 | I don't recall when I first tasted avocado. It might have been as a starter in the kind of restaurant that thinks it's sophisticated to use the term hors d'oeuvre. For a while, I regularly added a pack to my supermarket trolley until the millennials got a taste for avocado on toast. Although I don't object to being on trend occasionally, it makes it hard to eat ethically where we have to import them: I don't want to be responsible for the loss of rainforests to get my fix. |
That's only partly why I struggled to respond to this week's flash fiction challenge. I've also been mega busy running my first book giveaway promotion and responding to my publisher's edits of my forthcoming novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, about a brother and sister separated for fifty years against the backdrop of the longstay psychiatric hospital closures . Most of those edits were straightforward agree/disagree, but a couple required some extra thought. Might Matty's nickname for a fellow patient have an extra connotation I hadn't intended? Could I move a section from a quarter-point chapter right to the front?
When I can't easily find a 99-word story to fit the prompt, it often helps to have a further constraint from the book I'm reviewing or something I've recently – or less recently – written myself. I vaguely recalled placing an avocado bathroom suite in my second novel, Underneath, about a man who seeks to resolve a relationship crisis by keeping a woman captive in a cellar and, tramping the fields this morning, I thought I might pair it with my character Matty's possible reaction to being served food she'd never heard of in her childhood almost a century ago.
But I've got to the stage as an author where I forget what I've written. (Let's hope it's because my publication list's growing rather than something more sinister.) In the process of composing my opening paragraph I recalled that I do have a short story about the West's insistence on year-round availability of produce we can't grow ourselves. Although it doesn't mention avocados specifically, I could make sure the 99-word version does. If you have a spare twenty minutes, you can check it against the published version even if you don’t have a copy of my short story collection, Becoming Someone, on the theme of identity, as I recorded it for a local green festival when it had to move online.
When I can't easily find a 99-word story to fit the prompt, it often helps to have a further constraint from the book I'm reviewing or something I've recently – or less recently – written myself. I vaguely recalled placing an avocado bathroom suite in my second novel, Underneath, about a man who seeks to resolve a relationship crisis by keeping a woman captive in a cellar and, tramping the fields this morning, I thought I might pair it with my character Matty's possible reaction to being served food she'd never heard of in her childhood almost a century ago.
But I've got to the stage as an author where I forget what I've written. (Let's hope it's because my publication list's growing rather than something more sinister.) In the process of composing my opening paragraph I recalled that I do have a short story about the West's insistence on year-round availability of produce we can't grow ourselves. Although it doesn't mention avocados specifically, I could make sure the 99-word version does. If you have a spare twenty minutes, you can check it against the published version even if you don’t have a copy of my short story collection, Becoming Someone, on the theme of identity, as I recorded it for a local green festival when it had to move online.
Nothing about avocados in my debut novel, but it does connect with 99! The number of pence my publisher's reduced the e-book to; it might not be as neat in other currencies but it's still a flash sale for the end of our giveaway (closes tomorrow November 18). Click the left button to go to the Inspired Quill website. If you're not buying, do click the right button as I'm rather proud of the new landing page I've put together. But beware, you might need sunglasses!
Haunted by her carbon footprint
Selena thought they resembled hand grenades, but beneath the toady carapace the flesh was melt-in-the-mouth divine. Yes, the price had doubled recently, but avocado on toast would set her up for a successful day.
Three packets in her trolley, she moved on to the bakery counter. Turning her head, a trail of sooty footprints marked her path from the greengrocery section. Yet the soles of her shoes were pristine.
With a sigh, she retraced her steps. She knew the drill. She could scrub the floor she'd sullied. Or return the airfreighted produce that depleted the rainforests to the shelf.
Selena thought they resembled hand grenades, but beneath the toady carapace the flesh was melt-in-the-mouth divine. Yes, the price had doubled recently, but avocado on toast would set her up for a successful day.
Three packets in her trolley, she moved on to the bakery counter. Turning her head, a trail of sooty footprints marked her path from the greengrocery section. Yet the soles of her shoes were pristine.
With a sigh, she retraced her steps. She knew the drill. She could scrub the floor she'd sullied. Or return the airfreighted produce that depleted the rainforests to the shelf.
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