Fiction

You don’t have to shout to be heard

If I wrote about me—my thoughts, my fears—who would I be? What would my voice sound like? Would I sound old? Scared? Interesting? Just a little bit crazy? What would I write? Is long-form the way to go? Could I sustain reader interest, let alone my own? When I hear the story in my head…

I’m just going to start here …

I was rummaging around in my drafts folder this morning and found this snippet that I’d scribbled down at some point. Unfortunately, I left myself no clues as to what ending I had in mind – or even if I had an ending in mind – so I guess this is a teaser until the…

The man

His eyebrows sit neatly between the boundaries set for them. They are so striking in their symmetry that at first you don’t see the way his left eyebrow arches slightly higher than his right. How it lifts even higher as he enquires as to your health. How his lips disappear into his mouth as he…

Calling Time

I’m currently working on a short story called Calling Time about a woman caring for her ill mother. Underlying the love the woman has for her mother, there is a real sense of exhaustion and a ‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this’ feeling. In the excerpt below, she wakes after a…

Playing with perspectives: The girl in the hood

I’m not sure about you folks, but when I start a story, I usually have a clear idea of what POV it should be from, then invariably I get part way through and wonder if a different POV would tell the story better. Despite thinking about this a lot, I have to say that I…

Grey Box remnant

Like the Girl in the cafe, this piece riffs on the work of another. This time, my inspiration is from David Foster Wallace and the opening sequence of his unfinished novel The Pale King. His poetic first sentence is something else. Past the suburban chaos and false borders of ill-claimed land and past the bleak…

Girl in the cafe

It’s easy to get into a bit of funk with your writing practice but it’s not always easy to find your way out again. One of the things I’ve learned to do when creativity goes missing is to pull out some writing from someone I admire and to try and imitate their work. I find…

Richard

This flash fiction came out of a writing exercise where one of the key characters had to be unable to speak. I’ve left it in its raw form – I’m trying to be brave about sharing first drafts! Richard heard the click-clack of Dr Johnson coming up the corridor. He buoyed at the thought of…

Her time was coming

Her time was coming. Like a wave gaining momentum as it roars towards the beach, it was building within her. She didn’t know what her purpose was—she hadn’t figured that out yet—but she felt calm about it. Content in the knowledge that it would come. The universe would guide her, steer her to a calling….