In 2008 I was invited by the Society of Authors to write a diary for a week, from a writer's perspective. Here is the result.

I’m feeling quite pleased with myself. I don’t usually write short stories, but today I managed to think about, write (in my head, again) and then actually write a work of fiction which will fit nicely into a free newsletter I publish, called Digital Education. I don’t often include such examples of frivolity in the newsletter, but teachers do not live by serious articles alone.

I can’t reproduce it here because that would be unfair on my subscribers. However, what I can tell you is that I’ve written it in the ‘hard-boiled’ style of Raymond Chandler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler). Now there’s an interesting exercise in itself: try writing about a subject in a style that is completely antithetical to the subject matter. In my case, the result is reasonably humorous because of the incongruity, and so gives a bit of light relief. Heaven knows we could do with some light relief in education!