Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

My homework this week for the First Steps in Fiction writing course is a choice between writing a short story from an immigrant’s point of view (not difficult, since I am one!), writing a 75-word paragraph for Paragraph Planet, or planning a collection of linked short stories.

I felt inspired by all these topics and decided, time permitting, to try a bit of all of these. Yesterday during the Pibler’s afternoon nap I brainstormed for the short story collection. I won’t give it away here as it’s still in the early stages, but I’m quite excited about it. I also wrote a practice ‘paragraph’ for Paragraph Planet - it’s a good challenge to try and say something, to create a story out of only 75 words. I found it challenging enough to tell a story in 300 words, for the last lot of homework. I ended up writing a story set in Cape Town with a teenage boy as the protagonist, ending in a humorous (I hope) twist. And this morning I submitted a paragraph based on a free writing exercise I did recently in a coffee shop! So we’ll see…

It’s been a good writing week. I received a commendation from my section editor for a book review article I wrote for online magazine Suite 101, and there have been more visits to my articles on that website. I’m managing to make time for a little bit of writing most days.

The weather is bitingly cold and windy at the moment and my plans to go out into nature today - I’ve been longing to get away from the city - have been scuppered. Although it’s not very ‘eco’, I miss having a car and being able to just set off wherever I want. There is some lovely surrounding countryside in Sussex.

But I suppose the weekend house-cleaning mission must continue. Next weekend my sister is arriving from South Africa and I’d like her to come into a habitable environment!