Hello everyone,

New member:
As I have written to tell you, we now have a new member as from today. Les is going to join in the challenges, and to see how he fits in with what we do (whatever that is!).

So here’s a welcome to you, Les, from Alpha, and I hope you enjoy joining in with our activities.

Challenge rules:
We’ve had a little correspondence about such things as word counts, and whether the limit can be broken. We should not all be checking these things, but as I suggested in our discussion, the best way to do this is for the person organising the challenge to check whether the rules have been broken.

Of course, this arose because Sally sent in an entry of 306 words for one of the challenges. I feel that if she’d put 300 instead of 306 at the end, no one would have questioned it at all – I don’t think anyone would have checked the word count. Honesty isn’t always the best policy, Sally! (now, there’s a theme for a future challenge!)

It’s not just the word count, but it could be whether the deadline had been broken, or indeed some other parameter being breached. If the person organising the challenge accepts the entry, then we all do, and it is circulated for judging. If there is a reason for a late entry, then as long as we know that it’s coming late, there is no problem: we accept it and don’t question it.

There are enough problems in judging without any of these creeping in. I found Zena’s diary entry hard enough. For instance, I made my choices on ‘rules’ which appeared much more to do with writing: How much direct speech should there be in a diary entry? – not much, I think, for it is difficult to remember more than an odd sentence or two correctly. How much reflections on what happened fifty years ago will there be? Not much, I think, for a diary tends to revolve around an activity of the past day. I do accept, though, that some people may actually write their diaries like that, but I have to make some decisions to help me judge.

Now you’ll all have received the latest bundle of entries for David’s challenge: just assume that all of them meet the necessary criteria.

Telephone story:
I learn from David that this story is working its way through the list of those who have signed up to contribute.

Competitions – Bridport:
I have received some entry forms for the Bridport Short Story competition. Generally regarded as the top competition for non-professional writers, it asks for short stories of up to 5,000 words (I don’t think you’re allowed to break the limit) by June 30th. As a first prize, it offers £5,000, and at £1 a word that’s not bad pay. On the other hand, if you’re one of the many thousands who get nothing, you might feel hard done by.

Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be nice if an Alpha member won it?

Discussion topic (1):
Members writing about their closet novels hasn’t seemed to encourage much response. It is not too late to say what you’re doing in this respect.

Discussion topic (2):
Christine (again – doesn’t she have good ideas?) has introduced the idea of a rule on elision, despite the fact that Chris is not convinced. Are there any rules which help? – or do we just use it when we feel it’s appropriate for the particular text we’re writing?

Actually, I checked on the definition of elision in the dictionary, and found it only applies to omitting a vowel or a syllable. So while "isn't" is a perfectly good example, the word - used particularly by children in Somerset and I suspect many places - "i'n't" raises problems, for not only is an "o" omitted, but an "s" is as well. Christine, what happens to your rule now!

I also found that elision - which I had really assumed was an isolated noun - from the verb 'elide'. Comes from Latin apparently, a verb meaning 'to strike'. I don't quite understand why.

Best wishes to you all,

- Olaf