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Showing posts with label story a day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story a day. Show all posts

Friday, 17 April 2015

Finding the right tools

 Julie Duffy at http://storyaday.org/ interviewed me about my journey as a writer ( see it here  Story a Day ) and it is always interesting to look back and think about the tools I have used to shift into my writing career. The Story a Day website is one of the many valuable resources available online to new and established writers. Julie's site contains prompts hints, tips, downloads and social connection. It also provides a forum with encouragement for regular writing practice.

 I studied professional and creative writing and editing at TAFE and university and learned how to research other people's writing and how to destruct oops deconstruct the writings of others in order to learn how to construct my own but it is the ongoing learning that has proven most valuable to me.

Every professional writer when asked what is the most valuable piece of advice they can give an up and coming writer says WRITE DAILY.  For me this has meant finding reasons to write and sites such as Story a Day provide ample opportunities to jog the creative juices.

With challenges and competitions by the thousands available at the click of a mouse there is no excuse for not writing. There are many websites offering daily, weekly and monthly challenges that can fit the lifestyles of anyone who really wants to get those stories out of their heads and onto the page.

Scrolling back through my own blog pages I find I have utilised a great number of opportunities made available through the generosity which is endemic in the writing community.

 This blog was my technological start with one post every year then every few months then every day at one time and now approximately weekly. I found the pace that works for me. Social media sites afforded me a world wide network of creatives and they are always sharing opportunities and from there I expanded to small press, competitions, ezines and challenges. I also joined face to face writing groups and have a circle of beta readers some I have met and some I never will. I have critique partners around the world.


If you really want to write then find the tools that work for you.


If I am making excuses then I don't really want it.

Sunday, 1 June 2014

Sunday so sleepy

I am back from an enormous journey around Victoria. I took a train on Friday to Melbourne and a suburban train to Blackburn and stayed in Forest Hill and on Saturday my sister and I traveled up to Kyabram past Shepparton to attend a memorial service for our Aunty Jeanette. The whole experience was a little surreal but the day was amazing in so many ways. I reacquainted myself with someone I had not seen for 33 years. I managed to be rude to a complete stranger and then apologised for it. I cried and laughed and cracked jokes and hid in the car for a while.  My sister and I found ourselves having a really bonding road trip probably the first time in our lives it was just us and no kids. We came back through Seymour and drove across to Alexandra and surprised my eldest son and had him makes us a pizza and cups of tea. It was so good to see him. Then we stopped for a glass of water with one of my brothers and back to Forest Hill. I have travelled approximately 1500 kilometres since Friday morning so I am a little weary.

The weekend afforded me many many little experiences and observations that I am sure will find their way into my fiction in coming months.
Oh the story a day challenge finished yesterday and today is the start of the romance writers 30 day challenge. I had best renew my membership so I can participate. On the to do list!



I am heading to my bed now to sleep and sleep and sleep.

Sunday, 11 May 2014

Saturday night doot doo dooo de doode doo de dum de doo etc

It is 11.27pm. I am tired and should go to bed. I have been learning about scrivener and evernote and my skull feels like it is about to implode with information overload. It is at times like this I wonder where the time to actually write has gone. I have to build my platform on social media, and network, blog hop, promote, name recognition activities, talk, meet up, learn, study, go to literary functions, tweet meet and greet and all of this eats into my writing and creating. It has become a little overwhelming. I have been having nightmares, incredibly vivid dreams with imagery that wakes me up sweating and gasping for air and I am not writing horror this week, only picture books for children. I read and read and read to learn the craft and the amount of conflicting advice and doomsayers, don't do this, don't do that, write like this, only do that, you'll never make it, competition is too high, no rhyme, no poetry, no talking animals, yes talking animals, no kids with parents , yes kids with parents, no yes no yes no arggggghhhh. Several times in the last month i have wondered why I am bothering to write at all.



Then someone will say to me 'I loved your story it made me feel like I was there'  or they say 'you write so vividly I can see the pictures in my head' and I have people asking me when I am going to finish the stories I tell them snippets of because they want to know what has happened to my characters. Then I feel wonderful about my writing and I get a great burst of writing energy and the words pour out of my head into my fingers and onto the page.

I find the same thing happens with art. I start to doubt my ability and compare myself unfavourably to other more skilled artists and I begin to think I am a fraud and kidding myself. Who do I think I am trying to put my work out in the world. It is rubbish, tripe, worthless but then I realise we all feel like that at times. I read other artists in the 52 week challenge who are afraid to put their work online because they find the other work intimidating and I understand we all have to step past our fear barriers and love our work for ourself, how others see it is entirely up to them but how we see our own must be the most important step. Art of any kind is subjective for the creator of it and the recipient of it. One person may hate my stories while others will love it, some may dislike my art and others love it, it is all to do with everything in their life that they bring to the moment when they view it. Totally subjective and nothing to do with me the artist/writer at all.

My sister told me something interesting today which helped me. I sent her five anthologies which contain my stories and art and she said now that she has 'real' hard copy evidence of my writing her kids are more impressed by that than me simply saying I am writing. The hard copies make it real for them in a way that wasn't there before. I have parcelled up a gift of books for someone else who may need hard copy evidence to help them appreciate my new career.

I have written several reviews over the past few days and sadly the biggest problem I am encountering in the novels I am reading is the word GOTTEN. There are a lot of problems with missing words in sentences; small words such as the, an, in, of, that leave the sentence incomplete but would easily be overlooked in a speedy edit. One young woman has some rolicking good yarns set in Victorian London and I was appalled at her constant use of the word 'bloke' since it is a word associated her in Australia with being Aussie. I thougght as she is an Aussie writer she was misusing the word until I did some research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloke) and found it was in regular use from about 1860s by the lower classes. It has become entrenched in the Aussie vernacular and probably so because of the high number of lower class and criminals sent here. I was glad I looked it up before I wrote my review.  Apparently 'gotten' is a word that Americans have kept alive where it died out everywhere else until recently. http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com.au/2006/06/irregular-verbs-gotten-fit-knit.html  Just as Fairy Floss is the original name for spun sugar and only referred to as fairy floss in Australia now, so too has 'gotten' remained a part of Americanese. Lately it has popped up far too often in novels and it shows a lack of delight in our incredible language with all its nuances and options. A few decades ago, students were urged not to use the word 'nice' and to find much more appropriate descriptions. It's a nice day means what? I urge the young writers who constantly use 'gotten' to purchase a synonym finder or a dictionary or make use of those very things online to fill their prose with more vibrant words.
My last pet peeve and it happens way too often is "YOU" instead of I, me my, mine, us, we, they, him, her, them, or any other pronoun imaginable. When a writer says YOU and means the character I find myself thrown out of the story. Suddenly the whole action is distanced from the character who no longer owns what is going on around them.
"You know when you go to the sink and you put your hands in boiling water and you burned yourself"
"No I didn't do that, you did."
"Yeah but you know when you do that..."
"Why don't you say, when I did that?
"But you didn't do it, you know it was like when you burn your hands in the hot water."
"Sigh."

I started sorting out my sewing patterns today. I booked darling daughter into a sewing class next week and I wanted to find simple patterns to get her started on. She loves cosplay but the costumes are so expensive to buy. I felt that she could benefit greatly from knowing how to make her own costumes. I have also parcelled up copies and double ups of doll clothes patterns for a friend who is making clothes for grandkids and their dolls. I hope she loves it when the parcel arrives.I am going to enjoy sewing with my daughter. I used to do a lot of sewing at one time but other creative pursuits took over however it feels like the right time to dust off the quick unpick and a thimble. I was quite good at knitting hats and handbags for fashion dolls at one stage too. My daughter never had an outfit which didn't also have matching outfits for her dolls. How quickly they move into new hobbies and phases.

I am working on day 9 and 10 of story a day and will upload tomorrow. I also have my fish art in progress but that too will have to wait for tomorrow.

I am going out for lunch with a friend and her Mum for mother's day tomorow here in Australia and looking forward to it.

okay it is 12.08 and I need to sleep. Goodnight my friends. Happy Mother's Day.

Friday, 9 May 2014

Last Friday Night

Katy Perry

Guess what guys I added an email subscription so you can get regualr updates of my blog posts right in your in box. Over there on the right is the place to put your email if you would like to. :) whoo hoo I am moving into the technical era.


Okay it is Friday, definitely Friday all day right until the end of it. Today I had friends visit and they lent me a treadmill and it is a 'you bewt' 'bonza' 'ripper' of a treadmill with electric bits and adjustable bots and bibbety bobbety boo stuff. I have it in my bedroom at the foot of my bed and it is just far enough from the computer and close enough so I can put on my headphones and listen to music while I slog up the incline at .5km/hr breaking into a sweat just stepping onto it but I am planning on doing that every day until I can increase the speed of my walk to .7km/hr and one day I might even get to gosh golly ohm-g 1km/hr. I haven't actually forgotten back in the healthier times of my body being able to actually ride, run, climb and skip rope. Back when I was fit and not pre diabetic with a human suit over my actual self. I am twice the woman I should be and carrying around this other person is hard on the joints and very hard on my vital organs so treadmill be my friend. I shall reach for the stars, well I shall reach for regaining my health one tread at a time. :) wish me luck.

 one of the celestial bodies oil pastel on primed paper I did for the 52 week challenge but did not upload
and the same piece reversed.











So it is day 9 of the story a day challenge and I am about to upload day 8. I am hoping to get up to date but here it is anyway...day eight.



The Prompt
Write A Story Where Everything Hinges on Your Character’s Most Desperate Desires
Tips
  • Spend some time with a blank sheet of paper, before you write. After you decide on your character and their need, jot down 15 scenarios that could grow from that desire. (Writing 15 different scenarios means that you’ll blast through the obvious storylines straight away, then you’ll get to the weird and interesting ones that will make your story sing. Keep going until you have 15 even though the last three will probably be truly terrible.) Pick the one that interests you most then start writing.
  • Make the desire all-consuming (for this instance, the duration of this story). Focus on this moment in the character’s life. Mine it for details, humour, horror or whatever you can get out of it.
The deepest most desperate desire: Revenge against the cruel, unkind, violent, neglectful narcissistic, charismatic, evil parents
1 Character becomes immeasurably rich and has a security person throw parents out
2 Character invites parents to a dinner and has them ‘accidently’ poisoned with mushrooms or seafood.
3 Character cuts out all the vouchers from magazines and has thousands of parcels, pamphlets, charity pleas and samples sent to their doors.
4 Character pays a stalker to shift things around in their houses so they go crazy
5 Character has their handwriting forged and sends love letters between them (after they have been apart for 35 years)
6 Character writes an expose of his/her childhood and makes a million dollars telling the world what scummy parents they were
7 Character turns childhood into a block buster movie
8 Character reunites with parents and does everything to make them leave their estate to him/her believing that they had reunited and all was forgiven
9 Character purchases rats, mice, scorpions, snakes and spiders from the black market and infests their houses
10 Character puts sand in their petrol tanks, cooking oil in the water tank, removes all the toilet roll,
11 Character pays a hacker to empty their bank accounts
12 Character sends them a false letter saying they have won a cruise or better yet purchases them one way tickets
13 Character pays to have them abducted and dropped in the middle of the desert with each other
14 Character names their pets after the parents
15 Character re-enacts silence of the lambs and feeds their livers to the pets
16  all or most of the above…


The farm spread out across the base of the mountain. Neat paddocks dotted with cows, tidy farm gates and cattle grids, long straight rows of fence posts and the efficient work sheds.  Terry surveyed the picture perfect farm nestled amongst the surrounding remnants of forest and shuddered.  The spare key they didn’t know about slid into the front door. Terry stood quietly in the hallway, thrown back into memories of childhood trauma by the scents that permeated from the house. He had not set foot in this place for years trying to right the wrongs inside his head, avoiding them at all costs to hang onto his fragile sense of self and biding his time for the moment he could make their lives the hell they had made his.
The clock chimed the hour as it had for the 27 years of Terry’s life, every single hour of every single day for twenty seven years.
“That will be the first thing that changes.” Terry reached on top of the grandfather clock for the key, inserted it in the little brass lock and opened the glass front. He reached his hand in and wrenched the pendulum on the left then dragged the hour hand down with a vicious stab of his index finger. He calmly locked the clock again and returned the key to its original place. He wandered into the vast kitchen with its gleaming benches and highly polished wood. All of the rodent traps and baits were easy to find and dropped into the rubbish bin. Terry found a packet of biscuits and some crackers and crumbled them into piles where the poison had been. He sat back and smiled as the cabinet beneath the sink closed with a click. A thin trail of honey across the bench would soon encourage six legged visitors.
In the pantry it was short work to swap sugar and salt, flour and rice, coffee and brown sugar into their opposite containers. The salt shaker soon contained baking powder and the pepper mill held cloves.
Terry looked around for another target.
He screwed the ornate ends off the curtain rods in the living room and packed the hollow centres with tuna and small dead sea creatures he had collected at the beach. Terry switched on all the heat lamps in the bathrooms and collected the toilet rolls including the spares from the laundry. He knew what his father’s internal fortitude was like and grinned as he put all the toilet rolls in his car. One each of his mother’s precious silver cutlery set went into a plastic bag, one dinner fork, one salad fork, one fish fork, one fruit fork, one cake fork, one coffee spoon, one tea spoon, one fruit spoon on and on ad nauseum and he recalled all the times he had had to pack the things away after one of her show pony dinners in which she humiliated anyone not intelligent enough to know which fork went with what. One steak knife, one dinner knife, one bread knife he intoned as he slid them into the bag with the tuneful clang only silver can make. He included the small soup ladle and one half of the salad servers, the bone handled bread knife and of course the lid of the gravy boat. Terry felt his face fix into a grim smile of satisfaction envisioning her distress when she discovered the loss. He climbed the step ladder to open the man hole and slid the bag of cutlery and assorted silverware inside the roof then replaced the cover.
Terry put away the step ladder and stood with his hands on his hips wondering what would be next. A few of the balls from the pool table fit snugly under the mattress in the master bedroom. Spare glasses in the inside pocket of the second best coat, one half of each of the best pair of shoes placed on the top shelf of the laundry press behind the never used spare quilts.
“Okay my beauties, it is time for you to make yourselves at home, no wait I need to do one more thing before I set you free.” He replaced a large canister from on the floor near the front door and picked up the telephone. Fumbling inside his pocket he withdrew a scrap of paper with fifteen digits on it. 00 11 7 812 100.  A voice came through and continued to drone repetitive words in a monotonous fashion.
“I haven’t a clue what time it is but thanks for asking, pity I don’t speak Russian.” Terry lay the handpiece on the side table and walked back to the front entry. “Okay lovelies now you can get out and find your new home.” He unscrewed the lid and tipped hundreds of small spiders onto the carpet. They were all young huntsmen who would quickly grow into large huntsmen. They scuttled away from the door and climbed furniture and curtains. Terry went back to the car and bought a shoe box and a second jar filled with daddy long leg spiders and set them free in the kitchen and bathroom. He lifted the front of the automatic air freshener on the hallway wall and removed the floral spray and replaced it with a can of fart gas he had purchased at a joke shop. He squatted down near the front door and gently opened the shoe box. Dozens of mice, brown, white and mottled, scuttled away to any hidden crevice they could find.
“Enjoy your holiday little fur fiends. I can only give you a brief reprieve from death but this is a mini paradise compared with being snake bait in a glass case.” He carefully closed the door and locked it again. He threw the rubbish bag and the shoe box in the boot of the car and took out a four litre bottle of cheap vegetable oil. The ladder was in its usual place in the shed and was not too heavy to carry. “This bloody thing seemed to weigh a ton when I was a kid. Okay let’s see how oil floats shall we.” The ladder rested easily against the water tank and Terry enjoyed standing on top watching the golden liquid drop and spread across the top of the water in the darkened tank. “No mosquitoes that’s for sure but this is going to taste rancid by the time the next storm pours in.” The last drops glooped into the pool below and Terry put the ladder back. He laughed as he threw the plastic bottle into the boot with the other rubbish. “Okay one last thing to finish this masterpiece.” He took a small stick from his pocket, a skewer from his kebabs three nights ago and found the valves on every tyre on every vehicle on the farm. The skewer and the rubber gloves he wore joined the rest of the rubbish.
Back in the city he dropped two plastic bags full of envelopes into the mail box, each one requesting a magazine subscription or a ceramic doll, minted coins, decorative plates, commemorative coins and ongoing subscription items from mints or requests for samples of tampons and oats, coffee and custard powder and any item that was being hawked in a magazine or newspaper from the past six months. All addressed to his parents.
Terry dropped the rubbish in bins in various suburbs before finally arriving home. “Did you miss me, Father?” he ruffled the fur on his old Labrador. “I missed you, you old fur brain. Where is Mother? I am home old girl. Want some tuna?” A sleek grey cat slunk from the bedroom and looked at him with disdain before deigning to curl around his legs and purr in welcome. “Oh Mother you are such a sour puss, come on I have only been gone a day. I had such a lovely adventure, I will tell you all about it over dinner.” Terry led his pets to the kitchen. “I think when the olds return from their holiday I might wait a few weeks and reconcile with them for their past wrongs. I might just have to become the most dutiful son they could imagine and commiserate on all their woes. What do you think Father? Mother? I believe they owe me an inheritance to make up for my lack of childhood joy. I’ll wait a while and see how they react to that fake cruise win they will receive and how they cope with the dreadful problems with their bank accounts. They really should not be so arrogant. I have known their bank details since my teens but they always treated me with such bewildering underestimation. I am their son after all.” Terry slid the food bowls onto the floor and petted both animals. His smile radiated his pleasure.
“We might have to have a celebratory dinner to welcome home the prodigal son who will save the farm and rescue them from bankruptcy. Not too soon of course but we should have their favourite foods cooked once they rewrite their Will to make me their sole beneficiary, and they will. You know Mother, your namesake always did like mushrooms and Father yours likes them too. I think mushrooms will be on the menu for that celebratory dinner. What do you think?”                                          1560





Thursday, 8 May 2014

I don't regret That I was Thursday's child

Thursday's Child - David Bowie

 

 Thursday it is...

Today I manages a little art work with oil pastels and some playing with the digital paint program. It is week 19 - Fish in the 52 week challenge.



The top one has some enhancements through the digital program. I am a total newbie when it comes to digital art and very timid with the program. I think I need to find a course or two to find out how I can really make my art gleam in that medium.

The original is done with oil pastels on primed paper. I will need to do more fish before I am happy with the results.


A story a day. Day 8 a very interesting prompt today but you will have to wait for the end results because I am only part way through. So today I give you day 7's. :) 



Day 7 Writing Prompt from Becca Puglisi – Ending Line
Becca Puglisi is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others. This is one of her reasons for writing The Emotion Thesaurus, The Positive Trait Thesaurus, and The Negative Trait Thesaurus. A member of SCBWI, she leads workshops at regional conferences, teaches webinars through WANA International, and can be found online at Writers Helping Writers (formerly known as The Bookshelf Muse).
May 7, 2014 by Julie Duffy
The Prompt
Write the story that accompanies this ending line:
I clicked off the safety, swearing that if she showed her face here today, my room would be the last one she ever entered.

We work in the factory. Her factory. Sixteen hour shifts with two ten minute breaks for the toilet and food. No more than four of us at any time through any exit. Guards, cameras, guns and shock sticks. Thousands of us work here. We don’t get paid, they tell us our families get the wages, we just get tired. If we are late to our station they punish us. If we don’t eat the meager rations they give us they punish us, if we don’t meet quota they punish us, if we get sick – we don’t get sick. She likes to mete out the punishment herself and makes it showy. She reminds us on huge screens that we would starve if not for her generosity and our families would starve and that we can only help our families by doing our best. We have to watch when she punishes one of us as an example. We don’t know where the bodies go.
Every day this same routine of  work interspersed with violence for some infraction, a never ending cycle with no end and no hope and her standing over all of us inflicting her cruelties.
There had to be some way to end the torment.
In repetitious tedium my mind wandered to a solution. Improbable, impossible maybe, a solution that would free us all is worth the risk. I allow only the barest attention for my job and the invisible watchers. I plan and I am patient.
I worked secretly building it one circuit at a time in stolen moments and stolen parts, under cover of her constant surveillance. Except it isn’t constant and I find the gaps.
I build it in the space under my work station. It has to be small to fit there but I can do it
The end of the shift we shuffle to our sleep mats. I share a room with seven others. We rarely talk. What is there to talk about? None of us have been outside since we arrived. I sign up for an extra shift once a week.
When it is ready I smuggle it to my room.
I clicked off the safety, swearing that if she showed her face here today, my room would be the last one she ever entered.  381


I am thoroughly enjoying these little prompts. I also need to do this weeks 500 words for the 38 week challenge. The theme is 'plucky' and I have had a few ideas but nothing solid enough to grab on to.

I am giving the Midweek Blues buster a break this week. Sometimes the songs do not do it for me.

I am having plenty of opportunities to read and write revisions this week. Once the week is over though I really need to make sure my word counts are through the roof as I finish off several novels I have begun especially one with the working title "Goldilocks and the Bear".

 It is well over the 60k mark and needs just a few more chapters to end it but I am having difficulty deciding how it will end. I have three possible scenarios playing around in my head, where they have been doing a slow dance for several years. It is time to pin one down and commit to it.  I am loving this novel. It started out as an idea chewed on over a hot cuppa with my cousin and grew over several years then last November during nanowrimo I put 50,000 words together. The research was so exciting. I learned so much about Australia in the 50s and 60s and how the growth of telephones and ownership of cars skyrocketed. I learned about travel by ship then luxurious aeroplanes and finally more modern transport which is faster but far less luxurious. I learned about work and pollution in London in the fifties and I had to research several jobs including one setting up road houses and petrol stations along the highways in Australia. I even learned when the first motel came into being and why motoring hotel was so quickly diminished to motel. Research is almost as much fun as writing the story. This novel is about two Australian women from two different generations in the same family walking the same path with very different outcomes.  



Wednesday, 7 May 2014

I can't believe it's only wednesday

crash kings




So Wednesday it is. W for Wednesday and what a day. Windy, Wet and not a particularly good day in the small south Western coastal town of Warrnambool. Well it might have been wonderful for many locals except sadly they euthanased a beached Whale. There were celebrations of citizenship and probably many good things going on but I was out of sorts. I had had three nightmares during my broken sleep and woke early only to find I might have kept sleeping if communication had taken place in a timely manner. What ho, never mind there are people in the world who have far more difficult problems than my minor probably pathetic ones. I must remind myself I have petrol in the car, clean warm clothing, a good bed and food and moderately good health and I can walk to the store for milk without fearing for my life so all these things combined equal a much better life than those 200 poor mothers whose daughters have been stolen from them and forced into slavery by gun toting uneducated fanatics who believe women should not have any rights and certainly no education. I have an immeasurably better life than the asylum seekers in leaking boats ferried by greedy opportunists only to be imprisoned at their destination with little to no hope of safety. I have a much better life than the jungle people whose homes and livelihoods are being decimated by gold hungry fools who think some rock is more valuable than trees.

My small ones pale into insignificance beside those great ones. I am grateful for all the wonders in my life.

Tonight I was supposed to go and give a speech at my public speaking club but I am wagging. I wish to write instead. So I will go and write and unwind my tight shoulder muscles with prose.

May you see all the good things in your life and in some small way make the world a better place.





Day 6  Story a day
[Writing Prompt] Elizabeth Spann Craig – The Unexpected Guest
Elizabeth writes the Southern Quilting mysteries for Penguin/NAL, the Memphis Barbeque mysteries for Penguin/Berkley, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and independently. She blogs at ElizabethSpannCraig.com/blog, which was named by Writer’s Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2010-2013.
May 6, 2014 by Julie Duffy under daily-prompt, Inspiration, May 2014, Writing Prompts     
[Here's another scenario ripe with opportunities for character development, comedy, tragedy...in other words emotion -- that thing that all readers are looking for! - JD]
The Prompt
Your protagonist opens the door and finds an unexpected guest–a friend from high school who hasn’t been heard from in many years.
This friend has fallen on hard times and wants to stay with your protagonist a few days. As your protagonist and friend sit in the kitchen, the friend reminisces about the old days…and stirs up trouble by recalling some unhappy teen moments, too.
How does your protagonist react and what are those good and bad times in the past? 


“Hi, it’s me.” The heavyset woman on my doorstep waved in an immature sideways flap of her hand. She wore threadbare jeans and open toed sandals, an overlarge jumper with sleeve ends pulled down into her palms and had her hair pulled into a sideways pony tail reminiscent of the 80s. She reeked of cigarette smoke and something acrid. Over plucked eyebrows rose up her forehead and she pushed her face forward eagerly. “I was in your neighbourhood and thought we could catch up. It’s been so long, you don’t look a bit different.” Her breath made me step back.
“Er thanks? What can I do for you?”
“You could make me a coffee for starters and we can catch up on old times.” She pushed past me and barrelled down the hall. “This way?” she pointed toward the kitchen at the end and I nodded. I didn’t have a clue who she was and was more annoyed at a stranger invading my space than fearful of her presence. She looked like she could use some warmth with her ill kept toes poking blue from the sandals. I followed her down the hall.
“Oh are these your kids, they are adorable. Are they all yours?” I nodded and watched her move along the gallery of pictures on my dining room wall. “Just like your Mum then, stacks of kids. Are they all yours really?” I poured boiling water into two mugs before answering.
“Sort of. I used to take kids in, some stayed a little while and some stayed a long time but I tried to make them feel this was their home while they were here. Only four are mine genetically.” I set the mugs on the table and a packet of biscuits. “Do you have children?”
“Yeah two. They live with their dad but. Court said I was a danger to them or something, it was all him saying it that’s all. I don’t see ‘em much. Look I’m in a bit of strife and I need somewhere to stay, do you reckon you could put me up for a few days? It would be just like old times.”
“How long has it been?” I was really struggling to place her and hoped some probing questions might give me a clue.
“I don’t know about twenny, twenny-five years. Give or take a few. Hey do you remember that time down on the river after the school dance?” 
Now I knew who she was. The comic light bulb didn’t just flick on above my head it exploded in my brain sending shards of razor sharp glass slicing through my memories. I gripped my mug in white knuckled anger. The younger smaller version of her seemed to superimpose itself on the current version and I could see the similarities and I knew her then.
“Yes I remember clearly.” She didn’t seem to notice my clipped tone. She sipped her coffee noisily while my brain remembered how she used me as a patsy and set me up. I remember her behaviour and the men she was with and I clearly remember having to run for my life, crashing through the dark in bare feet with my trousers torn and terror making my heart want to pound through my ribs. I remember them chasing me and her calling me nasty things. I remember making it back to town and hiding in the shadows so they didn’t find me and having to climb back fences when I glimpsed them cruising the streets near my house. Oh I remember all right.
“There is a hostel in town, I am sure they will have rooms available. My house if full right now, not even space to bunk down on the floor really. I used to have spare bedding but since I stopped taking in children I got rid of it all. I’ll find the hostel number for you.” I slid open a drawer and took out the phone book and a pen and scrap of paper.
“Darn, I was hoping we could wander down memory lane together, reminisce about those old school days, drink a glass of red or two and kick back.”
“I don’t drink and even if I did I would not be drinking with you. I have had a very good life since we were at school and the old days were a mere inconvenience on my way to adulthood so I prefer to leave them right where they are.”
“You’ve turned into an uptight bitch. I haven’t finished my coffee.”
I grabbed the mug and rinsed it in the sink.
“Now you have. Here is the phone number and a map of how to get there. I will see you out”
“That’s no way to treat an old friend.”
“You were never my friend. Goodbye.”
I slammed the door as she stepped through, almost clipping her heels. I heard her shriek and a sneer crawled up my face.   I leaned against the door feeling my heart pounding against my ribs. How could one stranger bring back that much forgotten terror? I had forgotten. I had forgotten.  With shaking hands I drew the bolt and went through the house locking all the doors and windows. For the first time in a very long while I wished I had a guard dog. 889