Author: freyawrightbrough

I’m not feeling the best today and my assessment, life and work all seem to be burring me. 

Reaching boiling point

She stirs occasionally

So close to spilling

My dad told me just to keep everything on the boil, stir occasionally and eventually some pots can come off the stove. You don’t always have to be on top of everything, sometimes just keeping everything from spilling is an achievement. 

I thought of this little story on the plane home to Brisbane today.

I sat next to an old man on the plane. He said the secret to being happy was to time everything to perfection. I shut my eyes and only awoke when his head drooped onto my shoulder. I checked his pulse as the plane plummeted.    

My Melbourne friend Meadhbh gave me a good word today: Quaff. I thought of some other good eating words (as eating is all I have been doing in Melbourne) and came up with this:

She quaffed fads, guzzled self help and wolfed down make up when just nibbling on a few words exchanged between friends would have filled her right up.

My uncle gave me a prompt today: “Fluffy Bunny Slippers.” Written in my lunch break. 

Johnny had little tiny feet

And on those tiny feet were little tiny rabbits

And on those tiny rabbits were little tiny mouths

They squeaked little bits of guidance to little tiny Johnny

Told him where to put his little tiny feet

Now little tiny Johnny lives in a little tiny kingdom

A slave to the little tiny rabbit society

I guess not all mentors are good ones, rabbits especially.

Today I was lucky enough to pin down the amazingly busy, multitalented networking exrtrodinaire, Meg Vann, for a quick meeting. As the CEO of the Queensland Writers Centre and an author herself I thought she would be a perfect mentor for Mentor March… And she was:

I asked her to explain one of her strengths in the hopes she could pass it on to me. Her answer was ridiculously simple and elegant: “curiosity.” She explained that the reason her writing is always improving and evolving is her curiosity because it leads her to experiment and question. By the same token, her natural curiosity about others has meant she is great at building relationships and connections. 

I made a mental note to always follow my curiosity and then asked her how she thought new writers improve. I was thrilled to hear that experimentation and exploring new publishing platforms were her top tips (I ticked them off in my mind). And then she told me “be a good literary citizen and you will have good publishing karma.” Eg. supporting other writers and being a helpful part of the writing community.

I suddenly felt that urgent feeling you get when you realise you’ve left the oven on. I’ve been so caught up with asking others for help and writing for myself that that I have completely neglected this aspect of being a writer. I made another mental note (this time in big red metaphorical letters to address this in next month’s theme). 

Lastly I asked for a story prompt and she gave me a devilishly tricky but fantastic prompt. She said “play with something on the edge of meaning, something readers can all interpret differently and read into individually.”

Well, it took me a few solid hours and a lot of staring at the screen to come up with something I was happy with. And that turned out to be nonsense: I decided to make up some of my own words so that you can imagine your own meanings and be part of creating the story. 

Ravenosity had got the better of her. She inhauled whole chaoters of brainfillers, but they weavled their way inside and laid sparkpods in her extrapolatory. They grew into huge solidicals that gunked up her percepilators. Now she pictuments differently; defracted forever but able to unmuck new jointuns.

To find out more about Meg, please go to: http://wp.me/oBwP

Today’s prompt another from Cinnamon. “Echoing Halls” My brain feels a little bit broken today so it’s only a sentence. 

The King never listened and the Queen hated repeating herself, so she built chambers that echoed to teach him.

Cinnamon gave me “the sound of boredom” 

Horace considers himself an amateur recluse. He wanted to be a professional recluse, but that would imply he was staying in to perfect a fine art. Instead he stayed in to avoid people. Occasionally, he would play the trumpet to ease the boredom. He didn’t want to get lessons, so he taught himself.

During his practice sessions the villagers would sidle up to the windows and listen. Word spread quickly and he acquired a cult following. Bus loads of people would turn up in the hopes of hearing him through the walls.

Horace was becoming increasingly confused. He wanted to ask them why they were coming? It couldn’t be to to hear his random toots (he still hadn’t got past Trumpet for beginners on YouTube). Eventually he worked up the courage to ask the growing crowd. It turned out they thought he was recluse musician, pioneering a new genre of abstract jazz.

The beast lolloped through toward her. Anxiety wept from its pores spilling onto the carpet and the stink of desperation filled the foyer. It lifted a paw to bat away the stray concepts buzzing around its head. She held her breath as it came to a stop in front of her desk.

“I’ve lost my references,” it howled.

“Take a seat,” she said calmly opening tabs like shields and drawing up the database like a sword.

Librarians are highly skilled when it comes to taming wild students. 

I decided to ask a Librarian for a prompt, given they are the guardians of thousands of stories. At first, like most people she drew a blank. But soon she came up with “meltdown & students,” laughing and explaining they get a lot of that at the help desk. 

“Patience” is today’s prompt as given to me by my mentor and mum Sue Wright. She said a mentor of hers taught her the art of patience. 

Scars and a docked tail etched the dog’s upbringing onto it’s body. The woman read the story as she watched it’s small frame quaking in the corner of the room. 

From that night onward their routine was set, always staring cautiously from opposite corners. The woman never cracked but eventually the dog inched closer. Each night he would settle himself just a margin closer to her than the last.

Now the two are old. They’ve never touched, but the dog follows by her side wherever she goes. 

In the spirit of mentor march I decided to ask my nanna for some words. She is the fastest reader on the planet, and loves stories. She gave me “essential existence.”

The boy’s racking cough echoed through the ward. Pamela tried to hide her shaking hands as she hooked him up to an air mask. Her first week at the hospital was not proving easy. Tears were welling in the mother’s eyes.

“Is he going to be alright?”

“Yes, 90% of our patients are pollution sufferers.” Pam replied trying to sound reassuring. “Most people just need a few hours break in the air bar.”

“I should have worked that overtime,” the mother said. “I could have gotten him more bottles of essential existence.”

“Mum, we needed the money for food,” said the boy. “Please don’t cry.”

Pam watched the two embrace, and thought about her own family. Her parents had paid for an in-home Essential Existence air system. But working in the emergency ward she could see most people were not so lucky.

Pam looked out the window. The smog was fairly sparse today, she could almost see the Essential Existence office in the next street.

“I’l be right back,” Pam said.

She hurried to the staff room, flung open her locker and emptied it of bottled Essential Existence. They deserved it more than she did. It wasn’t a smart solution but it was the only thing that would make this day bearable.

I asked my dad for a prompt- he looked at the sky and said “Red clouds.”

Clouds soaked in red sun

A quiet time to reflect

The sky my mentor

It’s my 100th story today! It was somewhat anticlimactic to write it at work in my lunch break. Thanks to my boss Rob who I asked to give me two words for my story- he replied “super hero.”

He gave me 100 days to live. I spent the first 99 wallowing, with only movies for company. Reality was distant and the characters became my teachers. 

On the last day, I decided to live out a childhood dream. I’d already regressed this far, so why not? 

Armed with only a costume and a wasted body I hit the streets looking for a damsel in distress. Unfortunately I only found a drunk old man. As I heroically saved him from his own vomit, I heard a voice.

“Hey, poofta!”

I woke up in hospital the next day, to the sound of a TV news report. 

“The city’s superhero is said to be in a stable condition.”

A picture of me in my hand sewn superhero onesie stared back at me from the screen. I’d made it. I’d lived past the hundred days the palm reader had given me, and now I was a bonefide superhero as well.

Prompt: (unfortunately not from a stranger today) “with all these musical gifts passed on to me…” 

With all these musical gifts passed on to me, I decided to lock them up.

I saved them for a rainy day. 

So when it poured; music would rush through the gutters.

It would soak into people’s clothes,

And stain their vision so they didn’t see the rain anymore.

I bought a new bag today, after I’d paid I asked the girl for two words to write today’s story. It wasn’t even scary at all. She said ‘delightful’ and ‘sunshine’. 

The Sun was tired of burning. It itched and the noise was distracting. Alone and angry at the universe, it spent most of its time spitting flames at passing rocks. One day, a neighbouring star told the Sun that thousands of tiny creatures depended on those flames. As it thought about this the burning cooled and the itch stopped. The Sun renamed the flames ‘sunshine’.

*WARNING NOT A ZOMBIE STORY*

Yesterday a woman sat down next to me on the bus and started a polite conversation. As it went along a thought hit me, I could ask this stranger for an idea. There was a lull in conversation: this was my chance. And I don’t know if it was because I’m introverted or shy or lazy, but I said nothing.

The longer I left it, the more my mouth felt as if it was glued shut. I found myself repeating my starting line over and over in my head. Then finally, I spat it out and asking was easy. She turned out to be a creative writing teacher for people with mental health problems, so I’ve taken that as my prompt. 

It was as if the city had been sleeping for years and had just woken up. The nightmare had been violent and the memories were still vivid. Peace felt surreal and people wandered aimlessly through its streets looking for lost loved ones. Tourists labelled it the “zombie town”, scared of its tortured citizens. 

So the Mayor bought paper in bulk and ordered every person to spill their thoughts onto it. Then she folded them up and posted them across the world, so their burden could be shared.

The zombie town was no more. The people felt understood and their problems seemed distant. 

Tanwyn posted a link to “20 Terrifying 2 Sentence Horror Stories” on my facebook the other day (http://www.mandatory.com/2014/02/21/20-terrifying-two-sentence-horror-stories/). 

I think my favourite was no. 13 from JustAnotherMuffledVo:

I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.”

So I decided to use these stories and writers as my inspiration/mentors and write my own 2 sentence horror today.

My profanity echoes around the lift as it shudders, stuck between floors. I lean against its mirrored wall in frustration and feel a cold hand grasp mine as my reflection smiles back at me.

Alright, throwback to India. During the wedding, we met this young girl (probably a future Bollywood star) who translated for us, taught us to dance and explained the Punjab customs. She was such a fantastic cultural guide, without her we would have been lost, so this story is about her.

Even though the crowd surrounded her, she was an outsider. Everything from the colour of her skin to the way she moved gave her away. Feeling a fraud, she copied their moves awkwardly.

Then a pair of eyes from the crowd caught her own, and she knew they understood. With a few explanations and a bit of encouragement, she didn’t feel a fraud anymore. 

Last day of fear Feb- so I’m gonna write about something that’s scaring me right now.

Her mind was an arid desert and thoughts slipped through her fingers like sand. She’d walked for months. She was sure she was making progress, but when she looked back she could still see her house. Her destination was so far away it was hidden by the horizon. Her optimism was fading like the sun.

She sat down in the sand and imagined the day when her supplies would run dry and her people would stop caring. It seemed inevitable on such a long journey. In fact she couldn’t believe they’d supported her this far. She was a fraud, and she would fail them in the end. 

Today I tried doing a scrabble/crossword story from the word FEAR. See if you can put it all together.

So just finished typing up all the stories from India and uploading the pictures here they are. Just a quick note before you read- I went to Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Alsisar and finally to a small village in Punjab for a friends wedding. 

Day 80 (15^th Feb)

On the first day we got into Delhi I completely forgot to take a picture of me with my story. My senses were overloaded as I ventured into the streets in a tuk tuk (pictured above- my face says it all). In retrospect, I think this goes with my story better anyway.

Following the crowd

Laying her belongings bare

Yonder an unknown world culture

Inside, a globalised no-man’s land full of loud carpet and duty free

Nothing sleeps; the days seem endless

Gathering her things, she leaves cultural ambiguity behind and is hit by the force the city

Day 81 (16^th Feb)

On this day I came to terms with the traffic as we made our way through Delhi and to the mini Taj.

Electric spider webs hung above his head and screeching noises pressed in on his ears. He took a deep breath of thick haze.

Colin, the Office Safety Manager, was experiencing his own personal nightmare as he looked out at the 16 lane mess of Delhi.

“Come sir, very safe,” the rickshaw driver was prompting him.

Colin had no choice. He dived into the sea of traffic and found if he didn’t struggle against the current it took him exactly where he wanted to go.

As every type of wheeled object whizzed past, he thought about his pages of rules and fine print at home. It suddenly seemed meaningless.

Day 82 (17^th Feb)

After seeing all these amazing monuments and temples and hearing the stories behind them it was impossible to resist trying to write my own story about a fake monument.

Sinda loved to laugh, though her mother told her not to, as it would spoil her perfect face with wrinkles. In fact most people in the village regarded her as the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. They told her it was a blessing, because she could capture the heart of a wealthy man.

Sure enough, one day King Vijay visited the village. He had heard of Sinda’s beauty and wanted it for his own. Determined to wed her, he asked her what she liked best.

“Laughing,” Sinda replied.

And so it was decided that Sinda would marry Vijay if he could make her laugh. Just a few months later, Vijay returned to collect her. He had built a temple for her in the city that he thought would make her laugh.

As she was escorted in, Sinda saw that shelves stuck out from every surface. They held small pots filled with different laughs. She opened a few and found a range guffaws, cackles, titters, giggles and wheezing. A smile spread across Sinda’s face and her laughter echoed around the chambers confirming the marriage.

Sinda did her best to be a good queen but she noticed that her people were unhappy. They had short tempers and never smiled at her. She payed for festivals and theatres to cheer them up but nothing helped.

Despairing, she took a small group into her laughter temple. They glared at her. She opened laugh after laugh and still they glared.

“Vijay took them from us,” said one, “why do you taunt us so?”

And suddenly Sinda realised why no one ever laughed.

Now the temple is a monument. A bowl sits at the centre and anyone who opens it can hear Vijay’s laugh. Thousands come from all around to hear it, and pay their respects to Queen Sinda who opened the temple to the people and returned laughter to the city.

Day 83 (18^th Feb)

Our lovely tour guide Yusuf gave me today’s prompt. He had told us an amazing story about his own arranged marriage and told me to write my own story about an arranged marriage.

Note* Astrology is incredibly important to Hindu’s so much so that they don’t marry if their star signs are not a good match.

They grew up together, and she had hopes they’d grow old together too. But he was engaged to another against his will. So she left the village and vowed never to enter an arranged marriage.

Soon enough her family called her back. Her mother was ill. Reluctantly she returned to find her mother looking perfectly well and clutching a photo of a man. Without looking, she tore up the photo and ran.

He found her in a neighbouring village. Childhood friends reunited. He told her how he had bribed the astrologer and gotten out of the engagement. Then handed her the torn photo. She pieced it together. It was him.

Day 84 (19^th Feb)

Two boys

Arm in arm

Became two warriors

Two husbands

Two fathers

Two leaders

And still they walk arm in arm

 

One day when war was upon them

They led a march to a strange land

Arm in arm

 

The strangers laughed

And told them they were not men

Because they walked arm in arm

So they challenged the strangers to a duel

 

And now the strange land is called home

And the mark of a fierce warrior is to march

Arm in arm

I saw so many men and little boys walking with their arms around each other as they chatted. It made me wonder why in Australia we would be so scared of this, it didn’t threaten anyone’s masculinity in India, why should it here?

Day 85 (20^th Feb)

I was quite stuck on this day, so I came up with this eventually.

Once there was a great story teller. The king heard about her and asked her to tell him the best story in the world.

So he sent her on a trip across the kingdom for inspiration. It was very different to her life back home where she worked tirelessly on her family’s farm and told tall tales for fun. She visited palaces, tasted the finest spices and met the richest people.

But the fear had set in and when she returned to the palace she had nothing. Desperately she cobbled together a story and told it to the king. But he just yawned, and asked the guards to imprison her.

In the years that followed something amazing happened. With nothing to look at but a stone wall, the story teller imagined the most epic tale. They say it took her a year to tell it to the guards, who were so impressed that they let her walk free. Unfortunately the king was so angry to find her cell empty that he executed the guards and never got to hear the greatest story in the world.

Day 86 (21^st Feb)

My sari for the wedding arrived on this day, so I wrote about a magical sari.

The princess had been told she was ugly by her father many times. At 15 when her mother died, she gave her a magical Sari. When she put it on, her features became beautiful and her figure looked perfect.

A year later her father passed away and being an only child she became Queen. She tried her utmost to rule fairly and wore the sari every day, concerned that if she didn’t her people would dislike her, just like her father.

But one day as she dried the Sari by the fire, a loose ember found its way to the silk. The sari was reduced to a small heap of ashes in seconds.

She faced the people that day, convinced that they would see her for what she truly was. But no-one blinked an eye. When she returned home for the day, she looked through her mother’s letters searching for answers.

She found a note from a tailor addressed to her mother that read:

I have made the Sari you asked for, it has been enchanted so that whoever wears it will see themselves as others do.

 

Day 87 (22^nd Feb)

Piles of plastic wrappers line the streets in India but I didn’t get a chance to take a photo near one so I went with the opposite. In this photo I am on a farm in rural Punjab, behind me is a gorgeous field of mustard.

Uncontainable

Suffocating the landscape

Dependant, I feed the beast

Day 88 (23^rd Feb)

Thousands of arms and legs pound the floor as the dragon moves. Carried in its clutches I struggle to break free but it’s futile. It walks across its carpet of treasure fiercely beating its chest. Its scales are blindingly sparkling and bright, and its breath is hot and spicy.

The dragon swallows me whole and I find that in fact it is warm and friendly inside. It is only fierce because it is proud, the scales are intricate and beautiful and its breath is new and fresh.

This story is a bit abstract but it is based on the wedding. Sikh weddings are quite intense, the crowd was huge (850 people) and they throw money on the ground (which gave me the dragon idea). There are drums everywhere, sparkles on everything, and the food is spicy. At first it was too overwhelming, but once I adjusted I found it was really fun and very interesting.

Day 89 (24^th Feb)

I stayed with a gorgeous family on a farm for the wedding, and I was terrified of being an ungrateful, culturally unaware guest

I fear disappointing others.

I fear being rude.

I fear embarrassment.

So I dance until I fear collapse.

Eat until I fear illness

And get involved until I fear losing myself

Day 90 (25^th Feb)

As an Australian in a small village in Punjab- expect to be treated a little like royalty or a doll. It was quite bizarre and inspired to think about how a doll might feel. I wrote this on the plane from Delhi to Singapore- sorry the photo is so dark.

Once there was a doll. She was dragged around everywhere, showed off to strangers and locked away at the end of every day. So one night, she escaped. She didn’t want to be an object anymore.

I just got home! I’m quite jet-lagged so I’ll catch up with uploading my stories from India tomorrow. Here is today’s though! The photo is of my hands after getting Henna from the lovely family I stayed with.

She’d explored abandoned palaces hidden in dust

Communicated in foreign tongue and dance

Weaved through chaos

And tattooed the tale on her hands

For she feared when she got home

The knowledge would vanish

And the memories would become empty anecdotes

Dredged up only to impress others at parties

 

The phrase ‘Dream Farming’ came up in conversation this morning, so that’s what today’s prompt is. I am going to India in a few hours so this will be the last story I upload for 2 weeks. I’ll still be writing, and will take a photo of me and my story wherever I am on my travels to upload when I get back. See you soon!

The giant bags under her eyes looked as though they were carrying her guilt. The past year had been hard for Rosie. She was a dream farmer by birth. It was a meticulous craft only mastered by the finest artists. Her grandmother had taught her how to produce the finest quality crops. They had been the most prosperous farm in the district.

Imagination and ambition grew in excess on earth back then, but last year had been so barren Rosie’s crops had spoilt. She had scraped through the year by selling off the nightmares to a dodgy looking spirit.

Rosie had never imagined she would be in the nightmare industry. Wild nightmares would creep in through her windows at night and she would dream of the poor restless humans who had been given her spoilt crop.  

One night, after a particularly haunting nightmare involving her grandmother, Rosie decided she had to change things. She forced herself to write down hundreds of cheerful and wondrous thoughts. It was slow work at first, but eventually they came naturally. She cut them up and planted each one in the rotation cloud beds.

To her surprise they began to grow. Word slowly spread, and rich spirits began to flock the farm, bidding ridiculous prices. Rosie took the highest bid and used the money to run classes for the neighbouring farmers. The more farmers she taught, the easier it was to farm good dreams. And the more good dreams they sold to earth, the easier it was to find imagination and ambition. 

The conversation I imagine goes on in my body as I begin a speech.

“Sir? We’re losing her. Her eyes are glazing over.”

“Alright, administer shot of adrenaline.”

“Administering shot.”

“Dilate the Blood vessels.”

“Blood flowing.”

“It’s spreading.Repeat, the blush is spreading from neck to face.”

“Perfect, that should help her through the speech.”

“Anything else we can do sir? Quivering hands? Constrict the throat? Press on the bladder”

“Good thinking, we’ve saved her.”

The words in brackets explain what the phobia is of (eg. theophobic- fear of religion)

 

I’m having Theophobic (religion) thoughts.  

I can’t stop thinking about the power religion wields.

I see it breed homophobia,

Promote gynophobia (women),

Grow Hedonophobia (pleasure),

Nurture Epistemophobia (knowledge),

And generate Cenophobia (new things).

Perhaps it is born from Eleutherophobia (freedom);

Our need to have rules and guidance.

Maybe I need to rid myself of Optophobia (opening one’s eyes)

And take a look at the positive side.

I had incredible writers block today but finally extracted this. I then slipped it in with my ballot paper today whilst voting in the by-election.

The people were divided. They were taught to fear each other. They got their information from leaders who feared honesty and reporters who feared low ratings. Strangers from across the water were locked up, new sources of energy were ignored, and people who loved regardless of gender were shunned. They were offered a chance to change things. But familiarity always won and so things stayed the same.  

Another photo. Another story. And some more fear. 

 

Sarah,

I cleaned out dad’s house today. It was eerie being back. Vera still lives next door. She’s not as creepy as I remember her being. She gave me this photo of the place from when we were kids ‘to remember happier times’. It still looks the same. Do you remember we used to call it ‘the asylum’?

x James

Alex, a friend I made at the National Young Writers Fest last year, posted me an envelope full of photos she found in a book shop the other day to use as prompts. This is the first photo and the first story:

Neil holds his fear in his hand. The tiny picture makes his insides feel empty; a clash of anxiety and nostalgia. He remembers climbing onto the fence and smiling at the camera. He tries recalling the carefree attitude he had at the time, but the moment is now so far away. It had been the last time his family was together, after that he was forced to grow up fast. He feels cheated, but then he has an idea. He walks out of the nursing home and climbs the patio banister.

“What are you doing up there?” a nurse asks him.

“I thought it might be fun,” Neil answers.

 He smiles, and it’s the same smile he remembers donning all those years ago. 

There is no escape.

They cling to friends and family.

Small and inconspicuous.

Lined up in army-like rows.

Staying close to the chest.

Right by the heart.

They seal you in.

Fiddly and frustrating.

I cannot escape buttons.

 

‘The fear of buttons’ donated by Kait Moncrieff.