We were introduced to the Black Box writing technique by supervisors Silke Heiss and Paul Mason in an MA seminar that dealt with conceiving the bones and sinews of a story. Elements are chosen randomly from five categories; character, situation/incident, [...]
It was 3 AM and I was digging a hole in the desert. Christa stood next to me. In the torch light, she was a fidgety monster patting a bundle in her arms. “Is it done yet Tess?” Her voice [...]
Download the complete and roughly edited first draft of this short story here
At 2am, the magnificence of the night was defiled by unholy shit spewing from the house five doors away. She stuffed the comforter into her ears and began to think really loudly. But there was this one note. [...]
Via via I don’t know if this counts though, as I scrawled while (wo)manning our paper goods stall at the fleamarket on Sunday. Probably took longer than five minutes too. Brain spew mostly. It’s what happens when you stop reading [...]
(A piece I started years ago and rounded off today) Talk to me dammit, Say something, anything. Please. I can’t stand it when you get like this. Really, I can’t handle it. Why the hell aren’t you speaking? Come on, [...]
Making space to write was one of the reasons behind my move to freelance. So far, it hasn't been working out too well. I've got a great method where I write down all the things I have to do, and then proceed to do none of them. However, today was a little different.
…and thank the Almighty you did not emerge from her. […]
(An unedited excerpt from “The daughter of no one famous”) Under the grey fleece of sunset, the muezzin called out for Maghrib. She hated this time of day. It was lead on her brain, oppressive and dim. […]