Monday 8 February 2016

Attention, creative writing class-mates...

Because lots of you will have sat in creative writing classes, and some of you will have taught them too...

A Letter to My Creative-Writing Class

Friday 5 February 2016

Something new

Whilst I let the first edit of the novel-length work "rest" for a while, I've started something new. A short story, no less (and certainly no more). At present, it begins thus:

I've never lost a coin toss. I know how that sounds. But if I'm going to record this at all, I'd better be completely honest from the outset, and qualify that: I've never lost a coin toss by chance.
     There was that one time you see. I was captain of the school second eleven football team. Nine games into the season we were unbeaten, and I'd naturally won all nine coin tosses. Before our tenth match Mr Smith, the reluctant geography teacher whose sole purpose as our coach was to ferry us around the county in the lesser of the school's two minibuses, concluded his usual pre-match pep talk ("Go and win boys!") with a question: did I know what the odds were of winning nine coin tosses in a row? His Irish accent softened the question, and his mouth was smiling, but his eyes weren't.
     "No sir," I replied.
     "One in five hundred and twelve," he said. "Long odds, that."
     I don't think I said much in return, possibly I tried to laugh about it as I ran on to the pitch to catch up with my team-mates. And of course I lost that day's toss, just - it was surprisingly hard to remember, counter-intuitive even, to nudge heads but call tails. As I trudged back out of the centre circle, I risked a glance at Mr Smith - he was staring directly at me, and no part of his face was smiling.

I'm three and a half thousand words in now, and the story has bitten me. It has traction, I think (hope). What do you think?