The Family Tree by Isla Evans Page A

how’s this? When does work on the mediocre opus begin?’
    â€˜Ha, ha.’
    â€˜Mediocre opus,’ repeated Angie in low, sombre tones, as she sat down opposite Kate. ‘See, it’ll be your MO. And if you aim for mediocre, you can’t fail, can you?’
    â€˜Actually, yes. I could finish up with
below
average, or just plain lousy.’
    â€˜A real positive thinker, aren’t you?’
    Kate didn’t bother answering, instead she picked up her fork and began eating.
    â€˜So what’s your MO going to be about anyway?’
    Kate looked up. ‘I don’t really know yet.’
    â€˜No ideas at all? You’re just going to sit there and wait for divine inspiration?’
    â€˜Something like that.’
    â€˜Great plan.’
    â€˜I thought so.’
    Angie rolled her eyes and went back to concentrating on her meal. Kate popped a piece of chicken into her mouth and began chewing pensively. It
was
true that she didn’t know what she wanted to write, but it was also true that inspiration was one thing she had never had to worry about. Ideas about plots and characters and story-lines had always appeared, even at the most unlikely of times. Like while waiting in the car for the kids, or during rather average sex, or while reading through other people’s manuscripts. One of her most memorable had even come to her during the long and painful labour with Shelley. Something to do with a reproductive breakthrough that involved implanting the embryo just beneath the flat skin of a male stomach and then providing special medication that would enable the baby to grow steadily, until the male could no longer see his own toes, and then have the child burst forth. Sort of like that scene from the movie
Alien
, complete with all the screaming and wailing and rending of flesh.
    However, now that she really thought about it, when was the last time she had dashed off to write down a really great idea? When was the last time she’d reached out to grasp a half-baked notion, and then gradually fleshed it out until it throbbed with the oh-so-sweet promise of a fully fledged story? Kate thought, but wasn’t exactly sure, that it had been quite a while. And this realisation gave her a sense of righteousness over what she had done. It was a rescue mission, to peel away the layers built up over the years and uncover, once more, all those embryonic ideas that had been forced to lie dormant as her creative side had been smothered by everything else.
    Kate smiled to herself, both at this concept and its inherent melodrama. Then she let herself be warmed by the fact that tomorrow morning she would begin writing. A series of words that would turn into sentences and then paragraphs and then chapters. An achievement that would then raise her up and propel her forwards. And it didn’t matter that she hadn’t had an idea for a while, because the desire to write was still as strong as ever. So given the right circumstances, and these
were
the right circumstances, then inspiration would occur naturally. It was just a matter of sitting back and letting it come.

SEVEN
    Title

By KR Painter
    K ate stared at the cursor, which was blinking cheerfully two rows below her name while it waited for her to type something. Anything. She narrowed her eyes and quickly typed
Screw you, cursor
. The cursor paused as soon as she finished and, clearly not offended, immediately started blinking again from the edge of the full stop. Kate hit delete and erased her suggestion before it embedded itself like a virus. Then she put both elbows up onto the desk, lowered her chin into her cupped hands and went back to staring at the screen. It had been two and a half hours since she had called out goodbye to Angie and danced up the stairs to begin her career. Two and a half hours in which all she had accomplished was a rather unimaginative working title and the decision to use her first two initials rather than