Much water (some of it tears) has passed under the bridge since I last posted 15 months ago, but also much laughter, hard work, writing progress and joy too. I’m currently away in Rome with my youngest son, Harry, which may seem like a strange time to reinstate this blog, but being away from home and all my responsibilities and the fact that I have a cool, third-story room overlooking a busy market side-street on the outskirts of the centre of Rome where traders are calling and bustling and the sound of the busy city is rising in through my open window mingled with the scents of over-ripe fruit and strong coffee, make it feel like the perfect opportunity to pick this up again. And anyway, I feel I really should punch some life back into this comatose space now my forthcoming, and (dare I humble-brag), award winning novella-in-flash is about to be published in time for the Flash Festival by the wonderful Ad Hoc Fiction. Also-also Harry has found himself a local(ish) gym for the time he’s here and is off working out and I have a summer cold so its nice to just sit and tap and take my time to truly enjoy the process of writing without fear or favour or anything at stake – just for the pleasure of it, like I used to.

The last few years of trying to care, organise and mentor for aged relies within a denuded NHS brought to its knees by underinvestment, have been wrought with worry, anxiety and frustration. Hours and hours of hanging on phones for doctors, hospitals, care homes have taken their toll, along with days spent filling in forms, arguing the toss, crying in waiting rooms for unfulfilled prescriptions often for vital repeat meds like ventolin or insulin where every interaction has felt like going to war, and when I’ve had to make complaint after complaint, even write to my MP just to get baseline service provision that would have been standard and taken for granted before this coven of self-interested anti-politicians lied their way into power. I’m not blaming the staff, they try their best and often feel as powerless as the patients in this crazy world of system-based decision making where if the system says no, they’re not allowed to over-ride it even if they think they should.

Anyhoo, suffice it say that it’s been exhausting, draining and upsetting, and makes me proper grateful to be able to sit here tapping away absolved of it all. It’s been almost impossible to write much during these hard 15 months – the most difficult time in my writing journey so far, but I didn’t not write entirely. I re-sequenced, re-entitled and added to, a collection of related flashes that I’d entered into the Bath Novella-in-flash comp in 2021. Back then it longlisted which made me think it was getting there, so I took my time strengthening the narrative arc, balancing tragedy with hope and a little bit of comedy, and was made-up to win this year’s comp with my newly renamed novella-in-flash, A Learning Curve.

I also revisited some old drafts of short stories and rewrote one of them to become Eternal Now and the Frailty of Human Perception which I entered into the first Curae prize. This seemed like a really positive thing to do as Curae is for carers and boy did I need to inject some positive energy into my caring journey. I cried when I was shortlisted which is weird because I’ve been shortlisted ALOT but, because this story is tied up in the complicated and emotion-filled gordian knot that my caring journey has so far been, it seemed to mean so much more. I didn’t win, but the prizes for short-listees are incredible: meetings with industry professionals, one to ones with agented best-selling authors, publication in a beautiful anthology published by Renard Press, free attendance at the Cheshire Novel Prize Summer School and being part of a new community of writer-carers made up of both shortlisted and highly-commended writers in the comp. Everyone in the community ‘gets’ what we all go through, and its such a relief that the back stories bubbling behind each one of us is understood, believed and empathised with.

The originator of this prize, herself a writer-carer is Anna Vaught, an amazing women/force of nature who manages not to be ground down by the relentless crapness of service provision right now which often seems to be for display purposes only in that when you try to access it not only are doors firmly closed but when finally-finally you prise them open there’s nothing behind them – well not for months or years even. Anna, in the face of this stays motivated, shouts out her journey and keeps right on keeping on. I’m so grateful for the whole Curae journey which is teaching me soo much and it feels fab to be on a real-life learning curve again which is, I reckon, another reason why I’ve got my blogging mojo back.

But enough, for now at least. Don’t want to bust my flush first day out, so by way of winding up, here are some photos of me and Harry travelling to and wandering round Rome yesterday with this year’s Flash Fiction Anthology published by National Flash Fiction Day GB. Tomorrow is National Flash Fiction Day so to celebrate, I’m taking the anthology, in which I have a micro that was highly commended in the NFFD 2023 comp, on tour. So far it’s been to Stansted, the Colosseum and The Forum, and this aftie it’s going to the Pantheon and tonight to the Auditorium Parco della Musica to hear Ludovico Einaudi play the piano, which is the reason for us being here in the first place, a birthday pressie from Harry.

May well blog again tomoz when the Flash flood is up and Harry’s working out. I’ve got a micro – an actual, unpublished new one up around midday. Happy Flash Fiction Day eve writer peeps. It feels so good to be back.