Tiny, tiny story 2

Yes, Officer, I can describe her. Her head's usually down. Looks like she knows her place. Doesn't push the boundaries. Rarely looks you in the eye, not wanting to attract attention, I expect. She's let herself go. She's been inside a lot but always comes out or writes at Christmas.




In case you're wondering, the prompt was 'Your neighbour describes you to the police'.

Micro Fiction

I don't usually post any of my creative stuff on here, preferring to keep it for myself until it has fully developed into something else or not as the case may be. However, seeing as it's Christmas and I'm not working on my novel or doing much else in the way of writing, I thought that I would, just for the holiday period.

Very generously, Sarah Salway posts daily writing prompts and I enjoy responding to these as a means to keep my creative juices flowing. I tend to keep to a 50 word limit because this seems to work well for me, not only in the context of it just being an exercise but because it's fun and feels like playing. I tend to write them very quickly and this is an important part of the process. If I thought too much about what I was going to fit into 50 words, I'd tie myself up in knots! So, here is a taster of what I get up to when I've got 5 minutes to spare:

Hiding the gun in the cake seemed like a good idea at the time. It was only when Bert remembered how Charlie never chewed, he'd realised it would be a problem. Charlie happened to contract a cold and within a week, he'd started coughing up bullets. He killed ten people.

You will have gathered that these are not serious pieces of writing and most frequently, I don't even save them anywhere. They probably reflect my mood at the time which is maybe a little disturbing when you think about it .......

Snow Friends

I decided to take a picture of Monty in the snow, knowing that sadly, this will probably be his last winter. He's particularly doddery at the moment although no doubt he'd say the same about me. Just as I was about to snap the picture, Marmaduke crept into the scene and for a moment, I think Monty forgot that he's around 108. Apparently, you're never too old to play in the snow.

Rambling Through The Rubble

I've been writing a bit less recently, not necessarily by choice but because I'm tied up trying to maintain some sort of order in the house. My MA and Counselling courses are well and truly finished and the our building work is well underway. Our living room resembles a squat, with the number of bodies sleeping in there having increased to three. Floor space is at a premium and competition is hot for room to make footfall between the boxes of Lego and piles of clothes.

My laptop gets moved around periodically to protect it from falling plaster and is generally less available to me. Therefore, I've spent far less time on Facebook, checking my email repeatedly and asking Google random questions. I thought that this would be a good time to be reunited with my journal, which, I am ashamed to admit, I had neglected whilst writing my novel in November. It feels like a good time to pick up the pen, embrace its portability, spontaneity and freedom from electrical cables or absence of threat of perilous destruction from dust penetration. What I hadn't expected when I reached underneath my bedside table for my journal was to discover that there was rubble in my pencil case. It's not a particularly fancy case, made of clear plastic, not because I'm going to enter any exams but because I get a bizarre pleasure from looking at my collection of pens and highlighters. However, it is dulled and fogged over by a salmony coloured brick dust. At first, I was a bit saddened, then amused by the idea of 'rubble in my pencil case' as a writing prompt. I turned back to my laptop. Caressing the film away from the screen, again tinged pink, I felt a very familiar phrase bouncing like a ball inside my head and rebounding off the dusty shelves. 'Think of the end result, it will all be worth it' I tell myself. And it will. So rather than focus upon the rubble in my pencil case, I will look at the dust as a rose tinted view of the future.

Now I am going to snuggle down underneath the quilt on the settee, turn up the television and use the cat to get warm.

Destruction and Creation

The builders have been in for two and a half weeks now. We've never done this before, not to this scale. They're remodelling downstairs to make the kitchen bigger and knocking down the walls of the smallest room to accommodate a staircase for the loft conversion. As the practicalities of our plans unfold daily before our eyes, we are thinking more creatively about the space.

It's all very exciting seeing our home change by the day. Yesterday, was exactly a year since we moved in here with the intention of making these changes. We're not property developers, we just liked the feel of the bungalow, its location and saw its potential. You don't have to watch too many property programmes to know that it always costs more than you think, you will hit problems and you will inevitably change your mind about a few things along the way. We're ticking all those boxes at the moment.

It's all very well seeing the potential from the outset but as walls come down, we're getting more creative. Perhaps it was the night we spent (me, fully dressed) in the freezing cold with our bedroom opening on to the kitchen, a hole in the ceiling and the roof where a chimney has been removed, separated only by a hastily-erected dust sheet? Is open plan the way to go? No, I don't think so. We're not really open plan types. I understand to a point, that if you have limited space and need to move around more freely, then of course it makes sense. It also makes sense to be able to close a door on the rest of the household at will. But yesterday, in between counting chickenpox and nursing my own sore throat, we looked around our expanding kitchen and made a big decision. The pantry and the boiler cupboard are going. I love my pantry but here's the truth: it's full of rubbish which could easily be condensed into something much smaller. My fantasies of popping in and out of the pantry, Nigella-style will have to stop. It would allow us to have a bigger table in the kitchen and will create much space because its walls are so thick. As for the boiler cupboard, well, the boiler is being replaced next week anyway so it could easily go somewhere else. And then the back door which is between the two cupboards in question can be bricked up because we're getting a new one at the back of the house and hey presto, we've got ourselves a whole wall to play with and against which we can place our range cooker. Simple.

So, just as we thought the main demolition activities had ceased (and no doubt, so did the builders) I'm going to break it gently to them over another bacon and egg sandwich that they'd better order another skip and some more bricks. Does it sound like we're out of control? We're not really. We have made a huge concession. The planned conservatory is being either put on hold or scrapped and we'll wait until the new year to get the existing bathroom done so we're not being completely daft but there's no point in going around doing things half-heartedly, is there? My only worry is that in doing so, we lose the charm that first attracted us here in the first place. But that's just it. So much attention to detail and care was put into the original construction of the house (it was built by a builder for himself) that it deserves the same now. Yes, we're changing certain things. It's going to have an upstairs for a start but it should blend seamlessly with the original style. We're not even changing the footprint of the house. Yes, we're ripping out the pantry but it's to make space for us so that we can continue to protect the house's identity and yet breathe a new life into it. The whole kitchen revolves around us retaining the original English Rose sink unit, built, we believe, by bits of leftover metal at the spitfire factory after the war. You see, they knew about making old things into something new. They knew that some things have outlived their use and rather than become a museum piece to be preserved for nostalgic glances, they can be remodelled into a new form. To get to that moment of realisation, they must have had to tolerate some uncertainty and chaotic thought. Then, unexpectedly, someone in mid creative flow came up with the idea of making kitchen units instead of aircraft intended for battle. Creation arising out of the ashes of destruction. Isn't that what creativity's all about? As a pair of very nice 'cultured builders' (their words, not mine), I'm sure they'll understand.

Getting Back to Normal

I've been away from here for a while so I thought I'd let you into the secret of what I've been up to.

I'd heard about National Novel Writing Month from Sarah Salway on her blog. It sounded interesting but as a short story writer, the idea of producing a novel in a month seemed far fetched. With many other things going on, as they do in the lead-up to Christmas, I decided not to pursue it in 2009, not least because I wasn't a novelist. However, when I found out that three of my fellow students from my MA were taking part, I could no longer resist the challenge. The trouble was, it was already 2nd November by the time I signed up. I had no plot, just a vague idea. I started writing, building up the characters, describing their lifestyles and relationships to each other. By the 3rd November, I had made up the deficit accrued by starting late. I worked out that I had to write 1,666 words every day for the rest of the month. I knew that it would be tough but having taken part in Your Messages in 2007 and 2008, I was accustomed to the demand of writing daily and had enjoyed the challenge of writing within a word limit. I seemed to have forgotten my earlier resolve never to write a novel. Ever.

My vague idea expanded and developed but it wasn't until about half way through that I had a definite plan of how the novel would end. Even so, the detail of the ending, without which I don't feel that it would have been anywhere near as good, didn't come to me until I was within the last 5,000 words.

My adopted a varied writing style throughout. Sometimes, I wrote in an almost unconscious way and at others, I was far more deliberate and manipulating. Interestingly, the days when I resented picking up the laptop and getting on with it, those times when I really didn't feel that I had anything to say, were when I produced what I think are the best bits. Sometimes, I could feel my interest tailing off and I took this to be a signal that the narrative needed to be woken up. I worked upon the principle that if I was getting bored then so too would a reader. I believe that this helped me through the more difficult days when my motivation or energy was lower. I got a perverse pleasure from exceeding my 1,666 daily target, feeling as if those extra words were 'in the bank', relieving me of some pressure for the following day.

Just as I'm sure anyone else who takes part in NaNoWriMo does, I faced my own challenges along the way. Good television programmes, meals to cook, washing to hang up and children to ferry around to start with but in the last week, we had builders in demolishing a chimney right above our bedroom where I sit and write. But sit and write I did, amongst the brick dust and between making tea and I got to the golden 50,000 mark. The last few pages were difficult to write and perhaps this was some form of resistance to it all coming to an end. The novel's title didn't come until the day after I'd crafted the ending. I'd had two working titles along the way but neither seemed to hit the nail on the head. It was like searching around in the dark trying to grab something I couldn't see but once I found it, I was so pleased.

So, it seems that I can write a novel after all. It's really no different to short story writing. It's not such an overwhelming prospect when broken down into manageable chunks and if it is approached with the same discipline, authenticity and intensity of the short story, the narrative speaks for itself.

I have a huge pile of ironing in the corner and a number of other tasks to see to but I just can't wait to start editing. Neither can I wait for someone else to read it and tell me it's wonderful. Or to see it with a cover like a proper book. All I need now is a publisher.

Frogs, Ponchos, Blazes and Guinness

Early on in the summer, we dug out a small pond. Although we'd talked about it on and off, it was an impulse buy when visiting the aquatics shop for tropical fish. It was one of those pre-formed, plastic ponds like a large, black jelly mould. It wasn't too hard to dig and impressed the children no end.

We bought a water violet. Unfortunately, it didn't survive the constant prodding from children wielding fishing nets but the buttercups and the michelmas daisies which grew and draped into the water like small-scale willows thrived. We'd filled the pond with water from our butts. That's water butts and I'm not sniggering. Not a bit. Anyway, there were lots of wriggly things in there, mosquito larvae so we were told but at least something was already alive and visible.

I am ashamed to say that in my impatience, I kidnapped a large frog my husband disturbed whilst weeding. I put him in the pond. The frog, not my husband. The following day, it was still there. Within a week, our daughter spotted a different frog, a medium-sized adult one. And then another. And then some froglets (it was well past the spawning season) one of whom liked to float on the breeze from one side of the pond to the other. Now, we have a collection of adult frogs who seem to be permanent residents. The maximum number we've spotted in one go is five. This is fairly amazing considering that the pond is only about three feet by one and a half at its widest points. Our regulars include a red one, an absolutely huge one whose body is the size of my palm, another with a silver-coloured throat, a lighter yellow one and a darker browny one. They all seem to coexist quite happily, hiding under the vegetation with just their eyes and nostrils above water. Whilst their eyes are characteristicly bulbous, their nostrils are so tiny and delicate. I am envious of their stillness, the way that they can emerge from beneath and break the water's surface without any ripple or sound. If startled, as you approach, you may hear a 'plop' or see a pocket of air, a speech bubble rising from beneath shouting 'Go away, you great oaf!' You might get a glimpse of their fat little thighs as they retreat amongst the roots of the rushes. I wonder what they say about us?

This has become such a subject of fascination to us all that we've decided to add another, much larger pond. This time, we've used a heavy pond liner. In the photos, you'll see the pond in the making. Again, we've filled it from our butts so the food for the frogs should be present from the outset. We've got to move a fern to the water's edge so that they've have cover and it would be lovely to see some frog life in there before they go into hibernation. I am trying so hard not to 'encourage' our froggy friends to move across to their new habitat. It's almost next door. Barely separated even. In fact, if you screwed your eyes up, it's almost one pond. Sort of. If you examine the photos of the new pond, you'll see just how close the old one is. So it's not really like I'd be moving them, is it? OK, I won't but I can't wait to see them there and I'm looking forward to what the spring might bring to the pond. Maybe I should write a story about frogs whilst I'm waiting?

So whilst the frogs slip beneath the surface of the world and hibernate at the foot of our pond, we've got a new pastime. We've got a fire basket for the garden which is what you will see in the last two photos. It's probably what men have been doing around their garden incinerators for decades. The only difference is that it looks a little more ornate and has a wire rack on the top for grilling. We've only had it out once so far but it was great fun. A bit like having a camp fire without the singing. I did make up some stories for the children whilst we sat there trying not to set fire to ourselves. One of my other recent purchases has been a poncho-type thing. Unfortunately, I couldn't wear the poncho around the fire because I didn't want it to be ruined. I'm sure that the cowboys in Blazing Saddles didn't worry about the sparks or human combustion. Once the building work gets under way (and I'm sure it will eventually, soon, maybe), it might be useful to be able to grill the odd sausage or pot of beans outside. Maybe we should take a lily pad out of the frog's book and hibernate until the house is more habitable. I've got a wetsuit but does anyone have any flippers I can borrow?