Tag: writing

About writing, The everyday

Two blooms for a penny

by clareodea1 Comment on Two blooms for a penny

Four months ago I finished the first draft of my first novel. Finally I had kept my perennial New Year’s resolution – not just to write something but to finish something. This meant putting aside two to three writing sessions a week, taking my idea and pursuing it to the air-punching end. Now being a good aspiring writer I had read up on what should happen next and I dutifully left my manuscript to settle. I knew I was supposed to get some distance and tackle it again with fresh eyes after a break. But breaking my writing stride like that was quite difficult. There was suddenly a void. Like a jogger used to running regularly, I was itching to put on my trainers again and get out there. I missed the writing process and the material itself. I started reaching for the manuscript and tinkering around with a red pen. It was way too soon.

Then a colleague of mine went on a journalism assignment to India. She set up a blog for her trip and hey presto we could all follow what she was doing. And though I’d never been drawn to blogging before, I realised that this was the next logical step for me and definitely worth a try. I was amazed by how easy it was to set up on WordPress and how soon everything fell into place. My first post Unrequited Spite was also my first short story ever to be read by the outside world. A small number of bloggers “liked” it – people I’d never heard of – and I felt encouraged.

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Blogging could be seen as the modern day equivalent of rushing up to people on a busy street with print outs of your work and thrusting the pamphlets into their hands. I remember people doing this in Dublin when I was young. But of course not all people have that zeal. Some, like myself, are more at ease standing in a quiet side street, patiently waiting for the right passer-by to come along, occasionally calling out ‘two blooms for a penny’.

Since I started blogging I have discovered a host of interesting people, some similar to me, others whose lives are a million miles removed from mine. It’s been an eye opener. I’m very grateful to regular visitors like the inspiring 5kidswithdisabilities and the adventurous lesleycarter for their interest and encouragement. In terms of visitors, two recent posts which were picked up by a site for the Irish diaspora http://www.worldirish.com brought a big spike in my viewing statistics. It was nice to reach a wider audience without having to shout at the top of my lungs.

The time has now come for me to put some serious work into the novel again and apply some of the editing advice I received, especially the valuable input from fellow WordPress writer beanmimo. I’m also going to focus a bit more on submitting for publication. But I still think there’s a place for this blog. There’s a debate about whether writers should bother with blogging. From a numbers point of view it might not be the best use of resources but like many other pastimes, the bottom line is do it if you enjoy it. For me the freedom of expression is the main attraction. Anyone else tempted to start? And for those already blogging – what keeps you posting?

Short stories

The Hedgehog News

by clareodeaLeave a Comment on The Hedgehog News

Everyone knows if you find a dead hedgehog it’s yours. So why is Manny taking over? Because he’s a robber, that’s why. Actually the hedgehog didn’t look that badly hurt the day I found him; only the left back bit was squashed so from one side he looked perfect. I just couldn’t leave him there on the side of the road. Vultures might get him. Now the whole street is coming to look at him under the hedge. Manny is explaining stuff about the maggots and poking with a stick. It’s the last secret I’m ever telling him. I think it’s all because no one else is just my age. Other ages don’t understand the same things. My Mum is sorry about this. It’s just a fluke, she says – twelve houses, twenty-one kids but not a single other seven year old. We weren’t to know, she says. I’m kind of not trusting Mum at the moment since I found some of my Christmas craftwork in the bin. They’re supposed to love that stuff.

When Dad said he was going to a place called Dubai, I laughed. It didn’t sound like a real place – Doob I, Do Bye – I was sure he was joking. But he just looked away for a couple of seconds like he was thinking hard what to say next and then he told me to get the atlas. Maybe he thought I was annoyed he was leaving but at first I was more annoyed about not knowing Dubai was a real place. I know loads of capitals, even really strange ones like Venezuela and Moldova. He taught me them when I was small and we had fun surprising people with that.

Now I’ve learnt a new word which is temporary. But if something is really temporary you should know when the end is. They said he would visit all the time. One week every three months is not all the time. I have a calendar in my bedroom. It’s got pictures of street children in Brazil. One of them definitely looks seven. It’s a pity he doesn’t live here. I’m starting not to like families with Dads living at home but I don’t tell people that.

Everyone keeps telling me isn’t it great we have skype. I don’t know. It might be great if you didn’t have a three-year-old sister. Hannah ruins every call. She climbs over me and taps on the keyboard and talks really loud. Dad doesn’t even understand what she’s saying. Also I don’t like the looking thing. You can’t look at each other properly. I don’t think Dad knows what to ask me.

It’s all because of the mortgage, according to Mum. Mortgage is another word for house. We’d lose the house if Dad didn’t take this job. I mean the house is OK but maybe we could move to a street with more seven-year-old boys. Would that be so bad? Mum didn’t like this question. She is not interested in things like hedgehogs but if Dad was here he would come and see him with me. Then he could tell me Manny is wrong and this doesn’t happen to people too.

Finally I did get skype time alone with Dad. Mum had this idea he could read a chapter a night so we’ve started a great old fashioned story called Kidnapped. The good thing about this is that Hannah is in bed. And the looking thing doesn’t matter; I just watch his face while he looks at the book. I asked Dad last night did he know what happens to hedgehogs after they die. He went quiet for a while and then started talking about animal heaven and it got a bit complicated and I didn’t want him to feel silly. I guess I won’t tell him about the hedgehog after all.

Short stories

Circle of Stones

by clareodea3 Comments on Circle of Stones

On her way across the green in the middle of her estate, Julie stopped and looked around her. She was due to leave for Cork with her mother in a few minutes and she wasn’t supposed to be outside. She gave up the pretence of walking somewhere purposefully. There were some children out playing, doing stunts on their bikes with an improvised ramp. They paid no attention to her. Julie knew every family in all the houses in this part of Chestnut Glen. She had sneaked out here because she wanted to say goodbye to something – she wasn’t sure what. All the kids her age were either still in bed or off doing their Saturday jobs.

This is it, she thought. I’ve let them take over and this is where it’s brought me. She sat down heavily on one of the small boulders, dropped there in a rough circle not by a glacier but by the developer of the virgin estate back in the 1960s.

Cork. The only person she knew there, apart from her mother’s awful cousin, was her first love from Irish College three summers ago. What sweet letters Marty used to write. Those few weeks away on the west coast had been exotic, enchanted. Not only the language was different – the air, the sky, the rain. Marty was staying with a neighbouring family. They used to walk home from the dances together, the boys from his house, the girls from hers. She remembered his pale face in the grey light of dusk. For a moment, she let her imagination take off. Dreaming up rescue scenarios had become her favourite pastime.

Somehow she would bump into him in Cork, and he would be filled with concern for her plight, realise he still loved her and decide to help her out. Marty would have matured beyond his years, he would have a proper job and his own place to live and they would set up family together. No, she didn’t like the last bit. The baby didn’t fit well into that picture.

Better if she stole some money from her mother’s cousin and escaped. She could rent a caravan somewhere by the sea in Wexford. There she would lay low and wait to turn eighteen, as long as the baby didn’t come first. She would turn up at the local hospital, a mysterious case. The staff would be intrigued. A nurse would take pity on her, offer her a room. They would become friends – and the baby, the baby. Julie felt the muscles across her swollen stomach tighten. It’s not looking good baba, she whispered.

If I had a giant camera, I would zoom out, Julie thought. First you would see this circle of stones in a field surrounded by houses, then up and up, the surrounding suburbs, the coastline, the hinterland of farms. Then Ireland surrounded by clouds and swirling blue sea, farther and farther away until the world looked quiet and harmless and nothing mattered anymore.

It was time. Julie walked slowly back towards the house. Her bag was packed, the adoption agency papers inside it. She would remember that walk; find echoes of it throughout her life. Each step leading her away from something open towards something closed. She recognised it when she walked down the aisle ten years later and the bitterly cold day when she walked into the doctor’s office to get her biopsy results. The moments when you realised the world was turning and you just had to walk with it.

Short stories

The Newspaper Hour

by clareodeaLeave a Comment on The Newspaper Hour

Beginning with the front page, Marta read out the headlines and waited for the nod. If there was a medical or health connection, Dr Cleary would definitely want the full article. The economy was also a must, although he tended to shout “mumbo-jumbo” angrily before she got the end. Politics brought on more heckling. He seemed to know all these people with their unpronounceable names intimately and he didn’t like any of them. The old man remained silent, his head bowed, during accounts of natural disasters or other senseless tragedies.

What made it tiring at first was that she had to pronounce everything right. He would interrupt her five times in a sentence. Inside she would be railing against him but she remained outwardly docile. On the Tuesday of her second week she deliberately forgot the paper but his disappointment was too much for her. She didn’t come empty handed again.

After reading through the first story, she would offer to do some housework but he always refused. Although the house was tidy, it needed a good clean. Marta considered switching with someone else. She was afraid someone might inspect the place and she would get into trouble. But all he wanted with his hour was the newspaper.

Three weeks into the job Marta made a stand. She struck a deal with him that the final fifteen minutes would be given up to cleaning. In this time she raced around with a cloth and disinfectant spray wiping down surfaces, speed vacuumed the hall, stairs and landing or swept and mopped the kitchen floor.

By the New Year the reading time had become less fraught and more interesting. Marta was getting to know the themes and the players. When she tut-tutted over the latest revelations about the minister for transport Dr Cleary chuckled. From then on they read and listened as a team. She would pour a cup of tea for herself and pause to take sips, enjoying his rapt attention.

On a mid-March morning Graham was passing the graveyard on his jogging route and stopped at the entrance. He pushed open the gate and walked down the hill towards the newer graves. It was a heart-soaring day, the first spring warmth in the air, the sky boldly blue. Could it only have been a week before that they had buried his father seemingly in the depths of winter?

All the what-to-do-about-Dad conversations were over. There would be no more late night skype calls from his brother in Australia. For over a year Conor had pestered Graham relentlessly, his anxiety multiplied by distance. A blind 79 year old man cannot live alone, he insisted, as if it were a known natural law. But Graham saw his father once a week and thought he was doing OK. He’s partially sighted, he would remind Conor. I organise the internet shopping. He doesn’t complain.

Graham turned into his father’s row, his sneakers compressing the soft grass. There was a child’s grave on the left complete with paper windmills and toy trucks. He hadn’t noticed it at the funeral but he hadn’t noticed much that day. The wooden crosses on the new graves were all the same. He assumed the last in the row would bear his father’s name but there was a new grave there and Dr John Cleary was now second from the end.

The funeral wreaths that still covered the mound of earth looked surprisingly fresh. Leaning against the thin wooden cross was something new. Graham leaned over to pick it up. In a plastic folder someone had placed that day’s Independent on the grave. Odd, Graham thought, Dad hasn’t read the paper in years.

Book reviews, Parenting

Strange and terrible stories

by clareodea1 Comment on Strange and terrible stories

Around the age of two and a half my twins discovered stories. At the same time I discovered the power stories had over them. It started with Goldilocks. The naughty little girl, the bear family, the repetition, the danger – I could not retell it often enough for them, always with the same cadence and gestures. They were hooked and stories like these got me over plenty of sticky moments, especially while travelling, when they were restless or bored.

By the age of four the girls were regularly demanding made-up stories. These they preferred to books, because they could be made to order and they lasted longer! The request was always the same. It should be about a little girl or animal, or both. One twin would demand that something “strange” and “terrible” had to happen, while her sister would modify this with “but not too terrible”.

So began a series of strange and terrible stories, usually involving the diminutive protagonist getting into some kind of danger herself, or rescuing an animal from danger. I got tired of this formula long before the children did. One story I told them about a Neanderthal family made a big impression. What really got them was that the people had not developed language yet and communicated by grunts, tone and sign language. Language truly is the greatest gift of our species.

This craving for stories stays with us for life. We meet friends and family to swap stories; we read books, watch films, follow television series. The news media are also part of the great storytelling tradition. These sources are all feeding the same need, which goes far beyond entertainment. We seek out stories to make sense of the world, to understand ourselves and others, to explore our worst fears and greatest hopes. Long live strange and terrible stories!

Short stories

The Dogleg Shortcut

by clareodeaLeave a Comment on The Dogleg Shortcut

By Clare O’Dea

To the untrained eye he was just a man checking his bicycle but Kelly knew the signs. She stopped dead. These men could be old or young, fat or thin, dark or fair but they all radiated ill intent. You could read it in the line of their shoulders, the way they stole a glance at you or the way they affected not to look your way. They moved too slowly; they were bad actors.

The dogleg shortcut halved the journey time to school – and there he was just at the bend, waiting. If she took this route she could be there in 11 minutes door to door, just in time for assembly. Going down to the main road, over the bridge and back through the park would cost her precious minutes and Kelly could not afford to be late for school today. Mrs. Kearney would be at the door taking names as usual and that would be her second poor punctuality mark this week. She just couldn’t do detention on Friday. Missing the inter-schools match was out of the question.

Kelly looked up and down the footpath but there was no-one around. Cracked chestnuts littered the ground at her feet, revealing their gleaming russet hearts. Treasure like this should not go to waste. If only she could gather them up, go home and skip this day. But no-one would understand; she was locked into the routine. The heavy schoolbag weighed down on her bra strap and she shifted it further out to the edge of her shoulder.

He was wearing a navy tracksuit and his hair was red – a young one. Kelly stooped to tie her shoelace, giving him a few more seconds to move on but still he fiddled with the bicycle chain. You’re not fooling anyone you bastard, she wanted to shout. The girls would never forgive her if she missed the match. She was in top form, playing the hockey of her life.

The flashing wasn’t so bad, it was creepy and ugly but it was over quickly. The bad part was the fear. What if this one reached out and grabbed her? The thought of being overpowered terrified her. Most of the time you could ignore the fact that men were stronger, it wasn’t relevant. But in this case it was all too relevant – a fact that squeezed her throat tight, stung her eyes and set her heart hammering.

One step down the lane meant danger, one step down the footpath meant disgrace. And then she remembered her hockey stick. Without being aware of her decision she began to advance down the shortcut. Behind the high walls on either side of her were back gardens. No-one would be gardening in this weather at this time of day. She slipped the stick out of its cover and held it loosely in her right hand like a spear.

Thirty more steps, twenty – the man straightened up and turned towards her. Kelly couldn’t look behind her for help; she didn’t want to show fear. Part of the trick was to behave normally. Treat him like a normal passer-by there’s a chance he’ll behave like one. She wouldn’t know until she reached him whether there was anyone coming in the other direction to save her. He started tugging at his waistband. Kelly felt a chill running up her back.

Hurrying down the steps into the school building, Kelly heard the bell ringing inside. She opened the door just as Mrs. Kearney came out of her office. “Are you on the warpath Kelly?” Mrs. Kearney seemed amused. “Pardon?” Kelly stopped and stared for a moment. Then she noticed she was still gripping the hockey stick with both hands. “You look like you’re going to hit someone with that stick dear.” “Just getting into the zone for the match,” Kelly answered, walking past the vice principal.

She went straight to the cloakroom to change into her indoor shoes. Anita was there. “So Kelly, what’s the strategy for Friday? They’re a pretty strong team,” she said, unwinding a long colourful scarf. Kelly sat down on the bench to unlace her boots. She felt a cold new energy circulating in her veins. “I’ve been thinking about it and I reckon it all comes down to one thing – attack is the best form of defence. They won’t know what hit them.”

Book reviews

Growing up with books

by clareodea2 Comments on Growing up with books

Every writer starts out as a reader. If I cast my mind back to my childhood, books were a central feature of our lives. The greatest influence came from my paternal grandmother who lived with us growing up. She was a remarkable woman. Born in her father’s brewery in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1911, she had a small but fantastic library of books. Nanny, as we called her, trained as a Montessori teacher in London in the 1930s and later worked as a governess. She had a wonderful way with children. She introduced us to her favourite authors over the years and one of my sweetest memories is of sitting wedged into the armchair beside her as she read aloud.

There was the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome about a family of kids living in the English Lake District and My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell describing his years living on the island of Corfu. Nanny was crazy about Dickens and read through Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Dombey & Son, Nicholas Nickleby and  A Christmas Carol for us. She had a beautifully illustrated edition of the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

The more girl-oriented stories included The Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Little Women and Anne of Green Gables were in there too as was the fantasy novel The Midnight Folk by John Masefield.

Stories featuring animals began with the Beatrix Potter series, moving on to Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

My own favourite children’s book of all time is The Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann, the story of a group of animals forced to flee when their forest is destroyed. Tom McCaughren’s Run Swift, Run Free series also featured foxes’ adventures. The list goes on and the great thing is I now have the pleasure of starting all over again with my own children.

Short stories

Unrequited Spite

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By Clare O’Dea

Justin sat at the kitchen table of the Ringsend apartment methodically working his way through the pile of pages and chuckling between drags of his cigarette. Derek watched his flatmate’s face intently, trying to hide his anxiety. He was beginning to doubt the wisdom of sharing his secret with the brash younger man. Maybe he should just interrupt Justin and grab the pages back; the whole notion was half-baked, unethical and difficult to explain. As Derek squirmed and hesitated, Justin read on.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Desperate for something to keep him occupied, Derek put the kettle on and then, feeling tall and self-conscious in the kitchen, started the washing-up. With his back to Justin, he had to keep looking over his shoulder to monitor the reading.

Finally, when Derek was in the middle of tackling the crusty cooker rings, Justin placed the last page on the pile to his right and leaned back with a smirk to look at the J-cloth wielding author.

“I don’t get it, I just don’t get it.” Derek attempted a mature, knowing expression. “This material, these characters, well it’s so bloody real and entertaining.” Derek nodded. “The flow is great, what can I say, it is just as good if not better than any of the chick lit we publish at Perrot’s. But what I don’t get is since when are you such an expert on women?”

Derek smiled weakly and raised his hands in a ‘dunno’ gesture.

“How much more have you written?”

“More. A lot more, I mean reams of the stuff. It’s all a bit in rough form though, needs some structure, some rounding off I suppose.”

“Where does it come from though? I mean how long have you been writing and why these characters?”

“I’ve been writing for a while, you know, and em the women are a kind of amalgam of, well I’ve always been fascinated by women’s friendships and all that, you know through my exes.”

“But I thought the longest you ever went out with anyone was two months.”

“Look I’m a watcher, I’m a listener. I’ve been walking around for the past 36 years watching and listening and this is just something that I kind of tapped into.”

“And the email format, what gave you that idea?”

“Ah I just saw it one time at the airport. I was browsing and I saw one of those best-selling single girl type stories. It was all emails. I think that’s what set me off.”

“Well it’s bloody intriguing, how an IT guy, and I stress guy, who works for an insurance company.” “Worked for an insurance company,” Derek interrupted. “Yeah OK worked then, but you only finished up last Friday after 13 bloody years at the place.”

“What’s your point mate?”

“My point is you don’t fit the typical profile for this kind of writing, by far not, but who gives a shit, you’ve cracked it. I’d be happy to advise you where to go from here with your manuscript. Consider me your number one fan from now on.”

Derek looked at his flatmate’s outstretched hand and broad smile and couldn’t help reciprocating. By now his nerves were starting to evaporate and replacing them came an unusual feeling of satisfaction.

Maybe one day Janet or one of her friends would come across the published material but what could they do about it? Making any kind of fuss would identify them as the women in the emails and expose them to ridicule, if not divorce proceedings. It would teach Janet a lesson for flirting with him and ignoring company guidelines on personal emails, Derek thought, wondering if he might finally have to buy a suit to wear at the launch party.

Clare O’Dea