I almost didn’t finish the story for the Globe Soup competition, but I don’t like being defeated by a writing challenge. The request was for a story with the theme “Knowledge is Power”, word limit 2,000 words, and I was put into the group asked to write in the genre Chicklit. I hate the term, and the most famous chicklit novel (Bridget Jones’ Diary) was centred around a woman who was silly and yet somehow a successful journalist. Probably not so far-fetched an idea, given some of the half-researched pieces of journalism I’ve read over the last three or four years.
Well, I did finish it, five hours before the deadline, and sent it in. Not brilliant, not going to be winning the prize, but it was in the definition of chicklit, and the storyline was along the theme of Knowledge is Power. Some people enjoy crosswords, some knit scarves and jumpers… I write stories. It keeps me out of trouble. I even managed to make the heroine very ordinary, sensible and dull.
We have also made progress with the woodshed. Most of the walling is up (okay, we cheated, we used fencing panels for the rear and side walls – the quickest and cheapest option), and it’s had its first test – it rained hard here on Tuesday, meaning that we couldn’t finish it, but we did go back to check on how well it stood up to the rain. We shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was dry inside. Two or three hours’ work will finish off the front walling, then we can put the wood from the last three years in it and call it done.
It looks huge, but trust me, one of our dead trees will almost fill one of those bays completely. Waiting for the next free day to finish it up and start lugging wood.
Julia Chalkley 