Tag Archives: Writers Resources

The “Place” Experiment Part 1

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Do you remember my idea about The Place Experiment? No? Ok, read this post first if you don’t 😉

It was a horrible yucky, cold, wet, absolutely miserable week in Kent. To the point where Sunday was my first opportunity to start the experiment (Saturday was nice but hubby was at home all day lol).

So the first place under scrutiny is…..

Location: My back garden
Time: 7.30 am
Date: Sunday 11th March

It always amazes me, how quiet Sunday mornings are. Even the birds seem to know that everyone is still asleep at this ungodly hour. There’s a chill in the air, a freshness that you only get with spring. My garden is a mess. Perhaps this wasn’t the best location to start with. I’m finding it hard to find any words other than sad ones when I look around. The weeds, the overgrown bushes, there are no flowers. My Rowan tree has tiny little buds on it’s branches, indicating, hopefully, that it’s survived the winter. I often feel a bit like my garden, worn out and neglected (lol), just waiting for that something to come along and brighten everything up. I’m waffling aren’t I? Because I have nothing to say, nothing to dream about, and nothing to write. Most of the time I’m full of ideas, they bubble away under the surface, just waiting for an opportunity, a chance to escape. But sitting here now I feel strangely numb…..or is that just content? Is this finally a place I find relaxing? I usually find that hard, my head constantly swims but not at this moment. How odd? To be feeling so blank. Is that actually a good thing? Is this where I should come in future to calm my mind? Should I take up gardening as a serious hobby? Ok, Georgie (my dog) is looking at me strangely, wondering why I’m sitting in the garden (she’s not use to it). In future, I’m going to make more of an effort to use the outdoor space around me…..roll on the summer!

Hmmmmm, so was that a success? Did i actually discover something? It definitely didn’t inspire me to write differently or better….I just found it surprisingly relaxing lol, perhaps too relaxing.

Here’s my view 🙂

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What a mess!!!! 😦 But something was achieved….I have a man coming at some stage this week to tidy it all up *grins* I’ve decided, I need to use it more 🙂

This begs the question where is your favourite place to relax and chill?

I found yesterday’s prompt completely uninspiring, or was that more to do with the looming dental appointment lol 😦 I sat staring at it for ages (there’s always one I struggle with every couple of weeks). I finally gave up and read a book instead lol. I will catch up today when I do attending a ceremony which should be fun 😉

I did however manage to finish a short story that I’m doing as homework for my writing class, the one prompted by a horoscope…..so it wasn’t all bad 😉

Sentences

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I was reading yesterday about sentences. Have you ever read The Sentence by John Barthelme ?? No? Me neither lol…. Brilliant 😉

So, the sentence (can I just say at this point that for some reason I keep trying to spell it with an “A” ie sentance lol….weird!). Here are some tips on writing sentences (yay, I did it and didn’t even need the spell check kicking in…..I’m hoping that if I keep writing it during this post that it’ll sink in lol) from the lovely Judy Reeves 🙂

Every sentence needs a subject and a verb.

Oh dear, black to school for me again then lol

Put things in a logical order so that the reader can understand. Don’t show images before the reader can see the action.

Emphasis flows towards the end, so if there’s a word or phrase you want to stand out, put it at the end.

Put your most powerful sentence at the end of a paragraph.

I do tend to do that at the end of chapters when I’m doing Nano….always end dramatically I say 😉

Vary the length. Word count sentences in a paragraph (to check they’re not all the same length). Remember, long sentences slow a piece down, short ones speed it up. A paragraph full of long sentences will be boring for the reader.

And that’s why I LOVE dialogue, to break it all up.

Use punctuation to create breaks and pauses. Rhythm in a sentence is important.

Aim for one sentence (i guess, depending on how talented you are will decide on whether that will be in every paragraph or on every page) that is so beautiful and stunning that it stops the reader in their tracks.

I wrote a sentence for my Nano novel in 2010 which was about a woman who’s husband died and the fact that she couldn’t wash the sheets because she could smell him on his pillow. Emma Darwin thought it was fantastic when she did a critique of the first 3 chapters…..I’ll have to dig that out lol.

In my very humble opinion….. The best sentences are the ones that conjure up instant imagery. I want to be able to see in my mind what the writer is telling me 🙂

And that folks, is why writers should also be readers 🙂

I’ll end on a quote from Ernest Hemingway “All you have to do is write one true sentence.” Good old Ernie 😉

Do you keep an eye on your sentence structure when you write?

By the way….I’m reading this at the moment…. Will it improve my writing d’ya think?

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Today’s prompt about before you were born inspired the fictional story (based on the true events, or what I’ve been told) about the moment my mum told my dad she was pregnant. Not a happy tale as she was 16 and he was 17…..and there was no happy ending. Today’s prompt is these are seductive voices of the night after Franz Kafka Hmmmmm, interesting 🙂

Fiction V Non Fiction (Memoir)

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As a fairly new writer, I’ve kinda concentrated on fiction….but, a link on Jenny’s Blog recently, had me dashing over to Midlife Collage for a read.

Being that I am *cough cough* of a certain age, I am allowed to join this site *snigger*

I’ve never really considered the idea of memoir writing. I don’t think my life has been that interesting to warrant it. Who would actually want to read it? I didn’t have an awful childhood (by most standards) and as an adult, there have been major difficult times, but again, I don’t consider that I stand out from the crowd 🙂

Sooooo….a new challenge maybe? Life writing?

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Me as a toddler 🙂 What feelings does that conjure up?

Have you ever tried writing memoir or do you tend to stick strictly to fiction?

I spent most of yesterday working on my final OCA assignment. I’ve managed to write a 2500 word romance, which was the story that I wrote for the prompt about being in a garden. I think it will be suitable for one of the women’s magazines, but I’m not quite sure which one yet. Will have to do some research 😉

Yesterday’s prompt was hindered by toothache 😦 but, the woman in the window breathed life into the start of a story about a female delivery driver, trying to deliver a parcel. I’m not too sure where it’s going, I’m thinking ghost story perhaps? 🙂 Tomorrow’s prompt is on the eve of the funeral so that’s conjuring up loads of ideas 🙂

Second Campaigner Challenge

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Today the 2nd challenge was set for the Writers Platform Builders (see tab above).

I chose to do:

Prompt 1 – Two people are sitting together under the remains of a concrete bridge. Their backs are against a rusted bridge support. One persons leg is cut, the other person has wet hair.

Option 2 – Write a short story/flash fiction piece of less than 200 words based on the chosen prompts.

Here’s my offering which came in at 197 words 🙂

As the sky rains fire they shelter from the falling debris at the remains of the old bridge.The smell of diesel and burning plastic stings their eyes and chokes their lungs.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Tom pushes his wet fringe away from his eyes.
“I know Tom, but I don’t think I can….my leg.”
Tom looks down at the gaping wound in Zoe’s leg, the blood pooling on the concrete.
“If we stay here, we’ll die Zo.” He pleads.
In the distance they hear a piercing scream. Zoe’s heart beats in her throat as she notices the sound of dull thuds.
“Tom, what’s that noise?” She whispers, but before he can respond a body lands a few feet away, it’s limbs twisted and broken.
Zoe screams as Tom wraps his arms around her and shields her face from the horror.
He then grips her shoulders roughly.
“Listen to me Zoe, I don’t know what the fuck is happening here, but I think we need to leave…now! If something hits this bridge…”
Tom is unable to finish his sentence as a large object hits the bridge and Zoe is plunged into darkness.

please let me know what you think, all critiques welcome 🙂

And, if you like it, please vote for me on the link above. I’m number 26

Writers Retreat Day

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Today, I shall be on retreat lol…..cue music and scenes of a sun drenched beach, the sea lapping against the sand…..umm, no. I’ll be on retreat at home 🙂

Hubby is going out for the day (to a chess match) so I have the whole day to sit around in my jim jams and do whatever I want *pokes tongue out childishly*

In a way, it’s kind of like one of Peter Jones’ Boxing Days (you’ll have to read Peters book to know what I’m on about…see a previous post).

So, thanks to Judy Reeves, I have a list of prompts (for writing practice) that I will be using throughout the day:

write about a small thing
you are in a garden
it was Monday morning
write about a mirror
write a February memory
this is not about…..
one Friday night
“after all, it wasn’t what she expected”

That should keep me going shouldn’t it? Obviously, coffee, chocolate and doughnuts will also help lol 😉

The real question is, will the cats allow me? Lol…. This is what I have to contend with most days…

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Now I’m thinking a retreat in a coffee shop is very appealing 😉

Have you ever had a writers retreat day? Do you do writing practice?

Yesterday’s prompt was “write about the blues in the night” and I guess you could say I took it literally lol. I wrote the start of a story, a romance, about a guy being woken up in the night by the girl in the flat below playing her sax 😉 Today’s prompt is “Memory thick as mud” after Janet Fitch who I now know is the author of White Oleander. I’d heard of the book, so now I’ll be doing a little bit of research….see what it inspires 🙂

I’ve now got 11 “Out There’s” but determined to get that up to 20 by next Wednesday 🙂

Freewriting

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Prompted by an email blog update from Sue Healey a couple of days ago, i decided to do some Freewriting.

I remember when I did The Artists Way, the first time….the idea of doing 3 pages of Morning Pages every day was terrifying. I soon got into the swing, but unfortunately it just turned into a massive rant everyday, and which is why, I no longer keep a personal journal.

So Tuesday morning, I sat outside a Costa Coffee shop, and wrote the following in my notebook:

*****I’m sat here, outside Costa, with a latte in February, wanting to take my coat off. It’s the same colour purple as the ink in my pen. There are a group of rowdy workmen, about 6 of them, smoking their fags and drinking from their takeaway coffee cups. It’s not exactly what I’d call an inspiring atmosphere, but still. I may be able to finish my daydreaming story. Perhaps she runs off with a rowdy workman *snigger*

The sky is completely grey, not a cloud in sight, and matches perfectly with the paving slabs beneath my feet. In fact, the building itself seems to merge with the sky as that too is a depressing shade of grey. I can’t wait for the summer, to walk around in t shirts and feel the sun on my face. Although, my garden is a mess. Completely unusable, neglected for several years I have to confess. I guess it sets the tone for the rest of the house….neglected. There’s always something else to do though. The garden is the last item of priority on my endless list.

I’ve been food shopping and now I’m waiting for my husband so that we can have lunch. It was his suggestion that he meet me, perhaps he just needs a break. It’s nice to get out, rather than stare at the same 4 walls day in day out. I get soooo bored, and yes, I know…..I could do the garden lol*****

Ok, exactly what did I learn? Or rather, what could I use in my writing? Hmmmmm…..the only things that really stand out as being worth something are the images of the building blending into the sky and the overgrown garden.

Do you ever Free Write, and if you do, does it help? Do you end up using things in your fiction writing?

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Isn’t it funny…..there was me talking about happiness yesterday and then I discover Bridget’s beautiful post on happiness….it certainly made me smile 🙂

Oh and by the way *clears throat* I now have 7 Out There’s!!!!!! 🙂

Yesterday’s prompt about the bridge inspired a story about a young girl who’s father has been rushed to hospital….only, she hasn’t seen him for 2 years (I was going down the lines of building bridges then crossing them). I don’t know what today’s prompt is. I’m upstairs in bed, my notebook is downstairs.

As Jack Bauer would say “Damn It!” (sorry, hubby is working his way through all 8 seasons of 24) lol 🙂

The Pain Of Experience

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‘Write what you know’ isn’t that what they say? But what if what you know hurts too much?

I’ve really struggled with a couple of prompts recently ……too close for comfort lol

There’s been a lot of talk about Adele recently, due to all her Grammy awards (and Brit awards). I really don’t know how she does it. Every time she sings one of those songs the memories of how she felt when she wrote it (or how she felt at the time of the break up) must come flooding back. How do you step back from that? Distance yourself? Sorry, for those of you who don’t know Adeles album “21” was written about a painful breakup of her relationship.

Songwriters are no different to writers. Most songs are a short story, in fact you can use songs to inspire short stories, but that’s a whole new post.

We’re told constantly as writers to push ourselves, delve into places where it does hurt, tackle difficult areas, difficult subjects…..but I’m not sure I want to. I know if you’ve been through a particular event in your life you can draw on first hand experience to write about it. It will be better written from experience than say, someone who’s only trying to express those emotions, who hasn’t actually experienced them.

I try not to avoid certain subjects when I write, I try to give everything a go, but, some themes just affect me more than others, perhaps I’m just not ready to expose myself to those emotions, quite yet 😉

Yesterday’s prompt was ‘in a foreign country’ and I ended up writing the beginning of a story about 2 girls on holiday at one of the girls uncles house. I’m thinking that he’s a real nasty bit of work, although he comes across as a really nice man to start with 😉 Today’s prompt is write about a long bus ride but I’m not sure when I’ll get it done…..I’m off to the Pocket Novel workshop today, and nooooo, I didn’t get chance to actually read one lol

A Touch Of Positivity

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I was feeling a bit, oh, I dunno…..blah…..on Monday lol. Thank you for your kind and helpful comments 🙂

I’m the kind of person that will always pick myself back up, dust myself down and get on with it, but something really helped me put it into perspective yesterday….. An e mail hit my inbox from Brad Geagleys blog which made me smile……

The exact words that lifted my mood were……

“But the drive to write, the compulsion to report, the urge to arrange words for the simple desire of communicating your thoughts, is natural only to born writers. Really – who would wish to spend their time alone most of the day, locked in your head, trying to accurately describe the visions you see that seem to exist somewhere between your eyes and the computer screen…? Isn’t that like schizophrenics trying to accurately describe the voices they hear?”

I hope Brad doesn’t mind me quoting him, but, his words gave me a great boost 🙂

I do have that desire to write, I’m passionate about it. Honestly, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to write a story a day since the 1st of January! Lol

So now, when Mr Procrastination comes knocking (which he will, I have no doubts on that score) I’m just going to tell him to bugger off, or, better still, leave him at home whilst I go out for a coffee 😉

And then of course, there were all the lovely comments to a piece of flash fiction I posted yesterday. Thank you so much if you commented, you made me smile 🙂

Today’s prompt turned into a story about a young guy being sexually harassed by his older, married, female boss 😉

I’ve Been Tagged lol

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As part of the Writers Platform-Building Campaign I’ve been tagged by Sarah to answer 11 questions.

The 11 questions Sarah has given me are:

1. What is your weapon of choice?
Ha ha ha, it has to be a fountain pen…..very dangerous in the wrong hands 😉

2. What is the name of the first story you wrote voluntarily?
It was Nanowrimo 2010….. 65,000 words lol. A story about a family, murder, suicide, corruption, and an undercurrent love story. It’s still not finished. It’s WIP title is The Secret Keepers

3. What genre do you write?
Hmmmm…..I’m not sure lol. Everything I write has a dark undercurrent. I’m not sure it really fits into a specific genre, contemporary fiction? 😦

4. Besides reading and writing what are at least 2 of your favourite past times?
I like watching films and I’m an Internet junky…..can I say blogging? Lol 😉

5. What is the coolest/strangest thing you’ve ever done?
Coolest was probably front row at a small Oasis gig…..strangest, for me was probably flying to Toronto all on my own to stay 4 nights at a convention where I didn’t really know anyone. I was sooo brave 🙂

6. What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever heard?
Never, ever give up. If you want to write…..write!

7. What are your 5 most used websites?
Wordpress- FaceBook – Google – Amazon – Wikipedia (I visit every single one every day!)

8. What is your favourite book, author, movie?
My books change frequently….at the moment it’s Into The Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes as for author? I couldn’t possibly pick one. It’s a toss up between Fay Weldon – Linda Gillard – Anita Shreve
Movies are My Fair Lady and Wuthering Heights, the one with Timothy Dalton in (swoon!)

9. If you could be invisible for 1 day what would you do?
Spend the day following a friend or family member around *evil snigger* 😉

10. What are your hopes for your writing future?
To have something published 😉

11. Is there anything else we should know about you?
No, not really, apart from the fact that I’m a huge cat and dog lover lol

So here are my 11 questions 🙂 I’ve tried to be, oh, what’s the word? I’ve tried to use questions that my tagee’s (is that actually a word?) could possibly use as writing prompts….in fact, hmmmm, I might use a couple of them myself lol

1. What thing have you written that you’re most proud of?
2. What are you working on at the moment?
3. Where would you like to see yourself in 5 years time?
4. You buy an old lamp, whilst cleaning it a genie appears…you know the rest lol. Your 3 wishes are?
5. List 2 of your bad habits? Come on, we all have some.
6. If you were a superhero, what special power would you have?
7. Tell us the name of one of your characters, one you really like?
8. What scares you?
9. Sum up your personality in 3 words?
10. Name 2 of your vices?
11. Do you have a pet peeve/hate? What is it?

I’m tagging:

Michael Haynes
Barbara McDowell
Yikici
Jamie Dement
Gwen
Jennifer McMurrain
Sorcha
Sherri Hutchins
RaeAnn

I managed to catch up with my animal dream prompt, which turned into a story of a woman waking up naked in the tigers cage at the zoo. Only she wasn’t actually in the cage, she was outside of it….work that out lol 😉 Yesterday’s Jewel prompt inspired a strange story of a housekeeper who puts on the ring of her employer, which she then can’t remove……today’s prompt is black as a crows wing which sounds rather interesting 😉

Really enjoyed my class Wednesday night, and got some great comments on my short story “Eating Out”…. Will now be submitting it to a comp and a magazine 🙂

Writing Tips

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I’m always fascinated by tips that fellow authors give. Yesterday, I stumbled across some tips from David Ogilvy and yes, I know he wasn’t an author…..but, they’re still good tips 🙂

Write the way you talk, naturally
Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs
Never use jargon words judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass
Never send a letter or memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning-and then edit it.

Now these tips are referring to business writing, but, as far as I’m concerned they could just as easily be adapted to fiction.

It was Valentines day yesterday so hubby took me out or a lovely meal. I didn’t think it was appropriate to take my notebook lol…..but I especially liked the comment I overheard from the guy answering the phone. Someone was ringing to get a table and was told it was Valentines day. The caller obviously wanted a table for one as he was asked “can you not find someone to be your stand in wife?”…..hmmmm….there’s definitely a story there 😉

Oh, I was talking about films as inspiration the other day wasn’t I? Well, author and screenwriting tutor, Brad Geagley has put on his blog his list of essential films all of which have extremely strong stories. Out of the 84 film listed, I’ve seen 23…..that’s not great really is it. Think I need to raise my viewing standards 😉

Watch films, read, write, learn…..there just aren’t enough hours in the day lol

I didn’t do very well with yesterday’s prompt as I was faffing about making myself gorgeous for my meal out. But I did start it, a romance set in a library lol….don’t ask me why a library, I just couldn’t think of anywhere else where it would be inappropriate to whistle lol. Today’s prompt is write about animal dreams and I’m a bit apprehensive to say the least lol