The Fear

[Liz de Jager]

Something really crappy happened yesterday - my entire purse with all my cards got nabbed straight out of my bag whilst in Starbucks.

Luckily for me, I noticed it practically immediately, rang hubby dearest who in turn rang the bank and cancelled the cards. It turns out the grimy thieves tried to withdraw cash from my credit card within minutes of stealing it. But because they thought they had the right pin-number they were quite brazen too and they tried four times going from a big cash withdrawl to smaller. They failed to withdraw anything though as they pin they used was incorrect.

But, that left me with no money - no means to get home, nothing. My husband works on the other side of London in the City and he can't very well up and come and collect me. Fortunately I was at work when it happened so I could borrow money from pettycash to buy a new Oyster card. I didn't need anything else but as I was mulling it all over in my head, I realised how dependent I've become on my "ready" cash of my bank card. And how mobile I was because of my Oyster card.

Can you imagine what that must feel like if something like that - a robbery - had happened to a younger person? If they got robbed and they had nowhere to turn - people don't listen and they genuinely don't care. I've seen it before and have been guilty of walking past someone saying they only need £x to get home, because I thought they were chancing it.

What a horrible feeling and experience. And definitely something to channel in a future WIP should my protags ever end up on the run, with no money. How do you run for your life from baddies with no resources?

Anyway! They got no money out of it and hopefully I will soon be the proud owner of a new set of cards. Actually, you know what was the worst thing? My SCBWI membership card was in that purse, along with my Waterstones card! I actually rang them up - Waterstone's, that is - and got them to transfer my points onto another card and to post it onto me. Bloody thieves! No one gets discounts on books except me!

[Nick Cross]

Glad that you're ok and no lasting damage was done!

I'm a great believer in turning something negative into a positive by writing about it - anything that evokes strong emotions has to be a good thing. I had a really horrible period of insomnia at the start of this year and wrote a (completely fictional) short story about someone who discovered that the key to getting to sleep was committing murder. It was certainly cathartic for me, although there was a shocked silence at my writing group when I finished reading it ;-)

[Jeannette Towey]

Poor you, it's horrid when that happens. I've had my wallet snatched out of my bag twice in the past. The last time was some years ago on a tube train and by the time I got home to cancel the card a couple of purchases (videos and booze) had already been made on the only one of the cards that didn't have the magic three letter 'Mrs' imposed before my name. I had always complained about the banks putting Mrs on the cards as I hated being labelled, but now I make sure that all of my cards either have my full first name or my title - that way the pickpockets, who tend to be male, have to get a female to use the card which just gives you that bit more time to make the important phone call.

But do make sure you get full value out of the experience for your writing - after all there's always a silver lining.