I love sugar cookies, but I hardly ever find gluten-free ones!

I'll take three, along with some Red Rose, tea, please. And thanks, Sara & Mandella!

Long day here. Lady Jay and I got our booster shots yesterday. I was fine this morning and did a bunch of stuff, but it's catching up to me. I'd like some Red Rose, please, in a clean mug, and a couple of gluten-free cookies!

Thanks!

And I'll take a cuppa Red Rose, please, with a couple of GF cookies, with thanks to Sara!

Grey, overcast day here. I'm going to try to put my head down and actually, you know, WRITE something!

I'll have some Earl Grey tea, and a cheery cherry and strawberry shortbread GF cookie, please.

Thanks Sara!

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Quote by JamesPBear

Is there any Red Rose left? Or hot water, for that matter?

Uninspiring day today. I feel like I got nothing done.

I need to write a story or six!

The tea kettle has fresh hot water and the Red Rose is in the tea chest on the counter . And there are some yummy gluten free cookies in the Elmo Cookie jar .

Thanks, Sara! You're a Bear-send!

Is there any Red Rose left? Or hot water, for that matter?

Uninspiring day today. I feel like I got nothing done.

I need to write a story or six!

And good bear-ly morning, y'all! I'd like some Red Rose tea – no lemon, no milk, please.

And I'll check the cookie safe – YES! a couple of GF cookies left, so I'll snaffle them.

Finally, I have to thank the judges. I know I joked about being #11 in a field of 10, but I am surprised, and even slightly abashed at the compliment they paid my story by creating a special category of notice for it. Thank you!

Quote by Mendalla
You neglected to mention the "honorable mention" that went to a certain white, fuzzy Inspirations regular. Congratulations, James. Personally, I thought yours was top ten material but then I would have to figure out who of that group wasn't and I'm not going there. As Molly said in her announcement post, it must have been a tough one to judge.

I didn't mention the honourable mention because I didn't see it. Besides, being a polar bear is an automatic honourable mention, don't you think, Silverback?

So, the Spooky Story winners have been posted – and there are a number of Inspiration regulars among them!

Ping is the Big Enchilada, taking 1st prize

Violent the Virtuous gets 2nd place, and

Writer Girl the Amazing gets 3rd!

1st Place: Innocent Until Proven Gullible by  Ping

2nd Place: The Wonderful World of Wally Weasel by  Violet_the_Verbose

3rd Place: Just a Girl Who Loves Cats by  WriterGirl

Runners Up:

• After The Curtain Fell by  Welshdreamer42

• Eidolon by  Tams

• Out Of The Lake by  redwriter

• The Empty Office by  Mendalla

• Dark Image by  TomEccleston

• A Village in Cornwall by  Verity

• A Matter of Time by  AnnaMayZing

.

Congratulations to you all! I expect Ping will be buying hot chocolate all around!

(stumbles in and collapses on a chair)

Do you have any gerbil tea? I got my flu shot today, and I am just out of it!

I don't want any caffeine as I'm going to trip on off to bed soon as I can work up the energy, but I need SOMEthing.

Maybe Celestial Seasonings, "Sleepy Time Tea"? If they still exist?

I don't drink gerbil tea very often.

(slumps forward on the counter)

ZZZZzzzzz…

Ooohhhh! Irish Breakfast tea! Yes, please!

I'm good on cookies for now. I'm watching my midriff – grow. And it shouldn't, so… "no cookies for me!"

Good day, everybody! I know that our (rented) PVR has a hard drive, but Mandella, how do you attach an external hard drive? And how do you record TV stuff on one? I'd love to give Bell the heave-ho, but since the demise of DVD recorders, I haven't found a simple way to record stuff, and I'm not willing to go back to being a slave to broadcast schedules (and commercials!).

Meanwhile, Writer Girl has produced an extraordinarily lovely story that I would encourage you all to read:
Fat Grandma

I'd like some Orange Pekoe tea, and I'll check the cookie safe to see if there are any GF animal cookies left!

Thanks!

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Congrats on the win, Sara! The Braves deserved it. I became a big fan of Albies during the postseason. No more baseball for five months.

Not quite, Verbal. Pitchers and catchers report in 3 months and 11 days!

I'd like some Red Rose tea, please, in a clean mug, and some of Sara's GF animal crackers. Polar bears by preference, of course, but I'm not that picky.

Thanks!

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Numerous parents on Monday:

Nonsense. I NEVER (let me kids catch me) eat their Hallowe'en candy!

I'd like an Orange Pekoe / Red Rose tea, hot, in a mug, please, and if there are any of Sara's GF animal cookies, I'd like a bear (with white frosting, if possible) and an elephant, please.

Thanks!

I'm not a fan of spooky stories, so mine actually has a happy ending. And there are elements of truth in it – although I'll not tell you where!

It's set in Ireland, it is, and tells the story of a lass who desperately needs help to avoid her own death – and doesn't know it.

Find it here: The Road Not Traveled

And my thanks to all the kindly folk who have already set eyes on it!

Would she wake and hear me leave? Alas, I must…

Greetings everyone! May I please have tea à la Picard – tea, Earl Grey, hot? And a couple of Sara's Zoo animal GF cookies would go down a treat!

Speaking of treats, we're not going to be handing out treats again this year. Too scary! We've given treats to kids going home from school by sending them down a kid's slide instead, and hope they're OK with that!

So, too bad the Braves couldn't take two in Houston, but they did their job by splitting. Now they have home-field advantage. Let's hope they can capitalize on it!

I'd like some orange pekoe tea, please. Hot. Or if there's none hand, I'll try some of the Buddha's Blend. And if there are any gluten-free Hallowe'en cookies, that would be amazing!

Meanwhile, I've got my costume ready to go!

Quote by Mendalla

By the way, I am dressing up as a human for Halloween.😉

.

.

That's perhaps the scariest monster of all!

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And besides a pot (with cups available) of Earl for the white fuzzy types, I have put on a fresh pot of coffee and boiled the kettle for those inclined to some other variety of tea. I have been drinking Scottish Breakfast today myself.

I thought Scotch was "Scottish Breakfast"?

So, my competition story is out: The Road Not Traveled

It's about as spooky as I get.

I mean, come on, folks! I'm a bear.

I can people just by waltzing into the living rooms, right? So, I've never had to try to be spooky before!

Anyway, it's out there. It took some time to get approved. I've been told that the moderators read it, one at a time, and then were too overcome with laughter to approve it. Finally, someone recovered enough to do so.

So, read it and weep – laughing, if the fit takes you!

Now, may I have some tea, Earl Grey, hot, please. IN a cup this time, thank you very much!

And I'll check the cookie Tupperware safe for gluten-free cookies. Yup! Still some there. Thanks, Sara!

Hey there, y'all! And congrats to the Braves! I was so hoping they'd beat the Dodgers blue! (That's an "inside baseball" joke). Yea, Sara!

May I please have tea, Earl Grey, hot, in the famous words of Captain Picard? Naturellement!

And if there are any gluten-free cookies leftover, I'd like a couple of those, too.

Thanks!

Just submitted a comp entry, and it'll be published whenever the moderators stop ROFL. So, maybe sometime next week. I'm not a spooky kind of guy, so don't get your hopes up. And you can definitely wear white pants while reading it!

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Quote by Welshdreamer42

I’m locked out of the other site 🤣

I knew I would be, I’m so rubbish with technology, lol 

Don’t suppose you could sneak me a beer, could you? 🍺

It's not you. I can't get in right now either. The site is still unstable from the upgrade, I think. My suggestion to all would be to wait until tomorrow. Hopefully, the tech crew are working on the issues.

There's a couple cases worth in the bottom of the fridge. Emergency stock I laid in. It's Sleeman's. Good Canadian beer (even if the company is now owned by Sapporo).

I'm just sneaking in for some Earl Grey tea, hot (as per Jean-Luc), plus one of Sara's (stolen and returned) GF sugar cookies. I'll take a seashell and a dolphin cookie, please. And yes, I know that's two, not one, but as Robert Benchley once said, there are only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.

Hope everybody's well. Our g'daughter starts Sr. Kindergarten tomorrow, so we're out of town to avoid the rush. Of course, her parents (rightly) don't trust the provincial government here in Ontario to know their ass from the Grand Canyon, so she'll be attending remotely. Not sure what that will be like; her first experience with school being through a screen! Well, as my mother used to say "All will be revealed!"

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Good morning! Coffee is a-brewing and kettle is a-boiling.

Day 2 of the long weekend and I am still kind of "at sea". I guess it's depression but I just feel very unmotivated and sort of unhappy. Not down in the dumps unhappy, just kind of lacking in joy. 

Sales trainers have a cure for that. It's called "GOYA", which stands for "Get Off Your Ass", meaning you're not going to feel any better moping around. Instead, get moving and do something constructive. Even if you have to force yourself in the beginning, once you're into it, you'll feel better.

Not sure if that helps, but it works for me!

Quote by ladysharon

Hello, everyone. Life is good, and I had a great few days ending August and am ready to tackle Blogtober on my website. The little one is in preschool and recently turned four and it seems like she was just born yesterday. 

I see the site has a new design and I'm feeling it. I'm going to have a look around and get some writing done. I hope to have a new original piece up soon.

Nice to meet you, Lady Sharon. I'm James, a polar bear married to Lady Jay. And no, I don't have a title – and am certainly NOT bi-, if you see what I mean.

Nice to see everybody. I have supper cooking on the BBQ, although I'll probably finish it in a pan, and we're sitting by a quiet lake in eastern Ontario, on vacation this week and into early next, wishing to miss the school rush, ours being too old for that.

I'll have a tea, Earl Grey, hot, please!

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Hold it, did the bear just confess to murdering Earl Grey? Does this mean we now have a murder mystery going on in here?

The problem with using Niven as an example is that a lot of his later stuff really was drivel, even if he also put out some pretty fine s-f in the seventies and eighties. I have a gut feeling that he might be a tough read for 21st century me, even though I was a fan in the eighties.

But, yeah, that's kind of what I've been doing. The problem for me is that technique usually generates these wonderful openings that have nowhere to go and any attempt to finish them seems to end up with me figuratively ripping the paper from the typewriter and tossing it across the room.

It wasn't me, I wasn't there, he didn't look like me even if it had been me, I was at home with my sainted mother, bless her dead soul, and besides, I always  liked Earl Grey – when he was alive. And my girl friend, Felicia, will back me up – but let me call her first, OK?

Well, if you can't, you can't. I can't think of anything else to say…oh, wait. That's the problem, isn't it? *shrug*

I've published a story that I had wanted to have linked to an existing series, but couldn't figure out how to do so. I've published the story and have now figured out how to add a link, but can't now find out how to link the already published story with the series. When I go to edit it in order to add the link, it seems to think I'm creating a new series. Help?

There's always the

Quote by Mendalla

Quote by verbal

I'm not writing well, and I don't know why. Keep at it I guess.

 

Me, too. Have two stories sitting there with like half a dozen to a dozen paragraphs but just don't know where to go with them. Great beginnings both, but then my imagination stalls on trying to go further.

Kettle is on for tea.

There's always the Larry Niven technique for writer's block. Just start typing, and keep going, even if it's complete drivel. Eventually, your subconscious will kick in and take over. Then circle back and edit out all the crap.

It works, even if it seem stupid or contrived!

Hi y'all! I could murder a cup of Earl Grey tea, hot, please!