Thoughtcat’s Man in New Zealand, Chris Bell, recently wrote a very good short story called Kind of Blue: A five-part seduction fantasy, which not only looked to the great Miles Davis album for its inspiration, theme and structure but, in a nod to the way jazz records are made, the first draft was also “improvised” along to the record in real time. Even though, by his own admission, Chris did revise that first draft a few times before he was happy to unleash it on the NZBC blog to which he is a regular contributor, the idea of approaching a short story “[without] a preordained plot and a line of action, [trying] to get most of it down during one sitting, beginning with a sketch, and attempting to capture the spirit of discovery with no unnatural or interrupted strokes” was, I thought, a great idea. My imagination captured, with Chris’s permission I’ve started The Great Kind of Blue Story Challenge, which invites Alan Sundry to beat Chris at his own game. The “rules” are, basically, to write a story, about anything you like, in a single sitting, while listening to Kind of Blue, then email the result to us. So come on, then, if you think you’re ‘ard enough…