The Mini Mag: Issue 4
Shape Shiftfing
I always start my creative fiction classes with this quote by Will Storr from The Science of Storytelling.
‘We know how this ends. You're going to die and so will everyone you love. And then there will be heat death. All the change in the universe will cease, the stars will die and there’ll be nothing left but infinite, dead freezing void. Human life in all its noise and hubris, will be rendered meaningless for eternity. But that’s not how we live our lives…
The cure for this horror is story.’
Happy new year!
The reason I use this quote is not to depress or scare my students. I use it to emphasis the value of fiction as a human need, a worthwhile pursuit. Unlike fiction, life has little or no order. It may have unexpected turns, overarching themes, tragedies, joy, and conflicts but its events make little dramatic sense. We live through months and years where the story of our lives lacks pace, things end before we reach satisfying resolutions. We walk through life in the dark, largely plotless, yearning for an author to reveal our story. It's why we read fiction because narrative creates form and order over chaos.
By writing fiction we can create meaning and more importantly, encourage empathy with our fellow human travellers who stumble along their own paths, one eye keeping track of that infinite, dead freezing void. Novels, stories, and tales are the stars that will not die. Like the flower that bursts through the crack in the paving stones, stories can thrive in unfertile grounds.
Learn. Teach. Learn.
One of the lessons my working life has taught me is that there are no certainties in this ever-changing world. No jobs for life or even, what we once called, permanent contracts. I have been a freelancer, sessional worker, and good old-fashioned temp for years and it can be stimulating, terrifying, and financially precarious. The plot is always unexpected and I’ve learned to roll with the punches, shapeshifting like some reluctant Forest Gump. There are times that I’m juggling four jobs and at other times I’m unemployed and without direction. But after the pandemic, I began to feel a little punch drunk. Battling AI, age discrimination, a media that values visual content, reels, and catchy posts over the long-form written word. Writing was no longer working for me. After decades of resisting the call, I decided to teach.
Before I began to teach I had to learn. Back to the classroom, facing my fear of public speaking and MATHS! I learned to engage people, that I inspire others with my passion for fiction, and that I was actually good at it. I rediscovered my love of learning, of finding fresh texts, and found that I was falling further in love with my craft. I mourned the loss of my copywriting career but my fiction writing has taken on a new lease of life. I am no longer following a brief, compromising, finding other people’s words. Teaching has shown me how much there is to learn and it’s not a one-way street. I have met so many diverse and incredible people who have opened their notebooks and hearts. If you can teach, it’s surprising what you can learn.
I currently teach Creative Writing for adults at the Brighton & Hove Education Hub and East Sussex College. These workshops and courses are either FREE or affordable.
Flash Fiction for the Menopause
Last year, I was invited to write a piece of flash fiction for the Women Over 50 Film Festival. The brief was women over 50 in film with a hint of menopause in 350 words. I wrote two pieces and the second was chosen for performance and publication. It’s no mean feat to tell a story with so few words but we got there in the end. Here are my two creations in their miniature glory.
Image by Martin Parr
Bingo Wings
The caller picks a red ball from the machine with a dramatic flourish.
“Rise and shine. 29.”
They are lithe. They are falling in love. The woman on the stool beside them has chubby arms bulging from a sleeveless summer dress. They snigger.
“You’ll never get bingo wings; you’ll always be sexy and slim,” he
whispers in her ear.
“5 and 6 – was she worth it? 56.”
“Every penny!” he shouts.
Blood on the birthing bed, tempers tangled in the marital sheets. Back-to-back, hearts still beating in the same bed. No thought of the woman years ago in the floral dress, flesh wobbling as she raised her hand and cried,
“I have a line.”
He drinks lager in the Sunny Sands bar. She takes small change to the arcade with their kids. The bingo caller picks a ball from the worn-down machine. Another red.
“4 & 6, he’s up to tricks. 46.”
“House!” She screams. Her daughter hisses at her for being wrong. 46 and 13, unlucky for some. One in, one out. No full house.
He’d got out early with someone younger, just like the collagen and her cool, fresh skin. They went for a walk to clear the air.
“I don’t love you anymore.” He said.
She looks through the metal fence at the holiday camp that is closed forever, shivering in her tired bikini, a pail of crabs at her feet. Nature has reclaimed its space. Fireweed pushes through the cracks, debris blowing in from the beach. But no one sniggers at her bingo wings as she raises her tin bucket, heavy with the sea. She can lift iron. She has pulled, carried, and dragged, hardened with caring. They do not snigger as she strides past them, tanned, hard biceps, one freshly tattooed with a 6 and a 9.
29 years ago, the bingo caller picked a ball from the machine. “6 and 9, 69!” he’d called.
“My favourite!” the woman in the sleeveless dress shouted, throwing her head back and laughing at her own dirty joke.
The Invisible Woman
They said it was a job for a broad and I was the only private detective that fitted the bill. I was looking for a woman. A slippery customer with one hell of a back story and a temper to match. Those guys were missing a beat. Made out like she was invisible. Too hot to handle. She drew a pistol fast and took no prisoners. They said, “She was done cracking eggs and serving milk at the Blue Gardenia.” In man speak, her baby factory had closed down, her ovaries had gone into retirement.
I lingered in the shadows on rough velvet seats, smoke curling towards their monochrome faces on the silver screen. I started with black-and-white features. Pearl White and Clara Bow, the right height and all that jazz, but none of these broads could talk.
I was looking for a femme brutale who’d had enough of playing second fiddle. I headed downtown to hunt out the Peek-a-Boo Girl, she’d made it big, but her hair got in the way. I took her measure: 34:21:33, too fragile to kill a man. Uptown it was the same story, but I got wind of some broad going by the name of Bette. Tongue as fast as a rattlesnake’s tail, eyes big as summer moons. Too young. Close but no cigar.
Decades passed. They said she’d gone to ground. Box office poison. The guys figured she’d been under the needle, cut down on the fries, and dropped a dress size. I packed my croc skin case and headed west, for the last chance saloon, dry and hot as hell. It was time to cowgirl up.
I found her in a movie theatre in Nowheresville, wielding a gun at the top of her saloon bar stairs. Raging heart on her shirt sleeve, black pants, a shoestring tie, and red lips slashed across her face. “Down there I sell whisky and cards, all you can buy up here is a bullet in the head.” She boomed.
My mamma always told me us broads become invisible when we hit 50, but here Joan was, tired of their old baloney. She'd given up giving a damn. I pulled on my Lucky Strike as the credits rolled. I was done cracking eggs and serving milk at the Blue Gardenia too, and it felt good. I’d found my woman
Some additions to my bookshelf in 2023
The Wren, The Wren - Anne Enright - so good I felt like putting my pen down forever. Then I decided to be inspired.
Shy - Max Porter - Heartbreaking, surreal, and challenging. Porter uses words like musical notes.
Shirley Jackson - The Lottery and other stories - Chilling and gothic. It’s a classic for a reason.
Losing The Plot - Derek Owusu - Fresh, innovative and poignant.
The Vegetarian Dark - Han Kang - Intimate and poetic.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning - Laurie Lee - Great for teaching similies!
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain - George Saunders - For story geeks.
Kew - The Magic of Mushrooms: Fungi in folklore, superstition, and traditional medicine - Sandra Lawrence. - For research purposes.
Standard Deviation -Katherine Heiny - Beautifully observed and full of humour.
Thanks for reading. If you’d like to show your appreciation you can buy me a glass of wine. I may have to change this policy if I become too successful.
Absolutely love the hard boiled fiction style of your ode to Joan Crawford!