Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. It has been a busy week starting with a podcast appearance and ending with a solemn day of remembrance. Hope your week has been a good one. Weather has ranged from stormy to sunshine and sudden rain and back to sunshine again! It is very mild for the time of year too. Writing wise, Flash NANO continues to go well and I will have lots of lovely interviews to share on Chandler’s Ford Today over the next few weeks.

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

11th November 2022 – Armistice Day

There could only be one topic for this week’s post on Chandler’s Ford Today and I have called my post Remembering. This is a tribute to the fallen and those who gave up loved ones so we don’t have to and I also look at why remembering is an act of will. It’s a phenomenally important one at that too.

Remembering

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Hope you have had a good day. It’s been a busy week so far but fun. Am looking forward to sharing interviews with some wonderful authors on Chandler’s Ford Today over the next few weeks.

But there could only be one topic for tomorrow’s post – I’ll share the link for Remembering tomorrow. See above.

On the fiction front, you could use the thought of what your characters think important enough to remember as a basis for stories. Why have they chosen to remember what they have and how does that bring them into conflict with others? (And there will be bound to be conflict given people can often remember the same event differently. Characters can do likewise). Also do your characters act on those memories and what are the consequences?

Will be working on the latest Flash NANO prompt shortly. Am so loving these. Got that prompt written up. Am already thinking of future homes for some of these.

9th November 2022 – two posts

FIRST POST

You know you get one of those days where lots is going on – well, today is one of mine. This is the first of two posts from me tonight.

First up, a huge thank you to the lovely #ValPenny for sharing my post about Looking Back at Swanwick 2022 on her website today.

Looking back is an apt topic for me because, not only is my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week about Remembering (linking in with Armistice Day on Friday), today is the seventh anniversary of my mother’s passing. Mum read widely and passed on her love of the written word to me. She did get to see my first short story in print (and my late Dad got to see my first book, From Light to Dark and Back Again, in print – there is a kind of symmetry here).

For the lifelong love of books and stories I’ve inherited from you, thanks Mum!

9th November 2022

SECOND POST

SECOND post from me tonight and I’d like to say a huge thank you to #WendyHJones for hosting me on her podcast, The Writing and Marketing Show. We discuss Flash NANO, which I’m happily taking part in at the moment. And I always welcome a chance to celebrate the joys of flash fiction writing.

Hope you enjoy the podcast. I loved taking part in this and to my fellow Flash NANO writers, more power to your pens and laptops! I’ll be working on the latest challenge a little later on this evening. Hope all is going well for you.

https://wendyhjones.buzzsprout.com/807761/11656217-flash-nanowrimo

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

My latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction is called In The Blink of an Eye. Hope you enjoy it. Find out if my character’s story about an accident rings true for you as she thinks about what she is going to tell the police officer who has come to see her as a result of said “accident”.

Am starting work on some festive flash fiction (Flash NANO has helped here too!) and have an idea as to where it will go in due course. Festive flash is about the only seasonal writing I do and it is great fun. This kind of quirky humorous fiction, I think, works best when kept short so flash is the ideal form for it.

I hope to so some more for Chandler’s Ford Today in due course too. I usually have a pre-Christmas post on this. It’s a nice way to sign off for a Christmas break too. The nice thing here is you can create these at any time and just save them up for the apt time of year. I have done that in the past. Not had the chance this year. Making up for it now though!

It was a joy to talk to #WendyHJones about Flash NANO for her podcast, The Writing and Marketing Show. I share what Flash NANO is about, look at the joys and challenges of it, and where it differs from the main NaNoWriMo event. Not least of which is hopefully by the end of November I’ll have 30 more flash fiction stories to polish and work on further – more than I would’ve done. I don’t usually write a flash fiction piece a day – I do write a few over the course of a week. And “hon mentions” go to members of the ACW Flash Fiction Group too for telling me about Flash NANO in the first place.

Fairytales with Bite – Memories

This is an apt topic given Friday, 11th November will be Armistice Day/Veterans Day. We cherish memories we rightly dare not forget.

In your fictional setting, what would be your community’s collective memories, the things everyone shares? How are these things remembered? Are there rituals people must follow? (I use the word people loosely here!). On an individual level, what memories does your character cherish or go out of their way to try and forget? What does that say about them? And can memories come back to haunt them?

Perspective is important too. People can be at an event and have differing views of what happened when despite being in the same place and the same time.

I once took part in an interesting writing exercise to prove this point. Fellow writers and I had to recall something that had happened after having just been shown the event in question. This was interesting, We recalled a lot of things in common but by no means everything. There were differences too. Yet all of us could’ve sworn we’d remembered “correctly”.

How could that play out for your characters and how would it affect the actions they then take?

This World and Others – Remembrance Ceremonies

The Armistice Day ceremonies are always deeply moving. For those of us in the UK this year’s ceremonies will have an added poignancy given one very familiar figure will not be laying the wreath at The Centoaph in London, as Her Late Majesty the Queen had done for so many years.

In your fictional setting, what is “officially” remembered and why? What ceremonies are used to commemorate these events/people? Does everyone join in with these things and, if so, is that by choice? Where it is, what would happen to those who disagree and refuse to take part?

Are there events in your world’s history which nobody remembers because they don’t want to do so? Where this reflects badly on them, what happens when someone uncovers this and exposes it?

Who leads any ceremonies and are these kept simple or is there a lot of pomp and circumstance? What are the traditions leading to the ceremonies being carried out the way they are? Do other countries (or equivalent) in your setting share the same ceremonies?

Read about The Writers’ Summer School @swanwickwriters in this fab article by @AllisonSymes1 here now. What better way to spend Your time #WritingCommunity? https://t.co/oCElhsB77O

— Val Penny (@valeriepenny) November 9, 2022

It was fab to talk to @WendyHJones about Flash NANO for her podcast, The Writing and Marketing Show. I look at what this is and where it differs from NaNoWriMo, not least of which is hopefully by 30th November I’ll have 30 flash fiction stories to edit!https://t.co/kBsfslr7ql

— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 9, 2022

In The Blink Of An Eye, by Allison Symes – Friday Flash Fiction https://t.co/Pvtvr6Tg8Q My new FFF tale is called In The Blink of an Eye. Find out if my character’s story about an accident rings true as she thinks about what to tell the police officer who has come to see her. pic.twitter.com/0uhYPsqvw7

— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 11, 2022

https://t.co/ooTft4TUhY There could only be one topic for this week’s CFT post. I've called my post Remembering. This is a tribute to the fallen and those who gave up loved ones so we don’t have to. I look at why remembering is an act of will. It’s a phenomenally important one.

— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) November 11, 2022