Hark! A huge podcast is approaching! Well, just a regular-sized one actually, but density-wise it’s certainly unequaled in terms of raw creative-writing-technique-opinions-per-minute. Go! Listen!

My multiplayer versions of this podcast are coming together – which is to say I’ve booked a date to record a bunch in London. Now all I needs are some willing, warmhearted authors with opinions to co-host with me. Not sure how they’ll compare to the solo show – some bits will be better, I imagine! It’s worth having a go, and it’s always worth hearing a range of perspectives.

If you’d like to listen to the podcast on iTunes, that is also a thing you can now do.

Here’s the piece I talk about this week. If you’d like to submit, please read the submission guidelines. You can get in touch via the ‘Contact Me’ link on the right.

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The Tale of Chocolate City (by Olly)

Chocolate City had run out of chocolate. Not just dark chocolate, which any right minded citizen of Chocolate City knew was only really for older people who had sensitive teeth, but also milk chocolate and white chocolate. It had run out of the chocolate that went in ice cream, in sweets, on pancakes and even the mint chocolate that rich and refined people liked to dish out at the end of fancy dinner parties.

It was a catastrophe….

“It is a catastrophe,” wailed a short stumpy looking man, clad in the flowing red robe of the Chocolatiers. A stern looking colleague, with a dark, neatly trimmed beard, and deeply set green eyes, sat listening distractedly, just across the fire place.  He was taller and somewhat firmer looking than the man sprouting forth with fire and brimstone about the future of their beloved city. The hearth between them burned with the last breaths of a long night; they had been running over the problem for days now and had come to no conclusion. The sterner man cleared his throat thoughtfully, uncrossed his legs and lent forward to speak,

“Well alchemy always states…”

“I don’t give a damn what your crazy magic states, you can’t just make chocolate from thin air. You’ve been trying for thirty years, ever since you were kicked out of the academy for mixing fruit and nut with chocolate…. I mean, the sheer audacity?”

Gerald knew he had gone too far then.