I like weekends. Why? For two reasons.

One: I get to eat buttered toast in bed (if I ask my husband nicely, that is, or forcefully bribe him with cinnamon buns).

Two: the No Sleep Podcast releases a new episode for me to sink my teeth into. Oh, how I hunger for those RSS feed announcements. Mmmmmm. RSS feed. Mmmmm. 

Anyway, in my last post I spoke about my story ‘His Life’s Work’, which was produced by the very talented No Sleep team. They took my little pile of words and turned it into something marvellous: a living, breathing piece of work with AMAZING sound effects, particularly if you enjoy listening to a grown man gratuitously vomiting all over himself. Mmm, vomit. Mmmmmmm.

This week, it was the turn of my campfire story ‘The Little Man‘, released on Episode 13 of Season 10. 

Again, this is exclusive Season Pass content, but honestly- what else are you going to spend your money on? Beer? Shoes? Food? Why would any sane person do that, when the alternative is so much better? Who wouldn’t want over two hours of rich, immersive, fully produced audio fiction, pouring into your ear-holes and trickling into your cerebral cortex like molten honey? I ask you. In fact, I shouldn’t have to ask you! Tut tut. 

Anyway, this story was born of the No Sleep’s book group writing prompt, a regular challenge with a different theme each month to write around. 

With this story, I wanted to subvert the traditional ‘campfire tales’ approach, and make it more about the nature of friendship than about marshmallows or strange scrabbling noises outside the tent door. 

Eight friends gather around a campfire, intent on swapping scary stories. But Ellie’s story captures their imagination in all the wrong ways. Click the image to hear the strange tale of ‘The Little Man’

Hearing something I’ve written in real, spoken form is teaching me to be a better writer. I’ve learned that my preambles are too lengthy, and my carefully crafted descriptive prose sounds a lot more like carefully crafted descriptive waffle than I realised. I tried to work on both these issues with the story I wrote next (details coming soon), and I’m much happier with the end result.

Anyway, if you want to read the original version of ‘The Little Man’, simply click on the image above for a link to the PDF. Don’t forget to leave me your feedback, good, or bad, or even leave me a review on my Facebook page– it all helps me to gain traction!

Until next we meet, dear reader. Mmmmmmm.