Top shelf challenge entries in a library of: Echoes

Wow, we really dug deep for that challenge, didn't we? Come read the top entries from this month's three-minute writing challenge

This is the fourth shelf I have added to the Library of Challenge Winners. I see this library very literally, like a wing of a mansion house, the room so big that ladies in hooped skirts would have enough space to play badminton. All that is to say that in a few months time, or even years, there will be snippets of excellent writing plastered across every wall.

Writing hasn’t been something that tumbles out of me in silky ribbons of late. A fortnight ago, when I came to write a post about all the stupid stuff I nearly bought as a new mother, I sat at my laptop and sharp, wry observations made their way onto the screen. Perhaps evaluating the worth of overpriced wooden toys will do that to you. However, in my fiction world, I am doing the equivalent of digging up the road. It is noisy, exhausting, and one wrong move could see a chapter cracked along the wrong fault lines. Needless to say, I am in the trenches of editing.

I’ll write more about this next week, but for now, let it be known that the three-minute writing challenge helped me reset too, on a day that felt treacle-thick.

This month’s prompt word was: Echoes

I took my daughter to the Horniman Museum this week, which is full of Victorian taxidermy; over-stuffed, glassy eyed, and ever so creepy to look at. My daughter, however, loved it. Especially the monkeys. As she crawled over to the dusty orangutan, I was reminded of this poem by Carol Ann Duffy:

There are echoes of ourselves everywhere we look. Some haunt us from the inside out, others gaze on from the outside in. That voice, once our mothers, coming from our own mouths. That bouncing, chubby fingers slapping the glass, my almost-toddler more monkey-like than the adults around her.

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*IMPORTANT - this post is too long for a single email, so if you’re reading this in your inbox and it cuts off, jump over to the Substack site or read on the app for the best experience.

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Well guys, we got introspective this week, didn’t we?

What I love about this challenge are the writers who are penning words for the first time in years. If you took the plunge this week, how did it feel? Sometimes, taking three minutes to write can feel confronting, or badly timed—I felt like that too—but those seconds tick down quickly and when the buzzer goes off, it’s amazingly grounding to have experienced that thread of connection to yourself, even for a small moment.

Want to give yourself an additional challenge?

The wonderful thing about writing is that it can be reworked, or revisited. Who says the challenge has to stop here? If you want to see where a few more moments of focus takes you, consider this:

Many of this month’s entries involved narratives that echoed moments from the past. Try giving yourself five more minutes to continue your piece, working it to a present moment.

What clarity does this give you?

What action might be taken next?

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The next challenge will be announced on Wednesday 20th March.

In the meantime, if you’d like to read more of my posts about fiction, writing, and the publishing world, these might appeal:

📽 Your questions answered: CREATIVE CLOUDBUSTING (extended video response)

Not a Write Off vol: 6

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Before I pulled together this month’s Library Shelf, I treated myself to a bag of Italian hazelnut wafers. They come from the bougie deli near my house, which I very rarely go into, but for some reason these particular wafers are incredibly cheap. One day, I will turn into a hazelnut wafer. Anyway, this is my proposition to you. Go get your favourite treat. Stack this post up amongst some of your favourite Substack reads, and get lost in new voices, new worlds, and perhaps an echo or two of your own.

Now, onto the winning entry!

The Winner -

Allegra Chapman

You shout just to hear the sound of your own voice bounce around the cool stone walls and land back at your feet. You shriek with excitement, and that is thrown back to you too. I hear myself trying to hush you, and that sound reverberates around my head. You are too loud. Too much. But as the echo of my own censure is passed back to me, I wonder when I became afraid of all this noise. Of this sense of wild abandon. Sound for the sake of it, for the pure joy of it. I wonder whose disapproval I am trying to avoid, what harm I am trying to prevent. I bite back on the words of reproach, swallow down the leash I was trying to throw around you with my tongue. Instead, I hoot like an owl and hear the sound fill the air around us. Delighted, you hoot too, and now we are surrounded by birds.

This piece is one you can read again and again. You know that kind of reading that feels like someone placing a warm hand on your shoulder? This is it. There’s a gorgeous self-awareness, an immediacy, and a journey taking place, all within 160 words. Allegra - I am surrounded by birds too.

Here is Allegra’s original note. I would love it if you dropped in to give it some love.

Allegra is an author, columnist, and creative wellbeing practitioner. She writes over at I Am Happy on what happiness really means and how to get it. If connecting with joy in the present moment and discovering tools to embrace creativity sounds like your thing, go and give her a read.

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The Top Shelf

These entries take us from intimate halls, to sonorous voices. From the echo of past selves to the wayfinding markers of the year. They all reach out in different ways and make for excellent reading.

Don’t forget to show the writers some love!

💕

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1.

‘Echos

of my past

self swirl around me,

lost but not quite gone,

found but not fully here.

A mountain of memories -

some shining brightly,

others drowning

in pain.

.

Still

I prevail,

rising from the deep

to find my footing again

on the earth, in my heart

with my roots in

This life.

Here.

Now.

With less

than I dreamed,

but more than I feared;

Vaster than I fathomed.

Grateful for the chance

to continue on

again

.

and

.

again

.

.

and

.

.

again.’

Lindsay Hartley

Lindsay has written a beautiful poem here, but not only that, she has tackled

Patrik L

’s photo challenge on the theme of ‘Reflections’ and

Beth Kempton

’s #tinywinterpoem on the theme of ‘Ripple’. This is a hat-trick of creativity. There’s a sense of undulation in this poem that communicates how our past selves pulsate and echo our past, sometimes to our detriment, but often as a reminder that we have strived before and will strive again.

If you enjoy beautiful writing about nature, but especially birds (I have never seen red-winged blackbird before, but Lindsay corrected that for me) head over to Hartfelt Expressions, Nature Connections.

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2.

‘Sound does not echo in the theatre. It is built as an intimate space, made entirely of wood. The wood soaks up the words, as it has as long as it’s been standing. How many millions of words have been absorbed by those piers, struts, beams, pillars, benches? It is smaller than I remember, much smaller, and the audience are close. Whites of their eyes close. For speech it is perfect. Drama, acting, telling stories, bringing the audience into your world. Making them lean in. For music it is intimate too. After all we are story-telling as well. Our stories are no less important; but our stories have an extra layer. Sometimes echoing meaning, other times concealing it. But for our music it is stiflingly intimate. We prefer to take cover in an echo, to hear a halo around the sound, to continually assess the feedback in real time and learn and tweak and bask and play.’

Emilia Morton

Somehow, this made me see sound. Emilia’s words have managed to make the invisible something I can hear and sense in a tangible way. There’s an interplay between the solidity of architecture and the way that sound moves through it which I found mesmerising, which would be good enough, but then we have immediacy of a performance at stake. Wonderful stuff!

Emilia has just started writing over at A Work in Progress, which I’m sure will be a hit if her challenge entry is anything to go by.

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3.

‘All that was 

and wasn't.

All of the choices 

and indecision.

All that I learned 

and all that I didn't.

All that was lost

and all that was found.

The past resounds 

into the present.

I am an echo

And will echo

into the future.

I am still her

And I am still here.

I am the same

But different.

And I will be the same 

but different 

again.’

Amy - Seasons Change Therapy

There’s a wonderful call back in this poem that pulses back and forth, much like the echo it describes. Is our identity fixed? Is it in constant flux, overlapping with past and future versions of ourselves? Amy, you have us all thinking!

Amy writes about bridging the gap between therapy, creativity, and nature with an emphasis on slow and cyclical living over at Seasons Change Therapy.

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4.

‘Every time I think I have found something original to write I find an echo of a former thought

Every time I think I am growing and aging I find myself circling around to the same themes, and I think:

“Am I really changing at all?”

Yet do I tut and sigh as the seasons turn? Do I close my eyes and shake my head in frustration as I sing “Once in Royal” or have my first BBQ of the (false) summer.

And so, let the echoes in. Let the cycles repeat.’

Laura Oldfield

Laura has written about cycles, from the minutiae to the grand and abstract. I love the idea of embracing echoes when our first instinct is to see them as criticisms of originality. Now, I’d really like to have that first (false) BBQ of summer.

Laura is a multi-passionate company of one: coach, mentor, professional singer, writer, and music teacher. She is a gifted curator of community with a wonderfully positive outlook on life, family, business, and creativity. You can find her work at Life: Unlocked.

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The Next Three-Minute Writing Challenge

The next challenge will go live on Wednesday 20th March. Until then, I will leave you with a quote from Our Saviour, Anne Lamott.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”

– Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

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If you’d like to read more from me, you can find my writing by picking up my novels, either from any decent bookshop or through your local library (never feel bad about this - I actually make more money from a library loan than a Kindle purchase). The Lonely Fajita (2021), The Sister Surprise (2022), or The Wedding Crasher (2023). My books have sold nearly 20,000 copies and I am so grateful that people like my dark lil’ sense of humour and fish-out-of-water heroines.

Reviews of my work:

'‘I relished this witty, tender story of loneliness, growth and friendship. Mann has a fabulous knack of finding the funny in life’s small detail’ - Pernille Hughes

‘Heartwarming, charming and witty’ - Sophie Cousens #1 bestselling author of This Time Next Year

‘The perfect blend of warm and witty you can't help but smile (and laugh) throughout’ - Helly Acton, author of The Shelf

‘Had me laughing all the way through, and I got weepy at the end’  - Sara Nisha Adams, author of The Reading List

‘I laughed the whole way through and cried at the end. The perfect smart, escapist read’  - Freya Sampson, author of The Last Chance Library

‘As comforting as putting on your cosiest sweater and fuzzy socks. I loved every moment of it’ - Jesse Sutanto, author of Dial A For Aunties

‘Yet another hilarious and touching book from Abigail Mann, with a cast of great and terrible characters and a setting full of Succession-esque glamour and drama’ - Lex Croucher, author of Gwen and Art are Not in Love

‘Abigail Mann is at her absolute best . . . she skillfully uses comedy alongside other more serious topics’ - Holly McCulloch, author of The Mix Up