We sat round the table at the second session of our Creative Writing 2 class.
Some of us had come flown up from CW 1 but other were new.
David Pettigrew our Tutor set the challenge of setting down a few points about ourselves which we would be asked to read aloud to the class.
We were allowed five minutes.
A shorter version of this story appeared on the page in front of me, as if by magic.
It still makes me smile, because it 99% true.
Click here to download the PDF.
When we lived in Pollokshaws I was befriended by an older crafter boy from a large family. They had a small mongrel dog, which I have dubbed Rusty.
The story of six-year old Johnny tells itself and happened almost as set down.
Sadly, re-telling it has not expunged my feeling of guilt.
Click here to download the PDF.
During stage two of the Creative Writing course at Strathclyde University, I noticed that one lady in our class nearly always wrote of people being ‘done in’. Until then I had never dared to kill anyone in my stories. I decided to try and this story is the result.
It was written against a target of 4,000 words forcing me to turf on words to get down to this limit.
In the opening scene Maisie appears as her deceased mother, (whom I subsequently discovered was Myra).
This image of Myra haunted me.
After many years of visiting and revisiting this story, you can read “Living with Myra” published here in June 2024.
Click here to download the PDF.
In September 2014 we were on holiday in Milano, Italy. We took a day trip by train to Lake Como, crossed on a small ferry to Bellagio. Later after a wander, we caught another ferry to the bottom of the lake and then a different train home.
On the smaller ferry I snapped a warning sign, which appears in the story.
In Bellagio I spotted a poster, advertising a visit to a workshop which made wooden wheels for bicycles.
Read on...
Click here to download the PDF.