BIKERS BOASTS – Maureen has plenty for Og to brag about!
We had a big entry for the monthly Arena Challenge which called for a piece of flash fiction featuring a boasting biker! The winning entry came from Maureen whose story took a different slant to most of the entries to find favour with our judge, Sylvie Nickels. (Pick up on the one folks, don’t go for the obvious!).

Due to being late with this report, our latest competition has been up and running for several days, but you’ve still plenty of time to enter. We’re looking for a poem hinting at a moment of rebellion!

Wild Times closes on the 10th September. As usual you can enter as many times as you like, but post directly to either the old site or the new.
http://www.writelink.co.uk/community/viewPage.php?ID=Arena%20Challenge%20Instructions

http://www.writelink.co.uk/arena_main.php?cat=a_wildtimes

Adjudicators report by Sylvie Nickels
This theme triggered a small deluge of black humour and gangster-like dialogue, some of it gratuitously gory and much of it associated with the joy of speed. My main reaction is that blood and guts do not make for good writing unless the humour is wry as well as black, or makes some salutary point. For this reason I chose two of them for my short list.

The thrill of speed appeared both to glorify speed and blood-and-guts until the end revealed that the speeders had ended their own existence as well as that of some unsuspecting unfortunate. The other, The Final Delivery, has a holy sting in the tale as an over-confident biker boasts of beating a trucker through traffic lights. “…you were wrong, weren’t you?” St Peter sighs as the lad arrives at the pearly gates,. “And you’ve come to the wrong place.”

There was no twist but nice writing in BMX Angel. Two competitive biking maniacs hurtle off a ramp into the sky. The writer loses the contest with good grace and a flash of evocative prose.

Wheelies, Bunny Hops and Sherbert Dabs was great fun, though I personally I hope texting language does not become a new literary genre. I liked the gentler voice of Permission to Ride whose seemingly macho owner of new wheels and shiny chrome had the ‘old girl’ under his thumb until he confesses he’s not allowed off the drive until ‘mum says’. There was a nice feel, too, to Team Work. Three flatmates plan a week-end’s biking. One of them can’t ride but, after weeks of tumbles, suddenly hacks it. The shared joy was refreshing after so much violence.

But my top vote goes to the imaginative Moving with the times, the only one completely to shed the constrictions of the thrill of speed and winning at all costs. Og, indeed, invented the neolithic bike from a woolly rhino, an antler and a couple of roundy things.. I, too, hope he managed to outride that sabre-tooth tiger.

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BIKERS BOASTS – Latest Arena Flash Fiction Contest
This one definitely calls for tight writing as we’re only allowing you 100 words plus title to come up with a biking tale of bragging expertise! We’re looking for a piece of flash fiction featuring a biker, (interpret how you like) who has something to boast about!

You can enter as many times as you like, but please submit entries directly to the competition pages by clicking the Add to this list button at the top of the listings opposite.

There is £20 for the best entry.

Closing date, 10th August.

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