Amongst the pile of paper on my desk (paperless office? yeah right) I found a Note to Self:
Dr. Lice.
Hmmm…couldn’t quite remember what that was all about. Was I starting a children’s short story perhaps, the protagonist having been born in a flurry of creative enthusiasm and I’d jotted the name down only to completely forget all about it? Or maybe Dr. Lice was going to be in my next collection of unsettling short stories . Not a clue. Next to my note regarding Dr. Lice was a list: cat food, salad, coffee. Now this I did remember writing, instructive for my quick flit around *insert supermarket of your choice (but you really should click on this link!)The day wore on and Dr. Lice was really bugging me. Read any author interview and inevitably a couple of the questions are ‘when do you write?’ and ‘do you take notes?’ Well yes, as writers, we all take notes in some form or another, but what use is that if we can’t remember what a scribbled note means?! I set Dr. Lice to one side for the day while I considered other writing options. Short story competition entry? Maybe. Update blog? Possibly. Emails? Probably. Start planning new book? Well I would… if I could be sure Dr. Lice wasn’t going to make an unscheduled appearance.

But then I started to flesh out the bones of Dr. Lice. Born immediately as male, I tried not to go down the Doc Martin route but with a name like Lice that was the way I was being led. More notes followed. He had a home. He had a partner. He even had a dog. GP or some specialty? Deffo some specialty. Had to be careful though, with that specialty – obvious associations with head lice and any other bodily lice were too obvious and could get me in to all sorts of trouble. By the time the sun was over the yardarm, Dr. Lice was a bone specialist, working on strange and unusual bone formations, in a London hospital. He was then called away to some far flung corner of the planet and so the adventure begins.

It was only as I was tidying up for the day when I realised what my note to self actually meant.

Driving Licence. Time to renew!! Duh!

Got the beginnings of a great story though…

The other day I over-heard someone use one of my favourite four letter words – Junk. What a brilliant word. And economical too, with the alphabet. It first appeared in use around 1480. 1480! So not a modern word at all and seemingly rising in popularity once more,  thanks to its coupling with the word Space, making it very modern indeed. But Junk’s a mere youngster compared to the word Foot – first found in use around 900. The derivation of language is fascinating subject and as we know words come and go in rapid succession – bought, borrowed, morphed and compounded into vibrant additions to any language. Here’s a fact that made me smile: the French word for Work – travail – comes from the Latin tripalium, which was a very unpleasant instrument of torture. Who’d have thought?!

So where did four letter words come from? Why four letters? If you need to convey or describe something by just making a sound, a three-lettered ‘Axe’ is just as effective as a four letter ‘Coat’. See what I mean? One sound, but an extra letter. What’s that all about? It’s an accepted fact that writing began long after language so you could say that to understand writing we first have to understand language. But I’m not so sure. The proliferation of written works all through history right up to now, this minute, this blog, by anyone, it seems, who could/can write, is surely a statement that we’re hard-wired to do it? Ah, a subject for discussion I feel!

Idling time away in a trafficjam the other day I played the Four Letter Word game: get from one four letter to word to another by changing only one word at a time, and each subsequent word change must result in a new four letter word. Try it. Go from Work to Bend:

WORK, FORK, FORT, PORT, PERT, PERM, TERM, TEAM, BEAM, BEAD, BEND.  I think I cheated though, using the word perm; any hairdresser worth their straighteners will tell you perm is short for Permanent. But I don’t feel qualified in anyway to discuss the history of hairdressing, so we’ll just leave that one for now…

As Cole Porter so observantly noted “Good authors too who once knew better words, now only use four-letter words. Writing prose, anything goes.”

Epublishing is old news. No really, apparently it is. Unless you’re a newbie like me, then it’s oh-so exciting! Yes I too have wandered into the wilderness of self-publishing as of yesterday afternoon and discovered it’s not a wilderness at all – positively over-populated you could say, but it still elicited a bit of thrill none the less. Ok, so maybe no-one anywhere ever will download my little darling, but at least I’ve done it. But it was a strange experience. Imagine (gents too, if you will) being pregnant for five years, then without moving from my seat and with very little effort, out popped my creation for the entire world to see. As an event, it felt like a bit of a non-one. Then suddenly I was worrying about every little thing – what if a stray comma buggered-up the integrity of a sentence? What if I’d spelled ‘incorrect’ incorrectly? Lost a line to the foibles of cyberspace? Everyone would think I was an idiot who shouldn’t be allowed near a keyboard. Then I heard the words Get Over Your Self and my blood pressure returned to normal. Indeed. Thousands of ebooks get uploaded every year and thousands of readers and reviewers download them every year so it’s good to know that what ever else is going on in the world, we’re still reading.

This short blog then would be an opportune moment to thank everyone who has helped me thorough my literary pregnancy – (you know who you are!) the beta readers, copy readers, editors; those who unknowingly fed my imagination, those who advised and corrected my many and varied mistakes, the friends who stared at me blankly, waiting for an answer, when my mind was engaged elsewhere as the holes in whichever plot became apparent, and even my old postie, who would often ask ‘How’s that book of yours coming along? Not finished it yet?’ – a comment guaranteed to irritate and keep me at my desk all night with the words ‘I can’t come to bed – Postie says I have to finish my book’.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you?!

A Collection of Unsettling Short Stories

After several months in the making, author and Winchester Writers Festival regular, Allison Symes’ book From Light To Dark and Back Again has hit the shelves. Mistress of dark flash fiction, Allison has created this wonderful collection of short stories – best described as adult fairy tales – and I am delighted to be interviewing her here about her writing journey. As a writing-hopeful, many years ago Allison nervously dipped her toe in the waters of the Winchester Writer’s Festival and I asked her What made you take the plunge and go to the Festival the very first time?

I’d been wondering about going a year before I actually went, dithered too long and lost the chance to go so was determined not to make that mistake again. I was a new writer then – I blog weekly for Chandler’s Ford Today, usually on writing themes and have interviewed authors, self publishers and those who run independent presses – and I dithered due to sheer nerves. You know the kind of thing – I’d look stupid etc. I went the following year, telling myself at worst I would learn from the courses. As it turned out, the warmth of the welcome at Winchester for all delegates was incredible.

Did you feel inspired? Yes. I always come away feeling invigorated by the courses because I know what I’ve learned I can apply to my stories and blogs.

How do you think you’ve evolved creatively? The short answer is by learning from my mistakes. The longer answer is I’ve written things “the wrong way round.” I started off trying to write a novel and then came to short stories. I started with fiction and have now branched into non-fiction. Most authors I’ve come across do things properly and start off with short stories before even trying to write something longer! Having said that I have learned a lot about how to write – and how not to – in both novel and short story writing. The irony is I now write flash fiction as well and Cafélit in particular feature some of my 100 word tales!

So what happened? I was getting nowhere with the novels so thought I really should try short stories again. This time I read up more on the craft side and then started applying the principles. Lo and behold I produced a short story. I was so pleased. But the real pleasure came when A Helping Hand became my first short story in print thanks to Bridge House Publishing putting it in their Alternative Renditions anthology. From that point there was no looking back.

What genre are your books and what draws you to it? I think urban fantasy/magical realism would cover most of my stories – I just love the idea of other worlds. I like the idea of having this whole new world, one that you’ve invented, and to be able to explore it. With fairytales you have the basic premise set down; you know there will be magic, there will be good and evil etc but you can then put your own stories on that template and create some wonderful new tales. I just can’t imagine NOT writing in this genre.

So Allison, tell us more about your first flash collection, From Light to Dark and Back Again. The title, for example…

The title reflects the mood range of the stories in the book. I write humorous flash fiction to borderline horror and some crime For the collection I thought it would be good to end the book on a lighter note so came back down the scale again so to speak. Some are funny, some are dark, some cross the two. Some are set in a magical world, others are based on ours.

Allison’s flash fiction has appeared online at Alfie Dog Fiction, Cafelit,  Scriggler and in print-version anthologies by Bridge House Publishing

Allison’s blog round-up can be found here: http://allisonsymesscollectedworks.wordpress.com

http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/author/allison-symes/

Whilst musing with a group of writer friends recently, we were trying to come up with a catchy short story title.  The obvious ones – I Can’t Think of Anything, and Writer’s Block – fell by the wayside pretty quickly. Then we started on the silly stuff – My God Look At The Size of That and Not If I Can Help It – were also discarded amid much giggling. Ah, children to the last. I’m surprised nobody farted at the same time. Perhaps someone should have. We gave Death as a title quite a wide berth, feeling somehow that it had been done… to death… and tried Crossing The Road, Hamburgers for Free, (nil point) and Boom! none of which seemed to hook us. Then someone said Green, which although not receiving tumultuous and rapturous applause didn’t get the immediate thumbs-down either. So Green it was.   We had no idea we were in such esteemed company!

So, for this damp and miserable January day, here is my offering of Green. Didn’t say it was any good.

GREEN

She smiles,
quickly.
Lips parted
like an F22 undercarriage
open for business.
Plates, snatched from the table
cannot
will not
escape
her tight tight grip.
“I guess the best girl won, right?” laughs the diner,
smoothing crumbs
with long painted nails
from the cloth.
“Guess so,” She replies, coolly,
but not as cool
as the breath that she feels
smearing
the inside of her own mouth.
Until today,
waitress and diner worked shifts
together
waiting tables and clearing up
other people’s
half-eaten food and lipsticked cups.
But now, today,
Fate had slipped
an invisible wall
between them,
and where one now ate
the other removed the redundant
dirty plate,
dismissed
with a wave of the hand.
“Bring the bill, would you
sweetie,” instructs Long Nails,
and, leaning in,
drops a rapturous smile
to her faithful companion.
Loitering, plates still held fast,
“No dessert?” She asks,
wishing the answer were
Yes,
in the hope that Long Nails would succumb
and choke on a random
sugary crumb.
“Not now honey. Gotta watch
this figure!” Long Nails returned,
the smugness in her voice
smacking her hard in the face,
and putting her
firmly
in
her waitressing place.
She gripped the plates tighter
until it felt her fingers
would break.
Long Nails looked up.
“What? Gotta take
the rough with the smooth,
sugar,” she cooed.
“We both had a chance. You lost.
Guess I just look better on the screen
than you.”
It’s a tough place, L.A.
to audition.
Tougher still,
to waitress.
And before the thought
had even left her head
those plates she held so tightly
fell
releasing half-eaten
balsamic
and other staining liquids
all over
the semi-transparent
dress.
“Oops,” She said,
and closed her lips.
Mission complete.

Copyright Jacci Gooding 2017