Six Sentence Sunday 8th July

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Oooooo, my first one! 🙂

Soooo, as you know, I haven’t exactly got a WIP at the moment, although I am currently working on a pocket novel for Sally Quilford’s Pocket Novel Course.

So I’ll give you six sentences from that 🙂

“Oh for heavens sake Danny, what is the matter with you? Can’t I even have a coffee in peace?”

Kate and Francesca watched open mouthed along with the rest of the customers as Harry stood up. His chair scraping violently against the floor.

He made his way to the sugar stand and grabbed a handful of serviettes. Rushing back to his table his eyes met Kate’s.

It’s a romance, can you tell? Lol 😉

Six Sentence Sunday (jennykellerford.wordpress.com)
Six Sentence Sunday: Post #2 (readingenvogue.wordpress.com)
Six Sentence Sunday (lisafoxromance.wordpress.com)

The Lucky 7 Meme

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Firstly…..thank you to everyone who commented on my IWSG post yesterday. I really value your support, and although I may have sounded a bit blasé about my decision, it was quite a turning point for me, a moment of release, but also a moment of regret. So thank you, for your understanding…..I can’t figure out if im being brave, pathetic or incredible stupid lol. I guess time will tell. 🙂

So now, for some fun, to cheer myself up lol

Whitney, over at A Serendipitous Happenstance has tagged me with the Lucky 7 Meme 🙂

I was also nominated by Paula Acton and as I’m a rule breaker, I won’t be doing it twice, especially as I only have one WIP, well, semi WIP lol.

My apologies Whitney & Paula, that I haven’t dealt with this earlier, but what with the holiday, life’s been a bit of a whirlwind lol

Anyway, here are the rules…..

1. Go to the 7th or 77th page of your Work in progress.

2. Go to the 7th line of the page.

3. Copy the next 7 sentences or paragraphs. Remember, they must be as they are typed.

4. Tag 7 authors.

5. Let them know they’re it!

Obviously But Not Forgotten is not exactly the current WIP (see yesterday’s post) but I’m afraid that’s all I have at the moment lol 😦

So here are the 7 sentences 🙂

Ruby remembered how her father had always wrapped her up in cotton wool and she put this down to being an only child.

She slowed the car as she passed the office. Hopwood’s Chartered Accountants in big blue letters above the door. She remembered the day the shop had become available, how excited her father had been that he could now live and work in this beautiful village. He’d spent fifteen years commuting to the local town. Personally, she found it stifling, and couldn’t wait to break free. As a child, she’d decided that she wanted to be an Accountant, just like Daddy. After completing her schooling and university she had made him proud by joining him in the business.

Ha ha ha, well that couldn’t have been a more boring part of the 2nd chapter (hubby said I should have cheated!)!!!!! Lol….why the hell did I decide to write about Accountants? Lol….don’t they say “write what you know” and I know nothing about Accountants lol. And did you notice the clichés? *groans* lol

I Am Tagging:

Virginia at Poeta Officium
Ayesha Schroeder
Ava at Journey Or Jordanna East
Gail Aldwin
Josh Mosey
Laura at Quill Wielder
Robin Coyle

Please don’t feel obligated to take part, but as I’m sooooo goddam nosey, I’d just love to read a snippet 🙂

Out of curiosity dear readers What is the main profession in your WIP? Is it a job you’ve done yourself or will you need to research?

I had Accountants, Solicitors and Police in mine, none of which I’ve ever had any dealings with *groans* Lol 😉 A lesson to be learned I think lol.

In Service & Where I’m Guesting

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

I’m guesting over on Chris Stockings Blog today 🙂 So please pop over and read what I have to say about Inspiration A huge thank you to Chris for posting my ramblings!

Remember Sundays photo? Probably not, because it seems that WordPress had a paddy and those of you who usually receive my posts by e mail probably didn’t get it 😦 Bound to Serve – Elizabeth Mourant’s Bedroom. Well, i don’t know if you picked up on the title, and the furniture in the room itself, but, this was the bedroom that belonged to the house maid, sooooo, I decided to go with that 🙂

“I Should Like To Make My Own Living by William Thomas Smedley (1858-1920)” Illustration via Wikipedia

Elizabeth opened her eyes as the early morning light filtered through the small attic window. Pulling the covers up to her chin, she thought about the endless tasks they would be expecting her to perform that day. Her hands were raw from scrubbing and every muscle in her body ached. At 19, she had already lost the rosey cheeked flush of youth, her face now sallow and vacant.

She placed her hand on her stomach and felt the flutterings of the life growing inside her. What could she give this child? What choices were available to her? There was a tap at the door and a whispered voice.

“Elizabeth, come on, it’s time to get up. Cook says if you’re not downstairs in 5 minutes she’ll tell the Mistress.”

Reaching out to the bedside table she clasped the small bottle she had taken from the gardeners shed. The dark liquid tasted of bitter almonds and made her gag as she swallowed every last drop.

Resting her head back on the feather pillow she closed her eyes and imagined being whisked away by a cloud of butterflies, to a fairy tale land, where she was the mistress.

Awwww, poor Elizabeth. It was a hard life being a servant/housemaid in those days 😦

Now….who was the father d’ya think? 🙂

The Tale Of The Converse

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

As promised, a little extract I wrote on Sunday, prompted by the feet picture 🙂

“Sophia Jackson! You get down these stairs right this minute!”

Sophia hated having an older sister.

“Sophia, I mean it, don’t make me come up there!”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming, keep your knickers on.” She made her way reluctantly to the top of the stairs and stared down at Annie’s red face. “What?”

Annie glared and Sophia found herself trying not to giggle.

“Where are my Converse? I know you’ve had them.”

“Converse? I haven’t touched them!”

It was always the same. Since Annie turned sixteen, two years ago, the four year age gap just seemed to be getting wider.

“Don’t lie to me, you’re always touching my stuff! I’m gunna get Dad to put a lock on my door.”

Sophia watched her sister flounce off down the hallway. Annie seemed to do a lot of flouncing, so Dad said. Sophia stood at the top of the stairs, listening to Annie wailing to Mum.

“Can you search her room, I know she’s got them, I’m meeting Tom in half an hour.”

Sophia appeared at the kitchen door. “Go search my room then, I haven’t got them!” She skipped off down the hallway and out into the garden, knowing full well that Annie would be on her way up to her room.

Dad was at the bottom of the garden putting the last of the autumn leaves onto a huge pile.

“You ok Soph?” He smiled.

Sophia knew she was his favourite.

“Do you want to light the bonfire?”

She nodded enthusiastically as Dad handed her the box of matches.

“Careful now, arms length.”

Sophia struck the match and bent down. Slowly the flames began to lick the old shrub branches and leaves. She stood back and grinned. For several minutes, they watched the flames take hold of the large mound.

“Oooo, what’s that smell?” Dad sniffed the air. “I don’t remember putting anything rubber on there.”

Sophia smiled sweetly and put her arm around his waist.

He he he, I just don’t do nice 😉

10 Things I Learnt From A Scriptwriting Workshop

Posted on June 23, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Ever tried scriptwriting? I’ve dabbled, but not seriously lol

Last week, writer, Linda James came to our Writing Group to do a talk/workshop on scriptwriting. But a lot of what she said would be valuable advice to all writers, regardless of their genre or medium 🙂

I made lots of notes, but here are the best 10 things I wrote down (IMO obviously) 🙂

1. Transform your story into pictures/images – i.e., when you think about a setting or a character, visualise them in your mind. Your reader needs to be able to see these things, from the words that you use.

2. Include body language – When describing what a character is doing, include body language, don’t tell your reader your character is depressed, show them.

3. Open your story in the most interesting visual way possible, introducing key characters right at the start. – You need to hook your reader from the very first page.

4. Make sure you have clues on the first page (Linda calls them seeds) – Throughout a novel the writer must drop clues for the reader. Make sure you start this on the very first page. The reader needs to have questions that they want answered.

5. Practice writing monologues, to get inside your characters head – The more you know your character, the better they will come across in your work.

6. Every scene must have a telling detail – Each scene needs to reveal something about the character or plot.

7. Use symbolism – If there is a crucifix on the wall it will tell your reader your characters religious beliefs. like wise if there is a Buddha statue on a coffee table.

8. Use local dialect sparingly – Your reader doesn’t need to know exactly how a person with a broad accent sounds, too much and they won’t understand it.

9. Use work by authors who were writing fiction at the time your story was set for research – If you’re writing historical fiction (even if it’s set in the 1950’s!) read fiction by authors who were publishing work in that era. You will get a feel for the time and be able to see what words and phrases were common.

10. Research the way film directors use “mood” to convey a scene – You wouldn’t have a severely depressed man skipping through a field of daisies would you? 😉

I’m a bit of a film addict, and sometimes I will sit with my note book as I watch a film, so a lot of what Linda said made perfect sense. Obviously, I just had to buy her books 😉

That’s 2 more to add to the collection *snigger*

Our homework for next months meeting is to turn a short story into a script, which should be interesting, I’ll stick mine up on my blog when it’s done 🙂

So have you ever tried your hand at scriptwriting?

A Writers Holiday

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

I’m off to Wales for a week in July. A Writing Holiday that I’ve heard is great.

The Summer Writers Holiday at Caerleon has had some great reviews from fellow writers, so I thought I’d give it a go 🙂

Photo by The Writers Holiday
So this is where you’ll find me come the 22nd of July. Really looking forward to it! 🙂

The courses I’ve decided to do while I’m there are:

A Complete Introduction To Romance Writing with Kate Walker as I’m reading one of Kate’s books at the moment, and I’m also enrolled on the Romance course I started last week. I’d love to be able to write good quality romance 🙂

Stretching Your Writing Muscles with Elizabeth Hawksley which I thought sounded rather interesting. The course is described as:
All writers need to loosen their writing ligaments a little to explore different ways of writing and find new ways of tackling their own writing. This course aims to do just that. we’ll look at what makes for bad writing – with examples! We’ll look at how writers tackle those big emotional moments; at how not to cop out when the going gets tough; at different ways of getting under the skin of a character; what pitch and stress can do for your writing and so on. This is a taught course and as well as discussion and looking at short extracts from published writers, the class will have a go for themselves in various exercises. That sounds right up my street! Lol

There are also guest speakers and other small talks and courses….WOW 🙂

I will no doubt adopt the roving reporter cap while I’m there, boring you all senseless with my daily commentary *snigger*

Have you ever been on a “writing holiday”? If so, what did you think? if not, would you consider it? You know how nosey I am 😉

By the way….there are still places available if you want to join me 🙂

Silly Man…..

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Here’s my snippet inspired by Sundays picture of the champagne 😉

Orson sat down at the bar and ordered a drink, Vodka, neat, and drank it down in one gulp.
“Steady there fella.” The bar man laughed. “Another?”
“Yeah, keep em coming, no, give me the bottle, room 320.”
The bar man nodded and placed the bottle on the bar.
Orson poured another drink and helped himself to ice from a chrome lidded ice bucket. The tongs were so cold they almost stuck to his fingers.

It was some time before he noticed that he’d hit the almost full bottle hard. His head was beginning to swim and aware that his legs seemed to belong to someone else.
“Vodka and coke please?”
Orson turned in the direction of the voice. A woman stood next to him. She smiled and he was struck by the greenness of her eyes, which matched her dress perfectly. He pushed the bottle in her direction.
“Bad day?” She asked.
Orson looked down at his left hand and twisted the gold wedding band that was beginning to cut into his finger.

The next thing Orson knew was waking in his hotel room, flat on his back on the bed, naked. He tried to lift his head from the pillow and groaned. The pain was intense.Trying to look around the room from his horizontal position he could see nothing out of place until he noticed the bottle of champagne, turned upside down in its bucket. The 2 glasses lay on their sides on a small side table. Swinging his legs to the side of the bed he sat up slowly. He felt sick and dizzy. The pain in his temples throbbed with an intensity he’d never experienced before. He looked round for his clothes but couldn’t see them.

“Shit, my wallet!”
He staggered to the wardrobe and looked at the safe. It was open and empty. It was only then that he noticed all his clothes, even his shoes, were missing.”
The telephone rang.
“Yes!”
“Good morning Mr James, this is Reception. Just to let you know your wife has just arrived. She’s asking if she should come up, or meet you down here for breakfast……Mr James? Shall I send her up?”

*evil snigger* I do like a bit of conflict lol. Poor old Orson, what is he gunna do? Lol

Any ideas as to how he’s gunna get out of that? 😉

I Write Like…..

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Thanks to Gail at The Writer Is A Lonely Hunter I now know who I write like lol.

On my blog swap interviews I was asking my guests who they compared their writing to. Some of them knew straight away, others didn’t. And the reason I asked this question was because I’ve heard it said a few times that when submitting your manuscript to an agent/publisher it can help if you can mention who your work is similar to. This is so the agent/publishers can gauge your genre and style. Now, don’t quote me on the fact that you have to do that, it’s just something I’ve heard a few times.

Anyway, yes, back to the lovely Gail 🙂 Gail posted a link on her blog last week to a web site where you copy and paste a couple of paragraphs of your own work into a little window and the site tells you which author your work is similar to. Well, ok, I’m game, so I did……

First, I pasted in the Prologue from my WIP (But Not Forgotten) and it came back…..Gertrude Stein
Ok, I can live with that, not bad 🙂

Next, I tried pasting in a short story, Ashes, the one I did for CC’s blog a couple of weeks ago. It came back as….. Mario Puzo
Wow, really? I mean really? lol

So then I thought I’d try the first chapter of But Not Forgotten. The result…..William Gibson
Ummmm, who? *goes off to Wikipedia*
Wow, WOW! lol

Nah, come on, it’s rubbish isn’t it? I mean, do I really write like these guys? Looks like I’ll actually have to read some of their work to find out 😉

So give I Write Like a go, then, come back and tell me, as I’m dying to hear…. Who do you write like? Do you agree with the comparison?

For Sale

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

So now we’ve all recovered, finished doing our Ernest Hemingway impressions, it’s back to normality *picks party streamer out of her hair* 🙂

Today’s picture was taken in Rochester. At the time I was doing a treasure hunt on Flickr. You were given a list each week, and you had to take photos for each item on the list. It was great fun, actually, I’m not quite sure why I stopped.

Anyway, this one was for the clue “For Sale”

Lots of scope there, but sometimes that makes it harder, don’t you think?

So what story does this image conjure up? I’ll share what I’ve written in my notebook tomorrow 🙂

Breakfast or Lunch?

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Today’s picture is another drawing by Martin Karlsson, currently on display outside The Tate Modern. I’m not sure what this one is called, sorry, but I love it. He’s caught the action so well 🙂