: They can. Fredrick: What boys kiss boys? Harold: Yuk no. Its wrong in the eyes of God....
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 24, 2009, 5:06 pm
‘Sire, did you dream last night as the witch foretold?,’ asked the Night Lord.            The King looked at the couriers but did not speak. His eyes lost in shadows.  ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 23, 2009, 5:20 pm
Switch halted at the door. He was out of breath and out of time- the screams of Help me had stopped.             ‘Emolley hold on I am coming.’ He charged at the door with his shoulder...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 22, 2009, 11:39 am
'Once this was a lake where fish were like a slither of snakes.'             'What else old timer?'             Craig could see that the boys wer...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 21, 2009, 9:06 am
'They hunt in fours but divide into singles to corner you.’ Rosemary knew—she had lost a finger to one. Hearing the rosters, she jumped up. 'Sir, I want to partner up with Kawasak...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 18, 2009, 7:56 am
‘Don’t you just love it when the good guy wins,’ Ryan said, grabbing a handful of popcorn from Meryl’s  carton -his had kept the trailers unheard.             Meryl, just chewed h...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 15, 2009, 2:00 pm
  'Don't look now but that little madam has had a second orange juice.'             Harold turned round.             May m...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 14, 2009, 12:56 pm
  Zelda wiped the grease away from her mouth, she has real class, before saying, 'You don’t want to cross Hash Brown's woman. She did a John Bobbitt, if...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 13, 2009, 1:40 pm
‘You’ll be Texas toast when I get you.’ ‘Where's the bloody writer.’ ‘What can’t you understand now?’ ‘What he’s saying, the character is supposed to...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 12, 2009, 12:08 pm
‘I ain't firing blanks, its yor eggs that are scrambled.'             He regretted saying it, as soon as he saw her eyes empty             'I'm ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 11, 2009, 9:16 am
'Are you known?'              The words slapped him. What accept that drink doesn’t killed the pain—it merely distracts              'Let yourself be known by...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 10, 2009, 7:31 am
Because they're family is all that Mike got whenever he complained about sharing toys with  some lousy cousin from the sticks.              As a teenager, he saw it as a fat lie. He ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 9, 2009, 6:57 am
'Why can't we make a Frisbee', Maise said. It was the Sunday drought and only morally uplifting activities such as cooking were parent approved.             Harry tentat...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 8, 2009, 9:34 am
The crash got them running. Old man Coles was treacle slow but he could hit flies a mile away once cocked up. Gasping hard, they jumped over the hedge ripping modesty away as bullets thundered past. ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 6, 2009, 8:28 am
‘Prof Jackson, folks. Put your hands together for the professor.’             ‘So Prof, what made you a Nobel prize winner?’  ÂÂ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 4, 2009, 7:42 am
  Only her face shone in the stage lights, the moon to the audience's stars as recording lenses sparkled back. Her note broke the silence of death to summon hope. Out of the darkness ca...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Sep 2, 2009, 4:25 pm
'What did dad do,' asked Jack smiling up at her.             She dreaded the innocent questions. How do you explain, a drunkard fumble with neither party remembering what...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 31, 2009, 3:51 pm
  The stone stood, a relic marking where once the slaughter of the innocents took place. Who now cares for the truth- they were bait for enemy lured to defeat or the myth- a nation born out ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 29, 2009, 3:33 pm
‘I don't get it.’               ‘Its simple really, I have invested—’             ‘Spent’               ‘Invested my bonus in a spor...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 27, 2009, 5:34 am
We are going out whether you like it or not think of the glamour when we are on the yacht. I'm on the mobile. I could wear the little black dress with gold edges. To think, they live in houses wi...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 26, 2009, 4:08 am
The scream was short but it was the signal for the crowd to break up, some at least looking shamefaced. Not always, the ones you expected, Silas would say years later on the rare occasions he let the ...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 25, 2009, 4:42 am
'I was born here and I die here,’ Evelyn said calmly.             'Listen to grandma here, you'd think she was paying the bills,' the ba...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 24, 2009, 5:39 am
Outside each tree in the garden was doing a disdainful tango as the rain sighed against the rattling window. It was a jumper day.            ‘My kind of su...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 23, 2009, 5:03 am
    'Yor stuck with yor kin but you choose yor friends,' she said in a take-me-as-you-find-me voice. It wasn’t an invite. Maggie, standing in he...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 22, 2009, 6:47 am
  'You like. Want buy. Big on girls who like boy.'                Phew, from the cover Harold saw that was true b...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 21, 2009, 3:33 pm
'I need a hook-up now,' Jo screamed.             His mother just sat, holding her gun. Tears long gone, now it was a battle of wills.             She had lured him to t...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 20, 2009, 3:48 pm
‘Please it's only a rabbit,’ Dali said, resigned to her irrational reaction.            ‘Oh no, no.’            He saw Lucy’s body go rigid, her nec...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Aug 20, 2009, 7:05 am
QI type discussion on the origins and development of the screw etc. All to down to your landed gentry looking after themselves. Wonderful detailed case study on unintentional consequence- better scr...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Aug 20, 2009, 5:52 am
Dystopian vision of a Bible-Belt police state America. The economy has collapsed—with millions fleeing their bodies as "angels" set free by music. We follow Daniel's struggle to find his song ...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Aug 20, 2009, 4:59 am
Life in Edwardian Japan from a cat's perspective. Ten story social satire from the period when Japan modernised—think Diary of a Nobody. Probably hilarious if you are up to speed with the peri...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Aug 20, 2009, 4:14 am
Oddball romantic-drama. Andy Gage is the key 'soul', managing his household of multi-personalities, working in dysfunctional IT start-up business. Matched up by his kooky boss with Penny, st...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 19, 2009, 12:27 pm
Where have you been all day, sniffin around skirts?       ‘No, I am trying to find an elegant way of line indenting in HTML .’       ‘That’s not what a healthy boy sh...
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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 18, 2009, 10:28 am

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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 16, 2009, 5:54 am

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John A. posted an article on Random Short Stories - Aug 16, 2009, 3:00 am

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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Nov 30, 2008, 4:25 am
To me at the heart of writing rests imaginative empathy but so often we struggle to tap into this rich source. Roger van Oech's argues that we kill playfulness and imagination with conscious/uncon...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Nov 14, 2008, 12:44 am
I look around and imagine ahead twenty or thirty years. Will what I see still be there? My home, school or street, someone else’s memories of birthdays, school trips, cosy nights in, when I am a dus...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Oct 26, 2008, 3:09 am
In my head all writing is good on the page it rises to poor on the 3rd draft I have hope but soon default to unsure When the reader is unsure you have to rewrite in hope that imagination will come go...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Oct 19, 2008, 2:40 pm
How do you define your humanity, your worth and the meaning of the good life? Did the last book you read, the last poem heard, the choir on Classic FM, the last serious piece of reportage in the newsp...
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John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Oct 5, 2008, 3:37 am

John A. posted an article on Notes of Book Dreamer - Sep 26, 2008, 3:14 pm
These are the books read for the 50 book challenge by genre collection. I also partially read another 5 books which were cast away into book hell. All but two have been reviewed on my notes of a book...
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