today's flash fiction for you

She pulled the tights further down over her face, wishing they were clean. It was like the beginning of a bad heist movie. It would have been funny, if she'd been watching it on TV. If she hadn't actually been playing the starring role herself. The door opened and she swung forward and the knife struck deep. She thought later that the tights were a stupid idea. He'd be dead before he recognised her, anyway.

I think the kitchen is finally finished. I couldn't procrastinate any longer and finally got round to doing the housework that I've been putting off for weeks because of the refurb. I even dusted, and got rid of a few cobwebs. I feel like a proper housewife. Well, sort of. I haven't actually put away any of the washing up - but at least we are no longer eating pizza off paper plates and their isn't an inch of plaster dust on every flat surface downstairs, so it's a start.
Oh alright, I wasn't quite as virtuous as I'm making out. I got a bit bored of the whole hausfrau thing and wrote a couple of flash fiction stories, too. Which is why there is still dust/cobwebs/mildew upstairs. Oh, please don't make me do the upstairs, too!

I think I may be in danger of becoming addicted to writing flash fiction. As well as the minotaur one (below),  and the one about the lost will, I've just written one about a female assassin. I suppose other people must feel this way about soduku or crosswords or rubik's cubes or somesuch. Here's the web link for the creative exercises if you think you'd like to give it a go: http://www.writing-workout.com. I would honestly rather be doing these writing activities than almost anything else in the world (almost!) ;)

Minotaur

I walked without thinking into the cool blue shadows, the hairs standing up on my arms. The sunshine was far behind me, now. I thought of calling, but you wouldn't hear me through all that stone: sandstone? granite? marble? You would have known. Big blocks like tombstones. There was a distant sound. Your footsteps, perhaps. 

I walked deeper into indigo-grey, not thinking, just looking. And then I saw.

But it was too late to turn and run.

http://www.paragraphplanet.com/

Small excitement for a Monday: had a 75-word flash fiction accepted for paragraph planet website. It's very gratifying, because it's my first attempt. I sent off my novel for feedback last week, and decided that I wasn't ready to start another novel just yet, but wanted to keep my writer's muscles active by just doing some short writing exercises. I tried writing a flash fiction within a tweet, but that didn't really work (too short). However, I did find paragraph planet. The idea is that you have to piece of flash fiction that's exactly 75 words long. It's a great constraint, because it's long enough to have the suggestion of something happening - good for practising opening paragraphs. I'm now totally addicted. I'm supposed to be cleaning the bathroom now, but instead I've been writing about a codicil to a will and a family secret...oh, I suppose I really should scrub the toilet now (but at least I can think about overgrown gardens and orphaned children and family feuds whilst I'm doing it).
My story will be on the paragraph planet website on 29/4/14 ...or here forever (see next post)!

It's all happening in my kitchen. I could barely contain my excitement this morning when I got back from the gym to find a man and a roll of lino in my house. I even offered him chocolate biscuits with his cup of tea. And now I can hear drilling, how thrilling! Full steam ahead to try to get it all done in time for the Twins' birthday party tomorrow.
I just picked up my new hand whisk from Tesco, but have given up on the idea of actually making it into the kitchen today to bake birthday cupcakes, so I bought a tray of ready-made ones, which is a bit of a cop-out, but loads better than I could manage, even with the help of a brand new whisk.
Right then, I just need to buy monster's ears (dried pears) and monster's fingernails (flaked almonds)  - yes, it is a 'spooky' party - and I'm good to go, woo hoo! xxx

Hello again. How are you? I'm still kitchen-less (and humourless). I know, shouldn't complain, taxpayers expense, etc. In many ways being unable to do the washing or cooking is a good thing. Tonight I came home from work to a nice fresh layer of cement on the kitchen floor, so no chance of even washing Son's filthy PE kit (yes, he left it at school throughout the Easter hols and has only just brought it home) or even bunging a pizza in the oven. Hey-ho, I thought, we'll just have yet another McDonald's, so I plopped back in the car, leaving Scooby Doo to babysit for me, and zoomed off...only to discover that McDonald's is also being refurbished and is closed for the next few weeks. Nooo! We had fish and chips last night, for heaven's sakes, so I couldn't go down the chippy again. So the kids ended up having pretzels, tomatoes, cheese strings and chorizo (what will I do if Lidl shuts, too?). And I'm on a fasting day, so I was only ever going to have an unexciting oat cake and salad anyway.
I suppose the good thing is that I'm really looking forward to being able to use the kitchen again, and, rather than feeling like it's my personal domestic prison, I will embrace it with the joy and warmth of a long-lost companion. In fact, I'm so excited about the prospect of returning to my culinary sanctum I have even ordered a new hand whisk (in order to better whip up cup cakes, natch). xxx

I'm on the motorway in the rain, with a tummy full of chocolate. A typical British Easter Sunday. The hols are nearly over, the mystery Machine (now re christened Henry Bongo) hasn't blown up and I'm wearing my exciting new weekend hoodie. yes, it is another blue hoodie, but entirely different in so many respects from my other two blue hoodies. Must go, nearly home xx

PPS. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

Samuel Beckett

ps. Just googled. Apparently the murder rate spikes around full moons...

Hello. I'm writing again now I'm slightly less mad. The full moon is on the wane, hey ho! Let me tell you a secret: I am a genuine lunatic. I know, it sounds all a tad eighteenth century, but the fact is, I do end up a teensy bit insane when the moon is full. I don't really want to delve into the spooky New Age witchy theory as to why this is the case (if there is a spooky New Age witchy theory - probably, hmmm...might google it after this), but now I have a lunar phases app on my smart phone and a half-full bottle of St John's Wort tablets, so at least I can dose myself up in readiness these days and not succumb totally to the bedlam.
So, I've been hearing/reading the odd thing recently about how important failure is. That it's a good thing to face the 'dark night of the soul' alone, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, etc. That we should all learn to 'fail better' as I think Beckett said (probably need to google that as well)? I quite like this philosophy (who wouldn't like the reassurance that being a loser is a good thing?) BUT this morning when, after hours of trying, Son & I still couldn't get Minecraft to download and what's more, I couldn't get the lawnmower to start, I have to say that I no longer gave a stuff about the opportunity to develop and learn through the experience of failure. I just wanted the blooming things to work. Furthermore, I didn't want my personal 'dark night of the soul' journey to be through the wastelands of mechanical and geeky frustration.
However, I suppose I did learn a few things through today's experience:
1. Geeky forums sometimes give valid advice
2. The phone number for the grounds maintenance chaps
3. Tesco sells sugar-free chocolate

Hope your day was less frustrating than mine xxx

Alright my lovely, how are things in your neck of the woods? Here, we're part way through the scary old kitchen refurb. I've managed to miss most of it by being in Devon and London respectively, but we couldn't stay away forever, so here we are, eating pizza in front of the telly on paper plates (I'm quite enjoying this refurb lark - at least there's no washing up, and further more, as the workmen are still about, there's no point in cleaning the house, because they'll only cause more dust tomorrow, so hardly any housework for me, yay). It's all good, although feeling a little skint due to all the fast food we've been forced to live off recently - and a bit porky, too (not helped by comparisons with my newly-slinky sister, who had the flu this winter and dropped about 10kg - and she's just retrained as a fitness instructor, so she's irritatingly toned as well). So, after catching up on the laundry, the next stop on the avoid-the-kitchen-refurb-tour will be Dorset, so long as the mystery machine doesn't pack up on us. I'm taking it to the nice garage men tomorrow for diagnostics to find out exactly what the flashing light that comes on when we do over three-thousand-revs actually means. Hope it's not too dire, or son's new laptop and the girls' tablets will have to be returned...
Oh, I didn't get the creative writer job. Hey ho. But you know, it would have been a little stressful starting a new job this week, in the middle of the hols and the kitchen refurb, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.
Right, I'm going to drink my tea and watch Scooby Doo, now. Take care x

So, how would you feel if I started posting short stories on this site? Or should I start up a new blog for fiction? What d'you reckon? x

Finished writing my book. l know, again! I'm hoping this is the final draft, although l do still have to run the spill chocker, and the even more irritating grammar checker. But it's done! Now l can spend all day tomorrow gutting the kitchen in prep for Ghengis the chippy. The Avon Lady says her kitchen looks very nice, so perhaps the marauders won't be too bad. I'm off to drink a celebratory dram and dream happy dreams about book signings and three-figure publishing deals... ;)

You know how there's always something to moan about? Like, the traffic, or the wierd Saharan smog, or the stupid amount of spellings your child has suddenly remembered they have to learn by tomorrow morning. Yes, life is a teensy bit annoying. However, when I teach my Wednesday ESOL classes, my life is often flung into very sharp perspective. One student, for example (whose husband is working towards a PhD here), is from Aleppo in Syria and has no contact with her family - the only means she has of finding out whether or not they're still alive is by looking online for the death notices. Today I discovered that an Iraqui friend of another student had to leave her one-day-old baby behind to take up her PhD place here. She's now half way through her research, and although she Skypes her (now) two-and-a-half year old, she has not been able to see or hold her little girl since she was a day-old newborn. Both these examples are from relatively wealthy, middle class women. If it's like that for them, imagine the sacrifices that the poor and ill-educated are having to make to try to build a better life for their families?
So I've decided that today I'm not going to get huffy with my squabbling children or whinge about the disruption my kitchen refurbishment will cause, or feel a bit droopy about not seeing my husband all week, and just keep my trap shut and feel blooming lucky that they're here with me, and that we're all safe.
TTFN x