<p>I put this up on the forums and I make no apolgoy for repeating the call here.</p> <p>Once upon a time there was an earthquake in Haiti. On the other side of the world, in Denmark, a writer named Greg McQueen saw the devastation and decided he would do something about it. He put a call out for writers from all corners of the globe asking for 100 short stories to put into an anthology. The result was 100 Stories for Haiti, a book that came from conception to publication in a matter of two months and all proceeds go to the Red Cross to help the people of Haiti.<br /><br />Last night Greg saw more pictures of devastation, this time from Pakistan and now he&rsquo;s put out another call. He wants 50 stories and he wants it published in a month. You may think he&rsquo;s crazy, but I&rsquo;ve seen him do this before.<br /><br />So come on all you writers. Now&rsquo;s your chance to do something for nothing &hellip; but it&rsquo;s not for nothing. Flex your typing fingers and get writing and let&rsquo;s see 50 stories for Pakistan working to ease the suffering of people less fortunate than ourselves.<br /><br />Here&rsquo;s the form.<br /><br /><br />50 Stories For Pakistan<br /><br />Max 500 words<br /><br />Any subject, any genre but no death, violence or destruction.<br /><br />Paste your story into the body of an email.<br /><br />He also needs your name, address and contact number. You can add a short bio if you wish, but the contact details are vital.<br /><br />Send your email to: storiesforpakistan@gmail.com<br /><br />Want to hear Greg spelling it out.&nbsp; Then go here: <a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/176966-stories-for-pakistan-let-s-go">http://audioboo.fm/boos/176966-stories-for-pakistan-let-s-go</a></p>

<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--></p> <p>From a wintry Oldham I bid you all an icy good morning.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>You all know that I'm a serial blogger. I love blogging. Whether I have my writer's hat on or Flatcap's flat cap, I love venting my irritation on the www at large. You also know I'm a book writer. I don't fiddle with short pieces. By the time I get 500 words in, I can usually see a novel or a full-length NF work.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>That still holds. I'm currently challenged to turn out 10 novellas and about the same number of short books by the spring. It's hard work. Two weeks into the plan, I'm 20,000 words into the first novella, not a singe word written of the NF books, and I'll be hard pressed to make it. Fortunately, it's not a formal deadline, so if I miss it, the dog gets a kick up the arse and that's it.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>But I need a break from the slog now and then, and last week, thanks to our old mate Trevor Belshaw, I stumbled on fridayflash. Basically, you write a short story, no longer than 1,000 words, post it on your blog, then tweet it on twitter with #fridayflash in front of the url. That same url needs shortening, too. I'll tell you where to do that in a minute.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>I haven't written short stories for about 10 years, so it was a refreshing change to have a dabble at them today and last Friday. Obviously the stories were written and polished in advance of the day and simply posted to my blog.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Now here's the interesting bit. I took a total of 14 comments on the tale last Friday (2 of them were mine) and that's on a blog that normally gets one or two comments. I wait to see what happens this week, but the tale went up at 7 a.m. and it's already had two comments, one of which, from my dear friend, Mo, was very encouraging. The blog has also picked up two subscribers since I posted these.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>You can judge for yourself by going to: <a href="http://dwrob96.wordpress.com/">http://dwrob96.wordpress.com/</a> The posts are preceded with the heading Friday Flash. Today's is entitled <em>Where's Kate</em> and last weeks is <em>Tis The Season to be Jolly</em>.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>As far as I can judge, you can use your Writelink blog for them. I post them on Wordpress because it's acting as a marketing site for my books.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>For twitter, the url needs to be shortened and you can do that at: <a href="http://bit.ly/">http://bit.ly/</a></p>