Showcase: My Creative Journey + Runaway + I Was A Woman + Clouds

Edited by Claire Buss

Welcome to 2026! Is this your creative year? It could be. You just have to make the right choices. And ‘Choices’ is exactly what our new creative theme is exploring for the next few months.

I’m Claire. I’m an author, occasional poet, mum of two, karate-ka, social media wrangler and Write On! Deputy Editor. I get to make a lot of choices on a daily basis, and I’m excited this month to be your Showcase Editor.

One of the biggest choices we get to make is what to do with our life, whether that’s a high-powered job or a lifetime of serving others. It’s a big decision and one we can change as many times as we like, so it seems fitting we kick off our first Showcase of January 2026 with the creative journey of Pen to Print’s Library Programme Administrator Mohammed Rahman, or Habib, as we know him.

My Creative Journey With Pen to Print

I began my journey with Pen to Print in 2018, not fully knowing how much it would shape my career. Seven years on, the knowledge, experience and confidence I’ve gained have been nothing short of incredible. Working with the team has taught me to think outside the box and use creativity as a tool for growth, both in my role and in life beyond work.

Through Pen to Print, I have discovered the value of using time creatively and planning ahead for all types of obstacles I may encounter along the way. It has sparked ideas I never imagined I’d have, such as future business projects and dreams that are still a work in progress but now feel within reach. That creative potential was always there, but working with Pen to Print has helped me unlock it.

Along the way, I’ve learned countless skills I carry into my daily life, whether it’s problem-solving at work, or finding new ways to stay creative after hours. Looking back, I’m grateful for every moment and challenge that has pushed me forward. Pen to Print hasn’t just given me a platform to develop; it’s given me the understanding that nothing is impossible if you give your best effort every step of the way. It’s a mindset that even helps me in the gym when powering through tough workouts.

Creativity can turn challenges into opportunities!

(c) (Habib) Mohammed Rahman, 2025

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My next selection is a piece of prose by Lesley Anne Armour that follows a faceless agent who finally decides to choose herself and remember who she was.

Runaway

Agent 9 wakens to the sharp blue ocean that is Mimi’s unblinking eyes and the rolling wave of vibrating sound designed by nature to hypnotise. Trance-like, she lifts herself out of bed to the sound of a joyful meow and the pad of determined feet as she makes her way to the kitchen. While preparing breakfast, she thinks about how much she loves Mimi, her only companion and her only family. An affiliation diligently constructed to protect herself and the life she has chosen.

Watching Mimi devour the latest flavour concocted for the cat ladies of the world to spoil their babies, Agent 9 reflects on the coming day. She is tired. Lately, her physical craving for sleep is never quenched. Despite early nights and consulting Google for tips on living a healthy lifestyle, she remains tired.

In her garden, Agent 9 sips her breakfast tea and watches Mimi hunt down a butterfly. Mimi the assassin, so like her mother, hunting the beautiful and fragile. Her own beauty becoming terrible in her success.

Agent 9 does not want to be terrible any more. In fact, she does not want to be Agent 9 any more. She’s tired of her life. She has to admit that perhaps this pervading feeling is really depression. For the last ten years, she has been exulted by the powerful as the most celebrated and ruthless spy of a secret government task force defending freedom and justice.

Today, the powerful do not know Agent 9 is surrounded by nature’s colours popping after summer rain. That she watches the busy birds singing as they flit from feeder to tree, one eye on the hunter, and so, they do not know that Agent 9 is remembering images from her life before she became the predator.

Memories from yesterday – no, it only seems like yesterday. It was, in fact, a long time ago. She had a different name then. She was searching for an identity that fitted. Idealistic and opportunistic, she was in love.

Agent 9 asks Mimi, “If you had known my young man, would you have liked him? Or would he have been a thorn in our little family?” She closes her eyes as the past drifts and fades with the rising warmth of the sun.

From a distance, a sound disturbs Agent 9. It takes a few moments for her to recognise her ringtone, I never was much of a romantic, singing out to rival the garden birds. So, for the second time today, she rises like a zombie to fulfil her obligation. Yet her garden calls for her to remain in its perfumed walls as the soft grass cocoons her bare feet, the playful bees buzz over her head, and Mimi, beloved, winds her body around her pajama legs. Determined, Agent 9 pushes on through their manipulations to the cool tiled floor, following the sound and blinking light of her phone.

Agent 9 listens as she is summoned to headquarters to attend an emergency meeting. She knows the routine and is so bored with it. Mimi stretches out before her, claws on the rug pushing and pulling. ‘Look at me,’ she seems to purr. ‘I know loneliness when you close the door and I watch the garden through the glass suspended from life, waiting.’ Agent 9 sighs. “Honey, me and you are so alike.”

At the office, Agent 9 feels like an observer; detached from the people around the table. While business is discussed and jobs are allocated, no one notices how Agent 9 is not present in their discussion. She nods and agrees abstractly without real intent. Agent 9’s thoughts have found a different reality. A real world, where she’s approaching a girl with a name of a flower who finds adventures in a garden, on a beach, in a city. A girl who is sharing her memories and dreams with Agent 9.

Suddenly, she is hit by a bright, white avalanche of yearning and is catapulted back to the work table. Her startled eyes look upon each face seated around her, and she asks, “Does anyone know my name?” Not waiting for a reply, Agent 9 gets up from her chair and mumbles, “I’m only just able to remember myself.” She is unaware of the bewildered eyes following her as she leaves the room.

Outside, the car park is grey and hard, the heat of the sun finding only a dull reflection on the tarmac. Agent 9 looks up to search for the true colour and warmth of the summer sky. As she does, a soft breeze carries a memory of a glorious day. A voice calls her name. It dances into focus and out again, illusive, softened by the passing years. “Come closer, my love, come closer, my dear Rosa.”

Agent 9 whispers, “My name is Rosa.”

(c) Lesley Anne Armour, 2025

Connect with Lesley on Facebook and Instagram: @seaand_lesleyanne

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Finding oneself and re-emerging through creativity is a powerful theme reflected in this flash fiction from Sarah Frideswide.

I Was A Woman

Vesta took the goose quill in her hand. It had been a long time, oh, so very long. Autumn leaves blew across the floor of her tower. The glass in the window was no more. She didn’t know when it was she’d died, but she must have died because she couldn’t see her own body any more. She couldn’t remember why she’d been locked in the tower, or who had done it. What she did remember was paper. The rough feel of it under her hands. The movements of carving a nib out of a goose feather with her penknife, crushing berries for ink into the pots and jars she kept under her bed.

As she thought about it, her arm moved in the air, making shapes. Words, sounds, meaning. Those shapes on paper had drawn a thin, dark line between sanity and insanity. If there is a line on a page and that line makes a sound and a sound makes a meaning to some other person, then the captive soul has a marked path to pour itself down, a channel for the water of reason. Like a river, if the channel is deep enough, reason may not burst its banks and turn wild.

She had written every day; she knew that. She would rather have quills and paper than food. In fact, there was still some paper on the desk, even after all this time. Maybe she could…

The quill she had in her hand was not one she could see; just like the rest of her. But she could feel it: the round smoothness of the shaft, the way the vane acted like a small snail and slowed down writing when it caught the air. She could hear it, too, scratching when she touched it to the damp, mouldy page.

Once upon a time, I was a woman, she wrote. Then the writing fever took her, and she poured out words. No sense yet, just words. All the poetry of her lost life, of being invisible and left alone. Her physical life had only been the last thing taken from her, not the first.

As she wrote, she felt a sensation move along her arm. A warmth, a beat, as of blood returning. It moved from her arm to her heart, to her stomach, to her legs. When she got to the end of the page and looked up, all the colours in the room seemed brighter. For the first time in centuries, she took a real breath of cold, natural air.

(c) Sarah Frideswide, 2025

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-frideswide1, X: @SJFrideswide and Instagram: @SarahFrideswide

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Perhaps the freedom of choice is all we really need to emerge and truly be ourselves. That freedom can often be discovered in a writing prompt or free-writing session – you can write on any topic, go in any direction, be as long or as short as you like and perhaps it will even springboard you into making more creative choices in the future. I shall leave you with a little flash fiction of my very own – until next week!

Clouds

“Clouds,” boomed the Professor as he strode into the classroom. Students swivelled in their chairs to follow his progress to the front. “Well? Anyone?”

A tentative hand rose from mid-row.

“Yes, go.”

“Well, clouds are formed when water vapour condenses,” replied a girl with large glasses framing her face.

“Very good. What else?” The professor cast his gaze over the mute students. “Anyone?”

Another hand took the plunge.

“Scott.”

“Um, they bring rain?”

“OK people, let’s try and think outside the box. Associate. Free answers.”

There was quiet as brows furrowed, trying to understand what the Professor wanted from them. Gradually, answers rang out across the class.

“Thunder.”

“Lightening.”

“A storm.”

“It’s where the Care Bears live.” That one made them all laugh.

The Professor clapped his hands. “Yes. That’s more like it. What else?” he said.

“Angels?”

“The gates of heaven.”

“Dreams.”

The Professor spun to see who spoke, eyes glinting. “Expand on that.” He pointed at the startled student.

“Er, well, there’s the saying ‘head in the clouds’ so I thought about daydreaming…” The student shrugged; she didn’t really have anything else to add.

The Professor smiled, pleased with the answer. “So, dreams. Our imagination can be brought to life by staring out of the window at the different shapes of clouds in the sky. What is imagination then? A tangible object?” His piercing glance swept across the student faces.

Scott was feeling extra brave. “Imagination is our ability to think of new things or make something different out of what is already there.”

The Professor nodded. “So, if the clouds are manifestations of our imagination, then is rain, in fact, droplets of inspiration?”

There were lots of puzzled faces.

“Think about it. There are buckets of inspiration out there in the world, and yet hardly any of it makes its mark. What better way to explain that than to liken it to raindrops? Most of which you will never feel.”

The quicker amongst them began to nod and smile as they grasped the concept.

“So, pens out,” the Professor instructed.”‘Your essay today is at least four sides on an everyday mundane object that could manifest greater potential.” He paused to survey his students. “And no, you can’t use clouds.”

(c) Claire Buss, 2018

Connect with Claire on Instagram: @grasshopper2407

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You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo, or find us on Podcasters.Spotify.com.

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