Can't wait for kids to go back to school and story-writing to take off again. I miss solitude! And hours of uninterrupted work. Here it's a circus again, as they are back from the beach and shirking homework, while I am counting the hours to brain freedom.

Started a new story, gathered some new ideas on a drive up to a dairy on the highland above Verona. Cheese pats on wood in a chilly stone room, miles of hills crinking in smoky light. Would have unrolled a blanket and stayed.

Windy!

squashed

The ex is in town, ready to squash me again! The only way I can turn it inside-out is to think of all the writing material this person has provided and will continue to provide. I just wrote another story - sent to the Wasafiri fiction competition and hoping to win! - call Opaque which tells of a kidnapped child. The protagonist is a mother, acquaintance of the woman from the whom the child has been taken, who has to decide whether she can take part in this action. It is about how being a mother can also mean being a cruel unfit mother, or an unjust human being.

The story helped me! and I think it reads well. Hmmm. Back to hawking my work.