Workshops, Courses and Being at Swanwick

Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Photos from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick were also taken by me. 
Many thanks to Julia Pattison for taking the one of me at my editing workshop. Have had a wonderful time here. And will continue to do so for the next couple of days. I will be sharing more about this in my Chandler’s Ford Today post later this week.

Facebook – General

Thoroughly enjoyed the final two sessions of Val Penny’s Perfect Plotting. Packed full of useful information. Enjoyed Whose (Story) Line Is It Anyway? after lunch. This was led by Zana Lamont. Then it was time for my workshop – Editing – The View From Both Sides of the Fence.

It is lovely catching up with friends I only “see” online the rest of the year and to have a good natter over breakfast, tea breaks, lunch, dinner etc, I also appreciate not having to cook anything or clear up. Many of us here feel that way!

It was especially nice to catch up with a fellow member of the History Writers group, Linda Brown, in person, something which meets online once a month. And it is good there is a contingent from the Association of Christian Writers here as well.


Many thanks for the support at the Lift Up Your Hearts session this morning. This is a short reflective session for all denominations and it was lovely. We were in good voice!

Thoroughly enjoyed the Rediscovering Your Writing Mojo sessions this morning led by Esther Chilton. Am off to the Author Business Foundations sessions led by Kate McCormick (aka Elizabeth Ducie). Sadly, I won’t be taking part in the Open Prose Mic Night session tonight as it clashes with The Big Quiz. The quiz is such fun and I can’t miss that.

Mind you, at the end of the Mojo course, we all got to write a piece of flash fiction so I shared my draft when we were asked if anyone wanted to read out so I did get a little bit of flash fiction prose reading done! I hope to polish this story up and submit it somewhere later.

First full day at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Went to Perfect Plotting by Val Penny – always a useful topic and the course is led by someone who is expert here. There is always something to learn here. Am then off to Amazon and Kindle Publishing and later still Comedy – a Whistle Stop Tour. This is just on the first full day, mind you!

And for a while it stopped raining too. Win-win all round!

Am back at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. It is the highlight of my writing year. It will be lovely to catch up with old friends and hopefully make new ones. I love the range of courses and workshops. I suppose the real treat for me here is being able to have a few days fully immersed in the writing world.

All writers need to know there is support out there. All of us have had and continue to have rejections and setbacks. But there is nobody like another writer to understand the joys of the writing life. It is a case of finding your tribe here, I think.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

It was sunny Derbyshire when I rang home this morning. It is less so now but it has stayed dry at least. Wouldn’t place on any bets how long that will last, mind you.

I gave my workshop – Editing – The View From Both Sides of the Fence – this afternoon. Writing flash fiction regularly has taught me so much about editing. And I discuss being on both sides of the fence because I have been edited as well as having carried out editing work at one and the same time. I can see where editors come from. I can understand the authors’ viewpoint too.

Was thrilled at the turnout for my workshop. Thanks, everyone. Many thanks to Julia Pattison for the photo.
I was set an interesting writing challenge at the Write on Cue session led by Anita Belli last night at Swanwick. We had to select objects to write a story around and mine was a Monopoly piece. The result is my latest story on YouTube – The Silver Boot. Hope you enjoy.

 

So good to be back at Swanwick. The grounds, as ever, are glorious, and it has been wonderful catching up with so many friends already. Looking forward to the courses today. Always a feast to choose from. And with any topic, pretty much, I can find something to apply to either my flash fiction writing or my blogging, sometimes both.

Sometimes information proves to be useful much later on but what I do know for sure is the world of writing is a fascinating one, there is always something to learn, and that is good for us all – to keep on learning.

Will naturally be waving the flag for flash fiction and short stories at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick over the next few days. Will be a joy to do so too.

There is usually an Open Prose Mic night here and it is a fabulous platform for the short form. You do only have a few minutes and the golden rule here is you can come in under time but not over it. Flash fits so well here and people do get to hear complete stories. Win-win here!

Goodreads Author Blog – Stories In Other Formats

I recently had the great joy of watching Lilies on The Land, which was staged by our local excellent amateur theatre company, The Chameleon Theatre Group. I then reviewed it for online magazine, Chandler’s Ford Today.

Lilies was an interesting play because it is a story made up of stories, all based on the real life experiences of the Women’s Land Army (aka the land girls). The stories were collected via letters, interviews etc and The Lions wrote Lilies based on this information.

It is a great case of non-fiction inspiring fictional work. The Lilies characters were invented but based on solid fact. Some fictional liberty was taken in enabling the characters to communicate with each other. But it all worked so well. It was believable. All stories must have that believability even if set in the most fantastical settings.

Let’s hear it for stories in all formats inspired by non-fiction!

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

 

 

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