In one hundred words

-

 


Just last year I was introduced to Drabbles. Pieces of exactly one hundred words (the title does not count), and usually written as fiction. 

A small group of four of us have been meeting monthly to share our recent pieces, prompted by a word offered by one of the group. The ones I recall so far have been Shower, Melody, Pickle, Smaller, Corner - each selected through various means. One of our number uses an elaborate system of identifying a book page, para, sentence and word position to pick her prompt.

This month, the one she came up with Caravaggio!

I love working on these small offerings. I 'write short' quite naturally, but writing, revision and editing a single piece usually means starting with about 140-150 words, whittling it down - and up again - to 127, 118, 106, 121, 97, 103... you get the idea. 

And takes time!

Very much like working on poetry which requires every word and phrase be interrogated to determine if it earns its place, is the only and best word in that place at that time.

These short pieces are just what I need right now, when I am doing very little other writing but still want to keep my writing muscle somewhat flexible,

My Drabble co-conspirators usually create wonderful gems of fiction. Mine tend to be memoir-based, such as this one, recalling my weekly slogs across Truro, Cornwall sixty-plus years ago.

Music Lesson

by Lois Peterson

 

Rain or shine, the long weekly walk to the bus stop. 

Jostling for a spot in the unhospitable queue. 

No help navigating the steep step on board. 

Rarely two seats together to accommodate us both.

“Two as usual?” asks the conductor.

At thirteen, every stare seems judgemental, accusatory.

Eyes on the gritty floor, concentrating on rain-spattered shoes, 
drooping socks, sagging hems.

Buffeted by other passengers getting on and off,

their shopping bags bulky, elbows sharp, glares and stares 

          only the occasional smile.

It’s a relief to blunder out, 

off and back down to the street,

 

me and my bloody cello.

 

Is it any wonder I gave up music lessons after a couple of years!




Comments

  1. Anonymous9 March 2026 at 13:46

    Love it! I was wondering if it was you and your Mom accompanying you, but the cello would indeed take up space. Nice surprise ending.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11 March 2026 at 10:14

    I was at boarding school. Trekking from one side of town to another on my own.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

48 Days and Counting

-
Image
 I leave for a trip to the UK in 48 days. Can I get my longstanding Work in Progress (WIP) The Return of the Summer Fish completed in a good draft form by then? (And by longstanding, I mean I have been working in it, on and off, for about 15 years. And have many draft scenes to prove it.) Since Creatively Human: Why We Imagine, Make and Innovate came out just two weeks ago, I have been at loose ends. I have a number of abandoned projects, and until recently little energy or motivation to get back to any of them. But Summer Fish is close to my heart, a memoir-based midgrade novel about two sisters efforts to reconcile after almost a year apart. Set in the Middle East where and when I grew up in the late-50s. Everyone who shared that time with me is gone - my parents and brother. And my sister, on whom the character of Lena is only very loosely based, is now living with vascular dementia in a care home in the UK. I am the only one who remembers. Over supper last night I decided to ...
Read more

The Church in the Dunes

-
Image
A Song of Cornish Summers :  The Church in the Dunes Leaving behind beach towels spread across damp sand gritty sandwiches crusts abandoned flip flops  men dozing in deck chairs their heads tied up in white hankies mothers warning offspring  not to swim so soon after lunch the rapturous cry of kids swamped by waves the rattle of the donkey’s bell and the cry of the ice cream man we escaped to the dunes.   It was an uphill slog sand filled our footsteps as soon as we walked out of them. We waded into the sun cut our hands on the sea grass we grabbed to help us up the unstable incline sand filtering into our sandals.   At last we reached the crest. Below, lay the central roofline of St. Piran’s church now enclosed in a concrete bunker fourteen hundred years after St Piran came here from Ireland in his small coracle. We knew all the tales of Celtic holy men St. Piran, St. Budoc and St. Blaise, the folk legends Tregeagle, Madgy Figgy and the piskie thresher, and eve...
Read more

Three questions for predatory marketers

-
Image
They crawl out of the shadows everywhere - on Facebook groups for all kinds of writing and writers. In our Messenger inboxes. In emails from unidentified senders. Telling us they will edit our book, make a trailer, design a cover, help us reach thousands of readers, get reviews, get us on best seller lists, help us make millions… Most often unsolicited, unwanted, and unwelcome. And sometimes relentless. Recently a woman Messaged me in response to my upcoming book cover reveal on a BC writers’s Facebook page. Would I hire her to make a trailer?  My response: ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Could we at least talk? ‘No. I work with my publisher on promotional material.’ (In fact, it’s on my to-do list to do myself, but she didn’t need to know that.)  Could I share some visuals with her? She can help with trailers, covers, reviews…  ‘No.’  (Are you kidding!) And so it went, until I reported her on the group, told her that her actions were predatory, and blocked her. It was my ...
Read more