Shed Lit
My short story The Shed, from 29 Ways to Drown, is mentioned on shedworking.co.uk – a website and magazine devoted to outdoor offices and dwellings. The photos and articles are delightfully inventive, ranging from tiny phonebox sizes to massive garden structures, some as big as my entire house! Go take a look. They’ll make you wish you had one of your own.
When we first moved here, I tried writing in our shed. It’s an old one with spiders: a grim and dusty place - nothing at all like the photos on Shedworking. Nonetheless, I settled in with a few notebooks. It was going quite well for a while, but then came the non-stop rain. I tried to concentrate, but all I could hear was the sound of it on the roof. Then the leaking began. Then the wind. I sat there huddled in my chair, listening to it howl and imagining the roof was going to fly off. I decamped to our kitchen, which was warm, lovely and close to the food.
My husband tried his hand at the shed. He did no better and became obsessed with writing a story about a man who spends all his time writing in a shed. He would run in every few hours and read me his new version, which in reality was the same story told over and over again.
At the end, his main character, driven crazy by the repetitive sound, kills his wife and stores her body in the shed. Boy was I was glad when he gave up writing it! Our shed was like that hotel from The Shining. It now holds suitcases and garden tools. Although in summer, when it’s sunny and flowers are in bloom, I’m tempted to try again.”
Filed under: 29 Ways to Drown, Short Stories
