Well what a wonderful Write Path fortnight that was! The usual last minute panics, thrills and spills but fantastic writing and poetry as always. Lovely to see so many positive blog posts, photos and marvellous videos, I'm so glad everyone enjoyed taking part. There is one last thing to do however - vote for your favourite school entries. Please do take the time to put your vote (s) in, I have some great prizes to send off and I really need help to decide winners! …

River 

In full cascade it springs from ridge to ridge,

Rolling the pebbles that it dodged before,

Hurling itself against each crumbling bridge,

Delving a trough along the valley…

The Shadow on the water

 I lazed upon the sun-scorched beach, and

Watched my tiny, freckled, laughing daughter

Splashing in the waves that washed the sand

When, there! a shadow in the…

Dolphins:

Crystal clear, clean and warm,

I float in the azure ocean of my dreams,

Listening for dolphins and other watery beings,

Willing them to join me, …

The Ballad of the Boat

She took her oars inside the boat,

And set sail from the shore.

She said goodbye to all she knew,

To what she’d see no more.…

I put my goldfish on the floor

He isn't very fit

He only did ten sit ups

Then lay still, that was it

I put my hamster in the wash…

A wet day

It’s drizzling.

In the High Street, shoppers glare at the sky,

And turn up their collars.

It’s just a shower.…

As holes went, this one was big enough to swallow a church. it yawned upwards at the sky, a black mouth in the mountainside, howling silently at the oblivious sky above. That we would have to let it swallow us terrified me. It held a darkness that seemed thick, like it had substance. And somewhere in it, deep within its suffocating gloom, lay The Pool. Dad had spoken about it in the days up to his death, muttered to us  glimpses if that…

At first I thought it was the sound of a clock ticking, and I tried to go back to sleep.  But I knew I was fooling myself.  We'd never owned a ticking clock. It must be a dripping tap. I pulled the pillow over my head, determined to ignore the sound. But what if the plug was in? There would be a flood in the morning, and I would have to mop it up and explain.  So I got out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom.  All was well there. The taps in…

‘Because he doesn’t care…’ said Lily.

Only her voice started to change. It began to echo and the tone grew deeper and more resonant. The result was masculine, bestial and cruel. Daemonic even…  

When 13-year old Jake woke, he was no longer in his bed. 

He was in a forest, surrounded by plants too strange to be those of Earth.

And even stranger than those was the teenage girl in front of him. 

She wore a glittering dress that was cut up to here…

It was getting late. Lee and Charley had been at Megan’s house. Now they were on there way home though the town.

  There weren’t many people about as they walked past the big shopping centre. Charley looked through the glass doors.

  “Lee, look at that!”…

The Dastur pricked his finger and smeared blood across the boy’s forehead. He bowed low and whispered, “A King doesn’t choose to be King.”

The hooded woman looked about eighty years old but she was barely fifty.  A lifetime in the underground had taken its toll.  A lifetime of illness had taken its toll.  Her back bent, Zoe moved painfully slowly along the frozen path.  Dressed in rags and filthy furs against the chill, grim

determination was written across her decaying face.  Her head bowed by deformity, she could see only the ground for a few metres ahead.  Frail, she…

It was my worst nightmare.  I was alone, in the dark, unsure where I was or how I’d ended up there.  

It was hard to believe that only a few hours before I’d been lying on a beach in the hot sun with a large fruit punch cocktail in my hand, under a bright yellow umbrella, wearing my brand new orange polka dot bikini.  I’d felt so pleased with myself.  Who but me could have so…

Jack couldn't swim. And that was a problem for three reasons. One: getting out of school swimming sessions was difficult, not least because the teachers were getting suspicious of the reasons he'd come up with over the years, from family deaths to personal injury and illness. Two: it was difficult to impress a girl by waving at them from the leisure centre cafe, while his mates flirted with them in the semi-nude. Three: he was stuck on a…

 Megan sat and stared at the computer screen. She looked and looked but the words just wouldn’t go away. How had she got herself into this mess?

She had really thought she was on top. She knew about keeping safe on line; all the things she shouldn’t do, everything she shouldn’t say, stuff she shouldn’t tell anybody. And she hadn’t done any of it – well not…

“What’s going on?”  Tom nudged Alex. He wasn’t tall enough to see over the heads of the people who had amassed at the pedestrian lights on The Crescent.

 “I don’t,” she replied.

The police cars’ blue lights were still flashing. They could hear sirens in the distance.  It sounded as if there were more on the way. One…

It was my first day and I wished it could be the last.

Everyone stared as I walked in. My face was hot; someone made a ssss! sound, and giggled. I tried to keep my gaze fixed on the wall at the back, but by accident I caught the eye of a boy in the middle row. He was looking at me in a way that said I know what…

Although it was my first visit to this part of the country, I couldn't help but feel drawn to the banks of the lake. It was the way the weeping willows framed a certain view across to the far bank, the way the light fell on the waters, the scent of the earth, trees and undergrowth. I found myself moving ever closer to the edge, drawn by the strange familiarity of the scene. It was as if I was being transported back to a place and time that…