Old Dog, New Tricks

This weeks' story is my oldest one: Old Dog, New Tricks. [652 words]

I wrote it 10 years ago, in 2004, when I was living in Exeter after I'd graduated. I'd decided to become a writer and, stupidly, ignored ALL advise and charged straight into writing a novel. 

It didn't work out at all, I got increasingly annoyed with it and it was obvious I didn't know what I was doing... I was working 50+ hours at a horrible kitchen and would stay up late after getting home to write and because it wasn't going well I was getting very depressed. A friend of mine (a girl) had really annoyed me and I went out for a walk at about 2 in the morning and argued with her in my mind and came up with this story idea, a really short one, about being in a relationship with someone that you hate and acting maliciously instead of being honest. I got home and immediately bashed it out and in the 10 years since haven't had to change a single word of it!

Obviously, it's very short. I wrote it like that because I wanted to get the idea out quickly whilst I was angry and when I read it back through I really liked how short it was. I came up with an idea- I couldn't write, that was obvious, I didn't know how. I needed to learn. So I decided to begin writing short stories to teach myself the skill- each story would have a rule that had to be followed; write only in the first person, tell a story all in someones thoughts, write something entirely in speech marks, etc. 

In the end I wrote 20 stories and several of those will be made available over the coming weeks. They taught me a huge amount about writing, even if I thought no one would read them. I dumped my novel I had been trying and started something new and it was a completely different experience to write...

So I hope you enjoy this one, remember that it ISN'T autobiographical in any way, and please feel free to feedback as you like!

B A Jones 17/03/2014