A Valentine Story

“What’s the date?”

“Um, thirteenth.”

“No! Really?”

That was almost half the month gone and I hadn’t ticked off any of my February writing goals. I needed to get cracking and … Hold on. The thirteenth of February? That meant it was St. Valentine’s Day the next day and I hadn’t got Him anything.

Oh, well, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t mind. The last time we were in town we couldn’t help noticing that almost every shop was decorated in pink and red. Everywhere we looked it was ‘Buy this for Valentine’s’ and ‘Buy that for Valentine’s’. We both had a good old moan about how the whole thing was too commercialised, and how all this romance nonsense had nothing to do with real life – or real love.

But I’d always given him a card (usually a jokey one) and he had never forgotten …

“Just going to post this,” I said, waving an envelope at him as I scooted out of the house. As soon as I was out of sight, I stuffed the empty envelope into my pocket and hurried to the village shop. The one, small card rack was still filled with half-price boxes of Christmas cards.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got any Valentine cards?” I asked.

“Only these.” The shop owner pointed to a box on the counter. It contained a dozen cards all with the same design, a rather tired looking bunch of red roses. “The missus and me don’t bother with stuff like that any more,” he confided. “Well, you don’t when you get to our age, do you?”

I put on what I hoped was my enigmatic smile, selected the card that looked the least shopsoiled and paid for it without saying another word.

When I got home, I was surprised to find Him pulling on his coat. “Thought I’d go for a walk. My knee’s stiff again. A bit of exercise usually sorts it out.”

“Don’t go too far,” I said. “Looks like it’s going to rain soon.”

“No, just round the block.”

I watched Him limping up the drive. He was right about the exercise doing him good. As soon as he turned onto the road he was able to break into a jog!

The next morning, there were two red envelopes on the kitchen table. We both pretended to be surprised as we opened them.

Snap!

“Well, it’s the thought that counts,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

We put the two cards on the windowsill in the front room to show the world we hadn’t forgotten.

***

Did you remember? Did Someone Else forget? 

 

Inspiration

All my fictional stories are inspired by real people; usually real people I don’t know. Even when a story draws mostly on my own memories and experiences, the initial idea begins with a glimpse of a stranger or an overheard snatch of conversation that jogs my creative cells into thinking Who? What? When? Where? Why?

For example, Tree Hugger began when I saw two little boys having great fun climbing a tree. And Lifters might never have seen the light of day if I hadn’t noticed someone behaving rather suspiciously in a shop ….

I’d like to be able to thank all those anonymous people who have inspired me, but I’ve no way of knowing who they are and will probably never get to meet them. But I’ve just realised that as well as gratefully receiving inspiration I might sometimes be able to pass a little on to someone else.    

I was pleased to share what I thought was a very ordinary and uninspiring photo with Alice Algood. Just look what she did with it on her clever blog, A Word of Substance.

Who inspires you? And do you inspire other people?

Slowing down, speeding up, changing hats

I’ve noticed that as I get older some things take a little longer than they used to. Getting up from a kneeling position, threading a needle or recalling someone’s name all demand a bit more time and effort these days.

On the other hand, some tasks have become quicker and easier. For example, now my husband and I no longer need to wear smart clothes for work I’ve cut my ironing time from hours to minutes!

But one change that took me completely by surprise when I noticed it, is how much my reading speed has slowed down. When I had a lot less time for reading, I easily managed 2–3 full-length novels per month. But when I looked back at the books I’d read during 2013 I realised that each one took me 6-8 weeks to finish. Why? After so many years of practice I should be really good at reading now. It’s still one of my favourite occupations and something I do every day.

The only explanation I can think of is that I'm forgetting to change hats (another symptom of the passing years!) If I’m reading an interesting, well-written book I tend to have my writer’s hat on. As I read, I’m also analysing why I like this book and what tricks the author is using to keep me turning the pages. When I come across a particularly good sentence or paragraph I’ll read it several times in the hope of learning how to improve my own writing.

A book I don’t like so much takes even longer to get through, because I read it with my editor’s hat on. It takes me ages to go through it with my imaginary pencil; correcting awkward phrases, crossing out unnecessary words, and putting question marks where something just doesn’t seem to make sense!        

I need to find my reader’s hat again, and to remind myself to keep it on I’ve accepted the Goodreads 2014 Reading Challenge. I’ve pledged to read 12 books - one a month – but I’m hoping that if I can speed up I might manage a few more. 

I got off to a good start by finishing Life After Lunch by Sarah Harrison , but now I’m struggling. My second book is The Summer Boy by Henry Mitchell. I’ve only read the first few pages but they’re so skillfully written that I want to linger over every word ….

Have you set yourself any reading challenges? How are you doing?

A Resolution too soon

2014 is going to be the year in which I am completely organised.

This was my one and only New Year Resolution. And I thought I was getting off to a brilliant start.

Before I left for my Christmas break I had already:

• reviewed all the writing I’d done in 2013
• made sure all my records were up to date
• backed up everything on my computer
• transferred important information into my 2014 diary

After a lovely, relaxing few days with the family I returned home and completed the preparations:

• I wrote a new goal list
• I wrote a new to do list
• I worked out a detailed timetable for the whole of January
• I decided on some deadlines later in the year to keep me on track

On New Year’s Eve, I was confidently looking forward to starting my new, efficient writing regime first thing on January 1. And I might have succeeded if I hadn’t been suddenly struck down by some unidentified but persistent bug that left me feeling ill and befuddled for the rest of the week.

So, today’s resolution is to catch up with the 5 wasted days of 2014!

Have you made any resolutions? Are you managing to keep them?

P.S. If your resolution is to make more money from your writing – or other marketable skills – you might want to take a look at this new website www.gigfreeks.com

Merry Christmas!

Good wishes to You and Yours over this Festive Season

I’m off on my Christmas break now, see you in January!

Reason 23 why sports cars are not a good idea!

You don’t know about the car? You can see it by clicking here.

Happy National Short Story Day

To celebrate why not enjoy a little bit of ‘me’ time? Put your feet up and

click here to download a free story from the wonderful

 

 And instead of rushing around looking for last minute Christmas presents, did you know you can now send Alfie Dog Gift Vouchers to your friends and family from the comfort of your own pc, laptop or smartphone?

Happy reading!

Number crunching

 I’m pleased I didn’t attempt NaNoWriMo this year because I completely failed my ‘easier’ challenge to write 1,000 words a day throughout November. My grand total for the month was a measly 5,182 words – not helped by the fact that I wrote nothing at all on five of the allotted days!

In my defence, I should add that these were carefully chosen and edited words – not the crazy jumble that spills out during NaNo – so for every one I counted there were probably a dozen or more discarded.

As well as recording the number of words written, I made a note of where I’d used them, and this turned out to be a much more useful exercise.

About half of the words produced:

• 4 new pages for my adult novel

• half a chapter of my children’s book

• a flash fiction story

• 4 short blog posts 

And where did the other half go? Into comments on other people’s blogs and forums.

Conclusion  I’d do twice as much writing if I didn’t spend so much time reading!   

P.S. If you like reading and doing puzzles (and live in the UK or Republic of Ireland) National Book Tokens is currently running this competition to win a year’s supply of books.