Excitement here as one of my short stories, Calling Time, has been published on WORDLY Online. WORDLY Online (and its print counterpart WORDLY Magazine) is a literature publication of Deakin University. The publication includes everything from short fiction (like sci-fi piece Orb of Desecration), creative non-fiction (such as Eilean Donan which blends personal essay and…
Tag: storytelling
The stories we tell ourselves
When I wrote this piece, I was questioning the idea that our experiences make us who we are; a belief that had, until then, provided me with both justification and reassurance. I’d come across the work of Kahneman who suggests that it is not an experience per se that we remember; what we remember is…
The long and the short of it
Here are the wee stories I’ve written for the first five days of Writers Victoria’s Flash Fiction comp. Initially, my intention was to use it as an exercise to pull together some juicy sentences that I could expand on down the track. Then the working week started, reality hit and despite only needed to come…
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…
We spend our lives not seeing what we saw
It’s writing exercise time, again! This time the task was to use the prompt We spend our lives not seeing what we saw to draft three micro pieces – some poetry, some fiction, and a personal response. As always, I did these under time pressure and with the understanding that exercise of any kind isn’t…
The Sometimes Diary of Nina Thirkettle
Wednesday, 16 February I wonder, sometimes, about what type of person I’d be if there was someone watching me all the time. A shadow that I could never escape from. Somebody who was there silently scrutinising my every move, my every action, my every inaction! Would I be a nicer person? Would I give money…
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…
My Grandmother’s Teapot
This was my Grandmother’s teapot. I can’t recall ever going to to her house and not seeing this little teapot sitting on the kitchen table, alongside her tannin stained teacup. As was the custom among her generation, she always used tea leaves and she always, always, steeped her tea way too long for anyone of…
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…
The Sometimes Diary of Nina Thirkettle
Tuesday, 8 Feb Went running today. The old guy that looks like a skinny Santa passed me as we were going up a hill. I guess it wasn’t really a hill hill, but it wasn’t flat either and he made it look like it was actually nothing at all. I don’t have runner’s legs. There…
The System
UPDATE: I’ve just seen that Baby Teeth Journal has their blackout poetry competition on again. So, if you think you can do better than my entry from last year (and let’s face, probably all of you could), head over to their site now! You have until 1 March 2022 to enter. The System the system…
Not. Not. Not. Not.
I have notebooks piled up around my study. One of them is my ‘Book of Memories’, where I scribble down random memories that pop up, usually triggered by some current event. Another, my commonplace book, records words and phrases that I like (I’ve talked about my commonplace book before). Yet another captures story ideas, in…
My treasure chest of life
In an earlier post, Fictional words with real-world swagger, I talked about how we can apply made-up worlds to our everyday lives and achieve real-world outcomes. Today, I want to give a shout out to the sentences that take your breath away; not in a oh-my-god-that’s-horrendous type of way, but in the I-have-to-go-back-and-read-that-again type of…
Embracing the bad
Kyle A. Massa’s recent post on his most embarrassing writing fails is a cracking read. But it’s not the writing fails that makes it so good; it’s Kyle’s retelling of events and his ability to look past the cringe of reading back through old writing to find the lessons therein. Those lessons being, if I…
Summer TBR list revisited
One of my summer reading picks was Devotion by Hannah Kent. Although I finished the book some time ago, I’ve struggled to pull together a review. That’s not because I didn’t enjoy it – quite the opposite, I adored this book – but because I think it is one of those books that is best…
Language and power: Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Today I’m going back to my academic roots to take a look at the use of language in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I got on a bit of a roll so it is a long one. Sorry! ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ George Orwell, 1946 Language is loaded with…
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…
Summer TBR pile is good to go
Is there anything better than holding a new book from one of your favourite writers in your hands, anticipating the feeling of being completely absorbed into another world, whether real or imagined? Nope, I can’t think of anything better either. Needless to say that it was an absolute delight to head to my local bookstore,…
Fictional words with real-world swagger
By any measure, I’m a pretty analytical person, someone who deals in facts and data. I studied science; I manage a small business; I’m very fond of excel spreadsheets; I don’t believe in the afterlife. Despite all this, I never pass up an opportunity to read my horoscope every morning. Of course, I only ever…
Once upon a time … truth, memory and storytelling
I was a bit late to the party with watching Sarah Polley’s 2013 documentary, Stories We Tell, but I’m so glad I eventually made my way to it. ‘Truth is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down.’ Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell (2013) At first glance, it appears that Sarah Polley’s documentary, Stories We Tell…
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