Clár Ní Chonghaile's Blog

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

(Emily Dickinson, ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers)

January is, somewhat paradoxically, not a great month for hope. It should be. In many cultures, it marks the start of a new year – what better time for a pulsating sense of potential? Here is a new blank page waiting for your masterful re-design. All you have to do is pick up the pen.

But here in the Northern Hemisphere, everything conspires to crush those feathers – it’s cold, it’s grey, it’s bleak. Spring feels so far away even if the boldest of the daffodils are daring to push above the damp, mulch-covered earth.

January feels like a month of Sundays. In my experience, it’s the month when bathrooms flood on exorbitantly priced weekend days, car engines rattle into silence, boilers fizzle to a halt.

(Good things can occasionally happen – my youngest daughter was born on January 23, and my brother on January 28 and they are delights but the exception only really proves the rule.)

How bitter then to also lose your job in January? Which is what happened to my colleagues and I (and scores of others in so many organisations as news becomes a litmus test of the power of tech and populist politics to shrink the world we see).

Now, I find myself scouring LinkedIn and questioning all my life’s choices (damn you, AI). But I can’t bring myself to feel too sad because in the grand scheme of things, I only deserve the tiniest of violins.

Consider these things (I know I do):

My 21-year-old daughter is looking for her first full-time job since graduating with first-class honours in Philosophy. She has applied for scores of entry-level jobs, desperately trying to ignore the Candidates who clicked apply number as it steadily ticks higher. (Side note: Do we really need this, LinkedIn? What purpose does it serve other than to deepen despair in our already battered young people?)

I have searched for words of comfort as she tearfully tells me she thinks she might never get a job. I don’t like to lie and so my attempts to offer solace are as weak as the January sunlight. I know of graduates who have been searching for more than a year. My heart breaks for her and her peers. I am ashamed of my pity – because what children need from parents is not pity, but answers. I have none of those because the ground is shifting under my feet even as I find myself in the same position as her – just at the opposite end of the employment spectrum.

How can I indulge in self-pity in a world where so many millions face lives of such existential horror? I’ve been around a long time and I have always been wary of those who proclaim ‘things have never been this bad’ but now, I don’t know. Maybe things have never been so bad in my lifetime, at least. It feels as though the very tenets of what it means to be human are being called into question. From the slaughter in Gaza, to the wars in Sudan and Ukraine, the brutal killing of protesters in Iran, ICE abuses in the United States, the deadly toll of wildfires, heat, drought and floods across the planet, not to mention the rise of AI.

These are dark times and they have brought forth dark leaders intent on securing power by sucking all the light of righteousness and dignity and democracy and rule of law out of the world. It is an odd thing to fear, really fear, the future. As a mother, it can paralyse. Or push you to do more exercise, to cut the booze, to save the pennies because you need to live long and strong and solid so you can help your children weather whatever is coming. But then you never know – Fate is fickle and so you fall into fear again with questions forming whirlpools in your brain in the dead hours of the night: How will they survive? Who will help them? Are they strong enough for the mess that is coming, the mess we created?

And even as I worry about whether I will ever work again – really work – I know I am one of the lucky ones. I have had a great career. Eclectic yes, but fun, fascinating and fulfilling.

I started in journalism before the Internet was a thing. I went to a place, spoke to people, wrote the best, most accurate story I could and sent it out to the world. I didn’t have to worry about updating my socials, building my brand. I was not the story. The story was the story.

Now, you will tell me that journalists then were in an ivory tower, divorced from the people who read the news, gatekeepers to information. You can make your own judgments. I didn’t feel like a gatekeeper. I felt like I was opening the gate. Opening eyes. Opening lines of communication. I miss those days. I am also lucky because my husband has a job. My job loss is not an existential crisis for me though it may strike like one in the quiet places of my soul.

I am deeply upset that the news service I joined as an editor just over a year ago is closing. I am upset for my colleagues, team members, the freelancers I worked with and for the people whose stories they told with such passion. I’ve never truly believed news was a commodity, never bought into the idea that you should report for clicks because that just plays into the hands of those who want some stories to stay in the darkness – and these are the same people defining the parametres of what we should know and what we should care about today. The people who say they are expanding our horizons as they tighten the screw to shrink our world, byte by byte.

I understand the reality of the now, the financial pressures, the fracturing of attention, the pollution of info-tainment, the march of AI. But we should never forget that we can decide what is important, what it is worth spending money on, and why.

It’s not always – or just – a question of budgets, though of course they are important. It’s also, always, a question of will. A question of deciding what’s important, what counts in a world where the most powerful forces of the techno-political nexus want to decide what you know and what you see because that is the ultimate form of control. George Orwell is on everyone’s minds these cold, dark days. It turns out he just got the year wrong.

But despite it all, I choose to nurture the thing with feathers.

Hopefully, my daughter will find a job. Hopefully, I will find a job.

Hopefully, the forces of right and light will prevail over authoritarian impunity. Hopefully, the stories that need to be told will still be told. Because that is what bearing witness means.

Afterall, the daffodils are pushing through. And the snowdrops. And here, too, come our daughters and sons, blossoming in all their beauty, uncurling their infinite potential to turn this world around.

#OnAir now… It's my pleasure to welcome Clár Ní Chonghaile (@clarnic) to Hannah's Bookshelf. #interview #localradio pic.twitter.com/6N6jwQeEsR

— Hannah Kate (@HannahKateish) March 9, 2024

I was delighted to get a chance to talk all things books and writing with Hannah Kate on Hannah’s Bookshelf, a weekly literature show on North Manchester FM.

The show was broadcast on Saturday, March 9, but if you missed it and fancy listening to me talking about my newest book, No Good Deed, as well as my other three novels — Fractured, Rain Falls on Everyone, and The Reckoning — and the themes that inspire me you can listen back here: https://www.mixcloud.com/Hannahs_Bookshelf/hannahs-bookshelf-with-special-guest-clár-ní-chonghaile-09032024/

Hannah’s Bookshelf is a really fabulous show: as well as interesting chat, there is great music interspersed throughout. I was thrilled to hear the first song chosen by Hannah for our conversation was The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys, a song I have always loved and that has a special link to the place where I grew up.

In 1988, the Waterboys spent six months in An Spidéal, my home town in County Galway. They stayed in the Big House, or Buckleys, at the end of our road as they recorded part of their Fisherman’s Blues album. My classmates at Coláiste Chroí Mhuire even interviewed singer Mike Scott for that year’s edition of the school magazine — Meascán.

In the interview, Mike Scott said that he was walking down a street in New York and saw the moon and thought of those classic lines: “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon”. The rest is history. Here’s a picture of the very youthful Mike Scott at our school, and a picture of the interview, as Gaeilge go deimhin.

Writer and blogger Sarah Tinsley was kind enough to host me on her blog this week and let me blather on about No Good Deed. You can check out the post here and please do explore the rest of her website — she does some really interesting things for writers.

I told Sarah about the trip I made to the Central African Republic in 2016 and how it inspired me to write this novel; I talked about why I decided to self-publish this time after publishing my three previous books with a traditional publisher; and I discussed why this book is particularly important to me. She was kind enough to describe No Good Deed as “a tightly strung, powerful book”.

It was so generous of Sarah to offer me this opportunity — she has been wonderfully supportive of my writing over the years. The work of booklovers like Sarah — people who take the time to read your book, ask thoughtful questions and then spread the word — is so important. Not only because it helps raise a book’s profile but also because it gives us writers a boost, filling us with the courage to face that blank page once again, to dare to create new worlds and new stories.

So I just wanted to say thank you very much to Sarah, and all the writers, readers and book bloggers who make this all worth while. Our festive goldie Simba says thank you too!

Writer and blogger Sarah Tinsley was kind enough to host me on her blog this week and let me blather on about No Good Deed. You can check out the post here and please do explore the rest of her website — she does some really interesting things for writers.

I told Sarah about the trip I made to the Central African Republic in 2016 and how it inspired me to write this novel; I talked about why I decided to self-publish this time after publishing my three previous books with a traditional publisher; and I discussed why this book is particularly important to me. She was kind enough to describe No Good Deed as “a tightly strung, powerful book”.

It was so generous of Sarah to offer me this opportunity — she has been wonderfully supportive of my writing over the years. The work of booklovers like Sarah — people who take the time to read your book, ask thoughtful questions and then spread the word — is so important. Not only because it helps raise a book’s profile but also because it gives us writers a boost, filling us with the courage to face that blank page once again, to dare to create new worlds and new stories.

So I just wanted to say thank you very much to Sarah, and all the writers, readers and book bloggers who make this all worth while. Our festive goldie Simba says thank you too!

(This is the end note in my newly published book, No Good Deed and it is my attempt to engage with a sometimes fraught debate about what writers should write.)

Every book is a labour of love (Lord knows most of us are not in it for the money!) but this one has a special place in my heart. I started writing it just before lockdown began here in the UK in 2020. It was a fearful, terrifying time when everything we thought we knew was turned on its head. Our two teenage daughters were stuck at home, along with my journalist husband. Suddenly, all the things that used to feed our souls and enrich our lives were dangerous — the very air we breathed was potentially toxic. So I buried myself in my writing but, as any author will tell you, writing a novel is in no way a soothing pastime. And I was more nervous than usual, even before Covid upended our lives. I had published three novels previously but my publisher seemed underwhelmed by my ideas for a fourth. I made a few false starts — an idea would surface, I’d be fired with enthusiasm and I’d bang out 10,000 words. But then I would be overcome by doubts and I would grind to a soul-crushing halt.
Until I began to hear Aristide talking in my head, and then the story came alive.
I had travelled to Central African Republic in 2016 to write stories for The Guardian and I was deeply moved by the children and teenagers I met. Some had been child soldiers, some were students, all had experienced more of life’s sorrows than most of us will, thankfully, ever know as they were swept up in a sectarian conflict – known as bira in the Sango language – that broadly pitted Muslims against Christians and animists, but which was really about economic and political exclusion after decades of misgovernance and instability.

The memory of one 12-year-old girl haunted me: as she told me how she was raped by a rebel fighter in Bossangoa when she was just 10, her little feet swung back and forth. She was sitting on a wooden bench and was too small to reach the floor. She was the same age as my eldest daughter at the time.
In that same school building, I also interviewed boys who had joined militias to protect their villages from rebels, or to take revenge for the deaths of family members. Boys like Aristide. Many of his experiences are based on the interviews I did in that school.
One 16-year-old boy told me: “We didn’t use weapons, we just had pieces of wood. We went with the older ones onto the battlefield and when someone was shot and dying, we would go and finish him off, and get the weapon.”
What I learned during that trip, and through the research I did afterwards, informed the story I have told within these pages.
Like Elodie, I did hear a gunfight outside my hotel on the day I arrived in Bangui. It was not nearly as dramatic, although I have experienced other gunfights when I lived and worked in Ivory Coast during its civil war and when I covered the war in Liberia in the early 2000s. Like Elodie, I got caught in the most torrential of downpours while trying to find my car and driver after an interview.
While in Bangui, I visited the camp at M’Poko airport where about 20,000 displaced people were living in shelters made from corrugated iron, tarpaulins or wood.
I tried to recreate what I saw and heard to be true to the place and the context. And then I let my characters tell their stories.
I realise there is a vigorous and entirely justified debate in publishing about the need for diversity and authentic voices. I couldn’t agree more. We do need more storytellers from all corners of the world, we need more stories, we need to hear more voices, all the voices. This has long been my passion: it was because I wanted to hear those other stories that I left Ireland and became a journalist all those years ago.
But I do not believe it is a zero sum game, and I will always defend a fiction writer’s right to let their imagination roam free, spanning continents, experiences and lives, opening doors and smashing down the barriers that seek to diminish our shared humanity by emphasising what separates us, rather than what unites us.
Fiction is one of the most powerful antidotes to the othering that characterises so much of our modern discourse. Fiction combats that noxious impulse by taking us into other lives, by drawing us into other stories, by expanding the horizons of our worlds beyond our mere lived experience.
I fear that in our justified determination to promote diversity, we may have inadvertently placed new limits on the imagination. Surely, that cannot be right. Of course, authors have a duty to treat their subject matter with care, to eschew ill-informed stereotypes, to avoid the trite and the banal, to research the setting and the context of the story, as well as the background and experiences of the characters. But you must do that anyway if you hope to be truthful to your story. It is the only non-negotiable.
Because the story you tell is the one that only you can tell. It does not purport to be The Story about anything. It is just A Story and as such it must be truthful: truthful to your vision, the characters and the setting as they are in your imagination. Fiction enables us to rise above the simplistic notion that the only truth we can know or understand is the truth of our own lives, where we live, the colour of our skin, the jobs we have, the people we love. What an impoverished imaginative existence that implies. What a bleak and reductive outlook on the world. I like to think humanity has a shared truth and it cannot be found on the surface of life but exists on a deeper, more profound level, in the place where the personal becomes the universal because our essential humanity is universal.

If you enjoyed No Good Deed perhaps you would like to check out one of my other novels: Fractured, Rain Falls on Everyone and The Reckoning.

Hey,

Just popping in to say that No Good Deed is now on NetGalley for any story-starved reviewers out there. Just click on the link below to be taken to its page. Thanks in advance to all who read it.

https://www.netgalley.com/widget/504680/redeem/ec2958527508e2b96f5278a0e1b3b17c91d11a205d118ae36451e52fbd5abae7

Here’s the blurb again:

Elodie Harptree comes to war-torn Central African Republic on a mission: she will do good, help former child soldiers and prove that she is not afraid to live and love. Doctor PJ Wilcox dismisses her as a naïve tourist but he can’t help feeling protective towards the new arrival. One day, Elodie meets 14-year-old Aristide Yambissi, who was forced to fight with a militia after his village was attacked, and she resolves to save him from the streets and from his demons. But her blind inexperience and her relationship with a French mercenary with dubious connections will endanger them all, raising the question of whether anyone can ever save anyone else.

Happy Reading!

Hi there,

Here is a free preview of my new book, No Good Deed, which is available now as an e-book on Amazon. It’s a thriller and love story and it’s set in Central African Republic.

Here’s the blurb: Elodie Harptree comes to war-torn Central African Republic on a mission: she will do good, help former child soldiers and prove that she is not afraid to live and love. Doctor PJ Wilcox dismisses her as a naïve tourist but he can’t help feeling protective towards the new arrival. One day, Elodie meets 14-year-old Aristide Yambissi, who was forced to fight with a militia after his village was attacked, and she resolves to save him from the streets and from his demons. But her blind inexperience and her relationship with a French mercenary with dubious connections will endanger them all, raising the question of whether anyone can ever save anyone else.

This book has been a long time in the making, and it has a special place in my heart. It was inspired by a 2016 trip I made to Central African Republic and by the people I met there. Thanks in advance to anyone who decides to spend a while with Elodie, PJ and Aristide.

For a bit more on the story: check out this blogpost that Mairéad Hearne was kind enough to post on her fabulous blog, Swirl and Thread.

[image error]

Well, here we are, lads! If you’d told me in March that we’d still be struggling with this dreadful pandemic as the nights draw in, I would’ve most likely cried. Good job I was still an optimist back then.

It’s been a shocker of a year, worst for some than for others, for sure. I’m just grateful that our loved ones are well, that we are still (mostly) sane and that we still find solace in each other (my teenagers might say there’s been a little too much parental solace but there you go.)

So, in the spirit of thanksgiving and to mark the start of December, my birthday month and my favourite month of the year, I’m giving away a bundle of my books over on Instagram (clarnichonghaile).

Here’s a bit more about them:

Fractured: “A layered, textured, whole-hearted novel that will stay with me for a long time.”—Léan Cullinan, author of The Living;

Rain Falls on Everyone: ‘As worlds collide, a gripping story of belonging, identity, memory, culpability and forgiveness unfolds, creating a poignant and profound novel for our times.’ Deborah Andrews;

The Reckoning: ‘Ní Chonghaile is a writer who knows her subject matter inside out. At times philosophical, in parts emotional, The Reckoning is a great example of how a natural storyteller can take a genre and make it their own’ Daniel Seery, author of A Model Partner. 

So if you fancy these, here’s what you have to do.

Go to my Instagram profile, follow me, like the post, tag two friends in the comments and … cross your fingers! The giveaway will run til 11.59 pm on Monday, November 30 and I will announce the winner in the comments.

Open to anyone 18 or older, anywhere. This giveaway is not affiliated with Instagram in any way.

Best of luck everyone!

[image error]

For many years, I’ve had an on-off, love/hate relationship with running. As a teen, I used to jog from our house to the bog in Spiddal, puffing my way up steep hills, past reeks of turf and on to the dump where under cover of darkness people disposed of their fridges, bits of cars, and other rubbish. Once, I took part in a two-mile road race and for the life of me, I can’t remember why. I hated running and this was in the days before Spotify and podcasts. I didn’t even have a Walkman. I was pretty sporty though — I played camogie and basketball — so I needed to be fit and I was also, more importantly, terrified of anyone in authority. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was a doormat. When I was told to join the cross-country running team at school, I did. (The same thing happened when I was told to take up cello lessons — the orchestra needed another cello and I was deemed a perfect candidate in the sense that I could never say no. I did, however, enjoy playing the cello.)

Since then, I’ve taken up running dozens of times. I’ve had gym memberships in Paris, London, Nairobi and Dakar. I never went regularly enough to really get my money’s worth and at some point, the novelty would wear off and I would revert to my natural state of book-loving, TV-addicted couch potato. I ran for a while in Abidjan but then a civil war intervened and I was too busy to jog. I ran in Dakar to try and lose my pregnancy weight but the guilt, the guilt! Leaving my child at home to sweat on a treadmill. I’d burn in hell for my self-serving vanity, surely.

I started running in Kenya for possibly the silliest reason of all. During the rainy season, it gets very cold in Nairobi and houses that are built for heat turn into damp, draughty dungeons. I was working at home — writing my first novel — and I just couldn’t bear it. I decided I had to get my blood moving. So I started to run. It was hell. Nairobi is 1,795 metres above sea level and the air is very thin. And I am a smoker. I puffed like a train around the back of my girls’ school, barely managing 1 km before collapsing. But I kept at it and when we moved back to London and my runs offered respite from tough commutes, office politics and the daily pressures of life in a bustling, expensive city. When I’d come home from work and start ranting and raving about slights, real and imagined, housework not done, clothes not ironed, my husband would say: “Do you want to go for a run, dear?” Of course, I was furious. Of course, I went, cursing his condescension all the way around Primrose Hill. Of course, he was right.

And now, many years later, in our new home of St Albans, I think I can finally call myself a runner. This year, I set myself a challenge. Well, my phone app did really. You vs The Year. Could I run 1,020 km in 2020? It turns out I could. Last week, I reached that fabled number with more than 100 days still in the tank. 

[image error]

 
 
Of course, running is the 2020 trend. We’ve got to stay healthy, we’ve got to stay sane and sure, there’s nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. And running has helped me to keep insanity at bay because it gives me a (perhaps false) sense of control. It’s something positive I can do to strengthen my lungs and my body and my mind as we all deal with a horrible virus that has poisoned the very air we breathe.
 
It has to be said that the middle-aged runner is a bit of a cliché and I do wonder sometimes if there is something a little tragic about a 47-year-old woman puffing her way around the streets of St Albans, down to the Cathedral, around the lake in Verulamium and then out onto Holywell Hill (because there is no way I am going up the hill to the Cathedral). What am I searching for? Eternal youth? Is this a mutton-dressed-as-lamb situation? My daughters would say my running gear certainly verges on the tragic. 
But if a middle-aged runner is a bit of a cliché then I have another one for you: the running writer, or writerly runner, if you prefer. It’s all true: running does help you solve plot points; it does fill the well so that you can tackle that tricky chapter with more verve when you return; it fires synapses that had turned sluggish as you slouched on the couch, typing with one finger and deleting with two. It also helps to dispel the rage that builds when you realise that your morning’s work bears little or no resemblance to the sweeping epic/moving elegy for times long past/literary masterpiece/artful depiction of love and loss that you described so eloquently after your fourth glass of wine the night before. 
You can read a lot of wiser articles about the almost magical synergy between writing and running — I for one am going to dig our Murakami’s book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running — but there is also this New Yorker article by the author from 2008, which is worth a look. 
Here, I thought I would list some of the podcasts that kept me going over those 1,020 km. I cannot run in silence. Afterall, I am running to get away from my thoughts, to silence them enough to allow my subconscious to get on with the critical work of turning my scattered musings into something coherent that might have a place outside my head. I should also confess that after years of laughing at people with funny white tails hanging from their ears, my AirPods are now one of my most prized possessions, so much so that I broke out in a cold sweat the one time I lent them to my teenage daughter. 
So, if you are a writer, or you are curious about the writing process, or indeed curious about life, check out some of these wonderful podcasts. They got me from A to B and beyond:
 
The Honest Authors podcast: Best-selling authors Gillian McAllister and Holly Seddon discuss the truth about being an author and interview authors, agents and many more for expert insight. Listening to this podcast is like hanging out with good friends. I love the informality but I have also learned so much from the interviews. 
Writers’ Routine: Every week, host Dan Simpson talks to an author about their routine, their work, their inspiration and the tricks of the trade they use to plot and publish a bestseller. This is a great resource because these writers really break down the process, talking honestly and openly about how they get from an idea to a final draft. It’s a great pick-me-up for those days when you think you should really have worked harder at maths in school.
 
So You Want To Be A Writer with Valerie Khoo and Allison Tait : Presented by Australian authors and journalists Valerie Khoo and Allison Tait, this podcast is packed with book trends, competitions, useful links and the incredibly popular Word of the Week feature (which always makes me laugh). Again, it’s like hanging out with friends. I love the dynamic between Al and Val, and their interviews with authors are invariably inspiring. I’m also a sucker for Australian accents. I blame Hugh Jackman. 
How Do You Cope With Elis and John: Elis James and John Robins talk to a range of guests about the challenges and hurdles they’ve faced in their own lives, whilst asking the question… How Do You Cope? Now, I’m a late convert to BBC Radio 5 Live. For years, I thought it was all about sports but now I listen to it all the time. Elis and John are two of my favourite presenters — quirky, irreverent and I’m a sucker for a Welsh accent too. This feels like the perfect pandemic podcast: wise words and hard-won wisdom from people who have coped with some of life’s toughest challenges, from life as an overworked doctor, to a loved one’s suicide to chronic insomnia. 
The Michelle Obama podcast: The Michelle Obama Podcast features the former First Lady diving deep into conversations with loved ones—family, friends, and colleagues—on the relationships in our lives that make us who we are. I could listen to Michelle Obama’s voice all day: calm, funny, and warm. This podcast also appeals to the feminist nosy parker in me — a window on the world of one of the world’s most powerful women. What’s not to like. And the advice is thoughtful and always relevant. 
So there you go: some of the shows that have got me through 1,020 km in 2020. I do sometimes succumb to listening to the news but that just makes my blood boil and I’m not sure that’s great for a woman of my age and delicate mental state. In any case, I plan to keep running, right through to the end of this shocker of a year.
I’m taking a break right now though because … and this is perhaps the most embarrassing revelation of all: I seem to have busted my back by simply sitting on a bench and watching a hockey match last weekend. I did also carry my daughter’s hockey bag home afterwards but I can hardly blame that as I have regularly upbraided her for whinging about how heavy it is and how she can’t possibly be expected to walk to the hockey grounds, which are a mere 20 minutes from our house. Nice to know whoever’s running the show has a sense of humour.
 
 
 
 

[image error]

I don’t have a problem maintaining my distance from people when I run. That’s because I sound like a train — an old steam train with creaky wheels, sputtering smokestacks and clattering carriages. Pedestrians hear me coming from miles away and swiftly step out of the way. I’m not surprised; whenever my earphones fail, or the connection drops on my phone, I am appalled by the symphonic range of my laboured breathing.

To avoid this horror, I listen to podcasts when I run. One of my favourites is So You Want To Be A Writer, presented by Valerie Khoo and Allison Tait. Valerie is an author, journalist and national director of the Australian Writers’ Centre and Allison is an Australian freelance writer, blogger and author, with more than 20 years’ professional writing experience. She is also a presenter at the Australian Writers’ Centre.

I’m a sucker for the Australian accent and I love the dynamic between Val and Al. The podcast is full of Really Useful Information about competitions and trends as well as inspirational interviews with authors of all genres. They have a Facebook community too, if you fancy checking that out.

It was while I was choo-chooing my way around my 5-km run that I heard Val and Al talk about the Furious Fiction competition run by the Australian Writers’ Centre. The premise is wonderfully simple: on the first weekend of every month, you get a prompt and a few simple instructions and you then have 55 hours to produce 500 words, or less, to be in with a chance of winning 500 Australian dollars.

I decided to give it a go. I’m wrestling with my fourth novel at the moment and I cling to the belief that that any extra writing done to take a break from that mammoth and often frustrating task can only be good. (Others might call it procrastination. I call it honing my skills.)

The criteria for July were as follows: Each story had to take place at either WEDDING or a FUNERAL; Each story had to include something being cut;  Each story had to include the words “UNDER”, “OVER” and “BETWEEN”.

I really enjoyed taking part. 500 words is a decent chunk of text; you can really get your teeth into a story with that amount of lovely letters. But it’s not too long to be intimidating. The time limit also means that your novel procrastination doesn’t turn into perfection-seeking postponement. You get your head down, you get writing, you get done and you submit.

Needless to say, I did not place on the long or short lists. Check out the stories that did here and you’ll see why; some great, funny, moving writing to be enjoyed.

But, here is my story anyway. It’s a bit lighter than my usual fare. I had fun with it. And what more can you ask for. I thoroughly recommend the Furious Fiction competition if you need a little writing workout. And the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast if you want to be inspired to write as well as to puff your way through that final gruelling kilometre.

Wallflowers

Blow me down but the bride’s mother doesn’t look happy. Face like the back of a bus under that crazy hat. The groom’s mother, though; she’s chosen well. Tidy green pillbox. Very nice. I consider myself a bit of an expert on wedding hats now.

I’m in my usual pew in the alcove to the right of the altar. No one ever sits here during weddings. Too far from the action. But the view is great. You can see everything.

Today, I see the bride glance a little too quickly at a man in the fifth row as she glides like a swan down the aisle, all the effort hidden under her bell-shaped skirt. I see the mother’s pursed mouth tighten a notch. I see that the bride’s father doesn’t take his wife’s hand as he steps into the pew after handing his daughter over. He leaves a good two feet between them. The space fizzes like the air after a downpour.

The bride’s dress is nice enough. I wouldn’t be seen dead in it myself but it would’ve looked good on you, Marianne. A scoop neck and long lace sleeves; a thin silver sash above the princess skirt. You would’ve begged me to let you wear something like this. I would’ve said yes. Anything for you and it was only ever in our heads anyway. I would’ve worn a black fedora. In for a penny.

The priest arrives. He greets the congregation in English and Irish but the ceremony will be in English. It always is. Did I ever tell you, Marianne, that the Irish word for wedding is ‘bainis’? It sounds a bit like banish. Bet that makes you laugh.

They’re doing the readings. I feel my eyelids drooping. That’s the problem with getting older. So little time left and you’re dozing through half of it. I always wake up before the kiss though. That’s the best bit. If a bride and groom are eating the faces off each other, I’d put money on a divorce. Trying to prove a point to themselves as much as to everyone else. Not a good sign.

This couple keeps it classic. On the lips, mind, but definitely no tongues. I’m still a tad worried about her little eye-shuffle though.

And that’s it. More or less on time, thank goodness. I’ve a funeral in the next parish this afternoon so I’d better get moving. It’s an old man today so there’ll be no drama but still, beggars can’t be choosers. And I do like to keep busy.

I slip out, tying my scarf around my hair. At the side door, I take the little scissors from my pocket and snip a spray of purple wallflowers from the flower arrangement. Your favourite, Marianne. I’ll pop into you on my way home later. The bus takes me right past the graveyard so it’s no bother at all. We’ll have a proper chat then and I’ll tell you all about that monstrous hat.