The Story

I thought I’d jot down a note or two about the stories I’ll write on this blog. 

I like stories. real one and fictional ones. Posted the first one on today. Then worried. It’s sitting published. A work of fiction. And short. A Drabble. I posted it without say owt about it. 

Let me open this up. Stories, right? As I said, I love ’em. I often find myself telling a story when I’m supposed to be saying it in a normal fashion. 

Like this piece. 

Saturday evening. Mary’s watching the television. Some Marvel film. Not bad. Don’t mind Marvel stuff. But I write all the time. 

I drafted up the Drabble. A format I like. 100 words is all you get. The title doesn’t count. I figured I could do that. Off I went. Knocked one out. Good fun to write. 

Then, I posted it to the blog. Happy with that. All good. 

But now it’s sitting there. With no hint as to why it’s there. aside from it being in the ‘Stories’ category. 

That worried me. So, the simple answer seemed to be write a piece that explains why I write fictional pieces. Like the one I published earlier. 

Ha! Great. Here I am thinking about writing about stories. In general I mean. What do I do now? 

Okay, it goes like this. We are all wired for stories. It’s how we learn about life. This happens, we do that, it goes wrong, we try something else. Yeah, like that. 

When I wrote that last part, I realised something. If I left it there, I still hadn’t explained why I write fiction. 

Damn.

Because, here goes, I like inventing characters who face ordinary things. I’ll either write absurd chaos in the style of classic British humour. Or, snappy tales based on ordinary life going a bit wrong. 

Once I realised that, there it was. I’ll write stories, both true and fictional. Because they’re stories. 

Here’s a true one, to show you what I mean. 

Me and Mary were in our local chemists, right? Picking up prescriptions. 

This middle-aged woman came barging in. Regaling us all with the fact she’d been in hospital for six days. She strode up to the counter. And demanded medication for piles. 

—Got one while I was in there, didn’t I? 

She declared in a loud voice. The assistant offered her a pack of Anusol in subtle movements. The woman wasn’t done. 

—Ah, yeah, that’s them. Anusol. Bloody piles. I don’t get ’em as a rule. Got one in the bloody hospital didn’t I?

Mary’s nudging me hard. Because my shoulders were jigging up and down in laughter. 

—Right, ta! I’m going home for a cuppa and to shove one of these buggers up.

She turned and marched out of the shop. I broke. A loud guffaw. Meaning Mary gave me the look. The one she keeps for young children misbehaving — and me. 

I’m not good with queueing as a general rule. But after that? I guess I won’t mind them quite so much. 

Anyway, yeah, stories. I like ’em. The first one (fictional) is here.