Twisted Tales and other Stories

After spending nearly a year on less than 4 hours sleep at night, I now have a new lease of life! As I've said before, twin (or single) mattresses pushed together are so much better than a king sized mattress.

Anyway - what this has meant for me is that I am once more feeling creative. I've had a pretty long dry spell on the writing and photography front, but now am raring to go. I just read my last blog on mediocrity, and it really has slapped me upside the head. I forced myself to sit down and write the other night. As part of the Redbubble community, I am in the Twisted Tales writing group, which is for short stories that have to have some kind of twist in them. They have a fortnightly (every two weeks) "Star Twister" challenge with a prompt and a 350 word limit.

Challenging people to keep within these parameters really forces one to chop and winnow all the chaff in the story being written. To flesh out a character, motives, a storyline and a twist in only 350 words really requires some attention to detail. How do you set up your reader to read one way and not see the twist coming? There are always some clues in the best stories.

It feels good to be creative again. My writing mojo is awakening and I am really going to try this year to have some good stuff to show by the end of it. If you would like to see my newest short story (and those of you who are my Facebook friends have seen the link there), here it is. Hope you enjoy Aftermath

Cheers! and thanks for reading.

Priorities

Have been thinking a bit about death recently. This past year, some of my dad's family have been really ill, or have died. My husband's cousin died just after Christmas. Customers of our office have died over Christmas, and most recently, my mum's younger sister died unexpectedly.

It's hard living across the pond and having to prioritise my flights back to the UK when something has happened to a member of my family.

One of the things about working in the US is realising just how good I had it in the UK when it came to vacation/sick/personal/flex-time. I get 15 days vacation a year here which also includes all personal days and sick time. So although I love living here, sometimes it sucks when I can't get the time off to get back home when I really want to. I guess that's life. Of course if something happened to members of my immediate family - my mum, dad, sister or brother, of course I would drop everything to get over there as soon as possible.

Fact. Death is a part of life. (I sound like Dwight Schrute now!) Sometimes it consumes our thinking; at other times, it doesn't even cross our mind. I guess with getting older, it becomes natural to think more about it? I remember my Gran telling me that one of the things she hated about growing older, was that her circle of friends got smaller as one by one they passed away until she was the only one left of them.

What am I trying to say today? I'm not sure...just writing down my random thoughts about life, family, priorities and death. 

I'm sure that my favourite singer/songwriter Martyn Joseph says it a lot better than me. His songs cut to the chase - contradictions in life, death, feeling helpless, joy, heartbreak, love, social commentary - it's all there. If you have never heard his stuff, check him out.

http://www.martynjoseph.com/

Enough of my navel gazing for today!!

Cheers, and thanks for reading.