The following is an extract from a short story called The Sweet Smell of Lilies. Phoebe is fanciful teenage with a very over-active imagination. She sees murder and intrigue wherever she goes, even in the most innocent situations. But nothing is as strange as the eventual outcome of the story. The story is written from the POV of Phoebe herself, using her voice.
But before I carry on, I had better tell you a bit about me. My name is Phoebe and I am going to be a renowned crime writer, like Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers. I am working on my first novel right now.
I was born in the Cotswolds, eighteen years and eleven months ago, the only daughter of Marion and James Partridge. We were an ordinary family, just like any other with a cat, two dogs and a goldfish. Then suddenly, when I was almost five, my father vanished. I barely remember him now. He was also a spy like my uncle. One day he went on a secret trip to the city, but he never came back. No-one ever saw him again, not even my mother. He was kidnapped by the Russians. They tortured him for days on end, using thumbscrews and other instruments of medieval torture. They shone bright lights in his eyes and stuck matchsticks under his fingernails. He never talked of course. He was such a brave man….
‘Phoebe,’ my mother would say, ‘Don’t tell such stories. You know it’s not true. Your father was not a spy. He’s just another missing person now.’
This is a short passage from my work in progress. It’s a ghost story which is split into the present and extracts from a part written novel. The writer died at the same time as the main protagonist, Emily, was born. This is taken from the novel which Emily is reading from an old manuscript given to her earlier. The child also called Emily is the heroine of the novel and is trapped and frightened. She is remembering something that happened when she was very young. I have had to take a few bits out to fall within the word count.
…A faint wailing was coming from the well and was carried on the wind as if the fairies were taking its breath and sucking it away. Her mother ran to the well and called, ‘Is there anyone there?’
It was four hours before the fire brigade pulled him out, a small boy, wet, bedraggled, lifeless. He had fallen halfway and clung to a branch for as long as he could. The well was only about 15 foot deep they said.
‘But if you dropped a stone you couldn’t hear it when it hit the water, it was so deep?’ her mother asked.
‘Just an old wives tale,’ they muttered, ‘just an old wives tale.’
Emily cried for the boy for the first time in ten years. She remembered when they brought him out. She remembered the wet hair and the dirty face and his little battered and bruised arms hanging by his sides.
The fireman was crying. ‘I’m so sorry,’ was all he could say.
Emily sobbed. She sobbed for the boy and his parents and for her own mother, who she couldn’t find.
‘Where are you mummy?’ and she sobbed for herself, alone and afraid of the dark.
This is for the next Storycraft flash fiction challenge. Tell a story in 300-500 words of dialogue. Tags and action description are okay, but no exposition!
The Indulgence
‘How long have you been dead?’ asked the angel, not even looking up once at the pretty young woman sitting across the desk in front of him.
‘About 30 years,’ she replied. ‘I am not sure. Time moves slowly when you have nothing to do.’
‘Do you miss your children? Your family?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I can’t remember. Did I have any? Children that is, I must have had a family of some sort. Is this a job interview?’
‘Some might call it that. Personally I would call it an “indulgence”.’ The angel dipped his pen in a bottle of Quink and continued scratching shapes on the page.
‘Have I been good? Is that why you are “indulging” me?’
‘It’s not about good or bad,’ he replied, ‘it’s just your time.’
‘30 years? Is that my time?’ She fidgeted nervously.
‘Yes,’ said the angel, never even glancing at this small, slight woman who was twitching and rubbing her hands together. Anyone with a modicum of compassion would have appreciated how she felt. But not him…
‘Am I still pretty?’ She asked.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he replied. ‘That’s not my department. You need to ask someone from the Department of Girlfriends, Models and Attention Seekers, or DoGMAS for short.’
‘Why? Do they keep all our pictures in the attic? Do they age and we don’t, like Dorian Gray?’
‘Gray? Dorian? Oh yes, accidental death by poisoning? No, no, he was the one in the boat, when the engine caught….’
‘Forget it,’ she said, ‘It’s a book, by Oscar Wilde.’
‘Ah, so you remember that.’
‘A little, from school….Did my children die with me?’ She asked.
‘Who’s conducting the interview?’ The angel swore under his breath as his nib split and ink splattered across the page.
‘Sorry, I need to know.’
‘You don’t have any.’
‘But you said….’
‘I was just testing. But you had a cat called Tabitha. She’s dead too, of course, natural causes. Old age, but then she’d be 42 if she was still alive.’ He chuckled, as if he had cracked a really good joke.
It wasn’t that funny, she thought. Poor Tabitha, not that she remembered her. The angel stood up, picked up his pen, wiping it methodically with a piece of cloth, followed by his ink and his paper, placed them neatly in a small leather bag and began to walk away.
‘My indulgence, you haven’t told me what it is.’
‘Tomorrow,’ he replied, ‘we’ll have another session and I will tell you then. In the meantime, try and remember what your father did for a living, who your friends were or what school you went to, or anything useful. Goodbye.’ And he was gone.
This is for the flash fiction challenge set by Storycraft fiction writing chat. Subject is POV of an inanimate object – in this case an angry garden gnome:
Paint me
Please paint me! My lovely red hat is all faded and chipped from the harsh winter frost and even my fishing rod is broken on the end. All through December the pond was frozen and now my feet are like brass monkeys. Were my boots blue or black? I can’t remember and they are so muddy, look at them!
I wanted to go to that poncy flower show at Kew Gardens this summer, but they said gnomes aren’t allowed in. Not posh enough? Not posh enough for toffs like that new prime minister or Judith Chalmers.
Oh yes! We keep up with politics and such. Just because we sit out here all day watching the world go by and scratching our arses doesn’t mean we ain’t educated. I can name all the capital cities of South America. Brasilia – that’s the capital of Brazil – thought you’d catch me out didn’t you. Peru – that’s Lima, Venezuela – that’s….er…I’m BORED NOW!!
Where is everyone? Paint me you lazy gits! I want to go to the flower show and have a good laugh when the punters turn their noses up. Hee hee. I want to fly round the world and see the Great Wall of China. I could sit on it like frigging Humpty Dumpty. You could steal me and send me off and I could end up in the newspapers: ‘Garden gnome disappears and returns with photo album from exotic places’. Might even make the One Show. Corrr…I love that Christine thingy. Don’t like the other one though. Miserable so and so.
What’s that noise? Sounds like a car. No it’s the lawn mower. Hooray! Means my lot are coming out here at last. Look out lads! Look sharp! Time for a new coat. Might even get a slurp of Carlsberg after the barbeque. Roll on summer – it’s party time.
Apologies for having posted the first three before, albeit ages ago, but I wanted to keep them altogether somewhere.
A sonnet is a 14 line lyrical poem traditionally written about beauty, unrequited love, romance, faith, death etc. Contemporary sonnets use modern language but the subject matter is often the same or similar. These attempt to break the mould, hopefully.
As they are a sequence, I thought it would be fun and challenging to link them. I used something similar to the film technique of ‘leitmotifs’ which are described as ‘poetic images that repeat like refrains in each strand’. This linkage can be seen in the 3rd line of each poem which is always ‘captures (kidnaps, snatches etc) babies in the night’.
Outlandish Tales of Folklore
A sequence of sonnets
Cooking with Elves
Around the campfire they sit and
Squabble, the Dark Elves, the Svartálfar,
Who capture babies in the night,
While slumbering peacefully in their beds
Tangling their hair in elflocks
They squeal with horrid delight,
Throw them in… Throw them in…
No beauty here, just the sharp pain of fright.
So before you sprinkle Buckthorn in a circle
And dance wildly under the full moon,
Think wisely if you cry before he flees
Dark Elf! Halt and grant my boon!
And wish not for help or harm
Or harm will harm you soon.
The Curse of Baba Jaga
Where are the servants? Don’t ask or
She’ll kill you, Baba Jaga, of the forest
Who kidnaps babies in the night.
The cat… The dog… The tree… The gate…
Her invisible servants, silent like the riders,
I am Day, says one, all dressed in white,
Who comes in red? I am the Sun,
Then dressed in black, I am the Night.
She’s coming now, look out, look out,
Sweeping their hoof-tracks with her broom.
The wailing wind begins to blow
While trees around her moan and groan
And shrieking spirits follow in her wake,
Leading you flailing to your doom
Hansel and Gretel
Deep in the forest, two children cry alone,
Finding a friend; a witch, a fiendish hag
Who snatches babies in the night,
Fattens them… Cooks them… Eats them…
Oh Hansel, Gretel, be afraid and run,
Hide in the bushes, stay out of sight.
Too thin, too thin, I like them fat,
The witch-hag cries with sheer delight.
Gretel, now her servant, fetches sweets
To force feed Hansel, trapped alone.
She’s coming now, the witch, she squeals
Be he fat or lean , I’ll eat him soon
But it’s too late, in the oven she goes
The children flee and the tale is done.
The Faerie Queen
Made from children’s laughs and squeals
She skips and flutters high above
While stealing babies in the night
And changelings substitute in their place
The faerie queen with faerie dust
Will disappear when it gets light
Shape-shifting now as if a ghost
Taking the dead with her in fright
Oh faerie queen with angel wings
And charms which magic potions soon
From sage and rowan, herbs and spice
Will stir her magic ‘neath the moon.
So if you think this faerie kind, just
Think again, she’ll cast your doom.
The Hag of the Mist
With filthy hair and stark black eyes
She stalks her victim through the fog
And snatches spirits in the night
And death to he who hears her cries
Calling his name she laughs and wails
He hears her call and dies of fright
And not a jot cares who you be
The banshee screams with sheer delight
So if you hear your name out loud
You cannot hide from what comes soon
The ugly hag has found you out
She calls your name, what’s done is done
You catch a glimpse, a second split
She’ll drag you down and down alone
What will happen when
Christmas ends. Will the New Year
Be any better?
In 1979, the artist Kit Williams published a book called Masquerade in which Britain became a giant treasure map and the book was actually a riddle which readers had to solve in order to find and win the treasure. The first person to do so won a ‘golden hare’, which was buried in the earth somewhere. Masquerade proved so popular that the hysteria which followed drove Williams underground, where he has continued to create complex and beautiful art, but refuses to publicly exhibit. In his first interview in two decades, Kit tells his story before and after Masquerade.
However, here in Cheltenham, in the heart of the Costwolds, we have a piece of Kit Williams. It’s a clock in the centre of the Regent Arcade, which he designed. Poeple have come for miles over the years to see the famous Wishing Fish Clock. Over 45 feet tall, the clock features a duck that lays a never-ending stream of golden eggs and includes a family of mice that are continually trying to evade a snake sitting on top of the clock. Hanging from the base of the clock is a large wooden fish that blows bubbles every half hour while playing the song I’m for ever blowing bubbles. Catching one of these bubbles entitles you to make a wish, hence the name of the clock. Originally it was on the hour only – if anyone thinks this is wrong please let me know.
The Man Behind the Masquerade was shown on BBC Four tonight but you can catch it on iPlayer.
Are you interested in celebrities and their lives? Probably not if you are reading this blog.
However, I have another blog about celebrities and fashion. Very different from this one. Hope you enjoy it!
Go to www.madaboutcelebrity.co.uk
I’ve been posting my Haikus on www.TwiHaiku.com.
Trouble is I’ve posted them all so I’ve run out.
What to do next?
I guess I’ll have to write some more.
Maybe I’ll write a Haiku about running out of Haikus.
No more haikus
Whatever happened to all the Haikus
They watched their time burn
No more Haikus any more
With thanks to The Stranglers
I’ve been sitting on my story Miss Havisham’s Ghost for over two (or even three) months, unable to go anywhere with it, so I decided the best thing to do was to give up. Not give up on writing the story but on trying to combine the two stories into one.
I have done this – bring in something autobiographical – before in a story and one of my friends thought the real person I was talking about was the grown up version of the child in the story. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would, but I thought if that story was confusing then this one would be even more so! So this morning I split them up.
And now I have two stories – each one almost 4,000 words. One is a traditional (so far) ghost story without a title, while the other is mainly autobiographical. All I need to do is progress the ghost story without the added complication of weaving in the other. The challenges of course, remain the same as ever!
About a year ago I wrote the first chapter of a novel for an assignment. It was called Miss Havisham’s Ghost and was loosely based on my own childhood but was intended to be a work of fiction. To be honest it didn’t get that good a mark so I shelved it.
Then a couple of months ago (or more) I started writing a ghost story. The story is really two stories which come together about half way through. At some point I decided that the original assignment could be stripped down, rewritten and incorporated into the story along with some other real life incidents I wrote about for a life writing project.
Unfortunately I’m struggling with the bringing them together part. I’ve been stuck on 7,600 words for so long I don’t know where to go with it now. Should I give up at 10,000 words and call it a long short story or keep going till I get to however long a novel has to be? It’s still called Miss Havisham’s Ghost. This is the last bit of the first chapter (the ghost story) and the start of the next chapter (autobiographical):
…In the middle of the room a coffin was laid out on the oak dining table. She had never been in this room before; it was dark and strange with old dusty books lining the four walls. It smelt a little like the school library. She had also never seen a coffin before or a dead body, if there was a body. There must be someone inside or why would it be here? Her breath came in shallow gulps as she moved closer. The lid was open and she could see the satin lining around the edges, pure white like her skin in winter. She didn’t want to look inside. It was bound to be someone she knew. Someone she knew and loved.
She was not prepared for what she saw inside. At first she could see only a small pair of feet encased in gold pumps sticking out from underneath the white gossamer dress, with its pink sash, like the one she had worn for her first communion three or four years ago. Then she saw the flaxen hair spread out like a fan on the small rosebud-embroidered pillow, the cold pale hands pressed together, as if praying for forgiveness. A tiny golden crucifix on a slim chain was wrapped around them. Then finally she saw the face – her face. The body in the coffin was hers. As dead as she was alive, the lips were slightly blue and there was a tiny trickle of blood in one corner of the mouth. She tried to scream but no sound came out. And then everything became blackness as she fainted.
Chapter Two
In 1978, when I was in my twenties, I went to Poland with my father. He hadn’t been there since before the war so it was both a treat and a surprise for him. Even when his mother died in 1966 he had been unable to return. Then just when we were about to leave he received a message from his younger sister Frania that Halce, the second oldest, had passed away. The funeral was arranged for the day after we arrived and we were told that we could pay our respects beforehand.
Oh the shock! I had never seen a dead body before that day. My first impression and most lasting memory was of a small coffin (she was only about five feet tall) with its lid open and a pair of feet in laced up boots sticking out from beneath a calf-length black dress. I went in a little closer. She can’t harm me. What was I afraid of? I saw that her cold pale hands were pressed together, as if praying for forgiveness. A tiny golden crucifix on a slim chain was wrapped around them. She was at peace….
In one corner of the church a group of widows dressed in black sat huddled together, wailing and crying and crossing themselves. Such was their custom.
‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam.’
‘May Almighty God have mercy on me, forgive me my sins and bring me to everlasting life.’
Of course. That made everything alright then.
I know this has nothing to do with creative writing or poetry or anything else appropriate to this blog, but I just had to mention it. Yesterday my husband and I took our two Jack Russells to a local companion dog show called ‘A Dog’s Day Out’.
They (the dogs that is) were suitably badly behaved as only Jack Russells can be, but I still registered Pancake, hoping to enter her in the Best Biscuit Catcher category or something equally silly. Pancake is the undisputed champion terrier racer in the nearby village of Cowley, but then that’s an event where yapping, snarling and snapping are positively encouraged.
Then the call came for the Best Veteran over 10 years old so I thought, what the heck, I’ll put Cookie in as she’s nearly 11. The judge said she had good ears, good coat, good teeth, did I clean them regularly etc. No I said, the vet does it from time to time. What a shock I had when she won! A rosette bigger than her head (bigger than my head almost) and a packet of lamb and rice nibbles.
Eventually Pancake disgraced herself in the Prettiest Bitch class by snarling at another terrier and pulling some fur out of a fluffy puppy’s nose. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon apologising.
Bookchatter@Cookiebiscuit 