It's holiday time!

So I'm getting off the ....



but I'll be ...



and in the meantime, look after the blog for me. Don't ....



because, gawd, I hate it when people do that ....

Teatime - a 50 word photo story

Jim thought there wasn’t much that couldn’t be made better by a nice cup of tea. Murder maybe. Or watching Carol Vorderman on the telly. So when the doctor gave him the results, all Jim could think of was where’s the kettle. Neither pointed out that it was too late.

I'm happy to have a short essay I wrote about my mother, the gardening writer Elizabeth Peplow, up on Garden Monkey's Book Flange.

Substance - a 50 word photo-story

His wife is getting fat from all the new things she’s learning. He knows she’d probably look it up in one of her books and prove him wrong, but it seems the more courses she does, the more room she takes up. Meanwhile he watches rubbish television, feels himself disappearing.

Tail - a 50 word photo-story

During French, Dorrie felt a slight pull on her head. And then heard the sound of slicing. Jamie refused to give the plait back. For weeks, Dorrie would see the swish as her hair passed. She’d lift her hand up to her head automatically, like searching for an amputated limb.

Kevin Spacey does twitter...

ps I do too, please follow me if you're not already and say hello so I can follow you right back. That way we can share our (waste of) time some more!

How to do it well...

This blog, Advanced Style just makes me happy every morning.

As it says, it is the best "PROOF FROM THE WIZENED AND SILVER-HAIRED SET THAT PERSONAL STYLE ADVANCES WITH AGE."

My next novel, Getting the Picture is all about sex and intrigue in an old people's home. I based it on something a woman asked me once- 'Do you think we ever get too old to cry over love?'

Nope. Or I hope not, at least.

And I don't think we ever get too old to dress well either. What I love most about the photographs on the Advanced Style blog is that what comes across is not vanity, or shallowness, but a deep important love of life itself. A generosity, if you like.

Here's something different for you....

GUILTY PLEASURES …. A story of passion, obsession and estate agents
By Sarah Salway (with a little help from various artists, click links to play....)


1. Nine to Five, Dolly Parton

Tuesday starts off as just another day at the Cotton and Wool Estate Agency but after tough but secretly vulnerable estate agent, Belinda, takes a call from her boyfriend, she rushes off to the toilet crying. Brian, the receptionist, bumps into her by accident as she, still mopping up the tears, goes back to her desk. They’ve never talked before because Belinda is far too important and also suspicious of non-alpha males, but there is something about his smile that soon causes the truth to come spilling out …

2. Kiss with the Fist, Florence and the Machine

And Brian confides that things aren’t perfect for him at home either. Something is stirring deep within him …

3. Changing of the Seasons, Ane Brun

So later that night they go to the pub together.

Where Belinda secretly thinks …

4. Falling Slowly, Glen Hansard

And Brian secretly thinks …

5. Strange and Beautiful, Aqualung

Soon they both find themselves in an unfamiliar world. one that neither of them recognise. Even Brian’s beer and Belinda’s Spritzer taste different …

6. The Healer, Erykah Badu

The next morning, Brian still feels a little uncertain …

7. Paranoid, Black Sabbath

But Belinda hasn’t got to where she is without knowing what she wants …

8. Feeling Good, Michael Buble

For two weeks, the air at the Cotton and Wool Estate Agency is full of a strange pulsing energy that causes at least one secretary to go home in tears she can’t quite explain…

9. I Got You (I feel good), James Brown

Meanwhile Belinda’s boyfriend is starting to get suspicious …

10. Big Easy, Raphael Saadiq

And comes to see Brian to tell him the truth about Valerie …

11. Pretty in Pink, Psychedelic Furs

However, Belinda hasn’t climbed to the top of the estate agency ladder by being passive. She retaliates by going to see Brian’s wife, Laura, who had no idea …

12. Always The Last One to Know, Del Amitri

It’s a long night of the soul – hair washing, standing under trees, and staring at the pet rabbit. But at last, Laura applies fresh lipstick, makes a decision …

13. Fuck You, Ani Difranco

Brian begs her to reconsider. Belinda was a nobody, he’s been a silly boy, he’s only loved her, doesn’t she love him when he says sorry so very nicely …

14. Rose, Stephen Fretwell

They decide to turn the page, write a new story, although Laura’s makes sure the rabbit hutch is firmly locked before Brian whisks her off to bed. In the morning, Brian lets Belinda down gently …

15. Every Day I Love You Less and Less, The Kaiser Chiefs

He tells Laura that it was fine, she understood. And so, everything in Brianland is lovely, apart from … hang on … who is that at the window?

16.One Way or Another, Blondie



TO BE CONTINUED …..


Guilty Pleasures 2 – out soon.

The anti-plagiarism day

Today is Anti-Plagiarism Day organised by Jane Smith of How Publishing Really Works. There are lots of blog writers taking part - Sue Guiney, Tania Hershman, and Nik Perring, amongst others, and all have valuable things to say. (Other participants, please feel free to leave comments so we can keep the conversation going and apologies for missing you off.)

Because it's important to keep plagiarism at the centre of any conversation we have about writing.

Of course it's impossible to dictate where inspiration comes from - hopefully some readers will have had a story or an idea triggered off by one of the stories on this blog. And of course we all feed off each other in one way or another. But there's a world of difference between getting an idea and writing it in our own way, working it through our own creative process, and following our own themes ... to cynically stealing another writer's story.

You see, I think most genuine writers live in terror of unconscious plagiarism. We are anything but cynical about it.

I can remember one of my first readings. I was excited and nervous to be sitting on a panel which consisted of two well-published writers I particularly admired. I read my little story, and sat down knees shaking but happy. Then one of the well-published writers stood up and read an extract from her novel. I listened with absolute pleasure until she came to a paragraph about a kiss. Suddenly I thought I was going to vomit. I had forgotten this particular description but it seemed to me that it was word for word a description of an embrace I had written about in a story recently accepted for publication. I suddenly realised why it had seemed to flow so easily when I was writing it.

I wanted to leave the room right then and there. I felt humiliated, sick and ashamed. I didn't deserve to call myself a writer. But somehow, I made myself stay - not least because I wasn't sure my legs would still work.

Afterwards, I didn't hear any of the congratulations I received for my talk. I certainly couldn't speak to the well-published writer when she came up nicely to talk about my work. I couldn't even look her in the eye. All I wanted to do was rush home and read what I had written in my story. A nice bit of punishment to end the evening.

But when I did, it couldn't have been more different. I got hers, and I got mine and laid them down side by side. There wasn't even a word the same.

However, when I reflected on what had happened I realised that it was the emotion, the longing, the yearning I felt when I first read that paragraph in the well-published writer's work that I had wanted to recreate in my own. Without being aware of what was happening, I'd stored it up for use later. It was only when I heard her read it that I connected physically with the bit in my body that had been affected by her writing, and became so painfully conscious of what had happened.

I think this is something we often do as writers. We harvest snippets from everywhere, and then we process them in our own particular compost heaps until they come out in our writing. That's not plagiarism.

But I will never forget how awful it felt when I thought I had stolen this woman's work. The shame of it still makes my cheeks burn.

And this is why I think the anti-plagiarism day is so important, and thank Jane Smith for organising it. Because to imagine that there are people who want to be writers so badly that they will consciously take other people's work and not feel any of the emotions that I went through during that reading makes me mad.

More than that though, it makes me humble at how many of us there are who are still creating work, being generous about sharing it, taking the risk we do every day when we sit down at our notebooks and try fresh things. We want to 'do' the writing more than we want to 'be' the writer.

Someone I love sent me a Christmas greeting which read, 'May you make something new this year'. I love this. It is the perfect antidote to thoughts of plagiarism.

Let's make new things, and just as importantly, let's continue to risk sharing them.

Meat - a 50 word photo-story

Colin Durrell likes to eat squirrel, reindeer, hedgehog, porcupine and bear. He says that his father often wrestles with wild animals, skins them alive and then barbecues them.

We all know he’s lying but I can’t help asking, which one tastes the best?

Bear, Colin says. It tastes like trifle.

The Yellow Room

Argh, how could I have forgotten to tell you about The Yellow Room Magazine? It's the brainchild of Jo Derrick (some of you may remember her as Jo Good from QWF).

I can't tell you what a formative influence QWF was on my own writing. When I first read through the stories in that little handbag shaped magazine, I felt a jolt of excitement - these were the type of stories I wanted to read and to write. Then I submitted. Was rejected. Submitted. Rejected but with such a helpful, personal letter from Jo, I kept on going. Submitted. ACCEPTED!

Here's a confession - I slept with that acceptance letter - my first ever - under my pillow that night. Pretty spooky for Jo to hear, I'm sure, but there is almost no experience that comes close to that public recognition that you can write, and that your writing has been read by someone who appreciated it. A published writer - no one can take that away!

And then I kept on submitting and felt part of my first literary family. I still look out for the names of the women who were also writing and being published by QWF. Mostly Jo's taste in stories seemed to be mine too. I'm sure it helped shape my writing aesthetic. She says, "I want something which pushes the boundaries of women’s fiction. Something which goes a few steps further than the fiction found in women’s magazines." She certainly succeeded.

Anyway, as anyone involved in any kind of literary endeavour knows, editing and publishing a magazine is HARD WORK so it wasn't surprising that Jo needed a break from QWF and it went to a new editorship.

But now, she's back ... with The Yellow Room Magazine. And in typical Jo fashion is managing to create another supportive, challenging and exciting community. As the website says, it is "A place where women writers can gather together for support, encouragement and friendship."

I have to say it's the kind of initiative that makes me very happy.

When I am Prime Minister - a 50 word story

It will be law for men to wear hats. Panamas, trilbys, boaters, and even berets for a certain type. They will go to evening classes to see how beautiful they look, and how sexy it is when they tip their hats at women, just slightly, lightly, with an easy touch.

Translation - a 50 word photo-story

He came to the village late at night. He would have gone on walking if his heart hadn’t finally broken. They fed him soup and herbs until he started to feel again. He repaid their compassion with notices. Kind, loving signs that he hoped might comfort others lost like him.

Forever - a 50 word photo-story

We were married sixty years. I thought we’d be together forever. Now, every night I try to imagine the weight of his hand on my shoulder. It was that I loved the most. The safety of someone I loved guiding me through my sleeping maze. I’ve lost my compass now.

Look out - a 50 word photo-story

Her husband dreamt Isobel would die if she left the village, but felt guilty about her captivity. Months later he led her up stairs he’d had specially built. She stood for hours every day staring out. Now it’s called Isobel’s Tower. Women touch it secretly, pray for their own freedom.

Wonder - a 50 word photo-story

Her mother shouts to come inside, and she can hear the music playing now, the laughter as people start dancing. It’s just that when she looks up, she thinks she might burst with wonder. Has anyone has ever seen this before? And if so, how do they bear the beauty.

Eating and reading...

...would be much easier if your house was made from books.


This pic is from the Mdolla site.

Boat sailing

Another site I'm loving at the moment is this really creative one.



You're invited to download the template of a paper boat and then personalise them yourself and send it back to the site.



And it's for a good cause. Here's the blurb from the site:

On the 30th January 2009, Joanne B Kaar and Lynn Taylor launched their paper boat project - a fundraiser for Mary-Ann's cottage,a living history museum in Caithness Scotland run by volunteers from The Caithness Heritage Trust (a registered Charity no: SCO 19998). As paper boats are sent to Joanne from around the globe, she will document them on this blog. The launch date and theme were inspired by the maiden voyage of the Westland Ship - 30th January 1879 (130 years ago) from Scotland to New Zealand. Mary-Ann's father, William Young was a member of the crew.

You've got until 10th August to send your boat in - if you make one, would you do me a favour and send me a pic of it. I'd love to put it up on this blog too!

Picnics in Graveyards

Carrying on the cheery theme from the last story I posted here, I've been spookily pleased recently to see how many other people also enjoy picnics in graveyards. The only thing I wonder about is why I never meet them. But hey, I'm not complaining - nothing suits me better than an empty graveyard - empty that is, apart from the dead and all their stories.

Anyway, there's a good post up at a new blog find for me about exactly this, Been the Traveller, which has some of the weird kind of links I particularly enjoy.

What would you have on your gravestone? Nicholas asks.

Well hello, that's easy for me. I already have had mine designed for me by the amazing Neil Gaiman



"Never stopped believing"... that'll do me nicely.

Belief - a 50 word photo-story

Visitors expect it to be a gravestone so he loves to watch their expressions when they read what’s written there. THIS IS MADE FROM WATER. Most put their hands out to feel the stone. They still don’t know which to trust – what they are told or what they see.

The Undrowned Child

It's a special birthday today...

.... cue drumroll....

... as this book is launched....



by my friend, the amazingly talented and funny Michelle Lovric

I'm lucky enough to have read it already, so thoroughly recommend it. Wait... it's for children? Hell no. It's definitely too good just to be for them. If you want to find out more, just take a look at the website - lots of writing tips, information, photographs of beautiful cats and, oh yes, burping.

I've laughed out loud at things on the site THREE times already this morning - can't ask more than that from a Thursday.

Oh, and children will definitely enjoy it too. Pesky things. Stealing all our good books.

Foresight - a 50 word photo-story

“They show the future,” he says.

They’re on honeymoon, already talking about the children they’ll bring back here. “Five girls like you,” he says. It’s his idea to see the fortune-teller.

“Put them on,” he says. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

But that’s it. She doesn’t want to know.

Obsession - a 50 word photo-story

It took Kathleen six years to knit the café walls. Another three for the furniture and cakes. The customers took longer. She was so busy knitting her grandparents that she forgot to visit them until too late. Now it seems she’s created a woolly coffin. Her shame forever on display.

Shall I Be Mother? - a 50 word photo-story

Although no-one now living has tasted the forbidden drink called Tssh, there are places you can go to for a pretend Tssh ritual. Decadents in particular like the suggestive shapes of the objects involved, to imagine pouring and stirring the hot fluids. Experienced Tssh servers charge fortunes for private sessions.

Duke - a 50 word photo-story

And Susie says that this one insisted that the lawn be perfectly cut. Each piece of grass had to be the exactly the same length. Every day, all day, he would lie outside and measure it. When he died, they planted seeds over his coffin. A meadow of wild flowers.

Duchess - a 50 word photo-story

Susie has started to make up stories for the visitors. ‘This Duchess once ordered the chef to cook the family dog,’ she lies. ‘And then she had the chef barbecued.’ She spots the current Duke rushing towards them. ‘It’s an old family habit,’ she screams. Everybody runs for the door.

Celebrity - a 50 word photostory

He says to meet at 7pm. He’s going to show her a film of the people she’s hurt, the lives she’s ruined. Finally she’ll understand it’s not a game. But she just laughs. By 6.55pm she’s waiting for it to start. At last she is the star of the show.

Bull - a 50 word photo-story

Your boyfriend says the signs are to stop walkers crossing the fields. That’s why it’s essential to ignore them. He’ll go behind you to make sure you’re safe. It’s only in the middle of the field, when there’s no turning back, you realise the thudding steps following you aren’t his.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
Anais Nin

French writing trip...

For the last two years, I've been lucky enough to facilitate a writing retreat in Limoges - I raved about last year's trip here. Well, I've just agreed to teach another in October this year, so if you think you fancy it, and would like more details, email me. There are still places, although I gather it's booking up fast.

I'm a Winnie The Pooh Fellow

Several people have asked me recently about my teaching, and I think I can announce this officially now, so here goes - from September this year, I'm going to be the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London School of Economics. I'm looking forward to it for so many reasons, not least having a proper job, meeting new people, getting to know the LSE, being able to take the fear out of writing for students, helping people to express their thoughts, and also having the thinking time for my own writing that teaching creative writing doesn't always allow you.

On Tuesday, we all (the new fellows to the scheme this year) met up in London to be 'inducted' and I came away with two new reasons to be grateful - firstly, I learnt that the scheme gets its money from the sale of the AA Milne estate to Disney. So we are really 'Winne the Pooh Fellows'. I used to love the Winnie the Pooh books when I was a child, not just the words but the physical bookiness of them (and also because I could see how much my parents enjoyed reading them to me. It's a lovely thing to share that real enjoyment with your parents, even if you're too young to recognise exactly what it means.)

And secondly, I loved hearing about the importance of the one-to-one consultations between the fellow and student that are at the heart of the scheme. For some students apparently, this might be the only time they are offered an hour of one-to-one talking about their course during the whole of their degree. It feels like a real privilege to be in the position to offer that.

It's interesting about nerves. Because as well as being excited, I've been nervous about the scheme - would I be good enough, what did I know about economics, or politics, and heck, all the students at LSE were bound to be cleverer than me because all I am is a jumped up ex-fashion student after all.... I'm sure you've all been to what my friend, Shaun calls 'that place' in different guises and at different times so you'll know what I'm on about.

But after Tuesday, I've been thinking about it differently. Cor blimey, Sarah, it's not all about you and how bad (or good) you are. No, it's about the student, and what they want to say. And I'm looking forward to hearing them talk about their studies, and what they need to make it a bit easier for them in terms of writing skills.

Plus I'm going to have my Quick and Dirty Grammar tips handy (as well as a pot or two of honey!)

***

Another good thing from Tuesday was reconnecting with the Scottish writer, Linda Cracknell, who will be the RLF Fellow at Stirling University. We found we had so much in common, not least a passion for short stories, walking and writing, small books, and much much else. We'd even just bought the same book about designing and producing your own books - do I need to say more?

You can read one of Linda's stories here, or buy her collection, The Searching Glance from Salt Publishing. You won't be disappointed.

Competition - A Fifty Word Photo Story

The mayor of our small town has become obsessed with the Olympics. Children have to sprint everywhere. Trains stop down the line so commuters have to pole-vault or long jump aboard. And at council meetings, dressed only in swimming costumes, the politicians are learning to synchronise their actions to perfection.

Keeping the dream in mind...

So, to be honest the new allotment is a tad disappointing in how much work there is to be done...



Although I have plans to steal that digger at the end if it all gets too difficult...



And in the meantime I keep coming back up to this spot where I plan to have my writing shed so I can just look at the view and think it will all be worth it one day ...

Philip Ardagh

Not only does this man share my birthday, live in my hometown, but watching this video interview makes me happy. What an imagination he has - the perfect antidote to the idea that good writing = gloom and doom ... click here to see him too.

Lose Yourself

Happy to tell you that my feature on the advantages of getting lost is out now in this month's Pyschologies Magazine, and so to celebrate, I'm treating myself to the poster above!

(This, and other beautiful cards and posters are available here, at the Keep Calm Gallery, but DO NOT BLAME ME if you end up getting carried away - just like I did.)

Roots - A fifty word story

Many called it cruel, but every child born into the village endured The Graveyard Sleep. Their parents nestled their newborns amongst the gravestones on their fifth night of living. They’d be collected in the morning. Mothers crying, fathers praying. The ancestors chose. Either way, the babies found their way home.


(ps I have been debating about whether to put up more of these stories because I've found recently that some have been copied word for word on other sites without any credit. Please can I remind you that while you are more than welcome to use the photos and stories as prompts for your own work - and if you publish these elsewhere, it would make me happy if you could acknowledge where the original idea came from - BUT the stories and photographs published in the main body of this blog are my creative work, and if you want to reproduce them, I'd be grateful if you could email me to ask first. Thank you!)

Peony Paradise

Sometimes my life feels like a gift, especially when I have meetings - like yesterday's - which take place in gardens just when the peonies are in full perfect bloom.



I wish I could transport you all to Penshurst Place for a picnic with me today.



We'd sit on benches, drinking elderflower champagne and nibbling on cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.



We'd have to stop talking sometimes because the bird song is so beautiful, and the bees so busy, and the smell so heavenly. And afterwards, when we've finished our slices of lemon cake, we can throw ourselves - rock star crowd-surfing style - on top of this peony bed. Just for fun.**



(**Don't worry, Penshurst Place police, we wouldn't really. Please don't bar me for life! It was those naughty blog readers who had the idea, not me. I promise. I tried to persuade them otherwise .... )

Minding your P's and Q's

There used to be a ghastly girl in a kids story I remember who had cut outs of the letters P and Q on her dress, and every time she forget to say Please or Thank You she would have to take one of these off. I wish I could remember more but somehow that image has stayed, not least because we all thought she was such a loser and not the example the nuns obviously thought she would be! Anyway, I have to take more than one Q off my dress today, because last month something lovely happened to me TWICE and I have been remiss in following it up.

Both Tania Hershman and Annie Clarkson have given me a Kreativ Blogger award, and I'm really happy about that. Thank you both.

So, what I have to do is to write seven things I love, and then nominate seven blogs I love. Here goes ...

I love ..

1. My family. All of them.
2. growing things from seed, particularly vegetables.
3. that there are people like Julia Cameron, Kim Addonozio and Natalie Goldberg around who inspire a particular kind of writing in me, and that I have friends I can discuss their ideas with, even the weird ones (ideas, I mean, not friends, although....)
4. an English summer day
5. ticking things off a to-do list
6. clean ironed sheets
7. making a difference, however small.

And I now need to pass this award on to seven blogs, so in no particular order please step forward ...

1. Gardenhistorygirl
2. Bookshelf
3. Cornflower
4. Me and My Big Mouth (although I'd like even more photos of the MOTC's pots and tiles, they're beautiful)
5. Kathryn's Take on Things
6. Stepping on Cracks
7. A Longing for the Impossible

How are your sentences?

It's sad how many of the students and writers I work with will confess to not being sure about their grammar. I guess this attitude comes down to the way it was taught (or not taught) at school because most of the uncertainty seems to come down to a fear of getting things wrong. There's no feeling that grammar is a tool for us to use. If anything, it has become a monster we're almost frightened of!

When I tell certain students that grammar is fun, they look at me as if I'm mad. When I go on to tell them, grammar is your best friend, they are definitely looking for the door.

Well, hurrah, I've just found a new superhero for you ...

... meet Grammar Girl.

I'm loving her free podcasts because she proves me right.

Grammar definitely is fun. Did you really think all those dudes on the train were rocking away to the music coming through their headphones? Nope, I predict that they're just really really enjoying hearing about conjunctions.

You can even get a free daily grammar tip to cheer up your inbox.



The book I go back to again and again myself is the one I used at journalism school, but it's just been updated. It's English for Journalists by the sublimely named, Wynford Hicks. I promise you - if you're scared of grammar, or even a little bit unsure, you will have a new best friend. Grammar Girl isn't your friend, she is your punctuation goddess... and we all need one of those!

Not waving - a 50 word story

I shouldn’t have told Derek how much I miss swimming. Now he’s insisting we wear bathing suits inside and make breaststroke movements with our arms when walking. Today I came back to find he’d turned the sitting room into an underwater paradise. He calls me mermaid, doesn’t see I’m drowning.






(ps this was one of the gardens at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year - it was from the Cayman Islands and won the President's Medal for most creative. I just wouldn't want it in my sitting room, but luckily am not married to Derek)

Thinking about short stories ... again

May is Short Story Month over on the excellent Emerging Writers Network. Well, it's been going for several weeks obviously since, er, the 1st May, but well worth a catch up for some great recommendations, blogs and thoughts.

Anyway I thought I'd add my own views before May runs away with me, particularly as I had the chance earlier this year to work my way through a seriously huge pile of short stories as the judge for The New Writer Magazine short story competition. I can't wait for the stories to be published to hear what others think of my choices, but I'm convinced the right ones won. I said right from the beginning that I was looking for stories with personality - hard to describe but easy to spot. Here are some general comments I'd make about ALL the stories I read for the competition ...

What surprised me was how many of the stories …

* were in first person. There's nothing wrong with this, I think short stories lend themselves to that first-person-almost-whisper-like-feel in your ear but it did become predictable after a while.

* were about friendships rather than romantic entanglements. In fact, there were so many that I started to wonder what was happening out there in the zeitgeist.

* didn’t contain any contemporary references for the period they were set in. In my view, good writing is all about detail, so slip in what music is playing, what news stories are around, who are the heart throbs. The advantage this has in making your story effortlessly real is outweighed by any worry about the piece feeling dated.

* were of claustrophobic worlds (which I liked a lot btw!)

* had great first paragraphs but then fizzled a little in the middle. I was left feeling the writer had a wonderful idea but either got bored or didn't have the stamina to finish it. How many times can it be said that a successful writer is someone who slogs, rewrites, slogs and rewrites some more.

* didn’t contain humour. I got to LONG for some humour, just a small joke would have done me nicely

* came alive with the addition of concrete details - not just period details as above but specifics. What colour handbag, what flower in particular?

* and what a difference using the senses makes. Several times I went back to see what made a particular paragraph so satisfying and it would be a particular smell, or a sound, or how something felt to touch. It takes the reader onto a different level.

* repaid re-reading. And even more the third re-read. But I was judging a competition so I had some responsibility. It did get me thinking whether we always have that luxury as writers. Sometimes it's better to make things simple. Not write simple stories though, that's a different thing. I'd never call Carver's stories simple, for instance, but they are easy to read first time. And second, and third.

* followed a conventional structure – nothing wrong with this, but I would have liked to have seen more risk-taking, and definitely more playing. Too many stories were just too unambitious in the end - both in content and structure. I started to wonder if the writer really cared about what they were writing about, whether they were passionate, whether they were daring to be authentic.

And with the stories that won, these are the three general points I would make:

* The structure the writer used fitted the theme, so it added another layer rather than feeling forced or gimmicky.

* Characters were real and believable, but always stayed on the right side of the stereotype.

* I cared about what was happening - the authors had picked brave, meaningful themes. By this I don't mean war or the end of the world, but there was something at stake that mattered within the worlds they had created.

This is what I said in general about all the stories on my final list:

They were sympathetic, clever, optimistic, heartbreaking. They had the thing I was looking for which was personality. The best ones took me somewhere surprising, the writers kept the tension, the characters were ones I cared about. Nearly all were about human emotions – complicated, messy, spilling over the page. A short story knows just how an object can change our lives, a look can change our lives, what we don’t say can change our lives as much as what we do say. These stories were all about those moments of change. It has been a privilege to enter so many different worlds.

Blossoms - a 50 word photo story

He died in November. By the summer, Lucy is still finding messages he left for her. She wakes to find a climbing rose has reached her bedroom window, its tight buds unfurling. In the flowerbed, a white lily stretches over to the pink. It’s all fleeting beauty, beautifully fleetingly real.


PS Can you guess where I've been? This photograph is taken from one of the fantastic displays at RHS Chelsea Flower Show!

In the driving seat - a 50 word story

Used to her car’s satnav, Jody had a special one implanted above her heart. It was essential for blind dates. ‘Turn around when possible,’ the mechanical voice would mostly chant. But then one night she didn’t have to hear the words, ‘Stop now', to know. She had reached her destination.

And this one is for Cally with special thanks for her CD, Drive Sarah Drive, which I LOVE! Here's the first track from it... enjoy!!

Challenges - a 50 word story

The tasks Jon sets Suzanne are too easy. Anyone can teach dogs to read, or motorways to sing. At last he challenges her. She spends days carving nature out of ice, only for it to melt before she reaches the last leaf. Even after the fruit bruises, she stays frozen.

(And the inspiration for this prompt comes thanks to Dave who kindly provided the music ...)

No stories today.

Yesterday, my daughter and I did one of the things you hope you'll never have to do. We went to the funeral of a very special teenager. She really was a girl who, as the order of service simply said, was 'so brave, so loving and so loved.'

Although I think reading this line brought tears to everyone's eyes, it was the almost tangible and overwhelming feeling of love everywhere that somehow made the day bearable. The family were extraordinarily generous in both offering and accepting love too, and I think everyone was humbled by how they allowed us all to share their grief, but it's left me out of words. Instead I've been reading, turning in particular to Mary Oliver who always seems to know how to say things better.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your own wild and precious life?

Lucky - 50 word story

At first she liked the way the villagers stared at her. And when the offerings began - flowers, gold, wine dropped on her doorstep - she thought she had it made. That is, until the morning they left a baby for her. A thousand shutting doors met her roar for help.

Keeping Up - a 50 word story

She doesn’t let more than a week go by before she matches the Jones’s. Her stone bananas when they put up those silly pineapples. The glow-in-the-dark curtains. ‘We’re building an extension,’ Mr Jones said one morning. She thought quickly. Surely her elderly neighbours wouldn’t need a whole house anymore.





(NB. Please feel free to join in with your own 50 word story via the comments. You might be kinder than me! This is a real house in London by the way... I don't know the story behind it, but would love to. This is all I could find in one of the tourist guides...

Look out for quirky details too such as strange numbering. Apsley House has a wonderful address – No 1 London. A house at Strand on the Green near Chiswick is number Nought, while another near Brick Lane is eleven and a half…)

The Story of Stuff...

Please watch The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. It's a 20 minute film that explains the real cost of what we're buying. This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently for a collection of poems about shopping I'm working on. What amazes me though is the reaction of schools and school boards to Annie Leonard's film (as shown via the blog).

Why is a discussion about our shopping habit quite so threatening? It is just shopping, after all. Isn't it?

Hear me, read me...

Two offers that have to be value for money....

The podcast of my short story, Dictionary of Death Dreams is now up and available - free! - from the Monkeybicycle website.

And my short story, For the Sake of the Children, is now up on the Night Train site. Again, all you need to do is click!

Thanks to both editors for this!

Nesting - 50 word story

He sends her a piece of grass every day. No letter, no note. At first she keeps them tied in pink ribbon. But then she starts to weave them into a shape moulded by her fingers. When she’s got enough, when she’s built their shelter, she knows he will come.

Anyone near Lewes?

Would be so good to see any of you who fancy coming to this reading. I've attended the Needlewriters evenings as an audience member before and it's been a brilliant experience, not least because it's a great venue (with cake as well as wine) and there's an excellent inspiring atmosphere. If you do manage to get there, please say hello if I don't know you...


NEEDLEWRITERS

FINE WRITING
and delicious food and drink, at the Needlemakers Café, West Street, Lewes
(for details and map see www.needlemakers.co.uk)

READING, THURSDAY JUNE 11

Prose: SARAH SALWAY
Poetry: ANDIE LEWENSTEIN
Prose: JULIE CORBIN


Sarah Salway is the author of two novels, Something Beginning With and Tell Me Everything (Bloomsbury) and a collection of short stories, Leading the Dance (bluechrome). She judged the short story competition for The New Writer magazine this year, and is currently editing her second short story collection.

Andie Lewenstein has published poems and stories in anthologies and won the Ware Poets sonnet prize. She is currently drawing inspiration from fairy tale and the forest where she lives. She has taught creative writing in Adult Education, on Emerson College’s Word Work course, and she was co-director of the annual Poetry Otherwise conference in Forest Row.

Julie Corbin studied creative writing at Sussex University. Her first novel, Tell Me No Secrets, was shortlisted for two competitions: the Daily Telegraph's 'Novel in a Year' and the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 'first 10,000 words of a novel.' The paperback will be published in July and has already been described by one reviewer as 'an absolute corker.' She is currently working on her second novel, also a psychological thriller.



– DOORS OPEN 7 pm, READINGS BEGIN 7.45 pm
If you plan to have supper at the Café, it’s probably a good idea to arrive in time to order and eat before the readings start.

– TICKETS: £5 (£3 unwaged), in advance from Skylark (Needlemakers) or at the door on the night.

Spoilt - 50 word story

They don’t laugh when he comes in looking for ferret jackets. Not even when he insists on Harris Tweed to match his. Lined with silk so that they slip easily into his pocket. And pink ribbon for the lady ferret.

No, they’ve seen everything. They’re much more likely to cry.