The Road to Naivasha.

     We drive through an endless overgrowth of forest. It's hot. I doze.

     "Look!" My father's voice whiplashes my torpor. "The edge of the world."

     I stare. The road has vanished. Outside, I tiptoe forwards: far below, reaching beyond forever, a vast plain. In a flash my unlived life opens up before me.

© Sheila Rogers

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Turning Your Anecdote into a Short Story

"Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about."

 - Alice Munro

After that nothing was the same.

Drifting on a white bed

A day’s anchors lost.

drowning in pain.

Strangers rush in.

Machines,

Shouted instructions.

A baby heavy on my chest. 

A decision made without

experience, with  imagination.

In a while, I will forget

what it felt like without her.

  

© Valerie Taylor

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After that, nothing was the same

This was the third shop.

“Suits you,” Adam had said.  Clearly not: again he was left standing amid knickers, bras and suspenders.

“And the talking snake said it was ok?” he had asked thousands of years before.

She had nodded, he had bitten and they became ashamed of their nakedness.

© Tim Scott

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My wife is getting married again

I don’t know what to say.

I should have said – years ago.

She’d supposed my existence.

She’d been part of the audience

at my piss poor performance

all my adult life.

She is going away

to that part of her life

where I become a mere shadow -

“Anne’s first husband.”

© Sophia Roberts

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Never the Same

Ideas spin and spiral in my mind:

a carousel of music, colour, light,

shimmers with meaning.

Ink is the gaoler,

locking black on white,

confined, stolid, still.

There thoughts shrink

to dry shadows of themselves,

become puny, brittle.

All my complex language

cannot make halos.

After, words are never the same.

© Gill Dunstan

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Your writing rehearsal

The WHOLE of this blog post is well worth reading.  Just click on the link, below:

Your writing rehearsal. | Sarah Selecky: "Here is why you should practice with warm-ups and writing exercises:

1. It shows you how to recognize your resistance as resistance. This is crucial, because if you don’t recognize it for what it is, then you won’t write very often. Or you’ll push yourself and suffer through writing in an ugly way.

2. You’ll know what a certain discomfort feels like in your body when you write something that feels honest. You’ll do this over and over again in your practice, and learn how it feels different when you write stereotypes and clichés. So even though it’s always going to be challenging, you become more familiar with the feeling of writing what feels real.

3. You’ll be surprised by your own writing. You’ll learn things about your characters, your sentences, and your stories that you didn’t expect. You’ll find delight and pleasure in your creative life.

4. You get better at it. Good writers are writers who practice writing."

'via Blog this'

My Name is Magic

My name is magic?

Really?

Gill’s sharp, sounds harsh, is common.

I’m also Diana.  Moon-Goddess?

Cruel huntress?  No.

A rose by any other name

would smell as sweet,

so Shakespeare said.

I have many names,

play many parts:

Nan, Mum, Darling sometimes,

Auntie, friend.

But where am I among them?

© Gill Dunstan

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I remember

I remember everything

it's a talent that I have

a memory for this and that

the slightest thing

will not be missed

Hello! something in my pocket

Oh Bugger!

it's the shopping list                  

© William Botley

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Magic is my name

I hovered fifty feet or more

above the desert’s dusty floor

The magic carpet they provided

was full of holes and draughty sided

The swimming pool was just mirage

at least I dodged the airport charge!

© William Botley

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