Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Words On Loving Yourself Plan was this: to go to the woods then come home and write. I had asked my clever brother to make a graphic for me, of a phrase I use and wished to share, because it is so nearly my 50th birthday it was making me feel beneficently wise. What happened was: I was watching the happy arse of my dog as she thundered towards the river when a bundle of words arrived with a ferocity equal to her velocity, as though she had tugged them into being. Writing was done awkwardly, immediately, balanced on a knee.  These words: 'Imagine a sheet of paper, imagine you have a spoonful of ink. You fling the ink at the paper; some of it will miss. You are like this ink. But you are not this ink. You can refling yourself over and over and in doing this create something more fluid, dynamic, astounding, authentic, than anything any of us can fix to paper. Please breathe and feel your breath.  Please love yourself. Whatever doubt ...

Words On Wanting A Rose Garden 11th January 2020 Merely a trace of chest plague left, so I’m back to training and now my legs and arms have the pleasant ache of effort. At work today and doing more sneaked-in writing. Another fiercely windy day: witnessed a heron in perilous flight this morning, snaking its neck like a pterodactyl. Took my favourite long commute around the back of Colliford Lake where the sky was all freckled with starlings, and white topped waves frisked, and shaggy calves skulked on verges. I am saying please let things work out well now. I have enough practice finding flowers at the roadside of doom, I say, no more with that now! Time for a rose garden, Universe. 13th January 2020 Third in a hat trick of shifts, nothing too demanding, just the having to get up early and being organised. The weather is all storm warnings - we sat at Porthpean watching seagulls in the shallow froth declining to go further out. We sat in the warm car, bellies full, with a h...

Words On Gently Beginning Anew 1st January 2020 At midweek we have begun a new year and a new decade. The page turning, blank calendar moment. Is this the beginning of pivotal stuff or merely Wednesday? One can pivot at any moment, dear hearts, whereas Wednesdays come by only every seventh day. So, what to attend to? Still ill from Round 2 of flu, I am sat in bed writing this, also drinking good coffee, also eating low carb homemade chocolate treats. I am watching the evening arrive in my garden, how it is sifting away light and colour, how the shadows darken and spill out, how still it is, paused, imbued with the night-sense of adventure. Attend to the moment. Here I am. Saying to myself: in 2020, maybe I will… brush my hair. Tidy my sock drawer. Eat apples. Jump in the sea. Have tea with a friend. I have a good feeling about these resolutions. 

For this year’s Yule Tale, being short on time due to obsessive novel writing and that lifestuff, I decided to grab outside inspiration from the www.plot-generator.org.uk website. What I got was delightful nonsense, most of which I have kept, with a tweak here and there which was a bit like when children decorate a xmas tree and their parents maybe move a bauble or two after they have gone to bed because aesthetically it is the right thing to do. Presenting Yule Tale 2019: Two Surly Uncles Laughing To The Beat Sparkle looked at the shiny cup in her hands. It was full, which felt like mockery. She walked to the window to reflect on her surroundings. She had always loved Yuletown’s bleak wintry fir trees; they encouraged her to indulge in feeling mournful. Pines, pining - there was surely a connection. Her eyes narrowed, seeing something move in the distance. Someone? That would be a rare occurrence in this unpopulated zone!  As she peered and the figure drew nearer she recog...

Diary Friday 1 November 2019 Might be a little hung over. Also there are boring jobs to do on computers. We get through it. Thank you coffee. Saturday 2 November 2019 Taking the early shift, I drive on a nearly deserted road through a wild storm. Surface water is travelling, like gigantic sliver-toothed silvery flatfish. I love the mild peril of my travelling. At work we dare the storm again, visiting Trelawney Garden Centre which is draped with Christmas delights. We lark about with sparkles and elf hats. We lunch. We make it back through deep puddles to watch festive films under the whirl of disco lights. Wednesday 6 November 2019 Another early morning, in which I drive towards a rising sun, a levitating half-circle, licking coffee from the corners of my mouth. Dog fidgets in the boot-space, keen to get to Exeter and jump in a river. She is thwarted as our routine has changed and now Granma Grace is up early too, wanting a shower, and takes a nap not a lie-in, in he...

I had swapped my Granma-care day, necessitating another early start. Light snores greeted my arrival so although Dog had stayed home I took some air by the river. Heavy rain had made it fierce. Droves of geese and swans made grumpy looking progress against it. Winter cold leached into a brisk wind; maybe fallen leaves had stolen the warmth to make their colours. I had put my camera away in order to not view the world always through a lense, nor composed into scenes. I let it jumble. But the lone swan that Granma Grace has named Derek sat contentedly in a sizeable puddle was an image I wanted to hold on to, and share. 'See,' Derek may have been saying, 'here is an example of using one's energy not for fighting the old river, but for allowing the universe to bring you a puddle sanctuary.' 'I was thinking more - make the most of what is available.' Derek sifted water for snacks, unbothered by thoughts, whereas I went to pour coffee with a tumbling mind....

In which I bring to you, in lieu of a specific Halloween story, another bit of my current Work In Progress. I picked this chapter because it fits as a short story too, and hopefully one that intrigues you to demand the rest. This isn't the first time that Ansha has been murdered, which she doesn't remember but she does seem to be getting the hang of it, and a chance of pay back too. Chapter 34 Scarcely aware of the chair to which she is tied Ansha is lost, lost in a cold fright that is elemental, that consumes like fire. She has tried to hold on, to listen, perhaps for a bird call. Sometimes she has heard birds singing, a soft wind pushing through branches. But then the door shuts. It smells in here, like butcher's slops. She has also heard a hum, a refrigerator. And a voice. ‘Tell me how that feels,’ the perpetrator asks, though they must know she cannot. ‘Isn’t this the most pain you’ve ever felt?’ A phrase swells through her, a sudden heat: I do not belong...