Image Credit:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.
All images related to the Share Your Story Writing Summit are provided by the organisers, Creative U, or are screenshots from their website.
Free Writing Summit, Join Me There – 18th to 23rd March 2021. (So looking forward to being part of this!)
https://www.creativeu.ca/a/46030/yLSebqrq
Facebook – General
Delighted to say I’m now booked in for my covid jab. Will be having the first one on my birthday in a couple of weeks time. An unusual gift but one I welcome and look forward to – as much as you can ever look forward to a vaccination.
I am asthmatic so having the vaccine is a no-brainer for me. I know people who have been seriously ill with Covid and given my lungs are not all as I would wish (!), I’m not taking any chances here. I would far rather take my chances with the vaccine (and I don’t usually have reactions to them. I’m taking the view even if I do with this one, I will just wind back my levels of activity until fully back to myself again. And if no reactions at all, even better).
Even better is my other half will be having his jab five minutes after I’ve had mine – our first “date” in ages and we’re off to a clinic!! I would far rather it had been to one of our favourite pubs etc., but hopefully that will happen in a few more months.
Writing wise, I am putting up a bonus CFT post tomorrow giving all the details and links to the Share Your Story Writing Summit I’m taking part in from 18th to 23rd March. Am looking forward to catching up with the other speakers too as there are plenty of topics of interest for me to follow up on here. Link up to the bonus post tomorrow (and quick link up above to the summit details).
My normal post on Friday will be about Book Trailers and Story Videos and I look forward to sharing that link then.
Pleased to share another story video. Hope you enjoy Doing What You Must, an everyday tale of a monster having to re-evaluate its career options. As you do…and especially after a busy Monday.
Has been a good writing weekend. Just sent out my bonus newsletter with details about the Share Your Story Writing Summit which runs from 18th to 23rd March. Sign up details for newsletter are on my landing page
Have put finishing touches to my WI talk. Have created a new story video which I hope to share tomorrow. Am also preparing future blogs. My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week will be looking at book trailers and story videos. The one on the 12th will be about places to go for writing advice and will be especially useful for new writers. Looking forward to sharing these.
Have also started work on a book proposal and am starting to collate material together for a new flash fiction collection. So plenty to keep me out of mischief for some considerable time to come!
Every so often I will brainstorm for future story and blog post idea as I’ve mentioned before. This makes for a great imaginative work out. I will jot down the ideas and what I think might come from them. I rest them for a bit. If they still seem good when I come back to them, I draft them.
Hope your Saturday has gone well. Do you have a writing wish list? My writing wishes are:-
- To get better at what I do/produce more work (the two are closely connected)
- To widen my range of markets for flash fiction and short stories (ongoing project that one!)
- More reviews on Amazon for my books (which is on every writer’s wish list and again is an ongoing thing).
- To expand what I do in terms of writing itself (one reason I’ve had for trying a longer work of non-fiction) and in terms of spreading the word about what I do. (Working on that and the Share Your Story Writing Summit, the WI talk, and the radio interview with #HannahKate are all going to help a lot with that!).#
- To have more writing time. I’d happily ditch housework anyway but especially if I could give that time over to writing!
What I want to know is when my writing fairy godmother is going to turn up and help me with all of that! So far there has been no sign of her. Oh well, best get on with it myself then!
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
My favourite format for flash is the sub-500 words kind and it does seem to be my natural writing home. When I do go over this bench mark, I find I’m usually writing right up to the 1000 words upper limit. The joy of those is I can put in a simple sub-plot and give more depth to the characters, which I love doing. But the sub-500 words stories I love for the sharpness of their impact. I like a story which in relatively few words can make me go “Wow”!
The joy of flash overall though is having this flexibility to write to the word count you prefer as long as you don’t go above the thousand. I find I will write in batches. It’s not unusual for me to write a couple of longer pieces, then have a real field day on the shorter ones for a while, but it is all great fun!
Occasionally I can use a list as a story format. In Tripping The Flash Fantastic, my The Wish List has all but one of its sentences start with the words “I wish..”.
The exemption is the last line which is the punchline to the story. I use the “I wish” statements to build up the story layer by layer until I reach that punchline.
This kind of storytelling is best kept short but then that’s what flash is all about so win-win!
If I’m running out of time in a writing session for any major work, I will do one of two things.
- Brainstorm for future ideas for stories or blog posts, make a new notes, put aside for a while.
- Draft flash fiction. In ten minutes, say, I can usually draft a reasonable length piece (say a 500 worder) or two smaller works. I find homes for them later!
One thing I have learned over the years is never despite those small pockets of time we all get. You can do some useful writing indeed in those times.
I like experimenting with form for my flash fiction and one I especially enjoyed was using the diary format. I used this for Losing Myself in Tripping The Flash Fantastic. For this kind of story, you do need pretty much the full 1000 word count allowed for in flash but it was fun to do and the different dates in my fictional diary make effective scene breaks. It’s a form I’ll try again at some point.
I have used letter format as well in Punish the Innocent in From Light to Dark and Back Again. That was a 500 words+ story but unless I am writing to a specific market or competition asking for a specific word count, I decide on the final word count only once I’ve edited the story and I feel as it is good as I can make it (at the time. You always see things you could improve on later – it is the lot of the writing life!).
Both of these tales had to be the length they are. Any less would have spoiled the effect and you do get better over time at knowing when to stop editing and get the pieces out there.
Goodreads Author Blog – Where I Want A Book To Take Me…
A lot depends on what I’m reading, naturally. For fiction, I want to explore the writer’s created world and characters and be immersed in that for the duration of the book. For non-fiction, I want to stretch my mind and learn. For both I want to be entertained while all of that is going on! No pressure then…
I am thankful that the days of non-fiction being the poor relation to fiction are over. No more boring books of lists and dull facts. What we have are books that engage with the reader, making you want to find out more, actively encouraging further reading in the subject.
As for fiction, even the world is not your limit. I love the way fiction can take you to fantasy worlds, worlds that could exist out there somewhere, maybe, and the books that help us explore our world, right here and now and backwards and forwards in time.
Books have the potential to take you anywhere and that’s just how it should be.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsliked Allison Symes's blog post: Where I Want A Book To Take Me… https://t.co/4kA61PWuPC via @goodreads I look at where I want non-fiction and fiction to take me. Have you got a "travel" list for your reading? pic.twitter.com/Y42q9yHs6i
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) March 6, 2021
Allison Symes: Collected Works 