Day 1: A Ray of Sunshine by Glynis Scrivens

What gave you the idea for Baubles story?

This story had its origins one morning when I found an orange on the floor next to the toilet. And then I found an eye staring up at me from the bathroom floor.

There could only be one culprit, our delightful granddaughter Avery who lives with us. Living with a three-year-old brings constant surprises and incongruities. There’s something very nice about opening a cupboard to get a mug and finding a toy whale looking back at you from the shelf.

How would you describe your normal style of writing?

I suppose my writing reflects me. Lots of different interests and moods. Shades and colours. I enjoy writing short dark suspenseful stories, inspired by reading Henning Mankell. Yet I also enjoy writing slightly old-fashioned romances for Scandinavian magazines – Jane Austen meets chick lit. On any given day my style can be literary, light, dark, descriptive or stark. Just like my life. A tapestry.

Have you published other material?

I write short stories for women’s magazines and have recently celebrated selling my 400^th story. My markets are in Australia, UK, Scandinavia, South Africa and occasionally the US. Alongside fiction I enjoy writing feature articles and interviews for magazines such as Writers’ Forum and Ireland’s Own.

Edit is a Four-Letter Word is my first book.

Do you have a writing routine?

“Whenever I can find the time” is as close as I’ve come to a writing routine this year. I suppose a lot of my writing gets done after my morning coffee or else late afternoon when I can’t stand the idea of waking up next day without having written anything.

The word “routine” flew out the window when our granddaughter was born. Making the most of my reduced free time seems surprisingly productive. I no longer have time to waste.

Do you have a favourite place for writing?

Lucy

I write almost anywhere, so long as there is an open view. We have a beach house on the Sunshine Coast. I often write at the wooden table in the outside area, my kelpie Lucy keeping me company. I couldn’t write in a closed-in room. There’d have to be at least a big window to gaze out.

Tell something quirky about you.

I need to be surrounded by life in all its fullness. Our quarter acre block is full of palm trees, tropical ferns, bougainvillea, fruit trees. You name it. We have ducks waddling around the garden, chickens free ranging, two dogs getting up to mischief, a cat, lorikeets, and all the natural fauna here – fruit bats, ring tail possums, blue tongue lizards, brush turkeys.

Some of my companions: 

You can learn more about me and get in touch at www.glynisscrivens.com/wp 

An extract from A Ray of Sunshine

 

There’s an orange on the floor in the cloakroom. And[G1]  when I went into the bathroom to wash my hands, a large toy eye stared up at me from the tiled terracotta floor. It belongs to an octopus we made from an old T-shirt. The octopus, though much admired, didn’t survive its first bath-time adventure.

The sight of these random objects in incongruous places has become the norm. What is unusual is to find anything where it actually belongs.

Take the egg-slice, for example. Until this week it’s led a mundane existence, alternating between the container on the bench top and the dishwasher. When I needed it Tuesday, to turn over two eggs, it was conspicuously absent.

Not lost, of course. Everything is found, eventually. And the egg-slice mysteriously reappeared in a toy box on Thursday, none the worse for its adventure.

I wish I could say I’m also none the worse, but I’d be lying. Being sleep-deprived has never brought out my better nature. Neither has the need to read the same book aloud twenty times. Yes, twenty. I’m not sure why but yesterday I counted.

Outside, the rain teams down into the garden, which is already a bog from last week’s rain. And the week before.

I look out the bathroom window at the bedraggled remains of my lilies and roses. They thrived initially but then the soggy soil couldn’t hold the lilies upright, and the roses quietly pined for sunshine.

Just like me.

Outside the kettle comes to the boil. I walk quietly down the hall to the kitchen. Careful not to walk on a toy car. My elbow is still recovering from yesterday’s impromptu skating display. As is my rear end.

I was the only one who didn’t see the funny side. It’s hard to feel amused when your tailbone sends out shooting pain and you have trouble getting up from the floor. Well perhaps it was a bit funny. But as I lift the kettle and pour water into my mug, my elbow reminds me yet again of its presence.

Elbows aren’t something I’m usually conscious of. Like tail bones, they’re largely forgotten until something goes wrong.

I stir and prod the teabag, conscious that it’s already seven o’clock. These precious minutes of peace are unexpected. If only I can sit down and drink my tea uninterrupted…

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Day 21: Heart to Heart by Glynis Scrivens

Glynis Scrivens sends us some interesting links to her blog. 

Blog: I should be writing 15 August 2015  - http://lynnehackles.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/edit-is-four-letter-word.html

Blog: A likely story 21 August 2015  - http://teresaashby.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/edit-is-four-letter-word.html

Blog: Susan Jane Jones’s Blog – Writing and doodling about things I like 25 August 2015  - https://susanjanejones.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/welcome-glynis-scrivens/

Newsletter 2: Iain Pattison – 1 October 2015  - http://www.iainpattison.co.uk/?wysija-page=1&controller=email&action=view&email_id=39&wysijap=subscriptions-2&user_id=54

Blog: womagwriter 12 November 2015 -http://womagwriter.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/interview-with-womagwriter-glynis.html

And her favourite place to write:  

An extract from  Heat to Heart

Brenda glanced nervously at her watch. Three o’clock. Her daughter Alice would be here any moment. She hadn’t seen her for nearly twelve months. Was it really that long ago that Alice had stormed off, to live with her aunt in Surrey? Originally it was to be for a week, but her aunt had needed a hip replacement and Alice had offered to stay and help. Then she’d found a job locally.

The odd postcard had arrived, with snippets of news, and they’d exchanged birthday presents, but Brenda hadn’t really felt they’d communicated. Not until last night’s phone call when Alice had said she was driving up to see her. There’d been a wariness and tension in Alice’s voice when she’d phoned her, but something else as well.

Was it possible after all this time that Alice too was hoping to find a bridge to link their troubled hearts?

She looked at the quilted wall hanging, which she’d made in the weeks after Alice had moved out. When her own heart had ached and swelled with grief.

A car pulled up outside. Brenda wiped the palms of her hands onto her jeans.

The first thing she noticed about Alice as she walked up the driveway was her hair. It was blonde, just as it had been when she was young. She stood by the window to watch the sunlight glinting off her daughter’s hair.

Somehow she’d never got used to seeing Alice with black hair. Never understood the need to cover up who she was.

Alice had always covered things up. That’d been the problem.

And Brenda had never really felt able to deal with the sorry situations that’d resulted.

Maybe the blonde hair was a reflection of other changes? A small ray of hope entered her heart.      

The doorbell rang, and Brenda hurried down the hall.

She clasped Alice in her arms. “I love your hair,” she managed.

Alice shrugged. “I wanted a change.” Her voice was subdued.

Brenda led her into the kitchen. She knew Alice hated any kind of fuss, so she started to make coffee. She’d let her daughter do the talking. It’d be silly to get the visit off on the wrong footing after all this time. She’d never quite known what to say to her, even now.

Alice sat down at the wooden table and looked around.

Brenda carefully measured the coffee beans into her old-fashioned grinder. It looked as though it belonged in another century. To a time when people weren’t always in a hurry. When there was time for families to sit around the kitchen table and sort out their differences. When people spent more time simply talking to each other. And listening. That’s why she’d bought it, when she’d seen it in the charity shop. To remind herself to walk through time, not run.

About the author 

Glynis Scrivens writes short stories, and has been published in Australia, UK, Ireland, South Africa, US and Scandinavia.  She writes for Writers' Forum (UK), and has had articles in The New Writer, Pets, Steam Railway, Ireland's Own, and Writing magazine. Her work has appeared in seven anthologies. She lives in Brisbane with her family and a menagerie of hens, ducks, dogs, lorikeets, and a cat called Myrtle. Her first book Edit is a Four-Letter Word was published by John Hunt in 2015. Her website is at

http://www.glynisscrivens.com/wp