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Saturday 18 January 2014

Postcard Fiction: First Snow


She imagines it warm and soft, like feathers or flower petals or the blanket on her parents’ bed. She runs outside to dig her hands into it and the white cold curls her toes with delight. She likes the way it melts from her fingers, leaving nothing but a pink pained kiss.






* A number of years ago I watched one of my ESL students, a man in his forties, see snow for the first time. He stood outside the school in a t-shirt and jeans and held his arms out from his sides in wonder. I took a picture for him. I will never forget how excited he was, or how his excitement became so mixed up with his homesickness that he stood in the snow and cried because his 8-year-old daughter was not there with him. I was thinking of him the other day, and then I wrote this.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Okay, okay, okay: New Year's Resolution

Let's get this 2014 party started.
Writing-wise, 2013 was an odd year.

I sold a short story (GAH!) and felt like I was starting something fantastic, at last! But what followed was eight months of... WRITER'S BLOCK.

I deleted more words this past year than ever before, failed NaNoWriMo miserably and my well of ideas completely dried up. Another short story I sent out got a rejection letter that was, well, horrible.

It was so easy in December to bake, work at my paying job, stitch and burrow.

For the first time in years, I made no resolutions for 2014, and that was okay, dammit. I don't have to answer to anyone.

Except myself. Shoot.

So here they are, my New Year's Resolutions:

1. Get running again. Exercise makes even the worst rejections feel like compliments.

2. Write every day. The only way to wake up the Muse is to poke her repeatedly with keystrokes.

3. Collect more rejection letters. Use them to wallpaper the bathroom.

4. Make connections. Use them.

5. Kiss more.

Have you overcome New Year's Resolution Apathy? What goals have you set for 2014?

Now off to do some of that kissing.

And I'm meant to brag. Here's the anthology my story appears in. I'm a bit in awe of the writers I'm sharing space with. Thanks to our great editor, James R. Tuck.

You can purchase the book here. Or come by for tea and a paperback.