Week 9 Assignment – BLOG WRITING: a week of blog entries as a creative writing exercise in itself, developing existing piece as longer assignment if preferred.
He was standing in line, waiting to use the cashpoint- just outside the shopping centre. He was getting some money out to do some Christmas shopping. He had his card in his hand, ready to use.
John usually hated queuing but strangely, he didn’t feel nervous today. Eventually it was his turn, he stepped forward to put his card in but it wouldn’t go in. He then realised that the person before him hadn’t removed their card, and it was still on the menu screen. The ‘on screen balance’ button was staring at him. He couldn’t help himself.
He pressed the button. After a second, the screen came up. £17,040 CR. His eyes lit up but his heart sank, he knew he couldn’t, but he was so tempted. His hand, as if uncontrolled by his brain, pressed the ‘cash withdrawal’ button.
‘£50 won’t hurt them’ he said to himself.
He pocketed the money, took the card out and delivered it to lost and found in the shopping centre.
these three vignettes are very strong – do consider developing/revising them for submission. The fact that it doesn’t matter which order one reads them in is clever, and means the blog structure doesn’t ruin everything. Building a character’s personality and ‘moral framework’ from these moments is a clever ruse, as is using real life incidents that we can all identify with or imagine happening to us. Careful with spelling – withdrawal, eg. (spellchecker in wordpress is useful…). Also moral and morale are rather different things – easy slip to make. Do consider putting this work (revised) into your portfolio.
Katharine