Tag: book launches

Author Interview: Richard Hardie – Remember, Remember

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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.
Many thanks to Richard Hardie for supplying author, location, and book cover shots for his interview with me for Chandler’s Ford Today. He also supplied the lovely picture of his “editorial assistant”, Oscar!

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Am delighted to share my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post. This week, I have an in-depth chat with YA author and publisher, Richard Hardie. We look ahead to not one but two books he hopes to bring out soon and discuss book launches, marketing, short and long form fiction writing, and how history works its way into Richard’s writing amongst the many gems here. Useful tips are shared too. Hope you enjoy the post and many thanks, Richard, for a great interview.

Author Interview: Richard Hardie – Remember, Remember

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Lady is having a great week (though she will probably be a bit miffed with me next week when I take her to the vets for her booster!). It was lovely today to see Lady running at full pelt with her Aussie Shepherd gentleman friend happily sharing toys and doing a kind of tag game. Again Lady walked home slowly but happily! As did her friend…!

Looking forward to sharing my interview with Richard Hardie tomorrow on CFT. See above. Amongst many gems, he’ll be sharing his thoughts on marketing (and given he is a publisher as well this is particularly useful) and gives tips on what readers can do to support authors they know beyond buying the books, though of course the latter goes without saying really!

More tomorrow of course and I look forward to sharing future author interviews here too. I’m also preparing a piece for CFT on character creation and share some thoughts of mine on that as this is something I’m doing all the time with my flash fiction work. More on that nearer the time too.

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Lady had a fabulous time with her two girlfriends in the park this morning. Let’s just say Lady was walking slowly on the way home!

I’m chatting to YA author, Richard Hardie, on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. See above. Looking forward to sharing a great interview then so do look out for it. I’ve always found with author interviews you pick up and learn so much from them yourself as well as the interviews themselves being a great read/interesting listen etc.

I’ve mentioned before I will interview my own characters before writing their stories up. A couple of pointed questions usually gives me enough information to work out yes, this character is worth writing up. I find it a useful process to help clarify my thoughts. I then get on with the first draft and there is still manoeuvre room for the character to surprise me too – best of both worlds here I think. I deliberately don’t plan everything out – just enough to get me started.

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Many thanks for the great comments coming in already on How Nice, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction, where my narrator is flummoxed by an unexpected present on their doorstep. To find out what it is and what they make of it do check out the link below.

Screenshot 2023-02-10 at 09-38-30 How Nice! by Allison Symes

Pleased to have got another story polished and submitted (and this one started life as one of my Flash NANO pieces too). I suspect I will end up using most of my Flash NANO work for competitions and markets. Nice to have a good stock of thirty of them to choose from (aside from any others I write meantime which I don’t use for Friday Flash Fiction or my YouTube channel). Talking of which, I am glad to say the link for this has been simplified recently.

 

 

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I love writing what I call fairytales with bite because you can have so much fun with these. For example, I’ve written from the viewpoint of dragons. This kind of story often works best when it is kept fairly short so flash fiction is an ideal outlet for it. Why so? Because often this kind of tale will end with a humorous punchline and those work well in flash.

And again humorous punchlines work best when with a tale that doesn’t go on for too long. As with my twist endings, I will often write my humorous ending first and then work out what could lead to it. This means I have a simple structure in place immediately and it’s then a question of filling in the gaps. I love doing that.

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Fairytales with Bite – Fairy Godmother Acrostic

F = Fantastic with her wand work.
A = Always ready to help the deserving who have run into a spot of bother.
I = Instincts about good and evil are always right.
R = Rescuing comes into her role but sometimes it it so save someone from themselves.
Y = Young looking but much, more older than she appears (and is clever enough to not look too clever).

G = Generous and kind, but won’t be taken for a fool.
O = Orders known to be questioned if she thinks they’re wrong.
D = Dreams of perfecting the best spells but sees this as work in progress.
M = Magic is her stock in trade but she takes care to research the latest developments.
O = Other godmothers are her partners in “crime” against those who are truly evil – she does not see colleagues as competition.
T = Truth and trustworthiness are things she treasures in herself and her clients (she won’t help those without these things).
H = Helps directly and helps clients to help themselves too,
E = Enterprising and energetic, she has a working day which would scupper many far younger than her.
R = Rarely needs to advertise – she has a gift for turning up where her kind of help is needed.

Makes for an interesting character outline too!

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This World and Others – Settings There Against Settings Here

Some ways into building your own world is to take what we know of life here and either exaggerate it for your purposes or do a compare and contrast.

The settings here are….

The settings in your fictional word are….

The advantages of this kind of approach are that you can take the failings of what we’ve got here and correct them in your fiction. You could also bring in failings into your fictional world that we don’t have here. Why does your world have these and we do not? Could those failings happen here at some point in the future? You could have crossover with cli-fi (climate change fiction) here.

You could also take the approach of “if I was building a world from scratch, what would I like to see in it?”. Give some thought as to why you would pick the things you have and then figure out how they work for your characters and how they might cause problems for said characters. No world is perfect after all. Your fictional setting should throw up problems for your character to deal with even if it’s not the main part of the story.

For example, if your character has to go off on a quest, how do things like the weather affect their chances of success? Does your world setting suit your characters or have they had to learn to adapt to it and make the most of what they can?

There could be interesting stories in showing how and why that attitude came about.

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ALLISON SYMES – BOOK BRUSH READER HUB

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MOM’S FAVORITE READS LINK – CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE INCLUDING MY FLASH FICTION COLUMN HERE – 

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ALLISON SYMES – YOU TUBE CHANNEL

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Back from London, Festive Flash Fiction, and Random Name Generators

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Image Credit:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos of the Theodore Bulldog pub in Charing Cross. Yes, I’ve been out and about again. More to come on that on Friday’s post. Also thanks to Lynn Clement for her author and book cover pictures. Thanks to Adrian Symes for the author pic of yours truly. (I am rubbish at selfies incidentally).
Hope you have had a good weekend/start to the week. Wild weather in Britain right now. Am thankful writing is generally an indoor activity.

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Am so pleased to say a festive flash fiction piece of mine will be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s show on North Manchester FM on 18th December. More details nearer the time (and I hope to share a link to the broadcast later too). I just love the sound of her Three Minute Santas flash fiction special – definitely had to send something in for that one.

Huge congratulations to Rosemary Johnson, who will also have a story of hers broadcast on the show. Looking forward to listening to that and the show full of stories. (That is such a lovely thought, isn’t it?).

In other news, I will be looking back at the recent Bridge House Publishing events (on Zoom and in the in-person one) for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday.

Allison Symes - Chandlers Ford Today headerAlways a joy to talk or write about flash fiction


Yesterday, I used a random name generator to trigger thoughts for a story for Friday Flash Fiction this week and for my YouTube channel. I only picked first names and it came up with Alison! (Yes, really and spelled the usual way rather than mine with the double l. My late parents could not have foreseen the invention of email and the need for me to spell out my name in full each and every time to ensure I get any email at all!).

Anyway, I will share on my book page shortly the YouTube story I’ve come up with based on my mysterious Alison. Link further down. Will let you know on Friday if the other story was taken by Friday Flash Fiction.

Good fun to do and I don’t recall using a name generator before. The one I used allowed you to set first name only, first name and surname, and even concoct a life story for the name generated. I might have a look at that at some point but I do think it much more fun to concoct the life story myself – that is the story! (I must admit though I am a little curious as to what the generator might come up with).

 

Quiet day today. Bitterly cold again too. Looking forward to seeing how Doctor Who pans out tonight. It is about the only programme I watch live now. Am interested to see how the story threads tied up with this series given it ends this evening. Naturally I am bound to take an interest in that.

I will be thinking soon about my end-of-year post for Chandler’s Ford Today. I usually wrap up with some festive stories, limericks etc. Great fun to do.

And I am pleased to say the latest issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads is now now – do see the link. The magazine is packed full of wonderful items and it is free! What is there not to like about that?

Am thrilled to see my two flash fiction collections showcased here as one of MFR’s authors. And this month I talk about Festivities. I share a festive related flash piece here and a big thanks to those who sent in flash pieces on the theme. They are a joy to read.

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https://moms-favorite-reads.com/2021/12/04/moms-favorite-reads-emagazine-december-2021/

Have been to the Bridge House Publishing celebration event in London today. It was lovely to see so many friends in person again. The ones who couldn’t make it – you were missed!

I’ll chat about this more for my Chandler’s Ford Today post next week but when I say the event started with a wonderful lunch at the Theodore Bulldog pub, you can guess what a fabulous time was had by all!

Many thanks for the great comments already in on Specialist Subject, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction.

On a more serious note, I will flag up I block anyone who posts on my threads asking for friendship. You make a friend request properly or not at all.

Usually I take the original post down but the latest comment came in on my post yesterday sharing the link to my story.

I thought this time I would take the chance to call this behaviour out. At best it is phishing and I don’t want to know. I’m here to talk about writing, share links to where I have work published etc.

I am a little amused so many widowed US generals and Army surgeons want to be my friend though!

Anyway, please be aware, folks.

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I had a lovely surprise at my Slimming World group tonight. Back in 2017, I held a book signing at my local railway station for From Light to Dark and Back Again. I was chatting to someone tonight who remembered it.

I was hoping to do the same again for the launch of Tripping The Flash Fantastic last year but You Know What scuppered that. I do hope to have another launch at this location again at some point as the community people who are behind looking after the local stations are all for it and I found it worked really well.

It was easy to show people what flash fiction is by reading some and that did lead to sales. Also flash fiction is perfect for a quick read – when you’re out and about on the train or bus, well it would fit in very nicely there. But I was touched that my event was remembered. That means a lot.

It’s the start of the working week. It’s story time once again! Hope you enjoy my latest YouTube video called Clearing Up Again. Find out why Alison would never be surprised at a teddy bear’s picnic. (Alison is the name generated by a random name generator. I often use these to trigger ideas “outside of the box” for stories. I don’t recall using one for names before though I have used random noun, adjective, questions, and even number ones before).


The latest issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads is now out. My column here is about Festivities and I share various ways in how this theme can be used to produce excellent flash fiction stories, as well as sharing one I’ve written. And do check out the flash stories people wrote to this theme. There is a wonderful mix here. And it is a free read – there is never a time when that isn’t good news. If you like a good mix of articles and stories, check out Mom’s Favorite Reads.

 

Good to see flash fiction celebrated as part of the Bridge House Publishing celebration event today.

It was especially nice to catch up with Lynn Clement, author of The City of Stories, which was recently published by Chapeltown Books. I edited this one and interviewed Lynn for Chandler’s Ford Today but it was so nice to meet up in person once again.

And if you want to write but don’t know quite where to start, why not try the shorter forms of fiction? There are indie publishers out there who take collections and writing the shorter forms will help you hone your skills for longer narratives.

Goodreads Author Blog – Books Acrostic

B = Bound to be several styles of book to suit you in terms of genre and format.
O = Original, captivating stories of all word counts are out there waiting for you to discover them.
O = One book or a series? Your call and there are many wonderful examples of both.
K = Kindle – a great and cheap way of discovering authors new to you.
S = Stories – one of the very best things about humanity. Think of the imaginations behind them.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOK LAUNCHES AND REALITY OF FAIRYTALES

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A nice mix of posts tonight I think!

Facebook/Chandler’s Ford Today

I have to smile. I am being invited to add myself to the “Allison Symes” Team. Err… Facebook, I AM Allison Symes and I AM the team. Me and… well that’s it! Oh well, perhaps this is something I need to aspire to – to have people, other than me, to add on to the said team? This could take some time…

Meanwhile, my latest Chandler’s Ford Today post shares my thoughts on why book launches are important to an author and Anne Wan’s report on her most recent one at Waterstones in Southampton. I suspect most writers, published or not, will identify with this but comments would be welcome via the CFT comments box.

Anne writes the children’s series Secrets of the Snow Globe and has just launched her second book, I had hoped to get to Anne’s launch but couldn’t in the end so this is a bit of a strange post in that I’m sharing a launch I didn’t go to! Anne’s report only made me wish I HAD been able to go (which is a sign of a good launch if ever there was one).

Anne is on the left in the image with her illustrator, Dawn Larder, on the right. Dawn came back from Spain to be at Anne’s launch. Now there’s commitment for you!

Image Credit:  All images in my CFT post tonight were kindly supplied by Anne Wan.

Shooting Star - Feature Image - Anne Wan Book Launch at Waterstones 2017

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I’ve discovered, thanks to the smartphone, there is no such thing as dead time.

I had to take my car into the main dealer today and while I was waiting for the necessary works to be carried out, I was happily writing away on the said phone (I’m becoming used to the stylus now!) and have drafted another story for my follow-up book to FLTDBA.

I didn’t manage to complete the story but I am almost there on it and I know where I’m going with it. (It will be one of my longer flash pieces too). This is where technology comes into its own. I was also pleased to be able to email what I’d written back to myself for an instant back-up. So even time waiting for a garage fix can be put to good use!

Stories can be created and read on just about any modern device - image via Pixabay

Stories can be created on almost any device.  Image via Pixabay

Goodreads Blog

I talk about the joys of non-fiction this week.

Much as I love reading a wide range of fiction, I must admit it has been my tastes in non-fiction that have expanded in recent years.I am reading more history now than before and loving it. Ironically perhaps, reading more straight history, so to speak, has made me appreciate historical fiction more.

I am reading more history now than before and loving it. Ironically perhaps, reading more straight history, so to speak, has made me appreciate historical fiction more.I think it makes it easier to see or guess at the depth of research a historical fiction author has to do to be able to set the scenes of their “world” properly and to carry their readers with them. Get one historical detail wrong and that whole world could crash.

I think it makes it easier to see or guess at the depth of research a historical fiction author has to do to be able to set the scenes of their “world” properly and to carry their readers with them. Get one historical detail wrong and that whole world could crash.This is the big advantage of fiction, of course. You can and do totally make it up! But set a story in a known historical setting or with known historical people, then the details must be authentic.

This is the big advantage of fiction, of course. You can and do totally make it up! But set a story in a known historical setting or with known historical people, then the details must be authentic.

I like the fact that non-fiction has been, in recent years, using more of the techniques in fiction to catch readers’ imaginations. Non-fiction should never be a deadly dull list of dates and facts.

Good non-fiction opens up the world it is written about and makes it real to the reader. This is very similar to a fiction writer portraying characters the ready can really identify with. Catching the imagination is vital whatever genre you write in then.

Personal history can often be found in things like old exercise books, which in turn reveal things about political history and how much people knew at the time. Image via Pixabay.

Personal history can often be found in things like old exercise books, which in turn reveal things about political history and how much people knew at the time. Image via Pixabay.

Fairytales with Bite

I look at the reality behind fairytales for this week’s post.

Can there be reality behind fairytales?  I think so.

Writers are always advised to write about what you know (which can be difficult for authors of sci-fi, horror and fantasy in particular when you stop and think about it!  We are inventing new worlds. How can we possibly “know” something that does not exist except on our pages?  I suppose the what we know here is knowing in good enough detail the world we’ve created and inventing characters readers can identify with.  Knowledge of human nature is crucial here).

But there is reality in fairytales.  Not just of character types.  Whatever world you write about, characteristics do not change much.  There will always be those who lust for power, the oppressed, those who fight back, those who go on seemingly impossible quests because they have to save something/someone and this is the only way to do it and so on.  (Great stories come from the last category alone, think The Lord of the Rings to name but one).

When I think of a realistic fairytale, my mind nearly always turns to Hans Christen Andersen’s The Little Match Girl.  Definitely not one of his cheerier tales but, without giving too much away, to be able to write this as well as he did, he had to know something of poverty (which he did) and I strongly suspect he actually saw real match girls which inspired this tale.  To me this story is a barely disguised report on something he saw and his underlying jibe at people being allowed to suffer like this girl did is as hardhitting now as it would have been when he first wrote the tale.

Often with fairytales it is the message behind them that is the realistic bit.  I think this is why fairytales have always resonated with people and always will.

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There can be reality behind fairytales. Image via Pixabay (and image used as part of book trailer for From Light to Dark and Back Again)

 

This World and Others

I talk about being well prepared for this week’s post (and I was!).

The importance of good preparation is something that comes up in my Chandler’s Ford Today post tonight where I talk about book launches and share a report from a recent one by children’s author, Anne Wan.

Does this mean you should never write “off the cuff”?  Funnily enough, no.

I have brainstorming sessions every so often which I find incredibly useful for producing potential ideas for future stories and blog posts.  There is no planning or preparation for this whatsoever.

This is unlike everything else I write though. I do sketch out a structure for the articles I write. I have my beginning, middle and end in mind before I start writing.

I outline my stories (sometimes in lots of detail, others with “broad brush strokes” and yes I’ve done this for my flash fiction work too!).

I find this kind of preparation, whether it is for fiction or non-fiction, helps me produce more work, not less. I think it helps me write more efficiently when it comes to producing the actual piece.  This blog post, for instance, I knew I would share something of how I work as a “peg” to hang the rest the piece from.  And that to me seems a good place to end this other than to say comments on how you work, what preparation you find useful etc would be most welcome.

Have a good writing week!

 

Writing first, editing later but both needed - image via Pixabay

Writing first and editing later but good preparation makes an enormous difference to your progress on either.  Being prepared with a good beverage is ALWAYS a good idea!  Image via Pixabay.

 

Book Reviews – From Light to Dark and Back Again

May I take this chance to say a very big thanks to all who’ve reviewed my book so far in either paperback or Kindle format.  Whether it’s a one-line or a one paragraph review, they are all much appreciated! The link takes you to the Amazon page showing both formats.  I am also pleased I now have my copies of The Best of Cafelit 6 where I have a flash story but I’ll share more on this on my next post.  This week has been busy but enjoyable, writing wise.

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