Our instructions for Week 5 were to describe a place. In particular, we were told to show two different characters’ perspectives of the same place.

I chose to write about a couple arriving at their new house. They’ve got different perspectives which are shaped by their contrasting mental states.

The New House

The car veered around the corner and he pointed them towards the top of the hill. Now they were on the part of the new estate where the roads hadn’t yet been completed. High, rough kerbs bordered their way like fresh dentures as they bounded along, skimming pebbles gutterwards. He felt like a pioneer. This was to be a place of opportunity, a place for a fresh start.

“Home” he said with a smile, placing the car at a jaunty angle across the driveway. He stepped out onto the newly laid tarmac, admiring how Mick and Paul had added some spots of white on the surface to break up the monotony of the black pitch. Continue reading →

“Magical realism” was how our tutor described this assignment.

“What happens in that spare hour when the clocks go back? Delve into the world of fantasy and imagination.” We were given our usual word limit of 700, which I found particularly difficult with this piece of work.

It is still unfinished, although I think you can probably see where it was heading.

The Backshift

Most people slept through that first Backshift, and many of those who didn’t were unreliable witnesses, consisting as they did of so many stumbling drunks and drug-spangled clubbers.

But when the world awoke on that Sunday morning it was to an apparent mass hysteria. Online, crazy tales were being swapped: claims of teleportation and of events undone or seemingly never occuring. Instead of the usual Autumnal setting back of the clocks, here were people saying they had undergone a resetting of time itself, with the hour between 1am and 2am lived twice. Continue reading →

For Week Three’s assignment we were asked to write a story that included a description of something.

“At the beginning of the story, describe something (an object, a process) in detail. At the end of the story, describe something in detail again. It doesn’t matter what happens in between, but we are looking for an echo.”[Once again, thanks to Emma for recording this]

I moved into a new house last year. At the bottom of the garden is a ramshackle old shed and I decided to use that as the basis for my story. Having written the following, I’m a little bit apprehensive about going back in it……

The Shed

After a long day’s work clearing the wasteland of a back garden at the new house it was unfortunate that all those efforts had left us with an unobstructed view of our decrepit, failing shed.

Past the lawn and beyond the vegetable patch it faltered uncertainly before the back fence, where some long departed owner had fashioned it from assorted garden debris and the unwanted leftovers of various building projects. Continue reading →

For our second week’s assignment we were asked to write about a gift.

“A gift is given. However, it is not immediately appreciated (or perhaps understood) by the recipient?A third party sees the value in the gift and shows this negatively (perhaps they are jealous, or want to steal it)” [Thanks to Emma for recording this]

After writing a bit of slapstick for the first week’s assignment I decided to go for something different and more affecting (I hope) for this piece.

The Gift

It’s late August, early 70s. The sun is shining and the shop windows in town are full of ?Back to School? signs. Robert and me are walking either side of my mum. We are both excited. I’m excited because I’m going to start school in a few weeks; Robert because mum is going to buy him some new school clothes for when he goes up to Juniors this year

Robert doesn’t have a mum, or a dad. My mum taught him when he started at Boulton Road School, and when she found out he was on his own she asked if he’d like to visit us at weekends. Continue reading →

To get us started we were given a list of sentences and told that we had to use one of them in the first paragraph of our story. I picked “You must be our new neighbours”. Thrilling stuff.

We’d had a rather odd conversation in class about reading out swear words. Our tutor suggested that some people might be sensitive and we could maybe give a warning if we were about to read out an expletive, or maybe bang the table instead. One of our fellow students suggested self-regulating ourselves to the equivalent of a ’15’ cinema rating.

Given such provocation, I think that I was rather restrained…..

Waxy and Frick

Looking back on that cool autumn’s evening, so long ago, I’m still rather proud that I kept the smile on my face as I toppled into the washing up. We had arrived late to the campsite that day and were finally lying down inside our newly erected tent when we heard a swish and a crack, followed by somebody calling: ?Ahoy! Hullo! You must be our new neighbours?.

Clare giggled and poked me in the ribs. ?Gawd, who’s that?? she stage whispered, ?here, you go?. I grimaced and nodded. Struggling around in the cramped space of our two man tent I pulled up my waterproof trousers, thrust my legs in the air to push my feet through and promptly kicked the lantern hanging down in the middle of the tent.

?Fuck!? the expletive was out before I could stop it. Clare stifled a second giggle. I made a ?Shhhh!? expression, putting my finger to my lips. Clare merely raised her eyebrows and made a shooing motion towards the tent’s entrance. Continue reading →