I think the genre is pub-fiction! 

You’ve probably guessed that I really enjoy writing here; I once mentioned that I’m hopeless at keeping a diary, and someone very kindly commented that much of what I write here is a diary. That’s true, but of course I share other things too, I ramble on about all sorts. I used to share all the short stories I write but I no longer do this – and for a particular reason.  For many writing competitions entries are for unpublished work, and by sharing stories here I am ‘publishing’ them. Well, I guess yes, technically I am, but I gain nothing from doing so (except enjoyment and meeting nice people!) I do try and promote my books of course, but I don’t enter them or parts of them in comps!

It was writing group today, and normally I would have put my effort here. The brief was to write exactly 1000 words, no more, no less, and as usually I misheard/misunderstood/wasn’t concentrating because I also thought we were to write in a genre we hadn’t used before. So I put my thinking cap on and tried to think of a new genre for me, but I have written so much and so many different sorts of stories that I struggled to think of a different way of writing, apart from the broadest fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction . I found a list of genres (Wikipedia, of course) and went through it.

I confess there were some I had never heard of, such as fabulation and Robinsonade (think Robinson Crusoe genre). There were some I couldn’t quite grasp, such as menippean and some I didn’t want to write in for various reasons, and some I wouldn’t mind having a go at but would need to do at least some research first. For example, having loved cowboy stories when I was a young child, I would be interested in trying to write one – but what a lot of background reading I would have to do! That idea will definitely go on the to-be-thought-about list, as well as maybe a boat/ship river/sea story.

I tried to write a pastoral story, channelling Laurie Lee and thinking of my mum and her sister when they were young, roaming round the Bedfordshire countryside in the 1930’s, and it definitely is something I want to write. However, there was no way I could squeeze it into 1000 words as what I wrote took flight in a good way and needs properly working on. In the end I did what I have done before, I did a word puzzle, an Octordle, and used the eight words of the answer to inspire a story. The result was what I think rgarding genre is pub-fiction! The words were local, elbow, trick, argue, bland, thick and undue, and the pub in question was the Mole Vole and Duck – with no commas because there is such a creature as a mole vole! For example there is the northern vole mole and the Transcaucasian mole vole, and others in the cricetidae family. 

For various reasons, mostly to do with holidays, quite a few of the group were away, so only five of us met but as usual the range of the stories was broad and the quality amazing. Smugglers, science fiction in its broadest sense,  an old lady whose memory and mind was failing and, in complete contrast, a serial killer! And my pub-fiction!