I’ve Been Out, Visiting

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

I am no longer a guest virgin *cheers*

Ive done my first guest post, well, it’s not exactly a post, its a piece of writing, called Ashes, inspired by a prompt that CC gave me.

The prompt was being caught in the rain and if you want to go have a read, you’ll find it on CC’s Blog

I don’t often post my work online because you can’t get it published (ie sell it) if it’s already appeared somewhere online 😦 But, as I’m concentrating more now on my novel I’m not gunna worry so much about it 😉

so go have a read and tell me what you think 🙂

Character Sketch – Say Hi To Shirley & Daniel

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Shirley is a single mum who has brought up her son Daniel with no support from her family. Her ex, Daniels father, is in prison for murder. When their relationship broke down because he was violent towards her, he stalked her for 3 years before finally stabbing to death Shirley’s next door neighbour Tom. He thought the guy was her new boyfriend.

All that happened 10 years ago now and Shirley is scared about his release. Daniel is now 15 and remembers little of the events. He is a quiet boy, caring and sensitive, not at all like his father. Shirley is very proud of him. He’s doing well at school and wants to be a policeman.

Shirley works part time as a receptionist at a local vets, within walking distance of her home. She enjoys it, as she loves the animals, but they’re not allowed any in their rented flat. As Daniel is still at school she claims benefits, so although they can’t afford luxuries, they manage. Daniel has been looking for a Saturday job to help out but can’t find one.

Shirley sometimes gets lonely, the other receptionists at work have set her up on several blind dates, but she finds it hard to trust anyone now, seeing all men as bullies and possible psychopaths. Daniel hasn’t had a girlfriend yet and Shirley is petrified of losing her little boy.

At 5 foot 6 she is painfully thin (but not through choice) and often looks pale and drawn. Her hair is a natural golden colour. Daniel looks like her and is also painfully thin, but has his fathers dark hair and eyes.

Shirley loves to do cross stitch and has started making them into cards, which she gives to the local Cats Protection League shop in town. She volunteers there every Saturday morning after walking to the library with Daniel where he uses the Internet, as they can’t afford access at home. Shirley feels guilty that she can’t give Daniel the things he wants.

Daniel is a loner, he doesn’t have any close friends that he sees outside school. He enjoys reading and playing on his games console (one of the other receptionists at Shirley’s work gave it to her when her son got the newer model). He loves his mum to bits but there’s a little piece of him that hopes he’ll see his dad again when he is released…..

Awwwww, poor Shirley & Daniel, I so want them to be happy 🙂 But, in the life of a fictional character, things are never easy. Will the ex track them down? I have a sneaky suspicion he will 😉

The Cast List…..Reviewed

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Well, that’s it, I did it…..I achieved a whole month of characters for the A-Z Challenge! Pleased is an understatement lol 😉

It’s funny, so many people asked me if these characters were real. It didn’t even enter my head to base them on real people, consciously, and anyway, I don’t know 26 people lol. But reading them back, I can see little parts if myself in some of them, and a couple are probably too close for comfort for a couple of friends. I think the one who is most like me is Scarlet so she’s the one I have a soft spot for. She has my personality, and most of my physical attributes. I didn’t mean her to be me it was an accident lol

My favourite? Ooooo, I think it would have to be Queenie and the one I’d most like as a friend is Gloria as I’m sure she would be fun to be around.

If I was single (and if he was real of course), I would definitely go on a date with Harry as in my head I think he looks like a younger Hugh Grant *swoon* lol.

So now what? What to do with all these people crying out for my attention? Begging me to write their stories 🙂

I have a plan……I had already decided what I was going to do for Nano 2012, but now, I’m thinking that can wait until 2013, this project will be my novel this year 🙂 I am excited, but apprehensive, as I know how much work will be involved.

I’m going to try to connect all the characters stories into one story, a daisy chain so to speak 🙂 So in theory, 26 short stories of about 4,000 words each, which means I’ll have to do one a day *gulp* I’ve done 65,000 words in a month, so I know what a struggle this will be. I guess I’ll have to start thinking about my ending (remember Adele Parks? Lol) and how they can all be pulled together 😉

So thank you readers, for taking an interest, your comments have been brilliant, and definitely stirred up some ideas I can use….if it ever gets published you will all get a thank you in the back of the book, I promise 🙂

I can see some natural connections already….. Like Queenie & Fred or perhaps Harry & Scarlet (ah, see, I will get Hugh Grant! Lol)…..is Gloria the single mum who lives next door to Ella? And I think Ivy definitely gets her hair cut by Benjamin. Could they all be linked together via Zac in some way, or is that too naff? Or how about they all live in the same street? Turn it into a soap opera? Lol

So my question today dear reader, is, should I actually bother? lol 🙂

And if my husbands reading this, I’ll apologise in advance…..November 2012 will be a stressful month, I hope you have lots of chess matches booked *snigger* 🙂

Creativity Kick Up The…..

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

A break from the A-Z Challenge lol. I’m enjoying it, but, at the same time I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself for this month, especially as I have a million and one other writing things that need doing 😉

I’m wondering what I will do with these 26 people at the end of April. So my May challenge may be to connect them all (daisy chain style) a bit like Jonathan Kemp’s 26 or 253 by Geoff Ryman 🙂

I attended a Writing Workshop with Vanessa Gebbie recently where we played a game called “Writing Cricket” which was so much fun!

You’ll need to do it in a group or with at least one other person (who isn’t writing). We started writing with an initial prompt, then, Vanessa called out random words which we had to use in our story.

We began with out of the shadows then every 2 or 3 minutes, she called out the following list of words:

vitamins
leathery
Spanish
crowds
elderly
rust
lemon
partial
jealous
marshmallow
pebble
solid
moth
gift

You can use variations on those words, ie leather, partially or jealousy. The whole exercise took 20 minutes and although I ended up with pins and needles in my hand, I also ended up with a pretty good scene of a story, about a guy having a argument with his girlfriend.

Trying to fit the word “lemon” suddenly thrown at me when my character was sitting on a beach at midnight was a challenge I can tell you lol

This is definitely an exercise I will be trying to convince my writing group to adopt 🙂

Vanessa was lovely, so i just had to buy her books 🙂

I’m attending another one if her Workshops on the 21st of April, so I’m looking forward to that 🙂

Soooo, today’s prompt about a candlelight vigil turned into the start of a story about a woman who’s husband died by a tree and there are people there holding a vigil. I’ve not quite decided yet what happened to him, but whatever it is, his wife holds the community responsible. Today’s prompt is write about small regrets which shouldn’t be too hard now should it 😉

C is for…..

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Clarissa, who has been removed because I want to use her for my Nano 2012 novel.

Sorry you missed it 😦

Christ Church College Oxford

A-Z Challenge

Hmmmmm, so is Clarissa sad? Is she hiding her true feelings? I’m not too sure, I think she thinks she’s happy 😉

Yesterday’s prompt about the hot wind was totally uninspiring….was it the prompt, or the fact that I was in Starbucks writing it? Lol….. I ended up with 2 pages of dribble about a guy getting off a plane in Tenerife 😉 Today’s prompt is a stranger came to town. Now that’s more like it 😉

B is for…..

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Benjamin, who has been removed because I want to use him for my Nano 2012 novel.

Sorry you missed it 😦

The A-Z Challenge

Well, the first thing that strikes me about Benjamin is that he’s not a very nice bloke and I feel sorry for Cleo….. Just what is she getting up to while he’s out all day? I think that she knows about all of the affairs….so why does she stay? 😦

Yesterday’s prompt about ordering in turned into the start of a story about a couple who order pizza and the delivery guy ends up being her brother she hasn’t seen for years….curiouser and curiouser lol. Today’s prompt is write about a hot wind……is there such a thing? 😉

A is for …..

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Abbie, who has been removed because I want to use her for my Nano 2012 novel.

Sorry you missed it 😦

The A-Z Challange

So that’s my first character, do you like her? I’m not sure. I think she’s the type of girl who is lovely when you get to know her, but on first meeting you’d probably get the impression that she thought she was something special, if you get what I mean lol.

Thank you soooo much to Janet at Postcard Fiction for The Versatile Blogger award. I am deeply honoured 🙂

I will have to do the “7 Things About Me” and nominations in another post, perhaps stagger it over a few days lol.

Yesterday’s prompt about the antidote to pain turned into the start of a story about a girl who suffers from CIPA which I haven’t got an end to, but, has been an eye opener to write. Today’s prompt is write about ordering in which is something we’re experts about in this house 😉

People Watching

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

I’m starting to think about characters…..people, for my A-Z Challenge which starts tomorrow *gulp*

Everyday most of us come into contact with other people. We live with them, work with them and think about them when they’re not there. Some we like, others we cant bare the sight of!. Meeting new people can be fun, but for a writer, it can be a facinating 🙂

In real life, when you meet a new person you learn a lot about them in the first few seconds. That’s the crucial moment when you form opinions and judgements. You base those on the way they walk, how they sit, if they’re smiling or what they’re wearing. You try to figure out what they’re thinking by their facial expressions. Even small details like the smell of tobacco or a stain on their tie will influence your opinion.

Then there are their gestures. The way they look over their glasses, the way they throw back their hair or constantly play with a ring on their finger.

Characters need to be real, as real as you and I 😉 They’ll have faults, bad habits, talents and tastes. They will have complex personalities, and all of it needs to come across in our stories, if we want our characters to delight our readers.

F Scott Fitzgerald said “Plot is character and character is plot.” I rest my case 😉

So people watching is a great idea when you need inspiration for characters. A cafe, park, restaurant, even a waiting room can have me scribbling away in my note book 😉

Do you people watch? Do you use what youve seen in your stories?

Try describing a friend or family member (they never need to see it). Its great fun and you can use certain aspects to create a fictious character 😉

The photo above is The Bookcrossers meeting the Hen Night Bunnies….. dont ask lol 😉

Yesterdays prompt about the backseat turned into a story about a young woman who arrives home to find that the birthday cake she had just bought is gone and in its place is a bag of money and a gun…..not sure where thats going yet lol. Todays prompt is the antidote to pain. That sounds very interesting 😉

Sunshine

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

I’ve been awarded the Sunshine Award by C. B. Wentworth so thank you so much honey 🙂

It’s lovely to be nominated for these awards, such an honour 🙂

My only problem is that for some reason my pictures come out scrambled *stamps foot and pouts* and I don’t know why 😦

Anyway, I’m not going to go down the traditional route with this, what I will do is write about sunshine 🙂

Wednesdays prompt was “write the horizon at dusk” and as i sat here, trying to come up with some sort of story it sparked a memory…..soooo, as it also involves sunshine, i’ll copy here what i wrote 🙂

As a child i spent all my summers at my grandparents caravan on the Kent coast. My cousins and I would spend our days running through grass, searching for crabs on the beach when the tide went out and enjoying the sunshine.

We’d make secret hide outs in the bushes, play hide and seek among the sand dunes and have glorious adventures accompanied by the British weather. (Ha ha ha…for those of you in the UK you’ll know exactly what i mean about British summers…..rain! lol)

But the part of the day that i loved the most was dusk. The sun dying on the horizon, the seagulls making their way home (where do seagulls go at night?) and the children being called in by their parents.

We would go in to steaming hot mugs of tea and biscuits, for dunking 🙂 Sometimes, we’d sit on the steps outside, clutching our mugs, watching the sun dissappear. The dampness the evening always seemed to bring would start clinging to our clothes. Then my grandmother would tell us to come in and the door would be shut. If you left the door open it was as though dusk would creep into the caravan and slip into your bed. No one wanted a damp sleeping bag.

Sometimes i’d sit at the front, at the large window and watch the final glimpses of daylight in the distance. I remember wondering what would happen if the sun didnt rise the next morning. But it always did, and then, we would be running through the grass again. The early morning dew seeping through our flipflops, the grass tickling out toes, as we made our way back to the beach.

Nothing ever changed in the night, but we wished so hard that it would. The night always seemed so magical, as if anything could happen while we were tucked up asleep.

Happy days 🙂 I’m afraid i havent got a photo of the caravan, but i have got a photo of the beach.

Yesterdays prompt about eating it raw turned into a strange story. It started with a wife moaning at her husband for eating raw cake mix and turned into an argument about her brother who had just been released from prison LMAO 😉 Todays prompt is in the back seat so im sure i can come up with something for that 🙂

A-Z Blog Challenge

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Vikki Thompson

Ok….I’ve signed up lol….yes, yes, I know, some of you will be thinking I’m mad, but, I have an idea, a plan 🙂

One of my favourite parts of writing is characterisation. I love coming up with characters, I guess it goes back to my childhood and playing with dolls.

Sooooo, I intend to come up with a character a day, their first names beginning with that letter. I’m not gunna plan any posts, but I will plan the names in advance. That will be my only preparation 🙂