Back to the regular and joyful talk of short stories! I was eagerly awaiting the announcement of the winner of Columbia Journal's Fiction contest because it was judged by Diane Williams, editor of NOON Annual and writer of wonderfully surreal and often very very short stories. This was not a flash fiction contest - although the entry requirements are no longer on the web site, I submitted a story myself and remember the word limit being several thousand words. So imagine my surprise - and delight - to see that the winner is a tiny short story, several hundred words long: Register, Please by Jonas Williams (no relation, we assume!). Congratulations to Jonas, whose story is also wonderfully surreal. (The link that appears to lead to his story on the site is a broken one, but I read the story in the new issue of the Columbia Journal, well worth buying).......

Read Full Post

At first I thought to skip my turn this month and ask one of the others on the Strictly Writing team to fill in for me. The energy needed to post something here was going to elude me, and more importantly it might not be appropriate or respectful this week.

My mother breathed her last breath on Wednesday 20 May and I spent the week before sitting at her bed, watching every single breath. So what could I possibly say for Strictly Writing? The only thing that mattered had gone with that breath.

Then I thought again. This would not be the only inappropriate act on my part. My mother would not have wished for me to get drunk ten nights in a row – she hardly touched a drop. And let's not even think about the (temporary, I hope) resumption of smoking. Worse than that, I confess, even until the day she died I was taking notes. Unable to read, I must have attempted the same page of the Patrick Gale novel a hundred times and anything beneath the headlines on the newspapers quickly blurred - who cared about MPs' expenses? All I could do was watch her breathe and wait for anything she might say, or talk to my brothers and my father about whether we should call for another injection of Oxycodone.

Was it shameful that I was able to jot down notes? I wanted to capture some of her last utterances, it’s true, and that seemed a plausible excuse. It wasn’t just that, I must admit to hoarding details too – the name of the disinfectant in the plastic spray bottle at the end of the bed, a description of the pink sponge swabs we used to roll moisture along her lips, the hospital visitor with dementia who repeatedly lost his wife’s bed and had to be guided back – each morning they break the news to him anew. I can’t pretend I was storing all those for emotional reasons alone. You know my guilt: I’m a writer.



Read Full Post

I drove over to Dumbarton with TocToc and GrubbyAngel; it's amazing what's on my doorstep. I haven't really gone anywhere out of the ordinary shopping and granny-duties since I moved here. This was perfect for testing the little camera I bought on Ebay for Amazon's birthday - not great weather but interesting.

Read Full Post

You might wonder why all the snipes at teenagers – even my daughter tells me to get over it, that I can’t tar them all with the same brush and all that cliché, but I still think of them as stupid, dumb and dangerous-to-know. The thought that my beautiful grandchildren will be going there fills me with dread.

Read Full Post

'Well really, Sheila. What did you expect?'

This from a man who practically skids to a halt at any sign saying '75% Off!' when he's no idea what the goods are.

Read Full Post

There's a school of thought that says there's no such thing as writer's block. It's an excuse put about by lazy wasters who spend more time dreaming of glitzy literary parties than doing any actual work. But whether or not you subscribe to this view, there's no denying the fact that writing has its bad patches. Sometimes it's extremely difficult indeed. Sometimes it's hard to write anything at all; sometimes it's impossible to believe that what you've written is any good...


Read Full Post

Being British, I ought to remember if the summer of 1987 was a good one weather-wise. But I don’t and it might have rained every single day for all I cared. Because I was 18, I’d just left school, the ink was still wet on my pink paper driving licence, I had the keys to my mother’s rusty old brown Renault 12, a pocket full of cash from working in a bar and the coolest cool black suede jacket this side of James Dean.

Read Full Post

It is with great, great pleasure that I can say that the launch on Sunday for the photo book I helped out with for The Alzheimer's Society went brilliantly. Katherine Elizabeth Lewis whose idea the whole thing was, and who'd been seriously under the weather for the whole of the week before, was able to come which made me very happy. And the turnout was splendid - the venue was full and a huge thanks to Julie and to Freya who provided first class service and cake.

The readings and readers were fab, and went down a treat (with one minor exception - here's a Nik tip: If you're thinking of getting very, very drunk and attending a book launch with the intent of making a scene you're likely to make yourself look very, very silly).

Hearing the readers' work aloud was, for me, the best bit - it was a powerful reminder of the quality of the work, both the stories, poems and haiku that are in the book and things people read that weren't were all brilliant and varied. We even got to hear former Cheshire poet Laureate, Joy Winkler sing as part of a piece from the show she's doing with other contributors Jo Bell and John Lindley.

And books were sold. Money was raised. And a good time was had by all.

And I got to go for a drink afterwards, and meet and chat, with some lovely people, including Janette Jones Caroline Smailes, Mr Bubble Cow and many many more.

Brilliant. Brilliant night all round, really.

Here are some pics of some of the readers. There'll be more to come.

Read Full Post

You do realise that I didn’t go to the dentist, don’t you? I stuffed my face with Paracetamol and the pain eventually disappeared but there is an echo every now and then. Oh I’m feeling old.



Read Full Post