Many writers have shared their thoughts with the public:

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." - Beatrix Potter

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

"Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing, is what makes you feel famous." - Gretchen Bernabei

"Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." - Edna Ferber

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones to form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." - Hart Crane

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

Housemate

MONDAY

I am convinced my new housemate is a serial killer. This means he is even worse than my previous housemate: The Idiot Impulse Pet Purchaser With The Psychotic Jack Russell. Every weekend he brings home a new victim. They are always young, beautiful women he is meeting for the first time. I have listened to a lot of true crime podcasts so I know that this is a classic serial killer move. A woman goes into his room, there are sounds of a struggle and then she is never seen again. I have on several occasions tried to interrupt his murderous rampage by knocking on the door and offering to bring him a cup of tea but he always refuses -often quite rudely. I believe that this is further proof of his poor character.

TUESDAY

I have named the spider who crawls out of the hole beside the laundry tap ‘Greg’. We get along well: Greg also hates upturned collars and teenagers who sit on the floor of the tram. We chat as he sucks the innards out of an upturned fly. He holds no opinions on my new housemate but admits that he is not one for small talk.

WEDNESDAY

I begin to think that perhaps my housemate is not a serial killer. Perhaps I am just becoming obsessive as an excuse to not think about my unemployment or my overdue library fines or the mouldy mushrooms that are dissolving into the back of the vegetable crisper -but then he brings another woman home and invites her into his room. At 3am I hear her moaning in terror and pain. I offer tea but am rejected. I’m up by eight but he says she has left already. I try to find an excuse to look in the boot of his car -offer to clean it- but he refuses.

"You don’t have to do that," he says, looking at me like I’m the freak.

He’s clever, this one. Possibly too clever.

Not for the first time I think about kicking him out of the house (I am the one on the lease) but he’s clean and pays his bills on time: difficult traits to find in a housemate. Greg agrees.

THURSDAY

I am beginning to think he knows that I suspect him. This morning he offered to make smiley-face pancakes and mine came out looking like a severed head. The threat is obvious but I am not so easily scared off. I eat it in front of him, eyes first, in a sign of defiance. I imagine Greg in the laundry cheering me on. I tell him it is delicious. This is a lie; he has clearly mistaken salt for bicarb soda. He is a terrible cook.

FRIDAY

I think I need to kill my housemate. It is a matter of him or me. Last night while watching Married At First Sight he touched my upper thigh. He always does this to women before he kills them -I have seen it first hand. When the times comes I will tell the police it was a case of premeditated self defence.

I buy a watermelon from the Preston market to practice on, asking the woman at the register if she thinks it is approximately head size. She takes my question very seriously.

"About head sized," she says, "But only if the person is quite small." "What about head sized for a person who is approximately 183cm?" I ask. She fetches me another, bigger watermelon. I appreciate her professionalism and give her a 4.7 star rating on Google: nobody’s perfect.

SATURDAY

I have killed him. It was actually much easier than I thought. Turns out human heads behave almost exactly like watermelons when you hit them with things. They make about the same amount of mess too. Watermelons are stickier. I wonder if I should try sucking out his insides like Greg does with flies. I dip my finger in and try a taste. Greg tells me that’s disgusting. Flies are for eating, not people. I can feel his judgement.

"Sorry Greg." I apologise profusely and he accepts but I can tell his not impressed with me. I chop up my housemate and put him in ziplock sandwich bags in the fridge so that he is easy to transport and does not smell. It takes me quite a long time, especially as I got my knives from Kmart and they do not stay sharp for very long. I wish I had bought the Aldi steak knives that were on special last week. I hope the police will appreciate the amount of effort I have gone to, I really have tried to make this as easy for them as possible. I’ll give them a call in a minute, but first I have to post a new ad on flatmates.com.

Good housemates are hard to find.