Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

I have a new morning habit these days: writing microfiction. I take an unused title from my typically daft repertoire and use it as a prompt to generate a flash fiction. Some titles easily inspire stories and a premise quickly forms in my mind, no matter how surprising that may turn out to be. Some titles just lead to creative false starts and dead-ends. But that's the daily discipline of writing for you. What I do find invigorating is how I've been able to create interesting plots and characters within 300 words or fewer. Being someone who submits to competitions and submission callouts, it helps to have at least one option for every conceivable word limitation. I have a half dozen serviceable drabbles (100 words exactly), a couple of decent dribbles (50 words exactly) and even the occasional 10-word or 6-word tale. Mind you, I do think these latter types are too short to work as self-contained narratives and even verge on poetry, but that's just my judgement. Anyway, here...

  It’s not like it hasn’t been broken before, but this time it had been so obliterated that a disturbing numbness was spreading like ice cold water, freezing his chest, perhaps it would actually stop beating? Yet he also felt a snaking anger, hissing and curling in his belly, at himself for being so foolish as to think she would have even considered saying yes. That smug ‘specialist’ surgeon wasn’t so clever after all. When he was younger, his Mum had never explained ‘the accident’ and instead had furiously fussed over him: ‘You’re not like other boys, Simon, you are different, in a good way, special, beautiful, unique. She’d announced it like it was a desirable mix of something shiny and precious, like he was treasure to behold, to be proud of. Not someone who would invite over-the-top laughter from sixth-form boys or curious side-glances from the popular girls, followed by hushed whispers as he slunk by. Right now, he was furious with her too, she’d sold him a lie, a fal...

“Wait!” Hannah shouted. “I know Billy can be a hot headed fool Aunt, but he does have good in him. Good that a wife could nurture, anyhow,” she said, pulling out a ring attached to a delicate chain around her neck.  “Hannah!” Mrs Taylor shouted “Are you married?” “No, not yet Mother, but we are engaged. Please Aunt Margaret, give him a chance? You did say you’d do anything for your family?”  Aunt Margaret paused then nodded and sat down.  “You’d best be careful girl,” she said to Hannah, “if you lie down with rattlesnakes, you’re gonna get bit.” Hannah looked annoyed but didn’t reply. It went quiet and I could hear Bonnie wailing upstairs. She called for her mother who met her on the landing then came over to me. “Bonnie wants you to read this letter, she said it would explain everything.” I looked across at Hannah and Aunt Margaret and they seemed curious but Mrs Taylor took charge. “Read it upstairs in the parlour, you’ll be able to think up there. Bonnie’s c...

I am about to tell you a story. It is the kind of story which, if I entered for a competition, I feel that people would think that this would never happen in real life, because it sounds so far-fetched. They would likely feel that this story is too unrealistic. The irony is, that they would be wrong, because every word of this story is true…          It was one of those blisteringly hot, long days of summer. The days that melted tarmac in the road to the consistency of cookie dough. The air was thick with humidity. Humidity, that seeped into your bones and weighed you down. These were the facts of my childhood summers. Hosepipe bans, dried out, scratchy, sickly yellow-coloured grass that looked as if it had never once been lush and green. Clay baked earth that dried rock-hard and became covered in fissures like mini earthquakes. On days like these, there was nothing to be done but to try to cool off, any way you could. No one had air conditioning in their hou...

“As you know from our website Madam we pride ourselves in doing things differently here. You are free to move around the hotel and browse the interesting layout and décor of unoccupied rooms as we leave these open for people to take pictures of and talk about on social media. We are extremely proud of being the most Instagrammed hotel in the UK.” His demeanour changed as he leant forwards on to the desk and whispered in my ear “Of course there is one stipulation we insist that our guests obey which is that you must not enter Room 27 . It is kept unlocked but we must insist that you do not open the door .” At this I burst out laughing! “Really?! I thought this hotel was called ‘The Pavilion,’ not ‘Castle Dracula!”’ In response, he leant back and grew stony faced. “You may laugh Madam but enter that room at your own peril. Here is your room key.” I looked down in to my hand and saw that the key he had handed me was to Room 26. Was this a subtle form of revenge I thought, but said noth...

There are days, like today, when there is nothing there at all.  This is what it would have been like for Lucy, if, pushing through the moth-ball scented fur coats, she found only the wooden back of the wardrobe. This is how it would have been for Cinderella, if the pumpkin stayed vegetable and the mice stayed rodent. This is how it would have been if Alice had not fallen down the rabbit hole, or if Harry had stayed in the cupboard under the stairs.  If Aladdin rubbed the lamp, and it just got shinier, he would have felt like this. Domestically satisfied, possibly, at a job done efficiently. But imaginatively, an empty vessel. Washing done, ironing done, spellings tested, reading books laboured over. Words – unwritten. Not just unwritten – unthought, undreamt, unscribbled on a receipt in the bottom of my bag, un-tapped into my smartphone.  There are plenty of words, washing around my head like socks in the suds, but they are the wr...

I’m a bit of both... I remember in my first weeks at university, one of my tutors laughing at those of us who still handwrote their work before word processing it.  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be putting it straight onto the computer by the end of the term.’  She was right.  It was great for academic work.  It saved me lots of precious time before deadlines with its nifty shortcuts and made navigating around longer pieces of work simpler.   Ever since then, when I work straight onto a computer, I edit on the spot a lot more than when I handwrite.  I have to remember to take my editing hat off otherwise I don’t finish a sentence without trying out all of its other permutations.  The writing and editing stages tangle themselves together.  I think it’s because typing straight onto the computer feels like more of a commitment.  It’s one step closer to having an audience and it looks like it will look in a reader’s hands.  I find this us...