Wordland 5, edited by Terry Grimwood, has gone online. It includes a story I co-wrote with another Clockhouse London writer, Sandra Unerman.
The theme of the issue is True Love. We wanted to write a story about heartbreak and as a parent I think there’s no one can break your heart like your kids can. So we wrote a story about that.
It’s a very different kind of story for me, which betrays the fact that it’s probably more Sandra’s than mine. We brainstormed it together. Sandra wrote the first half in a wonderful medieval romantic style. I tried to write the second half in the same style. (If you’re familiar with my stories you will know that curly, lyrical prose is not my natural mode.) Then we took turns at editing.
It was an interesting process. Apart from the stylistic challenge, knowing that I had to stay true to the characters Sandra created, I found intimidating. I must have read the opening of the story twenty times before writing a word. Not to mention, writing endings has never been my favourite thing. But I think we got a nice story out of it, and it pushed me to places I wouldn’t normally go with my writing.
Wordland 5 also contains work by Douglas Thompson, Allen Ashley, Sarah Doyle, Mark Lewis, David Rix and a bunch of other talented bods. Have a look.