Introduction

The best place to start this blog lark is with a quick explanation of its title - why 'Scallops'?  
It came to me in a dream:  short stories are like scallops!  Similes and metaphors don't usually come to me in my sleep, I wish they did,  but on this occasion  I had watched rather too much of Hell's Kitchen before bedtime.  At some point, the wannabe chefs had competed to free perfect scallops from the gelatinous mass inside the shells. Craggy-faced Gordon was not pleased if any scallops had been spoiled in the process which, of course, most were.

A short story should also be small and perfectly formed:  it is the result of the skillful cutting down of a large, slippery concept in to a small, firm morsel of art.  As a writer still learning her craft, I know how easy it is to mutilate a good short story.  But I am hoping I'll get better with practice and - fingers crossed - that'll happen before my face turns too craggy...

Thursday, 27 January 2011

The Piano Returns

A few blog posts ago ('Piano Envy'), I talked about a wonderful short story of a man who throws his piano into the sea. So I was delighted to see on the BBC News website this week that a grand piano had mysteriously turned up on a sand bank off the coast of Miami.

The short video showed people speculating who put the piano there but I prefer to think it's the piano from the story. It's travelled around the world on the ocean currents and it's tired, it wants to settle down, it wants to be rescued from the sand bank, restored, and to return to a family home. I'm almost tempted to reclaim it myself...if not in reality, in a sequel to the original story.

But we all know most sequels are no good. If only the writer of the original were still with us...
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