This story began about six years ago when ‘a certain person’ mentioned the word Twingling as we headed back to our hotel room after breakfast.
It is another Maisie Kaywood story involving her XCD team as they strive to right wrongs and dispose of the baddies.
To learn more about Maisie her XCD team (and her mother Myra), try at this website under ‘Maisie Kaywood Stories’.
Essentially this is a romance involving two clever people trapped in a dilemma involving viscious industrial espionage.
Make a coffee and delve in!
My thanks once again to Kareth Paterson who edited the original, pre-Covid version.
This version was finalise using Read Aloud. If you spot an error, please make your best judgement and read on. Thanks.
Click here to download the PDF.
At this website under “Writing”, there is a section called “Maisie Kaywood Stories”. These are about a Robin Hood type character who rights wrong by taking direct action against bad people, sometimes very bad people.
“Living with Myra” is part of Maisie Kaywood’s history, chronicaling the life of her mother, Myra Kaywood (nee Gallagher), a very clever girl from Yoker, one of the poorst areas of Glasgow at that time.
The major part of the action takes place during the WW2 era (1939 to 1945).
The story begins when Myra is approaching her tenth birthday and continues until her death when Maise is eighteen, ready to take on her mother’s role in the modern era.
I hope you will find it readable and interesting. I ask that you give it say, three chapters and see if it grips you. I hope it will.
*****
My thanks must go to Kareth Paterson from our Writers’ Circus group who kindly edited this 162,000 word ‘monster’ in its original very raw form.
This story has been evolving for around eight years and over the last month I have revisited it using “Read Aloud” in Word to complete a Final Edit which you can read here.
Over these many years I have enjoyed being in Myra’s company, learning about her complex character and ‘living’ with her during her exploits.
Throughout I have tried to avoid anachroisms and keep the text faithful to my idea of what it would be like to live in those far off early days.
Dear Reader, if you find errors, and there simply must be some, please make your best judgement as to what I intended and continue to read.
Thank you.
Click here to download the PDF.
This is a Maisie Kaywood story.
Check at www.thebuzzinbee.co.uk for others, particularly ‘Fidelity’ and ‘Out of the Blues’ two shorter stories which feature some of the other main characters in XCD (X-Carpe Diem), the name assigned to Maisie’s hit squad as she seeks to deliver her personal version of private justice against the baddies.
In Spanish Sparrows the action takes place in early 2008 when George W Bush was in his second year of his second term as US President.
The story starts in Tenerife then moves to Frankfurt then on to West Africa, focused on on a visit made to Benin by GWB in his valedictory year.
Yes, this visit did in fact take place.
So, dive in, why don’t you?
Click here to download the PDF.
This is another Maisie Kaywood story.
It reveals another side of Maisie and takes us into the world of of the medical profession.
Many thanks are due to Kareth Paterson for her diligence an fortitude. Any remaining errors are all mine,
Click here to download the PDF.
This is another outing for Maisie Kaywood, coming to the rescue of yet another cousin. The story is a response to a recent Writers’ Circus challenge “there’s nothing that can be done about it”.
Recently I saw a young woman in a wheelchair, pushing herself along vigorously. She was alone, making her way to? At the ends of her legs were two white socks revealing that she had no feet.
The first draft of this story wrote itself quickly and was definitely ‘raw’ when presented to the the group. I has benefited greatly from many comments made. Thank you all once more.
Crucial corrections and guidance from my editor Kareth Paterson polished it to its final dull lustre.
Click here to download the PDF.
This is a longer short story which arose from a Writers’ Circus challenge.
The topic/title/theme was “High Water Mark”. On this occasion the topic was set by me.
This work has been edited by my friend Kareth Patterson from Writers’ Circus. She is a multi-talented person, very special. (She would immediately edit out the word “very”!!!)
On reading it she said it reminded her of the novelist Alistair MacLean- high praise indeed.
Click here to download the PDF.
This is another Maisie Kaywood romp.
It introduces David Abernethy (aka Biscuit aka The Ferret) and other members of Maisie’s XCD Team.
It is set in Scotland, near Aberdeen.
Give it a try for a few pages, you my get hooked!
Click here to download the PDF.
This story is a response to a challenge from Janette at the Writers’ Circus. The topic she gave was “Winter Blues”.
As the story developed the Dr Mel and Anisa characters began to emerge from the shadows of Maise Kaywood’s back-story as a former guru in MI6/GCHQ. These support characters will appear again in another story being spun in the ether, coming soon. It may be called “Spanish Sparrows”.
Fracking seems to be coming. Fracking for subterranean gas in the US and oil from Shale Sands in Canada have changed the Oil Supply Dynamics world-wide, causing attendant financial and political unrest. We can see it today in the North Sea sector. It seems that the Britain, an island built on coal, will be an obvious target for US Fracking companies.
But this story is not about fracking. It’s about something else...
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.