This week I finished writing a novel, some 97, 000 words that I’m quite pleased with. It’s a story of a woman and her neighbour on a quest to discover something new after a life-changing event, and it contains a secondary character I love to bits, an impressive lady who speaks her mind and is very focused on getting what she wants, which is all honourable and for the good of everyone. I’ll say much more about that particular novel later.

Then a new idea for a story came to me this morning, the tale of three very different women who emerge from various incidents together to discover a new future. I don’t want to start it yet – I want to think about it and let ideas bubble. So in the interim, I’m reading a lot of very different books – I have a pile of five novels I’m going to enjoy over the next week. Then I’m extending my time in the gym, walking in the spring sunshine (despite the cold), and scribbling a bit.

I belong to two writing groups and this gives me the opportunity to create new bits and pieces, scribbling over lunch time cups of tea or in the spaces between reading and planning a new idea. I like trying out new thoughts and different styles, so here’s a bit of verbage I wrote based on a picture my daughter painted. It’s about a mythical creature, or rather, the beginning of one. It’s probably a metaphor too. We’ve all been locked down for far too long…

Sending best wishes. xx

The egg

The ocean is like glass, the surface still, soundless, stretching to the horizon.

Then in a flurry, a sudden movement disturbs the silence, a ripple, a whirling funnel of water, and the egg falls, leaden, heavy, until it sinks and settles on the seabed.

In the murky light, the egg lies on sand, undisturbed.

A fish darts past unaware, another, larger, in pursuit.

The egg sits, perfectly round, alabaster white tinged blue, pink flecked, the size of a fist.

At the bottom of the sea, the water is darker.

Everywhere is vast, gloomy, graveyard-still: the egg is motionless.

But beneath the shell’s hard surface is the scratching of a small hoof, nail scraping against a hard wall, a fast rasp.

It stops.

There is no sound, just silence, a pause, then a repeated grating sound rattles inside, solid against solid, a persistent tap-tap.

The beginning of a crack appears, an imperceptible fissure in the egg’s smooth perfection.

For a moment, an intake of a breath holds, there is nothing, then a frantic chipping, a harder kick, the shell wall splinters open and the sides of the egg shatter in two, like breaking porcelain.

A damply white creature stands on four weak legs in the centre of the shards.

Wide eyes blink once, then she stretches her neck, lifts nimble hind quarters, tries for the first time to unfold skeletal wings.

 She staggers, one step, another, and pauses, sinking back on soft thighs.

Gazing around underwater, she breathes out bubbles, then she blinks, snorts pearl droplets through black bead nostrils, and tries her wings again.

They unfurl like wide fabric, pushing water, extending above her head, and suddenly her legs are firm and she stands, white furred, feather winged, strong.

One leap, hooves sinking back into sand, and she is up, cutting through the ocean, slicing the surface, water becoming clean air in her lungs.

She is swimming, surging forward, then her wings spread and she lifts up, away from the ocean, a creature of sea and sky, leaving foam splashes of surf in her wake.

 Airborne, she strives for the sun, wings beating, clouds above and below, her eyes wide.

She is free and her future is open as the bright skies.