Weebly seem to be having technical issues so I can’t link to either of my sites tonight.  I can’t even get on to them to edit them!  Hopefully this will be put right for tomorrow.  Meanwhile I shall blog directly here instead. 

I have reported the issue to Weebly and they seem to be having a global issue at the moment on this so in some ways it is a relief to know it isn’t just me.  On the other hand, I feel sorry for their technical people having to get to the bottom of it all!

CHANDLER’S FORD TODAY

I discuss one of my great loves – radio – in tonight’s post called The Wonderful World of Radio.  I list my 1o favourite radio comedies.  I also share some of my favourite adaptions (there was a great ghost story about Henry VIII being haunted by Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard just to name one example).  I also talk about how radio was used in my late mother’s room when she was staying in a specialist dementia home to help make things seem more homely.  It worked beautifully!  Comments welcome via the CFT comments box as to what your favourite radio shows are.

FAIRYTALES WITH BITE/THIS WORLD AND OTHERS

Given the technical issues above, I thought I would write a short post here which could have gone on to either of my Weebly sites.

Reading Your Work Out

This came up as an idea to talk about following the flash fiction workshop I ran with Southampton Writers’ Circle this last week.  I set some exercises for this and joined in with them.  The great thing with this is we all went home with stories to work on and I hope mine will eventually end up in my follow up collection to From Light and Dark and Back Again.  I read my draft pieces out in the hope that it would encourage others to do so – and some did.  But I know some held back and I remember doing this myself years ago when I was first set exercises like this.  The thought that hammers through your mind is what you have drafted is total rubbish, it will sound silly etc etc.

What I tried to get across at the time, and will do so again here, is everybody’s first draft is “not great” (shall we say – I have heard ruder versions of this phrase, as I expect you have!).  But in many ways that is the whole point.  You are reacting with your “gut” to the challenge you have been set and you are getting your raw ideas down.  The polishing and tidying up must be a separate task and can come later.  So I would say never be afraid to read your work out because nobody is expecting it to be perfect.  Shakespeare’s first drafts weren’t perfect.  Dickens needed to edit.  Austen rewrote and rewrote.  We are in good company here!

What is useful in reading work out is hearing people’s reactions – the ones that escape as you are reading your story out, their instinctive reactions to your tale.  I found in reading my some of my published humorous pieces out, yes the humour did work where I thought it would.  With my drafts, I picked up on what went down well so I will bear this in mind when I edit these pieces.

Even if you’re not in a class, reading your work out loud to yourself is a good idea.  You will literally hear if you’ve got your dialogue (and the rhythm) right.  So give it a go!