She clawed at the ground, dirt packing her nails. If only she could remember. She
felt for cool metal, watched for a flash of silver light, imagined the ring
against her skin. The smile the day he
left her.
From the watch tower the guards grinned. 'Crazy bitch,' said Pedro
'Every day the same', replied Pieter, as he watched the tired pantomime
and sent a rifle cracking into the
brilliant aching sky.
She flinched like an animal.
'Time to reel her in,' said Pedro and he scattered a shoal of
curtain rings into the air. They fell catching the sun as they went, fell like
rain onto the dry soil of the compound and the woman ran around, picked them
up, stared at them, before slowly letting them fall through her fingers.
'Time to come home,' shouted the guard and the gates opened for her,
once again.
As a treat for working so hard on writing and editing this week I visited Foyle's yesterday, hoping to buy my all time favourite book on writing, Writing down the bones by Natalie Goldberg, which I've mislaid. They didn't have it so I had to order, resisting the temptation to go to Amazon, as I believe in supporting real bookshops. Whilst in the bookshop I imagined my book on the shelves. Under P for Palmer.
Here's an extract from my novel The Wish Bone that I want to see on those shelves. I'm editing the book at the moment. This chapter is told in Freddie's voice, Chloe is his young sister, and Mum is well, Mum.
Let me know what you think, and thanks for listening.
In my job, 'getting it out the door' means the point at which a piece of writing or print has to be signed off and ready for the printers. There is usually a tension between trying to get it spot on and good enough, in the meantime the deadline nears until there is no more time available.
In my own creative work it's much harder to apply this principle. The fun bit was writing the novel, editing is a long process - you upset one part of the plot and you have to excavate around it. Keeping at it is taxing and at times I lose momentum, but I wouldn't want to send the precious thing out under-dressed. It deserves the best attention it can get when I do finally wave goodbye and send off its first three chapters to the literary agents.
People advise getting work published in magazines in order to build a name for oneself so you have a track record. But I've got into a habit of not sending things out. I complete something and move onto the next bit of writing, rather than risk being rejected, or exposed.
Luna Park, Melbourne
The more writing I do on the 'Screw work let's play challenge' the more I want to share. Being creative makes me feel truly alive. And maybe it's a numbers game - in the last year I've only entered two competitions. As a strategist I could do better!
So, instead of carrying on with the same patterns I aim to put some fun back into the process and send stuff out and see what happens. As George Bernard Shaw said, 'Try again, fail more, fail better'. But hopefully I won't be failing.
In the spirit of trying not to be perfectionist I've recorded a draft of a story I wrote today. It's a 20 minute piece and I can think of a million ways to improve it. But for now, here it is. A start.
