Getting creative with The Writing Workshop

Number four on my summer to do list reads: 'Get a head start on my Master's work, start writing'. I am in week three of my six week holiday and pen hasn't touched paper as yet.

Whilst reading through some peoples' entries for this week's Gallery I came across something called The Writing Workshop and thought I'd give it a try in an attempt to blow away those literary cobwebs and fire up my creative cylinders again.

One of the five prompts was fate so I thought I'd attempt to write a piece based loosely (sort of) on reality. This is not at all how JB and I found love, I mean who really would find love over a fated meeting at the photocopier? ;o)

Soulmate

The bell that signalled lunchtime sounded through the corridors of the school. 8E, who had prematurely packed away their books much to their teacher’s annoyance, waited eagerly at the classroom door for the nod. This nod, they knew, granted them silent permission to open the door of the classroom and begin their lunch break. Two minutes later, after an attempt to calm them before letting them lose on the canteen staff, thirty students spilled into the corridors like race horses just released from their trap.

Miss May, or Alice as she was known in the adult world, shut the door behind them. Calm ensued and only a distant rumbling of adolescent chatter broke the much welcomed peace. Alice quickly scanned the classroom and begun her routine check and tidy up of the room. She rescued the dictionary that had been abandoned on the floor. Its spine was broken, a few pages had come lose and she yet again grumbled to herself about the lack of care students took over books. With precision, she placed it back into its designated place on the bookshelf and turned to her paper laden desk. Before sitting down to actually eat anything there were jobs to do. As always it was jobs first and once they were done and only when they were done, could she relax and eat lunch. She gathered up the papers from her desk, including the opening paragraph to Jane Eyre, which was to be used for Year 10s lesson after lunch and set off for the photocopier.

The photocopier was located in another wing of the school; Geography and History wing to be precise. Alice was in luck, it was not in use so she quickly swiped her photocopying card and the machine whirled into action. Her stomach rumbled loudly and she silently cursed her ever increasing work-load. She probably wouldn’t even have ten minutes to cram a stale canteen sandwich down her throat at this rate, she thought.
‘Oi you, using all our paper.’
The voice shattered her thoughts. Behind her stood a smiling Mr Perry, a head of year and History teacher.

To say they were friends would be wrong; more like acquaintances, perhaps over the past school year they had had the occasional chat but nothing more however, as the copier churned out copy after copy of Jane Austen’s finest, the greatest cliché of them all was coming to life.

That lunchtime, Alice forgot all about her work load, her grumbling tummy and the year 10s. Instead she had talked about literature and writing with someone who loved those things just as much as she did. He shared her dreams too; a library adorned floor to ceiling with leather books. With a leather chair, he had added. And hot chocolate or a large glass of red, Alice said. A log fire in the winter - and even a cat. Maybe they… and the bell that signalled the beginning of the afternoon’s lessons rang through the corridor.

Alice had found love, or at the very least the beginnings of it, over the photocopier.