The Bench At the Bottom of The Garden

There used to be a wooden bench at the bottom of the garden. Somewhere people could sit and watch the world go by. It was strong and sturdy and comfortable and it was in the perfect spot to catch the midday sun. As time passed the garden became over grown. The grass ran wild. The trees grew neglected and the branches broke under their own weight when no one came to tend them. The wooden bench became rotten and the struts broke into pieces. The bench is gone now. Nothing left but old, rotten pieces of wooden tangled among the overgrown bushes. Neglected. Forgotten.

In the Garden

Sometimes, when the sun is shining and there isn’t a chill in the air, I like to sit at the bottom of the garden. It is quiet and peaceful there. No-one comes and bothers me. Only the sounds of springtime surround me. I can hear birds singing. I can hear children giggling as they play. I hear the muffled hum of a lawnmower a few doors down. A soft breeze will ruffle the leaves and the grass. Just for a little while it is just me and my book. I could sit out here in the sun for hours just reading. It is my own little escape from the world and from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I sometimes wish I could, but there is work to be done. There is dinner to cook. There is laundry to wash. A mother’s work is never done. So I content myself with just a few moments peace down here at the bottom of the garden.

At The Bottom Of The Garden

Becca sat in the long grass at the bottom of the garden. Her head bent low over the white wooden wishing well that sat nestled among the overgrown hydrangeas and rhododendrons. She fiddled with the little silver bucket that hung suspended from a silver chain and sighed gently to herself.

“Where are you?” she said in a small whisper. “Please come and play with me, I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

Becca had been looking for the fairies for several days now, but none had shown themselves. She felt sure that she was looking in the right place. After all, her mother had always said fairies loved flowers and nature. The bottom of the garden was filled with flowers, and there was the wishing well providing that special little spark of magic! It was the perfect spot for fairies. So why wouldn’t they come out and play? Becca was desperate to find a little fairy to be her friend, but every day that went by left her more frustrated and she didn’t know what to try next. Standing up and brushing the grass from her dress, she decided to ask her mother, she would surely know the best way to catch a fairy.

Becca made her way across the garden towards the house, where her mother was in the kitchen baking.

“Mother?” called Becca. “I still can’t catch a little fairy to be my friend. What can I do?”

Becca’s mother smiled and patted her daughter’s hair.

“Oh Becca darling, you can’t catch a fairy! You will scare them all away with talk like that!” said her mother. “You just have to be patient, and wait for one of them to come to you. It might take a very long time, but if you are a very good girl and you wait very patiently I am sure that very soon a little fairy will want to be your friend! But just to be sure, why don’t you make a wish on the wishing well?”

Becca smiled, her mother always knew just what to do. She ran off, back to the bottom of the garden. She sat down next to the little white wooden wishing well. She closed her eyes very tightly and made a wish.

The Book - Prologue

This was an excercise for class, but it is also the beginnings of an idea for a book which is why I am classing it in fiction rather than an excercise. It's tentatively labelled "The book" for now so additional parts will be able to be found easily if I post more.

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I can’t say for sure what it was that first drew me to him, but the first time we met in that dark and somewhat dusty second hand book store down a dark side street in a rundown part of town. I remember his eyes meeting mine and feeling like I was being pulled towards him by some unseen force. His eyes were a deep, rich brown flecked with burgundy which made them burn like little pools of liquid flame. I sensed great power behind those eyes and I could not help but feel as though they could see right into the very core of my being. I would go so far as to say that as he gazed upon me unashamedly he was staring straight into my soul. The air around him seemed to crackle with some kind of arcane energy that felt both dangerous and appealing simultaneously.

I wasn’t sure if I should turn away or approach him. However, the choice was taken out of my hands as the stranger approached me. As he came closer, I saw that he was only a few years older than me, or at least he appeared to be, but when I looked once more into those mesmerizing eyes I saw the ghosts of many past lives. He dressed casually in smart jeans and a dark coloured shirt and had long dark hair caught in a ponytail at the base of his neck. If not for those startling eyes I might never have looked twice, apart from the fact that my whole body seemed to have felt his presence before I had even laid eyes on him.

I remember feeling like I should speak, but my mouth was dry and I couldn’t form the words. I simply stood there, rooted to the spot, desperate to run but afraid to even turn my face away. He spoke in a rich voice; his words seemed to curl around me like a soft comforting blanket.

“You feel it don’t you? You know.”

He was right in a way, even back then I knew something, I just wasn’t sure what. I was a sensible girl. I didn’t believe in magic or monsters. I lived in what I considered the ‘real’ world where like was black and white. At the age of sixteen, I was too old to believe in fairy stories. But looking in the stranger’s eyes I felt everything I knew fall away and looking back I can pinpoint that it was the exact moment my life changed forever. I tried to respond but I stammered over my words, I didn’t really know what to say and my mouth didn’t seem capable of speech at that point anyway. He smirked at me and sighed. Reaching behind my head he pulled a book from the shelf and offered it to me.

“Not yet. But you will. This is what you are looking for”

I took the book from him and turned it over in my hands. It looked very old. The black leather it was bound in was cracked and worn. It had no title, but the cover did have several strange markings embossed onto it in gold. Just holding the book seemed to make my skin tingle.

Emma Said...

Emma said that she didn't believe in magic, but being in that place how could she deny it? She could almost taste it in the air. The whole room seemed to pulse with mystical energy that made her skin tingle.

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Starting with the words "Emma said..." We were to write a short fictional statement.

Blue

Blue makes me think of cold. The ice blue hue of the winter sky. Crisp, clear and cloudless. The crisp white snow crunches underfoot. The world dusted with silver white glitter. I look to the sky and I am transported to summer. the bright blue sky seems tnot to fit with the snow. But the chill seeps through my clothes and into my bones. My skin turns a mottled blue as the cold begins to steal the very breath from my lungs.

The Ring

The delicate golden ring sits on the third finger of my left hand. My engagement ring, signifying that my heart has been claimed. The design is an ancient Irish Claddagh. Two hands form the band, cradling the heart studded with tiny chips of diamond. The heart topped with a crown. I wear it with the heart turned inward in the traditional symbol of being betrothed.

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This excercise required that I write about any object. I chose my engagement ring. The idea was to "unwrap" the object for the reader. Describe it, explain where it came from, what it is for and o on...

The Room

• The walls are cream, with a small silver pattern. The pattern is repeated at regular intervals and glitters as the early morning sun hits it.
• Along one wall are shelves packed tightly with books and DVDs. They are not neatly placed on the shelves, rather they are jammed in at various angles as if the owner wanted to squeeze in as many as possible.
• The table is littered with books, papers and stationary. It is clear that someone has been researching or studying something important.

What if the room were different...

• The walls are a deep midnight blue, inlaid with tiny silver stars. The moonlight filters through the window and reflects off of the stars, making them twinkle.
• Shelves filled with neatly ordered, dusty books line the wall. they seem very old, bound in soft leather embossed with gold. There is magic in these books, she can almost taste it as she trails her hand across the spines.
• An old table sits in the corner strewn with several of the books she had seen on the shelves. Some of the books lay open, others were discarded - apparently useless.

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In this excercise I write three short statements about the room i was sitting in at the time (my living room) and then imagine "what if...?". I choose to turn my boring old, cluttered room where I had been studying into an interesting magic shop!

An Introduction of Sorts...

I have wanted to start a blog for general writing for quite some time now, but have never seemed to have the time, or the guts if I am being honest! I have hardly ever shared my creative writing with anyone other than a select few. However as I am now studying for a BA Degree in Literature, and one of my modules next term is creative writing. I am currently doing a short course to prep me called 'Start Writing Fiction'. The course encourages us to share our writing, critique each other and to keep a daily 'writer's journal' full of ideas and interesting phrases.

So this blog is going to feature a mixture of writing. I may post pieces of fiction I am working on, along with assignment pieces from my course and some of the excercises we are given to perform. You will also find links to my published freelance writing, which consists mainly of news items or financial articles and there will be journal entries!