Tag: Dogs

Short Story. The Butterfly Effect

~ Paula Williams ~ 6 Comments

In my Idea Store column in the current issue of Writers’ Forum, I’m talking about The Butterfly Effect, which is (in an over-simplified form) how something that seems small and inconsequential at the time can sometimes have huge and unforeseen consequences.

Here, as promised in the article is my short story, The Butterfly Effect, which I wrote on the same theme.

And if you want to find out what Robert Crouch’s unforeseen consequences were and you can’t get hold of a copy of Writers’ Forum, you can find the answer here on his website.  

Link here.  https://robertcrouch.co.uk/the-blog-that-changed-my-writing-life

The Butterfly Effect

Abbie stood on the bridge, watching a newly hatched butterfly dry its wings in the late spring sunshine. What was it her science teacher had said, all those years ago? How a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could cause an earthquake in India? 

It hadn’t made sense at the time.  But it did now. What Mr Everett had been trying to say, she reckoned,  was how the smallest, seemingly insignificant action could have gigantic, unforeseen consequences.

She looked down at the mobile phone – the small, insignificant thing – that Matt had left on her kitchen table last night. 

‘What do you think of that, Bryn?’ she’d asked the dog who was never far from her side as she picked it up.  ‘Last night Matt’s telling me he’s got this important meeting which is why he can’t see me today.  Yet I come down this morning and find he’s left this behind , the one piece of kit he says he can’t do without. Just as well for him I’m not working today.  With luck, I’ll catch him before he leaves.’

It was one of the regrets Abbie had about her 18-month relationship with Matt that he and Bryn didn’t get on.  Matt thought Bryn was spoilt rotten, badly behaved and should stay in the utility room.  Bryn thought Matt was spoilt rotten, badly behaved and should stay away from Abbie.

Matt’s car was still outside his house when Abbie pulled up.  She  was about to get out of her car when Matt’s front door opened. She froze as she watched him turn to the leggy blonde by his side and give her a long lingering kiss.  

It was Carly.  Abbie’s so-called best friend. 

Abbie started the car, hoping they hadn’t seen her.  She wasn’t ready to confront them yet and needed to hang on to her control, at least until she’d got her head straight.  She drove back across the moor, where she stopped by North Point bridge, watched the butterfly make its first hesitant flight, then dropped Matt’s phone into the river.

As the weed encrusted water closed over it, she looked out across the flat moorland landscape she’d known and loved all her life and felt a desperate loneliness. Suppose she followed Matt’s phone into that thick green water?  Would anyone miss her? Apart from Bryn, of course.

As she peered down at the river, the butterfly, its maiden flight completed, landed back on the stone bridge beside her and gently flapped its wings. 

………………………..

Greg Marchant cursed as the narrow road took yet another right-angled turn.  He should have stayed on the main road and waited for the accident to be cleared.  What sort of idiot turns off along an unmarked country road in an area he doesn’t know?

The sort who’s running late for a job interview because of an earlier road closure and whose pretty good sense of direction has never let him down – until now.

The willow-fringed road, bounded on both sides by sheer drops into ditches big enough to engulf his car, got narrower the further along it he went, taking him ever deeper into the flat, featureless moorland.  

He was running out of time.  Best stop in a minute and phone to ask if the interview could be rescheduled. Or say sorry but he’d changed his mind.

When he’d applied, he’d had misgivings about burying himself in the countryside – and that was before seeing it for himself.  If you’re going to live in the country, it should at least be scenic, maybe a few rugged hills and wooded valleys.  Not mile after mile of featureless moorland.

He was looking for somewhere to turn around when he saw a small yellow car  parked alongside a stone bridge. A young woman with glorious copper coloured hair stood there, obviously deep in thought.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Can you help me, please?  I think I’m lost.’

Greg thought she had the saddest – but loveliest – eyes he’d ever seen.  They were the colour of the cluster of violets that peeped up at him from the nearby bank.

‘Where are you heading for?’ she asked.

‘Neston Parva.  I was on the main road but there was an accident ahead and the road was closed, so I thought I’d take a short cut.’

The girl laughed, banishing the sadness, if only for a moment.  

‘I’ll say you’re lost.’ Her voice was as soft as Pan pipes.  ‘Did you turn off just after a pub with a big cedar tree in the garden?’

‘That’s it.  Did you get caught, too?’

She shook her head and Greg was fascinated by the way her hair colour changed from copper to deep auburn as it moved. 

‘The road wouldn’t have been closed by an accident,’ she said, ‘But by George Fairweather’s cows going in for milking.  They’ll be well gone now.  Best you turn round, take the first left, second right, then when you come to the fork by the burnt down barn….’ 

But Greg had lost concentration after the first – or was it the second? – turning.  All he could think of was the tiny dimple that appeared in her cheek when she smiled.

‘Sorry.’  He forced himself to concentrate.  ‘I’m ..not .. quite myself.  A bit nervous.  I’m on my way to a job interview only I’m late and…’

‘An interview in Neston Parva?’  the girl smiled again and this time, to Greg’s delight, revealed dimples on both sides of her face, ‘That’s where I live. I’m on my way there now, so why don’t you follow me?  What time’s your interview?’

‘Nine thirty.  But I don’t think I’ll make it.’

‘Course you will.  I know these lanes like the back of my hand. I’ve lived around here all my life.’

‘You have?’ Greg looked around him at the landscape that ten minutes earlier he’d dismissed as dull and bleak.  ‘Lucky you.  It’s beautiful.’

‘Isn’t it ever? I was just thinking the same myself.  I was going to leave, you know and move into the town but –’ She shrugged and Greg saw her eyes were sad again.  ‘Well, things didn’t work out.  Still,’ she gave him a wobbly smile, ‘This won’t get you to that interview, will it? Come on.’

‘That’s very kind. Thanks.’

‘That’s ok. I hope you get the job.’

As Greg waited for her little yellow car to pull out in front of him, he realised he wanted the job in Neston Parva more than he’d wanted anything for a long time and that the black cloud he’d been living under since his divorce was at last beginning to lift.

And as the two cars drove off, the butterfly flapped its wings and flew away.

………………………………

‘I’m coming,’ Abbie called as she hurried down the hall. ‘No need to knock the door down – Oh.  It’s you.’

Matt stood on her doorstep, his face as dark as the rainstorm that had suddenly turned day into night. 

‘Let me in, Abbie. I’m getting soaked.’

‘Too bad.’  Abbie went to close the door, but Matt put his foot out to stop her. 

‘I just want to talk to you,’ he said, ‘I’ve been trying to do so for the last three weeks.  Where have you been?  Why aren’t you answering your phone?’

‘If it was any of your business, which it’s not,  I’d tell you I’ve been staying with my sister, who’s just had her baby.  As you’d know if you’d ever listened to a word I said.’

‘Of course I do –’

‘And I didn’t answer my phone because I saw it was you calling and, as I’ve already said, I don’t want to speak to you or Carly ever again.’

‘That thing with Carly was nothing, honest.  Open the door, please.’

‘No.  Go away .’

‘I’m coming in,’ he snapped.  ‘And you’re damn well going to listen to me.’

Abbie pushed hard against the door but it was hopeless.  As Matt forced it open, she heard a low growl and before she could stop him, Bryn barrelled his way through the gap and leapt at Matt, catching him by the sleeve. 

There was a tearing noise and a volley of curses from Matt.

‘Look what he’s done.’  Matt was fanatical about his clothes.  ‘This jacket cost over £200 and that stupid, hairy waste of space has ruined it.’

Before Abbie realised his intention, Matt drew his foot back and landed Bryn a savage kick in the ribs.  The dog yelped then bolted for the open gate.

‘Bryn. No.’ Abbie’s scream was lost in a squeal of brakes and another yelp from Bryn, cut horribly short.  She rushed out.  A car was slewed across the road, the driver white and shaken.

‘I didn’t see him,’ he said.  ‘He came out of nowhere and with the road being so wet… I’m sorry.  So very, very sorry.’

Abbie looked down at the dog who’d shared her life these last five years.  He’d always been a harum-scarum dog, full of life and energy.  Now, he lay still in the road, his eyes closed, a small line of blood trickling from the corner of his  mouth.  He’d never chase rabbits, autumn leaves or plastic bags ever again.

‘Oh, baby.  Poor, poor baby.’  Abbie leaned across to gather his lifeless body into her arms . 

‘Don’t.’  The shout from behind shocked her into stillness.  ‘Don’t move him.’

Abbie looked up as a man she vaguely recognised pushed her gently aside and knelt down beside Bryn.

The next couple of hours passed in a haze.  All she could think of was that Bryn, her beloved, stupid, idiotic, disobedient Bryn whom she’d thought was dead, was being operated on for internal injuries and she could only wait –  and pray.

‘Bryn’s in good hands Abbie.’ Janey, the receptionist handed her yet another cup of tea. ‘The new vet’s very good.  Here, drink it this time and try not to worry.’

But Abbie didn’t drink the tea because at that moment, the vet came out.  She jumped anxiously to her feet, trying to read the expression on his face.

‘Bryn? Is he -?’

‘He’s going to be fine.  Stiff and sore for a few days, but he’ll make a full recovery, I promise.  He’s one lucky dog.’

It was only then that Abbie let go the tears she’d been holding in for so long go.  She’d have fallen had the vet not caught her and helped her to a chair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she hiccupped.  ‘B-bursting into tears when I should be thanking you for saving my dog’s life.’  She stopped as she realised why he’d seemed familiar.  ‘It’s you, isn’t it?  The man who got lost on the moor?’

‘It is indeed.  My name’s Greg and, as you can see, I got the job, thanks to you.’

‘I’m so glad you did.  If you hadn’t come along at the very moment Bryn rushed out into the road …’

Greg looked down at his hands.  ‘I wasn’t exactly just passing,’  he said.  ‘I arm-locked poor Janey into telling me where you lived and I’ve been walking up and down that road every day for the last few weeks.  I even managed to find that bridge again where I first saw you.’

‘But why?’ 

‘I wanted to thank you.  If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have turned around and withdrawn my application.’

‘And if you hadn’t got the job and been there when Bryn was knocked down, he’d have died.’

‘A bit like dominoes, then,’ Greg said.  ‘One thing leading to another.’

Or butterflies flapping their wings, Abbie thought as, for the first time she noticed that Greg had nice brown eyes, a warm friendly smile – and no wedding ring.

‘About Bryn,’ Greg said.  ‘It’s best he stays in overnight. You can collect him in the morning.  On one condition.’

‘Yes?’

‘That you promise not to spend this evening worrying about him.’

‘I can’t promise that,’ Abbie laughed.  ‘But I’ll try.’

‘Then how about having dinner with me – to take your mind off it? And give us the chance to say our respective thank yous again.  Janey tells me there’s a very good restaurant in the next village.’

Before she could say yes, he reached across and touched her hair lightly.  ‘Don’t move,’ he said softly.  ‘There’s a butterfly in your hair.  It must have come in here when it rained.’

He opened the window behind her.  Slowly, the butterfly stretched its wings, circled around their heads and then flew out through the open window.

The end                

Dog walks, hurdles and a murder mystery.

~ Paula Williams ~ 2 Comments

I’m later than I meant to be getting down to work because today’s dog walk took even longer than usual.  Several of the fields around our village have been cut and baled and our Dalmatian Duke insisted on stopping to wee on every one of them!  (It was a big field and there are a lot more bales out of shot, all duly marked by Duke).

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The first hurdle – and how I fell at it.

I started writing this blog after reading “The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors” by Anne R. Allen  ( Anne’s blog) which is crammed full of useful advice for newbie bloggers such as myself.

Unfortunately I’ve  fallen at the first hurdle because one of Anne’s pearls of wisdom is  about being consistent.  Blog regularly, she advises.  

Ah yes, I thought.  I can do this. So  I set up a schedule (I’m very good at setting up schedules.  Keeping to them, however, is another matter) and decided I would blog fortnightly.  I then entered the fortnightly publication days in my diary.

I chose to post fortnightly (a) so that I wouldn’t clog up your inboxes and (b) it would give me some breathing space to get on with my life… and, of course, the day job.

But that is where the problems started.  Life , the day job and the local farmer’s hay making (see above) got in the way which is why, according to my schedule, I am now two  postings behind.  So, if you’ve been waiting impatiently for the Daily Prompts from May 16th onwards, please accept my sincere and grovelling apologies.  

To make up for it, I’ll put the Daily Prompts from May 16th – June 15th  at the end of this post.  And if you’re new to this blog and wondering what on earth I’m going on about, check out the post (Writers’ Prompts.  A limitless supply of story inspiration) on how to use the prompts.  

I’ve written a pantomime.  Oh yes I have!

In my post of 25th March The Path Less Travelled and why it (sometimes) pays to take it I described the fun I was having writing our village pantomime.  This year, we’re doing The Fladdams Family – the Panto, which is based, very loosely indeed, on the TV programme The Addams Family.

I have finished it.  Almost on schedule.  And if you’ve ever wondered what goes on during the creative process of writing a pantomime, take a look at a (totally unedited) page of my notepad which  sits beside me when I’m writing.  It’s either a snapshot of the creative mind at work – or the ravings of a madwoman.  You decide.

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A new serial.

Yay! I have a new serial coming out at the end of the month.  My eight part murder mystery entitled All The Birds of the Air starts in the People’s Friend on June 23rd.  

This serial is the result of an approach by People’s Friend’s Fiction Editor, Shirley Blair, asking  if I’d be interested in writing a crime serial for them.  Now I’d love to let you go on thinking this is an everyday occurrence for me and that editors are regularly contacting me in this way.  I wish!

Usually it happens the other way around.  I get an idea for a story, write it and then spend the rest of my time and energy trying to persuade an editor to buy it.  So after I said yes to Shirley I found myself in the unusual situation of looking for something to write about.

This was where my ideas box came in handy.  It’s an old document box, crammed with tattered files and dog eared notepads, most of which make as much sense as the one in the picture above.

But then I found a notebook from a creative writing class I took at my local Further Education Centre many years ago.  I enjoyed the class very much except for those times when the tutor would set us a challenge to write something really clever which we then had to read out to the rest of the class.

I was, and still am, absolutely rubbish at that sort of thing.  My brain freezes and I  sit there doodling while the rest of the class scribbles away furiously.  That particular day, the brain freeze was obviously a full on glacier because this is what I wrote:

Who killed Jock Dobbin?

That was it.  Apart from a weird drawing of what I think was supposed to be a cat and a reminder to myself that my son had cookery in the morning and not to forget the sultanas. (He’s all grown up and sensible now and buys his own sultanas.)

But the line intrigued me and I started thinking about a man called Jock Dobbin who dies suddenly.  His death is put down to natural causes until a series of anonymous notes begin to appear around the village.  These notes are all based on the rhyme “Who killed Cock Robin?” and that, of course, gave me the title as well. Then I started thinking: “What would you do if a total stranger left you everything in his will?”

All the Birds of the Air was such fun to write and there will, I hope, be a sequel.  But that depends on whether the readers of People’s Friend enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Fingers crossed.

Daily Prompts

Today’s writers don’t have to hunt around in dusty old boxes for inspiration. At least, not the ones who follow this blog.  So here, better late than never, are the Daily Prompts, as promised for May 16th – June 15th.  And I promise I’ll be back before June 15th with the prompts for the rest of the month.  I’ve already put it in my schedule.

16. Write about being bullied.

17. When you fear the worst and the worst happens, there comes that moment when you realise there is nothing left to fear. 

18. My brother/sister had this really annoying habit….

19. Write about what you didn’t do.

20. Opening line.  Where were you last night?

21. Dark behind it rose the forest (The Song of Hiawatha.  HW Longfellow)

22. Once, when nobody was looking…

23. The end of the day.

24. You are in a hotel room.  Alone.

25. Actions speak louder than words. (Proverb)

26. Buried treasure.

27. Write about a time you felt abandoned.

28. Something you bought mail order.

29. You’re taking an exam you are totally under prepared for.

30. You walk into a bar and a sudden silence falls.  But no one will meet your eye.

31. Slipping in and out of the shadows.

JUNE

1. Married in the month of June/Life will be one long honeymoon.* (see below)

2. It was the family wedding from hell.

3. Write about an anniversary.

4. ‘I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. (Eric Morecambe)

5. Write about a balcony.

6. If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you’d do?

7. The first time I saw my baby brother/sister I felt….

8. Write about being the last person to be picked for a team.

9. “Last night I dreamt I went back to Manderley…”  (Or Myrtle Avenue, or wherever)

10. He walks into a room and there is complete silence.  All heads turn in his direction.  Then he smiles and walks up to her.  “Hi, I’ve been looking for you….”  (Feel free to change he/she etc)

11. I love you because (Do you remember the old Jim Reeves song?)

12. Ann Frank was born this day in 1929.  Write about keeping a diary.

13. “It wasn’t my fault, Mum, honest.  It just….”

14. “There are two ways of spreading light. To be the candle or the mirror that receives it.” (Edith Wharton)

15. A funny thing happened to me on the way to…..

  • Footnote:  I got married in June and, on the off chance that my husband reads this, yes, it has been one long honeymoon! (Most of the time, anyway)

Where do you get your ideas from?

~ Paula Williams ~ 7 Comments

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Angels on Oil Drums

As I started writing this week’s blog, the flag of St George was flying from the flagpole on the top of our village church for St George’s Day, England’s patron saint. 

I have good reason to celebrate St George’s Day because it was the inspiration behind the very first story I ever sold.  

 I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write.  As soon as I was old enough to hold a pencil, I was writing.  Plays, stories, comic books, poems and even a pageant or two. Throughout our childhood,  I bullied my three younger brothers  into appearing in various ‘plays’ I’d written which we’d then perform for all our neighbours – at least, the ones who weren’t quick enough to come up with a decent excuse.

My first publicly performed work was a bit of a cheat as it didn’t involve any original writing.  It was a pageant, enacted to the words of the hymn “For all the saints, who from their labours rest…” to celebrate St. George’s Day.  

The ‘stage’ was to be our front lawn, the backdrop Mum’s washing line with a couple of old grey blankets draped over it.  I’d filled two large jugs with armfuls of  pink and white blossom which stood at the front.  It looked perfect. Except for the oil drums.  One on either side of the ‘stage’. 

My mother drove a hard bargain and insisted that if she was going to allow her garden and washing line to be turned into a stage, then my two youngest brothers (three year old twins) had to be given parts in the pageant.  I was not keen.  But, in the end I capitulated and said they could have non-speaking parts as angels – as big a piece of miscasting as Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

But there was a slight problem (and I’m not talking Tom Cruise here).  The twins were quite small and so would not be seen. So I had the brilliant idea of standing them on upended oil drums, one either side of the stage. (Now why didn’t Tom Cruise think of that?)   

I then tied one of Mum’s sheets around their necks to cover both them and the oil drums and commanded them to hold their arms up as wings.  I also made them beautiful blonde wigs from unravelled binder twine which, they complained, itched.  (Did I say I was also the costume and set designer?  Not to mention writer, producer and chief press-gang officer).

I was St George, of course.  After all, it was my pageant.  And my other brother, Mike was the unfortunate dragon who spent most of the time being beaten around the stage by me wielding a wooden sword.

We were about half way through the first verse of “For all the saints...” when the left hand ‘angel’ started to fidget and fell off his oil drum.  The right hand ‘angel’, who probably had more sense than his brother, decided he was bailing out before he too fell off his oil drum and made a dash for freedom across the garden, trailing his sheet behind him and ending up hiding in the middle of the raspberry canes.  He was closely followed by the family dog who thought this was the best game ever.

I, like the trouper I was,  carried on singing.  And beating the dragon about.  Until he decided that he, too, had had enough.  So there I was, St George,  victorious and alone, singing away to myself and failing to notice that my mother had disappeared into the raspberry canes after my brother and the dog.  And the rest of the audience was falling about with laughter.

After all these years my brothers still claim they were traumatised by the event, which gets told and retold at every family gathering.  So when, about twelve years ago I was looking to break into the short fiction market and trying to follow the advice ‘write about what you know’, I wrote this short story based around my ill fated pageant.  

“Angels on Oil Drums” was the first of many stories I sold to Woman’s Weekly and it still remains one of my favourites.  Not such a favourite with my brothers, though – although I did buy all three of them their very own copy of Woman’s Weekly which I’d like to tell you they have treasured to this day.  But I very much doubt it!

A few years ago now, my brother Mike (the ex-dragon) came to one of the pantomimes I’d written for our village theatre group  (link here to my thoughts on writing this year’s). He remarked what a relief  it was for him to come and see something I’d written that he hadn’t been bullied into appearing in.

My story, Angels on Oil Drums, will be in my first collection of short stories, entitled “Selling My Grandmother” which will be published later this year.  Watch this space!

Other News

I’m finishing the final edits of the final chapter of my serial, The Primrose Path, this week – and am at that stage where I think I’m never going to be able to cut it down to the required word length.  Although I always do, somehow.  As for tying in all those loose ends…

Duke, the Dalmatian has had a poorly paw and after a week on anti-inflammatories and antibiotics is now confined to lead only walking for another two weeks.  Trying to keep a Dalmatian quiet and rested is like trying to contain a Jack-in-the-box with a faulty lid. But if you’ve got to do an on-lead-only walk, then the beautiful Bishop’s Palace Gardens, in Wells, Somerset has got the be the place to do it.

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Daily Prompts. May 1st to 15th

I hope you’re enjoying the daily prompts. (For details of how to use them, follow this link)  I have now caught up with myself, so below are the prompts for the first fifteen days of May.

I always keep a note in my journal of where the ideas for each new story came from and I can see that of the fifteen, four made it as completed (and sold) stories.  So it does work!

  1. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May (Shakespeare)
  2. A time when you wanted to leave but couldn’t
  3. Being discovered in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  4. “I have spread my dreams beneath your feet/ Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” (WB Yeats)
  5. Suffering the consequences of doing something to excess.
  6. Write about a premonition
  7. Your first day at school, work.
  8. Look back in anger. (John Osborne’s play of this name opened in 1956)
  9. Fear of getting old.
  10. Things done in the heat of the moment.
  11. He/she is the sort of person who….
  12. Write about your earliest memory
  13. Living the dream
  14. Through the open window comes the sound of someone playing the piano.
  15. On this day in 1918 the first regular air mail service began. Write about receiving an unexpected letter.

Thanks for reading this far.  Each time I post, I promise myself that I’ll keep it short and snappy this time.  But I never do.  And that’s what I love about blogging.  After three days of trying to cut 5800 words down to 3300, writing this has been sheer bliss!

My new author blog, thanks to The Author Blog

~ Paula Williams ~ 4 Comments

That this blog is up and running at all – although perhaps stumbling would be more a more appropriate metaphor at the moment – is thanks to “The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors” by Anne R. Allen.  It really is one of those books that does exactly what it says on the tin, or rather, what it says on the cover.

I read the book all the way through to start with and really took on board the message that an author blog is different from other blogs in that an author is seeking to engage with out readers rather than selling a product (although, of course, we all hope the end result will, in fact, be the sale of our books) .

As I created this blog, I felt like Anne was holding my hand at every stage.  The book is written in a clear, easy to follow style.  She is even honest and open enough to share with the reader some of the mistakes she made in the early stages of blogging.  I just hope mine are safely hidden.

So, many thanks, Anne, for a really instructive and helpful read.  And if you’re reading this, it must mean it worked!  Cheers!

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Anne’s blog is here Anne’s blog   And the book can be found at Amazon. (Sorry, Anne, I haven’t got my head around those long Amazon links yet! )

I wasn’t sure if I could post a picture of the cover of the book without Anne’s permission (I said I was still stumbling around, didn’t I?) but I remembered that she said pictures make blog posts more interesting so here’s another picture of my handsome boy, Duke.

My first post

~ Paula Williams ~ Leave a comment

This is Duke, our beautiful seven and a half year old rescue Dalmatian from British Dalmatian Welfare.    He has only been with us a couple of months but has already wound himself completely around our hearts.

OK, so this post isn’t very writerly.  But he will probably appear in many of my future  stories and a recent dog walk with him gave me the inspiration for my current work in progress, a murder mystery entitled The Primrose Path.

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