Friday 22 January 2016

Writing Prompt - The One That Got Away

As soon as I entered the ticket hall at the station, I knew something was up... I have no idea why, but I could sense something wasn't quite... I don't know. I can't describe it so I don't know why I would even try but let's just leave it at "I knew".

What I didn't know, couldn't possibly have known, was that I would run into my ex. The one known as "The One Who Got Away".

It was my fault, of course, it always is. And how she used to tell me off for not watching where I was going... it's one of the reasons we split up.

And I wasn't.

Watching where I was going, that is. So, I literally ran straight into her. She wasn't watching where she was going either, obviously, but her reason wasn't terminal shyness, it was because she was walking with one of the most gorgeous little children I'd ever seen and they were having a lively debate over which was a better colour: red or green. I had heard some of their conversation as it drifted into my consciousness. I may not have seen them, but I heard them. I listen to people. That's what I do.

When I looked up from the collision with her, my heart at once sank into my feet and began pounding so loudly it drowned out any coherent thought I had hoped to have.

She looked dishevelled, which I immediately found disconcerting as she was ever serene when we were together. Our mutual friends, the ones she "won" in the split up, always quipped that we were like chalk and cheese. I was hurried, frazzled, excitable versus her utter calmness in any situation... even when I inevitably broke something on our way out the door to one of her important work functions and we then had to stop and clean up the mess.

Her clear brown eyes met mine and the half-mumbled apology on her lips fell away. Her hand flew to her hair, smoothing imaginary strays, and she muttered my name before collecting herself so quickly that I worried of an impending sonic boom.

I mumbled her name in return and tried to smile but it was stolen, along with my breath as she breezily announced, "I thought you were... gone". She squeezed the hand of the adorable child beside her and smiled bigger, her voice softening before she continued, "I didn't expect to run into you".

My heart broke at seeing her with a child... I had always wanted children; she didn't.

Or, at least she didn't with me, I thought unfairly.

I cleared my throat and ran my fingers through my manic hair in an effort to collect my thoughts before I responded. "My research took an unexpected turn. It turns out that the story is right here and I'm about to send my second edition to my editor. Listen..." I took a deep breath. This was going to be hard. Painful, most likely, but she'd always tried pushing me to be more assertive. "Could we maybe get together some time to, you know... talk?"

I suddenly couldn't bear to look her in the eye so glanced down at the child, desperate to avoid her gaze but also to see if the young boy looked like her. Are you hers? Is that your mother? I hoped to bore the question into his head, unsure which answer I wanted more.

She straightened and I caught the movement from the corner of her eye. I attempted to mimic her posture but I've always been a sloucher. Another thing that annoyed her to no end. Her eyes bore into mine as she quietly said, "It's been ten years. You need to move on. Please. Let it go. Let me go."

Her voiced raised a little and she lifted her chin before announcing, "Right, Emmett. Come along or we'll be late for the zoo!" She tugged the little boy's hand and off they went.

I couldn't bear to turn and watch them walk away. I couldn't bear to let them see the tears that had suddenly sprung to my eyes.

Emmett.

The name I had wanted to name our unborn son all those years ago.

Thursday 21 January 2016

Writing prompt - A Letter To Writer's Block

In an effort to #justwrite, I have found a list of writing prompts from Writer's Digest which is a fortnight-long sample of their Writer's Digest Presents a Year of Writing Prompts and will be giving them a bash over the next while so please bear with me (Arrrgh! Did you bear? I beared. I bet you didn't bear. Oh well.)

Here's the first of the prompts:

Dear Writer's Block,

It's not you, it's me...

... I'm just finding that I am feeling unfulfilled when you're around. It's like there's something... missing. Something I long for, a yearning I have that is always present when you're here.

When you're not present, that empty feeling is lifted. I'm much happier, upbeat... less tetchy and whingey. I don't like myself that way. It irritates me that I'm irritated and it makes me irritable. Are you seeing the pattern here?

In light of this, I've decided you simply must go. I'm sorry to do this to you. I know we've spent a lot of time together but I've changed and made some difficult decisions that I know are for the best for both of us.

I think, if I can be brutally honest here, that you're better off alone. You're quite selfish and needy... and demanding! Boy, are you demanding!

If you do find someone, though, I wish you both the very best and hey! Perhaps that new person won't mind your "issues" so much.

Because I really do.

And for my own emotional well-being I need to leave you behind and get on with my life, get on with the process of "finding myself" and all that that entails.

I hope this doesn't leave you too bereft, but I'm sure if you're honest with yourself... you kind of had to have seen this coming. No?

Take care, and try to keep in mind what I said about considering being alone.

Signed,
Please don't call me

Thursday 14 January 2016

Create the magic...

A mind-numbing fear of failure mixed with a deafening need for perfectionism means I often start projects that, despite the best of intentions, I never actually get around to finishing.

I am my own worst nightmare.

I love the creative projects I start. I nurture them, I coddle them, I feed my self into them...

Until I feel I have learned a lesson or have successfully demonstrated a new skill...

Then, I stop.

I loathe this about myself and am ever frustrated that this trait not only exists but that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to where the limit/tipping point is!

I once challenged myself to learn to knit a sock.

I knit a sock.

A. Single. Sock. And then I stopped.

Why?! Because that was the challenge I had set myself. Learn to knit a sock.

Finally, over a year later, I had to challenge myself to see if I could knit a *pair* of socks, just so I didn't feel so horrid that I'd learned a skill it seemed I was never going to use. (I still have the socks and while I love them, I don't wear them as often as I should.)

Perhaps another personality trait/flaw is that I am just too damned literal. Perhaps I need to be less precise, more open-ended in my language. Perhaps, I need to realise I am so literal and work *with* it and expand my challenges before they are set rather than accidentally allowing them to limit me.

Who knows.

No, seriously, who knows?! Do you!? I'd love an answer.

In any event, the above parts of who I am have accumulated to mean that I haven't written in, I'm embarrassed to say, over five months.

I'm actually cringing as I write this, I feel that ashamed.

Note to self:

"Writer"?! Not if you don't effing *write*, lady!

You "lost" someone very special the other day. The Goblin King. A man you've never met but one you'd hoped one day would cross your path.

That opportunity will now never come to pass and you mourn the loss of something you never had, but also the loss of the magic he helped bring into your life.

You're clever, though, and know that the magic doesn't have to leave just because the man has had to go. You can...

CREATE THE MAGIC

Write. Read. Make. Knit. Crochet. CREATE!

Now, consider this the proverbial kick in the backside and DO something about it other than just lamenting the fact that you haven't done it!

And, just to remind you...