Morgen With An E

Welcome to my Tumblr page. I'm Morgen Bailey and live in the UK. My blog, like me, is consumed by all things literary and if you write, you can take part! Take a look and email me. http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com [email protected]

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Results of Morgen’s 50-word Story Competition – June 2026

Hello everyone. I’m delighted to announce the results of the twenty-sixth 50-word competition on the theme of ‘too popular’. There were 22 entries from 12 writers this month, all regulars, which doesn’t happen often, still lovely. With such a low word count it’s tricky to fit a whole story (start, middle and end) so they’re going to be snapshots. One disqualification as ‘ice cream’ (as a noun) is…

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Word Count Wednesday: 15th July 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? Inspired by last Saturday’s BeaconLit book festival (the big small literary festival), I’ve been writing some small pieces in the evenings. No details as they’re still works-in-progress and something very different to the norm so I’ll publish that under a different name. 🙂 During the day it’s still the (day) job of client…

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Word Count Wednesday: 8th July 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? Another busy week with client editing, beta reading for Self-Pub Fest stalwart and New Street Authors‘ Chair David Wake and the latest all-day online festival, which was fantastic. Take a look at https://self-pub-fest.co.uk/online/5-july-2026-festival for the five panel recordings. The first of the Wednesday WIPs critique…

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FREE 50-word competition: June closed… July open

Yes, the competition has closed for June and has opened for July. The theme is ‘Stopping something important‘. The forthcoming (up to December 2027!) themes are available on the https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/50-word-comppage.

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Word Count Wednesday: 1st July 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? No writing as such this week, which is fine. I’ve been through a WIP I started while commuting to/from Capital Crime and have done some tweaking but nothing much. I’ve been concentrating on client editing so I can have (some of) July and August off. Of course things are cropping up take chunks out of July but I’m hopeful for…

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Word Count Wednesday: 24th June 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? I’ve had a wonderful week. I was working right up to last Wednesday evening (nearly 10pm) then getting ready for Capital Crime (London crime writing festival run by DHH Agency) the following lunchtime. Two and a half days of listening, enjoying, networking and… writing nearly 10,000 words while commuting. Fab. I didn’t take…

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Word Count Wednesday: 17 June 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? Nothing new from me this week as I’ve had two client novels to go through (two rounds of edits and cataloguing chapter lengths, timeline, characters, locations, repetition etc.) and it’ll be close to the wire this week as I’m off to Capital Crime on Thursday! So two and a half days off then it’s Father’s Day on Sunday and…

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300 Words a Day podcast

You may have noticed that the Sunday prompts stopped at the end of May 2026. Other things took over but I was also creating daily prompts for my ‘300 Words A Day’ Spotify Podcast, which I feel would be far more useful to you. This has been running since August 2025 and provides more insight into each prompt than simply giving you a picture and short prompt once a week.  See…

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Word Count Wednesday: 10th June 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? I can’t believe it’s been a week since I wrote the last WCW post. I’d love to say I’ve done some writing but sadly… This week’s been a mix of client editing (one book due back early, another due by Friday of next week but I’m at Capital Crime from Thursday afternoon so it’ll be back by Thursday morning at the latest. I am…

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Results of Morgen’s 50-word Story Competition – May 2026

Hello everyone. I’m delighted to announce the results of the twenty-fifth 50-word competition on the theme of ‘The other side of the world’. There were 25 entries from 14 writers this month, including 6 new to the competition, which is fantastic. Sadly two of a new entrants’ stories were disqualified for being 91 and 98 words (I used to run a 100-word competition so perhaps for that instead).…

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Word Count Wednesday: MASTER

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? No new writing this week as I’ve been helping a friend (who’s also one of my mentoring clients) get his book ready for publication (which I’m also in the process of doing for him!). I have however gone back through some of my WIPs (works-in-progress), one of which is perfect for my sixty-book series so that’s another 8,350…

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Sunday Prompt: 31 May 2026

Hello and welcome to this feature (inspired by Story A Day May) where I post a prompt, and accompanying – though not necessarily connected – picture*, so actually two prompts, formerly every day but now on a Sunday due to other commitments (sorry!). *This week’s photograph shows the back of a torso (so gender unknown) wearing a dark-coloured hoodie. The figure is facing a wooden walkway with a…

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Word Count Wednesday: 27th May 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? I’ve been writing every morning and have 10,395 words. Thank you, nerdy Excel spreadsheet… the only way I can keep track as I’m working on several in a sixty-book series! Do leave a comment below to share your progress, successes and otherwise, and of course anything else that’s happened to you, writing related, over the…

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Sunday Prompt: 24 May 2026

Hello and welcome to this feature (inspired by Story A Day May) where I post a prompt, and accompanying – though not necessarily connected – picture*, so actually two prompts, formerly every day but now on a Sunday due to other commitments (sorry!). *This week’s photograph shows a large dusty old attic with (day)light shining from the back of the room from the left, showing a lighter wood…

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Word Count Wednesday: 20 May 2026

Hello and welcome to Word Count Wednesday. How have you been getting on? Refreshed after a week in Spain, I’ve written over 5,000 words! T (husband) wanted a week of not doing a lot, which seeing as we were staying at a friend’s house in a village at the top of a mountain and we’d been before, wasn’t difficult. So I continued with my sixty-book series, which is developing nicely. My day job is…

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The books I read (and pulled apart!) in Spain

Because my day job is editing novels, I usually read short stories but with the prospect of a week-long break in Spain I thought I’d take a few (seven) novellas. The results are below… ‘The Ballard Down Murder’ by Rachel McClean (101 pages, 32 chapters, published 2025) Rating: 2/5 Despite the reviews on Amazon (other than someone complaining that the book’s too short), I was disappointed with…

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Sunday Prompt: 17 May 2026

Hello and welcome to this feature (inspired by Story A Day May) where I post a prompt, and accompanying – though not necessarily connected – picture*, so actually two prompts, formerly every day but now on a Sunday due to other commitments (sorry!). *This week’s photograph shows a vertical blue background with white symmetrical stars, being the top-left portion of the American flag. Unless…

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