Category Archives: Jottings

Monday Project: … and there followed a moment’s silence.

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They sat by the phone together, he and she, brother and sister. Waiting. They did not look at the phone with their eyes, but their bodies tried to turn towards it. She pulled at her handkerchief, he bit his lip. The branches of the bare tree outside scratched at the window glass.

When the phone did finally ring its sound filled the room and silenced the tree. The siblings held their breath, locked in a silent argument with one another. ‘You answer it.’ ‘No, you.’ ‘I did it last time.’ ‘You did not.’ ‘Did too.’ ‘Did not.’

He answered it.

“Yes. Thank you. No thank you. No. They didn’t want us to. Yes. The crematorium. Thank you. Goodbye.”

The phone clunked as he put it down. Silence, for a moment.

“So,” she said, and dabbed at her eyes, which were not wet.

“Yes,” he replied. “We should organise the funeral.”

“We’ve already done that. They’ve already done that.”

The tree was scratching again at the window.

“What should we do then?” he said.

She pulled at her handkerchief.

“Stella?”

“Let’s eat out.” She was up, quickly, striding towards the door that led to the next room. “They would want us to celebrate, finally. I’ll wear that red lipstick with that green dress; you can wear that tie Mum always loved.”

He raised his eyebrows at his sister; he’d owned the tie more than ten years ago.

“Oh. Well, not that one then.” She removed her hand from the door knob. “What then, Stuart?”

He stood up. “Sit down Stella. We need to absorb this.”

“You’re not sitting down.”

“No. I’m not.”

The tree scratched louder. The siblings blinked at each other from opposite sides of the room. She felt she should cry, but could not. She had been sure she would be able to. He could not believe his sister was not crying; she always did. She had cried when their parents had first told them what they were going to do. (“Weak eyes,” their father had said kindly. “Just like your mother.” Their mother glowered at him briefly, through eyes filled with tears.)

Stuart had wanted to be strong for Stella, to support her while she cried, but she appeared perfectly able to support herself for now, and he felt himself close to tears instead.

“I could wear a different tie.”

“Oh Stuart.” She took a step towards him.

“Don’t. I’m hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”

—

There’s more to this story, but I’m still working on it, and hope to have it published at some point, so I’m sort of keeping it to myself at the moment. I might share a little more of it later on. Any feedback on this part would be greatly appreciated though.

I’m posting this as my response to this month’s Monday Project theme. We’ll have the next one up soon, so play along if you’re interested.

Workshopping

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I’ve got more to write about my weekend at TiNA and the National Young Writers’ festival, but I feel the need to write about this now. So please excuse the interruption.

I’ve explored this before. I know many people have had horrible, scarring workshopping experiences, but I absolutely love them. My writing would either be incredibly crap or take about five times longer to produce if it weren’t for the regular opportunities I get to have other people read my work and give me feedback. Usually I know, somewhere deep down, what’s going wrong in a piece but it helps to have someone else articulate it for me. Sometimes though, like tonight, I know there’s something wrong, but I’ve no idea what it is. I spend far too many moments in my life thinking about it, rolling it around and around in my head to no avail. Those of you who’ve read some of my writing will be aware that it’s not always the most sunny and uplifting experience, so it can be quite distressing to have it kicking about in there.

Tonight I’ve workshopped something that I’ve been writing for about a month. Last month’s Monday Project helped me further some parts of it (I’ll put the result up here and there shortly). I’d finished the first draft but I was really at the point where I needed someone to be honest with me.

And therein lies the potential problem with workshopping, I think. Firstly, honesty can be difficult to hear; but, and perhaps more importantly, it can be difficult to give. Some people don’t want to hurt your feelings, so they hold back; others don’t care how you feel, or at least don’t know how to put the word ‘constructive’ into practice. I’ve found, though, that if you go into a workshop knowing that you don’t have to listen to everyone (or even anyone) it’s much easier to listen well. I’m certainly not always good at this! (Or giving feedback…)

I’m interested to know, from those of you who don’t get feedback from others about your writing or other output, what process do you use to work through the inevitable sticky points?

Writing exercises

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This semester I’m doing just the one subject at uni, in an effort to slow down. It’s a short story workshop, which is right up my alley, because I love short stories (to read and write). Each week we’re being given an exercise to explore the various elements of stories (short or long, really); character, place etc etc. I thought I might share them each week.

For last week’s class we had to take a character from one of our stories to the supermarket. In writing, that is. I’m working on a short story I wrote last year — and that needs a lot of improvement! — so any feedback would be more than welcome.

I’ll also be posting these entries on The Monday Project.

——

The supermarket is only just opening when Bella steps off the bus. This is her favourite time to shop because the place is virtually empty and she can be as slow as she likes without worrying that she will in someone’s way.

She recognises the cashier at the only open register and attempts a smile, but is rebuffed with a look of confusion and lack of recognition. The girl is here every week, but Bella supposes there’s not much interest in remembering a little old lady with a squeaky fabric grocery trolley. She certainly wouldn’t have been interested when she was the girl’s age. Bella sighs and moves to the toilet paper and laundry powder end of the supermarket. She has always moved through the supermarket this way, ‘backwards’ as her husband put it on the few times she convinced him to come shopping with her. He hated supermarkets and couldn’t understand the sense of freedom she found in them. “They depress me,” he used to say, but would not, or could not elaborate further.

After comparing the prices, Bella chooses the least expensive toilet paper, which is unfortunately located on the top shelf, almost out of her reach. She will have to risk an avalanche of toilet paper to get a packet down. She looks around her. There is no one in the aisle; no one who could help. On her tip toes, her hand on the handle of her cart to push herself a little higher, Bella manages to knock the paper towards herself and move out of the way to let it drop to the floor. She smiles. Last time she knocked down four or five packets and was too embarrassed to ask for help, so piled the packets on the floor neatly. Later that day, when she got home, she realised that the store probably had cameras and that the store manager could have watched the whole thing. She had caught two extra buses to shop in another supermarket for the next three weeks.

She carefully crosses toilet paper off her list with a pencil from her dress pocket. Laundry powder is also on the list. Thankfully her favoured brand is usually found on the bottom shelf — she assumes this is because not many other people buy it. Sometimes it is not in stock, but today she is in luck. Another straight pencil line on her list.

Nevermind

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‘Nevermind,’ she said quietly to herself as her suede shoes were rapidly ruined by the rain. At least they had character now.

She stood under her broken umbrella on the unfamiliar street corner and marvelled at the genius of the contraption she held above her head.

Somehow the rain never made her sad anymore. It reminded her of a place she missed dearly but was also glad to be away from. It reminded her of him, of that street, of that house and of the wet-cold winters. And it always brought a smile to her face, even if her shoes had become its victim.