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.
Hope you have had a good week. Have resumed gentle swimming after my fall. Seems to be helping. Lady has caught up with one of her friends this week and I’m looking forward to my book signing in Salisbury next week. All go but I like it that way.
Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today
Am delighted to share The Joy of Setting and Responding to Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Naturally I put this into practice for this week’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group!
I list my favourite writing exercises, what I have got out of giving them a go (published work in many cases for one), and share plenty of useful tips for getting the most of any exercises you’re set.
I also look at life on the other side of the fence here in that setting writing exercises is a great way to make you think outside of your usual “comfort box”. You want something you know people can do but will also be a challenge (and they’re a challenge to me too because I ensure I do them too, it’s a great way to get more flash written).
Hope you find the post useful, whichever side of the writing exercise fence you are on. I regularly switch sides here!
Nice day. Another gentle swim today went well.
Writing wise, I’m pleased to share a link to Hannah Ruth Retallick’s Substack post about If You Keep Missing Writing Errors, Try This. All sound, sensible stuff and something every writer needs. Many thanks to her for a shout out to me for a tip I share here. It’s one I’ve often shared here but it bears repeating.
One thing I was chatting about last night with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group was to write first, edit later, and to see the two things as separate, different creative tasks. This ties in nicely with Hannah’s post because if you do give yourself the time away from a piece before coming back to edit it, you are much more likely to pick up on the mistakes. Time away does help and while you’re resting a piece, you can of course be drafting another one!
As for draft writing, the group and I drafted some flash fiction pieces last night. Naturally I’m resting mine for the moment!
Talking of writing exercises, which I love, my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow will focus on The Joy of Setting and Responding To Writing Exercises. I’ll be sharing plenty of useful thoughts here so watch out for it. See above.
Hope the day has gone well. Lady was delighted to catch up with her Hungarian Vizler pal today. The dogs haven’t seen much of each other recently thanks to the summer holidays and the heatwave so this was nice to see.
Writing wise, I’ll be sharing The Joy of Setting And Responding To Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday. See above.
Talking of writing exercises, I have set some for tonight’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group and yes I plan to have a go too.
And I’m getting lots of spam emails regarding Seeing The Other Side. Am deleting the lot. Only thing to do. Talking of the new book, I hope to share news about the blog tour for it before too long so watch this space.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Hope your day has gone well. Had some proper rain earlier. I got caught in it on the way back from an appointment. Was torn between wishing it had held off for ten more minutes or delighted it had come down at all! I suspect I might get a flash fiction story from a character caught in the rain at some point…!
Want to draft a flash piece over the weekend to submit to Hannah Kate’s show on North Manchester FM in due course. As the weather has started to turn autumnal, it is timely her call for stories for her Autumn Equinox show is timely.
Looking forward to being in Salisbury next weekend for my book event for Seeing The Other Side and not long after that there will be the blog tour. Plenty going on.
Had a lovely evening with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group yesterday. Many thanks, folks. Yes, we did draft some flash pieces. I hope to return to mine in a few days or so. One nice thing about groups like this is we all share news which is amazingly handy at times.
One such bit of news came from Jenny Sanders who highlighted the fact Hannah Kate of North Manchester FM is looking for flash stories for her Autumn Equinox show. See the link for more details but I’ll be looking at having a go at this later this week. The show itself goes out on Saturday 19th September but the deadline is by midnight on Monday 14th September.
Top Tip: When I submit stories to Hannah Kate’s show and I’ve polished them up as much as I can, I record them on Zoom. I hear how they sound. I can make sure I’m not speaking too fast or too slow. And Zoom gives you the timing of your recording so you can’t get that wrong. I’ve also found a word count of about 150 words or thereabouts works well here.
Autumn Equinox Stories Wanted for Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM
Flash is remarkably flexible given its restricted word count. I think a major factor in this is it has to be character led (as you have little room for much in the way of description so the characters have to show everything).
Characters can be put into any situation and time. I have a lot of fun here which is why I’ll always recommend flash for all writers even if it’s never your main work. I think it is a no-brainer for anyone who loves creating characters.
The discipline of writing to a tight word count pays off for other forms of writing. I’ve found this to be the case for my blogging, for example. It is much tighter now than it used to be.
Fairytales With Bite – Pride Before A Fall
We all know the saying. It’s a great theme for a story. Sadly it proved to be true literally for me last week when I took a tumble. Thankfully only painful bruising but my ego took a bit of a tumble too. (I tripped over a service cover in the pavement – these things are never level and I just didn’t lift my foot high enough).
In the magical world, how could pride come before a fall? I’ve written flash pieces on this where an arrogant younger magical being is shown she is not the be all and end all by a much older, wiser magical being. Good fun to do.
But you could show pride in a magical development by the society as a whole only for the thing to go horribly wrong. What would the consequences be? Would your society be honest, admit to it and clear up the mess or would they try and cover up the fact anything went wrong at all?
Good story possibilities there, especially since I think if they went for the cover up route, there would be bound to be a whistleblower somewhere, concerned about public safety perhaps?
Happy writing!
This World and Others – Necessity is the Mother of Invention
You may have noticed I’ve got a bit of a thing about old sayings this week. But they do make great themes for stories and, in many cases, can be used for titles too. These sayings are timeless so your story ideas shouldn’t date either.
In a magical world, you could have fun writing about what needs to be invented and why, whether the thing is invented or not and who by and what problems they had to overcome, and whether anyone else tries to stop the invention. Plenty of story ideas there.
I must admit I have a soft spot for stories when the most unlikely being comes up with something useful. I guess that is a hangover from my love of the fairytales where the most unlikely character often turns out to be the hero.
So what would your world need to invent? Would it invent something to stop it having to copy something from a planet they despised such as our own dear home? How well or otherwise do things work out?
As for the creative minds behind all of this, are they respected, feared, mocked or what have you? Not everyone appreciates geniuses and even they do it’s often after someone’s life time. Could that happen in your setting?
Food for thought there.
