The leaves are changing outside my window and the air is just that touch of chilling that makes me feel alive. This time of year awakens in me the true writer because it feeds my imagination… I don’t know why the months from October to January have this affect on me…I only know since childhood... they do. It starts in October…Halloween and the lure of costumes and their magical abilities to transform you…the tingling intrigue of mysteries and...

A few thoughts on my 112 years of being an on and off member of ABCtales.

A group of members are forming in order to keep ABCtales going after December 31st - and it's looking good. They are determined to keep the ethos of the site - that it's available to anyone regardless of financial or cultural circumstances, is friendly and supportive and will encourage improvement as much as excellence. I am very hopeful that ABCtales will continue under their guidance for many years to come. More news soon! All the best, Tony...

'The ticker, the curse of the Fitzpatricks.' It's a one-liner inserted by Irvine Welsh within the first 50 pages of Trainspotting. Did Irvine and Lilian whose maiden name was Fitzpatrick ever meet? It would not surprise me; they were the same age, both from Edinburgh housing schemes and both enjoyed a night out. Lilian was not a user of illegal drugs but in her younger days she went drinking and dancing and the two may well have met at a disco...

My ponderings on the concept of the “Fellowship of Suffering” after watching Andy Stanley’s DVD on what to do “In the Meantime” whilst you are waiting for something, or are ‘stuck’ in a situation you can’t change. As God works in His AMAZING ways, I was reading “A Voice in the Wind” by Francine Rivers (a loan from a friend) at the same time as I was watching the Stanley series. The book is a fictional historical recapture of the Biblical times...

A great story and a wonderful poem for you this week. Congrats go to mandylifeboats and seafret: https://www.abctales.com/story/mandylifeboats/meeting-wolf https://www.abctales.com/story/seafret/rooted And an IP that can make you think a bit: https://www.abctales.com/inspiration-point-ip

Those with long memories can remember a certain Ranger’s goalie being virtually unbeatable, Celtic doing everything but score and Brian Laudrup galloping up the park and winning it for Rangers. Matt Gilks played a great impression of Andy Goram, but there was no great Dane to run away with it for the underdogs. Leigh Griffiths, in 87 minutes, set up the other best striker in Scottish football, Moussa Dembele whose sublime touch won the game for...

Underneath the title on the cover, in brackets, is a dictionary definition of what The Revenant means ( n . one who has returned from the dead). Every actor after every new release must also return from the dead. Leonardo Di Caprio banked another $20 million, and got the added bonus of an Oscar as Best Actor playing the part of frontiersman Hugh Glass, a man that just wouldn’t lie down and die. This is a novel of derring-do, with a lot of daring...

Firstly, how lovely it's been hearing how much ABCTales means to so many of you. (If you've read celticman's blogpost I'd just like to say he's lying about the taxi driver) There are a lot of emails and messages flying about right now and I feel sure that things will be fine, and that we'll all still be here in January. So keep your fingers crossed and don't go off searching for other sites just yet! Onto the weekly picks - I'll start with a...

I’ll be sorry to see the end of ABCtales.com. Most folk will not of heard of it, or be that interested. In theory there’s almost 120 000 stories (poetry counts as a story) online, written by almost 20 000 writers. That works out at six stories per writer. But if you believe that you’ll probably believe some of the unbelievable shit I’ve written over the last eight years. It helps if you have no idea what moderation is. My normal day consisted of...