Encounter on the Platform - A Short Story

A small moment, waiting for a train, in the cold at Bedminster Station today sparked this story. 

Small stories are everywhere... 

 

  

Encounter on the Platform 

I love these crisp, still, winter mornings… leaving the house in the dark, not so much.

    As I make my way across the platform to claim a seat in the shelter, there’s only a scattering of people at this quiet, suburban station at such an ungodly hour. 

    Just as my spot on the bench warms up, I’m forced to shuffle over and make room for one more. A small woman, she’s dressed head to toe in black, hooded by a chunky knitted hat, face pallid in the blue light of approaching dawn.

    She sits close, so close we share the same pocket of icy air. She reaches down into her ample handbag. I expect her to take out a phone - all the other commuters are in their e-bubbles - instead, she takes out a small, battered, hardback book. Curious, I peer over her shoulder. The typeface cramped on the tissue paper thin pages. 

    Psalms.

    Her lips flutter as she absorbs and silently recites the words. She raises her eyes ahead to the tree-line, my gaze follows. 

    A watercolour wash of pink seeps up the trunks. 

    She drops the book into her bag, an urgency in the motion. Next, she takes out a small tube of what looks like hand cream. I notice the number 50 shouting from the label. 

    She squirts a liberal dollop of the cream into her hand and fiercely rubs it onto her cheeks, along her neck, and over her hands, coating every inch of her exposed flesh.

    The rails rattle and whirr, lights slowly swell on the horizon. Phones are stowed, seats abandoned, what seemed like a sparse gathering of passengers, morphs into a thick snake along the yellow line.

    The lady in black gets up and lifts her bag. It’s only then I notice she’s dropped the bookmark from her New Testament. I bend down to pick it up.

    “Excuse me?”

    She turns, our eyes connect.

    “You dropped this!”

    I hold out the bookmark, blink twice, not sure I’ve read the logo on the bookmark correctly: ‘Nosferatu Anonymous’.

    She thanks me with a nod, a soft smile drawing her lips away from startlingly serrated teeth.

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What's in a Name?

There's a long tradition of author's writing under an assumed name.

We do this for many reasons, for example: to remain anonymous, to hide our gender, to distinguish between genre's... we all have our reasons.

Mathematician, Charles Dodson, wrote one of my favourite books of all time in a name for which he is better known: Lewis Caroll.

I loved 'Alice in Wonderland', at one stage as a child I learned the words to the 'Jabberwocky' by heart...

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

...such a fantastical piece of writing made all the better by virtue of the fact that in true Shakespearean tradition, Carroll made up many of the words.



Another of my favourite authors, Stephen King, published four novels as Richard Bachman. He was such a prolific writer that his publishers didn't think readers would be willing to buy more than one novel a year by a single author. He was quickly outed because his distinctive voice as an author rang loud and clear through the books.

Being an author has been my dream since I was a child. I remember daydreaming of seeing my name printed on the spine of my own books.

When I wrote the Sheridan And Blake Adventure Series, there was never a question in my mind that I'd publish them in my maiden name.

In my head, as a child, 'Fitzjohn' was a very authory name! 

That little girl, with crazy dreams of being an author, still jumps for joy whenever she picks up one of those books!

But there is more to it than that...

I have childhood memories of hours spent in dusty libraries and registry offices while my dad studied microfiches, books, historic documents and parish records to trace our family tree. I'm showing my age here, but the internet didn't exist then!

I don't have any children and I'm now married. Therefore, my lineage as a Fitzjohn ended on 16th June 2004 (my wedding anniversary).

Being such an unusual name, I wanted to keep the 'Fitzjohn' name as part of that family legacy, and what better way than to do so through literature.

In the front of all my books is this dedication:

There is also a 21st century advantage to an unusual name; if you type Amy Fitzjohn into Google it's just me.

Once I'd decided I would use the Fitzjohn name, I toyed with the idea of using initials 'A C Fitzjohn' - that way my gender doesn't matter. Whether we realise it or not, we make unconscious judgements about a book when the author is female. 

In the adventure/thriller genre especially, there are very few female authors. 

At first, I thought it would put me at a disadvantage to make it obvious that I was female, however, ultimately, I decided that I didn't want to hide that I was one of very few female authors in this genre. 

I wanted to be a pioneering female in a male dominated genre, so I went with my name and middle initial instead.

So what about you?

If you published a book, would you use a 'nom de plume', and why?

If you enjoy my blogs, say thank you by keeping me fuelled with coffee.

£2.50 / $3 will get me a cappuccino! Thanks :)

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A Peek at Insta-wonderland

In my years of working as a trainer, I know that everyone learns in different ways. Without boring you with all that 'leaning styles' academia, I can tell you that I have a preference for visual learning.

It means that I learn by watching things, I then like to record it in writing and act on it. That's my methodical process. If I can't watch something I'll settle for reading about it, but I like pictures, flowcharts and diagrams to help my brain put the words into context.

Here's a neat little online test to find out what your preferred learning style is:
http://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/

In my fiction writing this manifests itself as a 'cinematic' experience when reading my books in the Sheridan and Blake Series.

It also means that my ultimate dream would be to have my books made into a film, which is part of my motivation for wanting to at least do my own book trailer.

I wrote about my experience of creating a book trailer a few weeks back, read about it HERE.

The concept of the trailer is the 'investigation wall' in Tom Sheridan's office at The Agency (as featured in The Bronze Box).

I've spent weeks collecting newspaper cuttings, pictures, maps etc. to put the web together.

With such a rich vein of visual content opening up, this seemed like a good time to delve into the world of Instagram.

It does irritate me that I can only use it on mobile or my tablet. Call me old fashioned, but I rather like my PC with its two big screens and that old fashioned bit of kit with actual buttons on it called a 'keyboard'. However, I am persevering. Here's my bookish little wobderland on instgram for Amy C Fitzjohn:

Amy on Instagram

What images would you like to see on my Instagram for an isight into my world as a writer?

 

Say Hello to Amy C Fitzjohn, Author...

I first started blogging in 2013 – here’s my first ever blog post.

It was just a hello, with some sketches from an idea about a buzzing, clicking, squeaking robot that generates ideas in little puffs of smoke, grab them quick before they dissipate. 

My second blog was a snapshot, another random idea:

A Head Full of Popcorn 

Take a handful of popcorn corn, throw it into a pan and see it scatter.

 
Some of the corn will pop and settle.

 
Some will pop and fly out of the pan, forever lost down the back of the cooker.

 
Some will just smoulder and burn and smell bad.

 
Some will stubbornly refuse to do anything, no matter how many times you try to cook them. 

 
You can take a handful and enjoy it, but there will always be a few that taste funny or didn't pop properly.

 
That's how I would describe the way my brain works - I just have a head full of popcorn! 

 

What started as a way to explore ideas, evolved into a 365 ‘Operation Author’ project and later became:

Idea’ism = The syndrome of having too many ideas

My mewsings have been more and more writing related so it seems like the time to just call this what it is… this is the home of author, Amy C Fitzjohn.

I've come full circle, when I first started blogging it was in my guise as an author...

 

I’ve been writing all my life, ever since I was old enough to string a sentence together. 

I’ve always been a storyteller, and would make up stories to tell my younger brother and sister when we were kids. 

I officially started making money from my stories when I published The Bronze Box in 2013. 

Since then I’ve completed the Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series. 

I now have 4 fiction books published as Amy C Fitzjohn (my maiden name) and a growing portfolio of non-fiction business books in my married name Amy Morse.

I've taken all the lessons I've learned in the last three years of blogging and compiled them into my latest non-ficiton book:

Blogging for Business

I've just started writing my next fiction book 'Finding the Scream'.

I'll keep you updated on progress but for now, I've set up a Pinterest board to start collecting research links