The Headlines
Penny for your thoughts, my dad says when he sees me curled up on the sofa in the living room, a half-eaten slice of cold toast in one hand and balancing my iPad on my knee with the other.
They’re not worth that much, I reply with a shrug.
He shuffles into the kitchen to boil the kettle.
At the start of the year, I challenged myself to read the news headlines every morning...
Good Boy Judas
The fire crackled in the hearth, filling the room with the earthy fragrance of woodsmoke. Its flickering flames bathed the room in a golden glow. I lay at the foot of Robby’s bed with my chin resting on his blankets and my eyes closed to savour the warmth.
Robby shut his book with a gentle thud and placed it on the bedside table...
Sing Sweet Siren
Sing, sweet siren.
It is all you are good for.
Waves lap in symphony,
Seagulls cry overhead,
Your cracked lips part.
With your chest, stomach, heart
You scream, ‘Save me!’
Immortality
Immortality. Humanity has been obsessed with the concept for as long as mortality has existed.
You think about it and ask about it. You are always thinking and asking.
‘Will I live forever if I outrun every predator and keep good health?’
It will work for a while. If you stop the dinosaur from eating you...
Lost Boy
He had no sense of who he was.
For so long he sat atop the brick wall, his flesh acquired a layer of grey dust. His hair matted like neglected dog fur, his trousers shrunk to knee-length and his t-shirt tore. Spindly legs swung back and forth like the rigid arms of a persistent ballerina, dusty feet paddled the air and hollow eyes stared absently at the pavement...
Stranded On The Platform
I cannot remember where I am going and I cannot remember why, but my train is here and I must catch it.
It is moving. Does it not know that it leaves me alone, lost and stranded? I have nowhere to go. Just that train. And it is going. It is gone. It rattles away into the darkness. It leaves me alone on the platform gasping, gulping for breath. A whoosh of air makes the hairs on my legs stand on end...
Stained
I swirled the wine in my glass, disappointed by it’s tinny flavour as it insisted itself upon my tastebuds. Wine is such a pathetic excuse for the colour red, don’t you think? We pretended to drink it because we were sophisticated, you and I, with our joint seven figure bank account and business diplomas. Mine is from Cambridge, yours is from Harvard. I thought we were clever. I really did...
Grimorium
‘Claudette, it’s lesson time! Come on, now.’
I stifled my laughter and tucked my toes in. Miss Lucy would never find me here but if she did, I would be in trouble.
Father’s study had bookshelves for walls and marble heads on stands that looked real but were cold and hard. Opposite the desk I hid under, was a book stand with a leather-bound book the height of my torso...
The Jewel of Harrogate
Elsie Lowis was a posh old lady.
In Harrogate town center, a charm bracelet would chink on her dainty wrist as she waved her hand in the air, calling, ‘Yoo hoo! Over here!’ to her friends. She wore soft silk dresses, excessively ornamental accessories and expensive fur coats. Sometimes she wore slacks (an old-fashioned kind of trousers) but they were always the nice kind, the sleek kind, the kind that empowered...
The Restless Realm
The blobby stick of rushes dipped in beeswax I called a candle, melted faster than I would have liked in the darkness. But despite its rapid journey to its own impending doom, the flames fluttered frantically like wings desperate to detach from their wicked wick, descend to the heavens and fly far away to a land where they could brighten lives forever. Three long sighs and a toss and a turn later, the candle snuffed out...
Murmur
When he hatched, Murmur was a purple heart stuck with feathers like an unfinished art project...
He dreamed of sugar and sweetness before he could open his eyes. The first time he tasted nectar, he knew in his tiny heart that he would spend his life searching for more.
He waited, beak wide and stomach growling, for his mother to share today’s gathered feast...
Plot Structures: Predictable or Helpful?
Girl meets boy. This is a basic romance plot structure. I want to address your immediate instinct which is to roll your eyes and complain, ‘It’s so predictable.’
When it comes to stories, predictability is generally considered a bad thing. Would you read a book if you knew the ending? You said no, right?..
Better Than Me
He thinks he’s better than me.
Somehow he heard what I wanted to be
And laughed in my face at my reality.
He wants to sail the sea,
Visit every place and climb every tree,
Spend all of his parents’ money.
He thinks there’s only one kind of free...
Marionette
I scare you because I look like you –
I am smaller, weaker, helpless,
Wooden.
My eyes and lips are painted on. My dress is glued around my shoulders and my waist.
You wear rings
and I wear strings...
How To Get Over Writer's Block
Every writer’s heart stops when I utter the words, ‘writer’s block’.
We’re ready to write: we have our tea, our snacks, our pens and we’ve told everyone in the house we’ll be writing upstairs. But then we sit down. We munch on our snacks and stare at the incessant blinking of the cursor on MS Word.
We're people. We have lives. We’re constantly distracted by our phones, friends, families and work...
The Gown Of Guinevere
There she stood before the king and all his court, her feet cold beneath the skirts of her stolen dress. Eleanor didn’t belong here. She knew that and yet for some reason she’d allowed the King’s knights to escort her into the castle.
‘My Lady,’ they called her with flourishing bows. They acted as though they knew who she was, but that was impossible. She was the only daughter of a struggling blacksmith...