I attended a one day writing course a couple of years ago with the Australian Writers Centre and have toyed with the idea of writing a fiction novel and daring to get published ever since. I am starting to get serious about pursuing this dream goal as in recent months I have allowed characters and plots to start taking shape in my mind. Today I flexed my story telling muscles and completed a mini writing workout producing the result below. Wondering if the paragraphs below are any good. If worthy of readers out there the creative spurt below or an evolved version of it, may find its way into a full fiction novel…let’s see what happens as the creative juices flow. Can I do this? Time will tell I guess. I have to remind myself that ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.

It was the only class she excitedly awaited each week and having thirsted for it, she eagerly skipped into the classroom at the sound of the school bell after lunch recess on a Thursday afternoon. She wondered if the timetable for year six could be altered so that she did not have to wait till past the middle of the week. The wait was torturous but in her usual positive way she was grateful despite the arduous wait that her beloved English Literature class had finally arrived.

Doe eyed she sat in the hour long class hanging off every magical word spoken by learned and gentle Mrs Andrews. During the week prior, the class had collectively finished reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Catherine’s tragic plight had led her to shed tears. She felt their pain and lamented the misunderstandings that conspired to keep Heathcliffe and Catherine apart, the cruelty of societal class structures and the loss of a love that transcended their earthly selves. However the genre of gothic tragedy weighed heavily on young Ava’s mind and she was ready for the cerebral assault that was promised by the next classical literature selection of Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

‘Pride and Prejudice’ proved to be everything and more. It was the page turner Ava hoped it would be. Ava and her classmates took turns in reading the chapters out loud and discussed the characters and the content of each chapter over the course of three weeks. Ava was mesmerized by handsome Mr Darcy and envied Elizabeth Bennett. She had visions of Mr Darcy uttering those delectable words to her – “If however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.” Oh how different her world would be had she found her Mr Darcy. She came close once but duty to family and the pursuit of a career in marketing had intervened.

As she wondered if her Mr Darcy would ever find her or her him, a loud urgent knock on the door broke her fond reminisce of a time when she soaked up the literature classics, when she inhabited the world of her favourite characters and lived vicariously through them – characters that were the creations of authors Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austin, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. The cause of the interruption to her distant reverie was Ms Daily her diligent and prompt Executive Manager who came to remind her of her 9.30 am appointment with Mrs Jamieson the owner of an emerging wine company who wanted Ava and the genius talent she hired to work for her at her marketing firm EnvisionEdge to undertake a comprehensive branding and marketing campaign for a series of soon to be released moscatos and roses’ aimed at the female consumer. Ms Daily wore her auburn tresses in a slightly messy hair bun. She was impeccable in a chic houndstooth blazer, black wide leg trousers and two inch heeled-pumps. Although regretting the inconvenient interruption to her recall of a happy time, Ava knew this assignment was an important one. Just like the strong determined women from the English classics she so loved, She knew she had and would continue to forge paths to success for herself and the company she worked tirelessly to build from the ground up.