Tag: Chapeltown Books

Author Interviews

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All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Book Fair images taken by Janet Williams. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a great weekend. Nice one here. Making good progress on the writing. Significant editing done too. Hope the week ahead continues to go well for us all. There are more signs of spring appearing all the time too, which always cheers me up.

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Pleased to share my latest post on Authors Electric. This time I look at Author Interviews. It is a great joy to be on both the receiving and setting end of these, given I’ve appeared on other writers’ blogs, have been on podcasts, and, of course, I set many writers questions over at Chandler’s Ford Today.

I discuss how I’ve used author interviews to help me on my own journey to becoming a published writer and how I continue to find such interviews engaging and informative. Hope you find the post useful and thought provoking.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Hectic here but it was good to see Lady playing with her Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler pals earlier this morning.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing a fabulous interview with Joy Wood on Chandler’s Ford Today post on Friday. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing my Authors Electric post about Author Interviews. See above. Not a coincidence this one!

Hoping to get an article finished and sent off later this evening plus I hope to work on my presentation for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group later this month. Am almost there on it.

Had a productive weekend but Mondays are always one of those days when I don’t get so much writing done due to commitments elsewhere so I use Mondays to do little bits and pieces. These things mount up.

Hope the weekend has been a good one. Nice to see more sunshine.

Writing wise I’ll be getting on with Flash Fiction Sunday shortly. Later I have editing to crack on with and a presentation to add more to so I will be happily out of mischief for the rest of the day, no problem!

Also have just heard will be off to a murder mystery my local amateur theatre group is performing in April. Will be going to this with my lovely editor from Chandler’s Ford Today. Looking forward to that already. Plus I will have a writing Zoom to go to in early April as well as so plenty going on.

Character Tip: This is where writing what you know can help you in the creation of your characters. We know what we like and dislike in other people so let’s put that to good use as we invent our own people/beings of choice.

We understand what can make people angry, for example, so how can you tap into that when writing an angry character of your own? Look at the reasons why people have the attitudes they do.

There will be something you can use for your fictional creations from that. Understanding motivation helps so much here I think.

Hope you have had a good start to the weekend. Managed to get washing out and dried on the line today – yes, I know it’s sad but it is a win, honestly! Also lots of daffodils now out in one of my borders – daffodils always make me smile as I see them as pretty cheery plants, and they also remind me of Wordsworth.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing a fabulous interview with Joy Wood on Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Do look out for that on Friday. The interview is packed full of useful thoughts and tips and you can also find out how and why competition slogans had an impact on her writing life. Looking forward to sharing that and hopefully catching up with Joy again in person at Swanwick later this year.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Lady had a fabulous time in the park today with her Rhodesian Ridgeback chum and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Great time had by all. Hopefully more of the same will take place tomorrow!

I haven’t used dogs much in my flash fiction tales and short stories. I tend to focus on characters who are human or fantastical in some way though my YouTube story this week, Temptation, is one for dog owners to enjoy especially.

But there is nothing to stop us using the qualities most dog owners appreciate in their pets (loyalty, love, faithfulness, mischief making, just being fun to be around etc!) in other types of character for our stories. Just a thought.

To quote The Bangles, it has indeed been a Manic Monday and it is time to share another story of mine on YouTube. Hope you like the short but sweet Temptation. Dogs and their owners will especially appreciate this one.

Temptation can attack anyone or anything but especially, in some cases, where cooked chicken is involved.

 

Both of my flash fiction collections with Chapeltown Books have titles which indicate something of their genre and/or mood. From Light to Dark and Back Again very much flags up the mood of the stories. Tripping the Flash Fantastic indicates the genre (flash and fantastic tales/fantasy).

Did I have either of those titles when I began compiling my books for submission? No! Both had alternative working titles. The titles I ended up with came to mind as I was drafting and editing. This happens so I no longer worry about it. I find I have to have a working title for anything I write but am not worried if it ends up changing. I think I just need a placeholder and I work with that.

Most of the time when ideas for alternative titles come up, they are better than the original but it doesn’t always work out that way. When it doesn’t I simply stay with what I first came up with. I always ask myself what kind of impact the title has on me (and therefore on a likely reader) and the strongest impact is always the one I go with.

Looking forward to flash fiction Sunday afternoon tomorrow. Friday Flash Fiction is about to run their annual Andrew Siderius competition so do look out for this. I hope to have a go.

Also looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting later in the month. Will be looking at editing flash fiction for this one. One massive benefit to flash fiction writing is you do learn to improve your editing skills considerably and that can then filter across to other forms of writing you do. I’ve found this to be the case.

Goodreads Author Blog – Books and Their Moods

Now it’s no secret the books I read often depend on what mood I’m in. When life is grim (and the news even more so), then I will usually go for humorous reads such as works by Wodehouse, Pratchett, and Austen, something I know will make me smile basically. I see it as having something lighter to counterbalance the darker side of life.

But books too have their moods and certain genres play on this to good effect – horror, crime, and thrillers, all indicate the moods of their stories to name but a few.

Now I’m one of those readers where I don’t want the mood the book to match my mood. I like that counterbalance though there are books I will always read regardless of what mood I’m in. For example, I will always find time to re-read Agatha Christie or Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time (which is a fabulous book and the only novel to make me change my view on a historical person, in this case Richard III).

So which books do you use to lighten your mood? Which ones do you read regardless of mood of book or your own mood?

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Publication News and The Perfect Ending

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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 weekend. Week has got off to a great start with the news The Best of CafeLit 13 is now out. I have three stories in there. More below on that. Also the June issue of Writers’ Narrative is out now too. Can’t believe we’re in June already but at least the weather is stating to play along with the idea we’re due some sunshine now!

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Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today. Three very happy dogs went home again after a lovely time in the park. Dogs know what matters!

Writing wise, I’m talking to Jenny Sanders again for Part 2 of a fabulous interview on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Her devotional book, Polished Arrows, was published recently and this week we’ll be talking about marketing, launches, the value of good supportive writing groups, and much more besides. Don’t miss! Lots of tips and useful thoughts here.

Now to give Amazon their due. I contacted them on Sunday to ask them to add The Best of CafeLit 13 to my Amazon Author Central page. I’ve found, from past experience, I need to give them the details and they add anthologies (because I’m not the publisher but am a contributing author). Anyway, it was done yesterday, well within 24 hours.

Have just added the book to my ALCS records too. I’ve found it pays to add new publications (books or articles where there is an ISSN number) as soon as I can to make sure I get it done. Will make a difference to my ALCS payment next year, which is the best incentive to get it done!

 

My three stories in The Best of CafeLit 13 are Cinnamon Comforts, Untaken, and Sweet Dreams. It’s good to be back between the covers with old friends in this anthology and I’m looking forward to catching up with their works here, as well as checking out those authors new to me. I often do read anthologies as you might expect and find them to be a fabulous way to try out works by authors new to me. If I like their work, I will often then try their longer works. This is a great way to discover new writers.

I also like to read collections of short form works in between reading novels. I like to ensure I have a good reading diet of longer works and shorter ones. Anthologies make it so much more convenient to catch up with the latter!

Also if you are writing in the short form, reading books like this can count as part of your market research. It is always good to know what is already out there and from that you can work out where you would fit in. A publisher needs to know where you’d fit in with their lists and you need to be able to show them that you can.

Publication News (as you may have gathered from the above!)

Thrilled to say The Best of CafeLit 13 is now out. I have three stories in here. Will say more about this during the next few days but just wanted to (a) share the news and (b) congratulate the other authors with work in here. Nice to see names and old friends here. Well done, all. (What is especially nice here is the stories are voted for by other CafeLit people so nobody can know their story is going to make the cut).

Will be sharing Part 2 of an in-depth conversation with Jenny Sanders for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Next time we’ll be looking at launches, marketing, and more. Link up on Friday.

Many thanks for the comments coming in on my Unwelcome News, my latest Friday Flash Fiction tale. Just who is the worst here – Melissa or Stefan? Read the tale and see what you think. Link here. (Great fun to write).

 

Delighted to say the June edition of Writers’ Narrative is now out. The theme is poetry this time and my article looks at The Links Between Flash Fiction and Poetry. There are more than you might think. I also include a flash fiction piece told in poetic form as I sometimes write stories this way and it can work well. I share some tips for doing this too.

My article is on Pages 14/15 but do check out the excellent pieces throughout. For one thing, you can find out if you know who your padawan is! Go on, you know you want to find out!

 

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Hope you have had a good day.

Something I mention to members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group is to look out for the short story competitions. Many of them either have a lower word count limit of 1000 words (making it the top end of the range for flash fiction writers but still do-able) or have a range of word counts for you to write to.

The Bridport Prize, for example, has a flash fiction category but also has a short story one. No reason why you couldn’t enter both with different tales should you wish.

Another one is the HISSAC Annual Open Short Story competition where they want short stories up to 2000 words and flash fiction up to 500. There will be other competitions out there who will do something similar. Worth watching for.

Competitions are great for making up face up to working to a deadline and if you get listed or win, even better!

447551831_10161932010872053_7782713995846695559_nIt’s Monday. It has been a sunny one too. Still Monday though. Still time for a YouTube story from me. Hope you like my Life Changing Moments. Those who came to the recent Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting will recognise this as my response to a prompt I set.

Usually when I put my YouTube videos here, they are inserted into the page  and you click and play. Not happening tonight. Please use the link above. Screenshot to just give you an idea but there is more to this story so do check the link out! Thanks.

Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 20-27-49 Life Changing Moments - YouTube

The buzz of being in print never diminishes! The Best of CafeLit 13 is now out and I have three stories included. I also enjoy getting to update my records over on the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and on Amazon. This will be a lovely job to do later this week! Done. See above but most enjoyable tasks to do!

Will be getting on with some flash fiction writing today. Nice way to spend Sunday afternoons! I do more later in the week too but there is something about Sunday afternoons which helps with focus. Well, I know it helps me.

Favourite thing about creating a character? I think it is that moment when I think “yes, I know you, I’ve got where you’re coming from” because then I know I can write from their viewpoint effectively. I understand what drives them and what mistakes they’re likely to make. Once I’ve “got” this, I can’t wait to write their stories up and that is always a good sign.

 

It’s that time of the month again – time for the author newsletter. A huge hello to those who have subscribed since last time and an enormous thanks to all who support me here. All much appreciated. The theme this time is questioning your characters, something I do all the time. It pays especially when you’re writing a lot of stories and need ways into coming up with characters all the time.

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Goodreads Author Blog – The Perfect Ending

Is there such a thing as the perfect ending to any story? The only reason I’m not sure about this is because all writers are human and we’re all fallible. No perfect writer = no perfect writing.

I know, looking back on my older stories, I can see ways of improving them thanks to things I’ve learned about writing craft and technique since that time. BUT you can improve on what you do. I can look back at those stories and know they were the best I could do at that time. So am reasonably pleased with them but am more pleased with improvements I have made since that time. Writing is always a case of developing your craft, I think.

For stories by other writers, what I look for is an appropriate ending for their characters’ stories. Yes, sometimes that ending can be ambiguous. (After all, tomorrow is another day from Gone With The Wind is a good example of that kind of ending). But it should be appropriate to all that has come before and as long as it has done that, I’m happy.

Screenshot 2024-06-01 at 20-03-53 The Perfect Ending

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Caring for Characters and Story Twists

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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.
Hope you have had a lovely Easter weekend. I’ve loved the church services and, separately, listening to the Classic FM Hall of Fame for 2024. (When will Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams make it to No. 1? So deserves it. You feel like you’re going back in time listening to that!).
Am so looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a very special two part interview with Sophie Neville for Chandler’s Ford Today. Sophie is best known for her role as Titty in the classic children’s film Swallows and Amazons but she has done so much else too. More to come in the interviews. Part 1 up on Friday.

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Hope you have had a good day. Shorter swimming sessions for the next couple of weeks due to the Easter holidays. Lady may well be getting longer walks in the afternoon, not that she’ll mind. She loved seeing her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback buddies today. Lady came back from that tired but happy (which is my standard look when I come back from a swimming session!).

Writing Tip: What is it about your characters which appeal to you the most? What makes you care about what happens to them? Sorting that out so you know will help you create characters which appeal to readers too.

433946484_10161810925617053_1614668251130398056_nLady got to see her Hungarian Vizler and Labradoodle pals this morning. Bank Holiday Mondays (as today is in the UK) always feel like a strange kind of Sunday to me. It was nice to see some spring weather though.

Newsletter went out this morning. No April Fool’s about that! Link to the current edition here but if you like the look of this and would like to sign up do head over to my landing page at my website. Separate link for that here.

Managed to get a fair bit of writing done over the weekend and am going through PowerPoints I’m due to present (one next week!). Am so looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a wonderful two part interview with Sophie Neville (Swallows and Amazons) for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Be sure not to miss. Sophie discusses her incredible creative life. Very inspiring.

Screenshot 2024-04-02 at 20-11-29 Allison Symes - April 2024 - Flash LightHappy Easter! Nice to have some spring weather to go with it, though I understand the rain is due back again later, alas. Lady had a nice surprise today as she got to see her Hungarian Vizler chum at lunchtime.

When do I know a character will “work”? There’s no one single thing, to be honest, but when I can know how and why they would react in any given circumstance, that is a good sign. It shows me I’ve outlined them deeply enough.

Sometimes I will come across or think of something which will make me think Character X in Story Y would say exactly that, and this is another good sign. Sometimes I can come across something a character of mine in a story would not say and that, funnily enough, is useful as well because it then makes me think of what they would come up with instead. (I’d also know why here).

Knowing my characters well enough has been an enormous help to me. Having different ways to create characters (crucial as I am inventing characters a lot!) is invaluable. And knowing the characters gets me a long way to knowing what their stories will be and why. Story structure is not a glamorous thing but, for me, it underpins all the fiction I write.

434386649_10161807265932053_5419165843243315380_nIt’s the small victories in life which really make you want to cheer at times. Today (30th March 2024) is the first day this year I’ve had my washing out on the line and got it dry! Yippee! Also happy to see my bluebells are beginning to emerge.

Many thanks to all who have subscribed to my author newsletter since last time. Welcome aboard and many thanks to the longer term subscribers too. Your support is much appreciated. (Next letter due out on 1st April – not an April Fool’s, honest!).

Writing wise, I am so looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a very special two-part interview with the lovely Sophie Neville on Chandler’s Ford Today. Sophie is still very well known for her role as Titty in the children’s classic film, Swallows and Amazons. She has gone on to have a superb career in TV (in front of and behind the camera) and in writing and has recently won awards for her scripts too.

There is so much to discuss with her (if anyone could be said to have immersed themselves in the creative life, it is Sophie) and I am so looking forward to sharing the first part next Friday, 5th April. Link up on Friday. Don’t miss!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

The joy of flash fiction and story collections is in having “bite size” reads which are so easy to dip into. I often mention using pockets of time for writing and that is a great and useful thing to do. I’ve found it has made me more productive because I’ve got ideas waiting for me to assess and then write up.

But why not use pockets of time for your reading too? I tend to use my lunch break for this but it helps me to read more and that is never going to be a bad idea!

What I like about the CafeLit and Bridge House Publishing anthologies especially is getting to read other authors in one book. That shows me whether I like their style or not and, assuming I do, it makes it far more likely I will check out their own longer works of fiction.

If you would like to know where to start, why not check out the Bridgetown Cafe Bookshop which covers the works of authors writing for Chapeltown Books too. So am not unbiased here but well produced story anthologies are a joy to read so why not check them out?

Screenshot 2024-04-02 at 20-21-49 The Bridgetown Café Bookshop

It’s Monday. Okay it’s a Bank Holiday Monday in my part of the world and we’ve even had some sunshine, hooray! Still time for a story though. Hope you enjoy Unfair, my latest on YouTube. (Short and sweet this one).

 

Happy Easter! Don’t forget my author newsletter is out again tomorrow. Not too late to sign up. Just head on over to https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com for that.

What I find useful in compiling my newsletter is adding bits and pieces to it throughout the month as thoughts occur to me and then editing appropriately a few days before it goes out. I also do a couple of test runs to make sure all is okay.

Flash is great to share on a newsletter too. Doesn’t take up much room(and this is another reason why I also add links to my stories on Friday Flash Fiction here as well. Easy enough to click on a story title that takes your fancy and have a quick read over a cuppa. Challenge to me? Coming up with intriguing story titles but it is good to be kept on the old writing toes here!

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My flash fiction collections, From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping the Flash Fantastic, are square books. The design makes them stand out and they are ideal gift books, as someone rightly pointed out in a wonderful review for the latter.

Fabulous collection of poems and flash fiction. Some made me giggle, some made me gasp, all surprised me! I found it a real page turner, as the stories had such unexpected twists and turns! Some were actually quite moving. Highly recommend this! Makes a lovely present as well, with its (to me) unusual shape.

All of the Chapeltown flash collections are in this shape as part of an overall branding style. I think it works well though I accept I am biased (and bound to be so) here! The paperbacks are a great size to fit into pockets, bags etc so again are ideal for a train/bus ride read. Very easy to take with you (and even easier still if you go for the Kindle version of them!).

Flash with Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Goodreads Author Blog – Story Twists

I love twists in stories as long as they suit the character and situation. An early one I came across was in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie, whom I understand received complaints about what she did here. Can’t say more without giving things away but it is a great book and I highly recommend it especially if you like twists.

I use twists a lot in my own flash fiction. For a very short tale like this, often my closing line is the twist. I have done this with the “standard” twist but have also written humorous twist endings. All good fun to do.

The tricky bit is ensuring that the twist does come across as “natural”. It must fit in with what has been revealed about the character and their situation, otherwise it will look like a “fix” to get the author out of a tight corner. My favourite twists are when I look back through the story, having read it through, and then spot the clues to the twist which is about to be revealed. Naturally I learn a good deal for my own writing studying things like that.

This is where I think writers are so lucky. To write well, we need to read well and widely. So if we ever did need an excuse to have a book in our hands, that’s it, right there, regardless of whether there is a twist or not!

Screenshot 2024-03-30 at 17-47-46 Story Twists

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Time Management

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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 Geoff Parkes for the image of me taking part in a Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night a while back.
Hope you had a lovely weekend. I had a wonderful time with family and friends celebrating my birthday. Lady had a ball too and was so tired but happily so at the end of it all. Now time to get back to the writing desk. I wonder how many characters I’ll put in awkward situations this week. It will be fun finding out! The authorial joy of causing trouble for characters shouldn’t be underestimated – I love doing it and then finding out how they deal with the mess I’ve put them in.

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Facebook – General

Posting early as have a meeting later. I sometimes tweet for the Association of Christian Writers and tend to draft my tweets in advance and schedule them, as my posts there are always related to writing in some way.

For Facebook, I tend to draft in advance but then put up “live” as and when I can get to my desk. I’ve done that with this post. The drafting in advance saves me time. In my more limited times to write, I like to hit the ground running as it frees up what time I’ve got to do other smaller jobs, such as starting to draft a future blog spot. I can stop at any convenient point for something like that.

I’ve also found having limited time slots for writing sometimes helps because it makes me focus even more than I already do. Sometimes when I have longer periods in which to write, I find you can waste time working out where to start. Have done this. I don’t do so much now. I work out in advance now what I’m going to do when so I know what I’m going to be working on before I get to my desk. I find that helps me make the most of my available time slot for writing, regardless of how long that may be.

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A busy start to Holy Week. Mondays are often hectic for me. It is always a pleasure to get back to my desk after hectic days. Okay, I may not get to write so much (tiredness!), but I am writing something and loving being creative. I also find it helps me unwind after said hectic day.

Later in the week I get to write much more but I’ve got used to the ebbs and flows of the writing life. Often it will be on hectic days I will return to my notebooks and look up potential ideas to write up and jot down further ideas that come to me from them, maybe even write a first draft on one or two.

Time management, I think, is an art form and one which is well worth practicing! I’ve found I get far more done by using hectic days to do smaller items of writing and then making the most of longer writing times for longer pieces of work. Even just five minutes spent writing can produce something useful for you to work up later on.

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Hope your weekend has gone well. Am recovering from yesterday’s party, as is Lady. Have rarely seen her that tired but oh so happy with it. Looking forward to listening in to the new Hall of Fame on Classic FM over the Easter weekend. Will be especially listening out for the ones I voted for. One is very close to the top of the chart and I would love to see/hear it make the top spot.

It is one of those odd things that I find no trouble writing whatsoever with classical music on in the background. Anything else and it disrupts my concentration. There is something relaxing about classical I think and when I am relaxed I just get on and write. I usually find I write more too.

Writing Tip: Stories often don’t find a home first go. Put any rejected pieces aside. Give it some time and come back to them. Can you see where you could improve them? I find I usually can after a break like that. I then submit it somewhere else. I have had work published doing this so it is worth a go but give yourself the necessary distance away from the story. It helps.

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Hope you have had a good day. I’ve had a fantastic time with family and friends today. Mind you, the weather was strange. Sunshine, rain, hail, we had the works. Lady had a fabulous time with my cousin’s dog, Lily. Lady is absolutely shattered tonight!

Looking forward to sharing Questions and Answers for Characters for Chandler’s Ford Today. More details later in the week and link up on Friday. After that, I will be sharing details of a very special two part interview for CFT. More nearer the time.

Also looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group meeting on Zoom next week.

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again soon. To sign up for story links, news, tips etc., do head over to my website landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Newsletter with envelope image

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

When both of my flash fiction collections were accepted by Chapeltown Books, I had to come up with the strap line to go on the front covers.

For From Light to Dark and Back Again this was a collection of very short stories to suit every mood.
For Tripping the Flash Fantastic this was a carefully crafted collection of story worlds.

Now you would think, would you not, that having put books of flash fiction together, I’d have had no trouble writing the one line strap lines! Not a bit of it. It took me some time to come up with both of these.

Less is more is so true in flash fiction as a whole. It isn’t necessarily “easy” to write! Mind you, I’m not convinced there is any such thing as easy writing. What I see in works I read is the craft that has gone into these stories and I can guess how long the author would have taken to get their stories to this point. Naturally I put in a lot of crafting on my own work.

I often find I can get a first draft down relatively fast (thanks to having a helpful outline). The editing takes time. Mind you, it should take time. I set myself a deadline for getting a piece of work out somewhere if it’s not for a competition where I already know the deadline.

It’s to ensure I write my piece, rest it, edit it, rest it again, edit it again should it need it, and then submit the piece. I don’t consider a piece of work “finished” until I have sent it somewhere (or know where it will eventually go if I’m saving stories for future competitions I know are coming up or for a future book).

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It’s Monday. It’s been a hectic day. Time to relax with a story then. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – One Off. Will Vera returning to old habits scare Reg? What were those old habits anyway?

Have fun exploring the various random generators out there. I use these only to trigger starting points for story ideas. I’ve used the random number, object, pictures, phrases, and question ones, just to name a few. I then decide how I am going to use these.

The question one often makes for good title and/or theme ideas. Objects and pictures I can place into the story and I ensure they are crucial to the plot in some way. The number one I have used as a countdown, simply by turning the number into a time, or as part of an address where the action of the story takes place or where the lead characters lives/starts out from.

Phrases I tend to use as themes though occasionally I subvert one of these by changing one word. It can change the whole mood of the story I’m going to tell too. That’s fun. But do give them a go. I see these as the electronic version of the old story cubes (and I use those too).

There are also books of prompts, some of which I’ve contributed to over the years. If you want somewhere to start, I am only too happy to recommend The Book of Prompts (Chapeltown Books).

When you are writing flash fiction and short stories, you want plenty of triggers for ideas. All of these things mentioned here can contribute positively to your writing. Have fun!

Screenshot 2024-03-24 at 15-30-20 The Bridgetown Café BookshopWhen I write what I call fairytales with bite (often with humorous twist endings), I nearly always know the ending first and then work backwards to get to a logical starting point. I work out what could come from my planned ending and then take things from there. I find that approach works well.

For flash non-fiction (a lot of my blog posts could count as this), I usually know what I want the overall conclusion to be for my piece and then figure out the logical “staging posts” to get me to that conclusion.

Structure is one of those things you only notice when it is not there. When I’ve not had a proper structure in place, that has been when my stories have failed because I failed to work things out and then managed to box myself in. Has only happened twice.

So even if you don’t outline anything else, thinking about what your structure is going to be will save you a great deal of time and (editing) grief.

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Goodreads Author Blog – Mixing Up Books

I like mixing up books in terms of having a wide variety of genres to read but I don’t especially like combining two types of books which were never meant to be put together (in my view). I see there is a place for zombie stories (though they’re not my cup of tea). There will always be a place for Jane Austen but putting Pride and Prejudice together with zombies to me just made me shudder when I first heard about it. Nor will I read it. I just don’t want to go there.

I also get annoyed when films rehash old stories. For me there is no improving the original The Italian Job with Michael Caine. I refuse to watch the so-called remake (and, separately, have heard indifferent reviews about it). So you see I am consistent here!

I do wonder if it is a lack of imagination going on here. Why not write your own zombies story? Why bring other characters from a much loved novel into it?

The simple answer to a lack of imagination is to read more. Then read more. Then read more again. I’ve always found reading well and widely fires up my own imagination. I then happily go and create my own characters and tales. I don’t see the fun in mish-mashes at all.

Screenshot 2024-03-23 at 20-36-21 Mixing Up Books

WRITERS NARRATIVE SUBSCRIBER LINK

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Stories, Editing, and a Press Appearance

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Image Credit:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Many thanks to Sarah Archibald for images related to the recent Brechin/Angus Book Festival. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing (though the image of CafeLit 10 was my usual keen author opening their box of books shot!). It has been a strange week. I started the week in Dundee, after a lovely time at the Festival, and am now back at my desk, getting down to the nitty-gritty of the writing life (and loving that). Am very appreciative of the joy creative writing has given and continues to give me.

Creative writing is a joy

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am so pleased to welcome back Lynn Clement to Chandler’s Ford Today. This week we talk about editing. I had the pleasure of editing Lynn’s flash fiction collection, The City of Stories, recently. Lynn shares how she found the vigorous three stage editing process Chapeltown Books has and what her approach to editing is amongst other topics. Hope you enjoy the post and pick up useful thoughts here. I hope it is some consolation that editing is hard work but oh so worth it when you know your book is sharper, tighter, flows better than it did before. It is worth it, folks, honest!

And what is really nice is I am due to meet up with Lynn again in person at the Bridge House Publishing celebration event on 4th December. Looking forward to catching up with her and other Bridge House/CafeLit/Chapeltown Books authors then (and many of us write for all three!).

Introducing Lynn Clement – Part 2 – The Editing

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Pleased to share the following link kindly forwarded to be by Sarah Archibald – a lovely write up and pic of the authors taking part in the Brechin/Angus Book Festival. Must admit the last time I sat in a group like this, I was at school! (Also first time I’ve been in a newspaper so feeling a bit chuffed I must say).

Success for Brechin/Angus Book Festival event

Screenshot 2021-11-26 at 20-29-20 Success for Brechin Angus Book Festival event Angus World

Hope you’ve had a good day. I’m in that “back to the office after a break” kind of routine and am trying to catch up with paperwork.

Had a lovely time on the Association of Christian Writers Flash Group meeting tonight. Groups like this are useful for sharing tips and advice, reading stories out and receiving feedback. We’re not meeting next month (I’ll leave you to guess why!) but look forward to meeting up with everyone again on Zoom in January. And that will be with us before we know it. (Oh and I did come up with an idea I hope to write up soon as a result of our discussions tonight – I always welcome things like that!).

PS. Since writing the above post, I did write up the idea I came up with during this meeting and have since submitted the story. Will let you know if it goes anywhere.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased I managed to get a story in for Friday Flash Fiction this week after all. Hope you enjoy my latest here (and many thanks for the comments in on it already). What could possibly go wrong when a witch decides to have a house rebuild? Find out here!

Screenshot 2021-11-26 at 19-21-09 Moving Along, by Allison Symes


Firstly, had a lovely Zoom session last night with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. Plenty of feedback and tips shared. (Another advantage here is there is a lot of great advice for writing flash that can be taken to help you improve standard length short stories too).

Secondly, I’m pleased to share a link to flash fiction on Mom’s Favorite Reads. Don’t forget the magazine is free, has a wide range of articles and stories, and I will be setting the theme for the next edition soon. Always fun to do that!

Last but not least, I will be talking again with Lynn Clement on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. I recently edited Lynn’s flash fiction collection, The City of Stories, for Chapeltown Books. Tomorrow Lynn and I will discuss the editing process. See link above.

 

Screenshot 2021-11-26 at 20-38-51 Flash Fiction


Pleased to share my latest YouTube story. Hope you enjoy A Turn Up For the Books. What happens when healthy eating impacts on the fairy world? Find out here!

Fairytales With Bite – Magical Livelihoods

What kind of jobs could exist in the magical world other than the obvious ones of wizard, fairy godmother etc? How about these?

Ingredient Fetcher – always out in the fresh air. Works for witches, wizards and those fairy godmothers who like to use wildlife in their spells. Must love amphibians (as eye of newt comes up a lot in this job).

Spell Book Translator – If you’ve ever read Old English, you will know how difficult it is to read (especially over a longer document). Old spell books are much the same. They need translating into more modern magical speech. And these things don’t happen as if by magic, oh no. Someone has to do them.

Food Preparer – Definitely not a cook. This job means taking the shiniest red apples the ingredient fetcher has brought you and selecting the very best to go through to the boss, who no doubt has something to add to them herself. And you dare not bring her anything less than the best. The boss won’t sack you if you do. She’ll just do a trial run of her special ingredient on the sub-standard apple you’ve brought her and make you eat it. Get it right though and there will be rewards (including getting to live for another day).

Cleaners – Always needed regardless of what world you live in. Use of magic to do the job strictly banned since that spot of bother with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

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This World and Others – Employment Issues

What kind of employment opportunities exist in your fictional world? Do jobs match what we have here or are there work placements which could only exist in your fiction? Can anyone apply for jobs based on merit or is there a strict system where only those from a certain type of background can apply for certain types of work?

How does your society pay for goods and services? How are these things produced? Is magic allowed to be used? Is there such as thing as a working week? Are there employment laws protecting the workers? Can people better themselves through working hard etc?

What does your fictional world need in terms of employment and are those needs met? Does it need to import labour and/or services and, if so, where does it get these things from?

What does your lead character do for a living? How does that affect their outlook? And when they’re called up on to go on the adventure you’re sending them on, how easy do they find it to give up all they have known? After all, secure employment is a rarity wherever you go!

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The Joys of Flash Fiction and Heading North

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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.
Many thanks to Lynn Clement for her author photo and book cover pic for my interview with her on Chandler’s Ford Today. Many thanks also to Sarah Archibald for the Brechin/Angus Book Festival materials – it is a joy to share them!
Just one of the events going on this weekend

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I’m delighted to welcome fellow flash fiction writer, Lynn Clement, to Chandler’s Ford Today. Her debut flash collection, The City of Stories, was recently published by Chapeltown Books. And a shared publisher is not the only link between Lynn and I. See the full story on CFT.

And I look forward to chatting with Lynn next week about how she found the editing process (Chapeltown Books has a vigorous three stage process here) and discussing why using song lyrics in fiction really is not a good idea unless you have written said song lyrics yourself.

https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/introducing-lynn-clement-the-city-of-stories/

Lynn Clement and I share flash fiction in common but there is more.
Full story on CFT.

Am on the first leg of my train trip to the Brechin/Angus Book Festival as I draft this. So looking forward to taking part in this.

Meantime I’m pleased to share my latest blog post for Authors Electric. Naturally I’m talking about book festivals – well, they do say write what you know, right?!☺

Book festivals are a great way to celebrate books and my post takes a look at that aspect. Hope you enjoy.https://authorselectric.blogspot.com/2021/11/book-festivals-by-allison-symes.html

Plenty to look forward to at the Brechin/Angus Book Festival.

I’m packed ready to go to the Brechin/Angus Book Festival. Well almost. I just need to pack up this laptop after this evening’s writing session but then I’m ready. 

Plenty of writing to get on with on the train journey up. And am looking forward to plenty of reading too. And am always glad to spread the word about flash fiction so this weekend should be fun there!

Looking forward to sharing Part 1 of a fab interview on Chandler’s Ford Today with Lynn Clement, whose debut flash fiction collection The City of Stories was recently published by Chapeltown Books. Link up on Friday (though my times of posting will vary over the next few days).

Will be busy getting my next author newsletter ready once I’m back from my travels. I share writing tips, prompts, news etc here and there’s a giveaway too.If you want to check things out do go to my website at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased to share my latest story on #FridayFlashFiction – hope you enjoy Lucky. I think my lead character, Bert, here was sensible – see what you think.

https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/lucky-by-allison-symes

Hope you enjoy my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction.

Will be spreading the word about flash fiction at the Brechin/Angus Book Festival this weekend. Am on my way up by train as I draft this.

I’ll be running a flash fiction workshop and will be looking at ways in to creating a story. I’m also giving a talk on The Ups and Downs of Becoming An Author and of course flash fiction is a major part of that. A hugely enjoyable part too!

And flash will be celebrated again tomorrow thanks to my Chandler’s Ford Today interview with Lynn Clement. Flash is a common link for us both. Link up tomorrow.

Celebrating flash fiction – one mini story at a time!😀

Looking forward to my flash fiction workshop as part of the Brechin/Angus Book Festival this weekend.

I’m “on” during the Sunday twice – firstly the workshop and then later in the day I’ll be talking about The Ups and Downs of Becoming An Author. This talk is especially apt given I discovered flash fiction by accident which has proved to be a definite “up”!

And you could argue my latest YouTube story is also an “up” given it is called Rocket!

Fairytales With Bite – Putting on the Glad Rags

Do your characters ever put on the glad rags and, if so, why? Do they achieve their objective in doing this? The obvious practitioner of this is, of course, Cinderella, though she did need fairy godmother help to get those glad rags in the first place.

Assuming magic is not involved here, what would your characters wear for daily life? What would they wear for special occasions? Are there dress codes?I save my own glad rags for special writing events but your characters could use doing this as a way to disguise how they really feel inside.

Putting on the glad rags can be like putting on a kind of armour especially when you want to put on a good “front” to someone/the world in general. Does putting this “front” on work? Does it help your character cope with a bad/sad situation?

Does it elicit sympathy from those closest to your character who know the glad rags business is just an act for your lead? Is there a situation when putting on the glad rags is the wrong thing to do? When perhaps your character would be better off coming out with how they really feel… plenty of story ideas to think about here I think.

Oh and one truth throughout most fairytales I think, is while magic can help a character, it doesn’t resolve the overall problem. Cinderella still had to get away from her awful stepmother, the Prince still had to find Cinders despite the use of magic to bring them together at the ball.

This World and Others – Cultural Events

What kind of culture exists in your fictional world? Is culture appreciated, a tourism magnet etc., or is it despised? 

Arts and the humanities are often not considered so valuable as, say, engineering, the sciences and so on. (All nonsense of course. All of these things are valuable and you can’t compare like with like anyway.

But what stance does your fictional world take? Has it ever changed its position and, if so, what made it do so? How do your characters react to their own culture? Are they an active part of it or do they leave the “arty” things to others?

If your fictional world does value culture, what kind is it? Is it “arty” or military based, say? Where would your characters best fit in? (You can find out more about what makes your characters tick here by looking at why they, say, prefer armed strength to the arts and so on. Are they compensating for their own weakness? Do they think they will become better, bigger people by showing a preference to the military side of things here?).

And can you develop characters who love the pomp and ceremony side of the military and the arts? How do they cope with others who prefer one or the other and consider the “opposition” something to be despised?

What sort of events does your world hold to commemorate historical events and is it compulsory for all citizens to take part? How does the culture of your fictional world affect the way it treats its own citizens and reacts to anyone/anything different?

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Launches In Lockdown – New CFT Series

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. 

Author pics and book cover images kindly supplied by the authors themselves in my new Chandler’s Ford Today series, Launches in Lockdown.

Tonight’s images here are supplied by me, Allison Symes, (!), #TeresaBassett, and #FrancescaTyer.

And whatever you write, being creative with stories, non-fiction etc, is always a good thing!

Whatever kind of writing you do, exercises help you improve what you do

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

I have been so looking forward to writing and sharing this post. My new Chandler’s Ford Today series, Launches in Lockdown, starts now and will run for the next few weeks.

I talk to a wide variety of authors about their experiences launching a book in such trying conditions, what they did, what they felt worked well, what they learned from the kind of launch they were able to hold and so on.

Fascinating insights to come from writers from The Association of Christian Writers, Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, and Bridge House Publishing/CafeLit/Chapeltown Books.

But first up tonight are:-

1. Me! I share my experiences from launching Tripping The Flash Fantastic in 2020.
2. Writers from Authors Reach, Richard Hardie’s publishing company. You may recall I interviewed him last week about the challenges he has faced as a writer and as a publisher. Tonight, firmly from the writing desk, I chat to #TeresaBassett and #Francesca Tyer about how they fared as they launched The Time Crystals and The Firestone respectively.

A huge thank you to all of my guests over the next few weeks for taking part in this. If ever I could be said to have written a zeitgeist series, I think this is it! And everyone shares wonderful tips and advice so plenty to take in here.

But for now I hope you enjoy Part 1.

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Nice to have sunshine today after yesterday’s storms. Lady appreciated it too (and playing with one of her other pals, Coco). The mud levels over the park are something else, mind you! Am so glad of my boots and suspect I shall be living in these until March at the earliest.

When is your best time to write? I mainly write in the late afternoons and evenings though if I can sneak in extra time to write, I’ll do so. I just need to start writing and away I go.

Best time for reading is bedtime though I love catching up with various writing magazines over lunch (and it was a real pleasure to discover a mention for Chapeltown Books in Writing Magazine yesterday).

Had a lovely time joining in with #writingchat yesterday. The topics are always interesting and make me thing. Learn a lot from it too. It is the main writing group I’m involved with on Twitter.

And last not but not least just a quick reminder my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow is Part 1 of my Launches in Lockdown. (See above!). As well as sharing my experiences from last year, I talk to Authors Reach writers, Teresa Bassett and Francesca Tyer.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be talking to authors from the Association of Christian Writers, Swanwick Writers’ Summer School, and Bridge House Publishing/CafeLit/Chapeltown Books. Plenty of insights and thoughtful tips tomorrow and in the other posts to come. Looking forward to sharing them all.

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Delighted to read a wonderful piece about my publishers, Chapeltown Books, in this month’s Writing Magazine. Check out the Writers’ News section at the back and the UK Book Market piece. I do like having a quick look through the magazine when it comes in so I can play the “spot the person I know” game on the letters page, the competition winners and runners-up etc. It is a bad month if I spot less than four! I then read the articles at lunch so I’ve only just come to this bit! (CafeLit and Bridge House get a mention too).

I was right on one thing today – Lady and I did get a soaking this morning though it has eased off a bit since. Winds are still high though.

Am still reading London – The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. It is a fascinating read (though it is a long one. Let’s just say you don’t want to drop the paperback on your foot, yet alone the hardback!). All sorts of stories tucked into a wonderful work of non-fiction. It’s easy to take in information when it’s presented in an entertaining way as it is here – and that’s something for all writers to aspire to, whether we write fiction, non-fiction or both.

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

One thing I love about working with Chapeltown Books is being able to contribute to what appears on the book cover. That doesn’t always happen with publishers. I must admit I had a lot of fun picking suitable images from Pixabay for From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic.

For FLTDBA I chose the rippling circles to indicate stories have impact. Even the smallest flash fiction tale has the impact to move a reader. Also many of my stories have characters who are not always are as they appear to be and the rippling circles to me indicated characters capable of being disturbing and causing ripples in life wherever they go.

For TTFF the castle with the lights on reflects the fact I have historical flash fiction pieces in this book. I also think there is a sense of mystery, the unknown, about that castle and who might live in it. Given I write a lot of fantasy/fairytale with bite type stories, that was an appropriate image for me to convey.

It did take me a while to work out a shortlist of suitable images but it is so worth taking time over. When your book finally reaches you and you take the first one out of your parcel, you want to be so proud of it. You want people to be drawn to and intrigued by your cover (and then hopefully by the contents too!).

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com


Every so often I will write a flash tale in poetic form and some of these appeared in Tripping The Flash Fantastic. This is an interesting challenge as you need to get the story down and ensure it is a proper tale and then get the rhythm of the poem right. I am partial to rhyming poems (and even more so to a good limerick!) so I like that kind of pace in my verses, but I have learned that the language you use has to be natural to you and make sense to the story. Forced rhymes stand out.

But this kind of scrutinizing what you are writing and why and have I really chosen the best word to (a) suit the story and (b) suit the rhyming pattern I’ve set up does keep you on your toes and worth having a go at if you want to stretch yourself a bit.

The majority of my stories will always be in “straight” prose but a spot of variety every now and again does no harm! That is also why I sometimes write tales as acrostics. The nice thing with those is there is a visual element to them and so they work quite well for posts on Facebook, story videos and so on. Even better for the story videos are the one to two line flash stories as you don’t want anything to be too long here. Never give the reader/viewer a chance to lose interest!

Do I identify with my characters? Hmm… now there’s a leading question!

The answer is mostly! I know, I know, very helpful – not! So what do I mean by this?

Most of my characters I like. I can identify with them easily enough. But I don’t like all of them. I can think of a fair few I would not want to meet in life! So how I can write about characters like that convincingly?

I try to identify why my characters are the way they are and there is usually something I can latch on to there.

Understanding where your characters come from does not mean agreeing with their choices! Understanding where they come from means you will write their story with more conviction. I mean I can see how and why Gollum in The Lord of the Rings turned out the way he did. Do I agree with him? No!

Getting into your characters’ heads is not always a comfortable experience, indeed it often shouldn’t be (as my crime and horror writing colleagues would no doubt confirm!). Even with the characters you like, they can’t be goody-goody. You need to be able to see and understand what their flaws are and how those play out in your story.

You can have the most wonderful character but what will really make them come to life for your reader is when they fail or screw up in some way. Okay your character overcomes that and goes on to better things but it is that failure which drives that change to overcome and that is what fascinates a reader. I know it always fascinates me.

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Fairytales with Bite – The Problems with a Magical World

The major problem with a magical world is it is a magical world! Er… yes… but how come that is the issue? You want to write about a magical world after all!

True but the problems come in simply because if every character can just resolve problems by a wave of the old magic wand, either that world is going to come to a stalemate (as characters cancel other characters’ spells out) or it is going to blow itself apart with all that magic flying around. So there have to be some rules and that is where life gets more interesting. You as the author decide on what the rules will be and yes, that’s the fun bit! But you do need to be consistent with how you apply these.

If you decide certain species in your creation cannot do magic at all, that’s going to give them a major disadvantage against those you’ve decided can do magic. What’s to stop the latter from wiping the former out altogether? So every species then, whether magical or not, has to have something to ensure their survival.

Equally if everyone is going to be magical, what are the limits to ensure nobody can blow the world up by mistake?! Who sets the limits? Who polices them? Those with fewer powers will need to have some safeguards against those with much more (again to prevent them from being wiped out), so what will these be? Can magic, say, only be used in daylight hours? Can using magic drain people of energy so they have to be careful how much of it they use?

The other problem with a magical world is how is it going to treat neighbouring worlds/countries who are not magical? Will they treat them with contempt? Or will they ignore the non-magical kinds even when the latter could do with some assistance because they’re faced with, say, an illness devastating their people that they know the magical lot could help them overcome?

Plenty of food for thought there but I hope this highlights magic can cause as many problems as it seems to solve and that in turn can make for some interesting stories.

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This World and Others – Dilemmas to Solve when World Building

This post follows on from the Fairytales with Bite piece above. There are plenty of dilemmas to resolve when world building, including the use of magic as mentioned above. You also need to decide how much of the geography and history of the world your readers need to know to make sense of your story. Also how do you get that information across?

I like to get characters to show me things wherever possible so I make them look at things and show me what they think of what they are seeing. If I mention Character A takes a brief look at the ugly Civic Hall, you know they’re in a town, they don’t think much of the architecture, and are clearly looking for something of more interest to them and whatever their quest may be. All of that in one sentence too!

There will be certain things you need to spell out to a reader. For example, if your characters need oxygen masks to be able to go outside, you need to mention that early on (and the reason why – it might not be an obvious one!). As the story develops, readers will get used to “seeing” your characters with these masks on and you won’t need much if any description later.

But I think it is a question here of knowing broadly what your story is going to be and from that working out how much your readers need to know. From there you can work out how to dripfeed that information into the story so readers pick it up almost unconsciously. No need for reams of description which can put people off.

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Voices, Radio Story, and Relaxing Books

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Image Credit:-

All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated.

Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing.

Images of me reading at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School were taken by Geoff Parkes and Penny Blackburn respectively (and in succeeding years at the school. We all hope to be back there in 2021).

Facebook – General

It is odd not writing about what my Chandler’s Ford Today post is going to be this week, but even I take a week off occasionally. A huge thanks to my lovely CFT editor for the surprise “Legends Box” parcel which reached me today. Lots of nice goodies inside with a flyer saying the sender thought I was a legend!

Better still, all proceeds from these parcels go to the Trussell Trust. Imaginative and positive gift ideas for next Christmas I think and such a lovely thing to do. So many thanks to my editor again and to the people behind the Legends Box idea. I like things like this. My church a few years back supported the Send-a-Cow charity and we managed to send two cows and a goat I believe.

I AM working on CFT behind the scenes however. I am working on what will be an informative mini-series which will hopefully go up in January plus another interesting feature with a writer/publisher. So plenty to look forward to then!

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Delighted to share the link to Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM. My story, Up to Scratch, was broadcast here on Saturday 19th December. My story comes in at about the 1 hour 28 minutes mark but the show makes for a wonderful celebration of festive flash fiction. Hope you enjoy. I loved taking part and hope to do so again at some point. A big thanks to #HannahKate and also to #ElizabethDucie for flagging this up to me.

Link:  https://www.mixcloud.com/Hannahs_Bookshelf/hannahs-bookshelf-pre-christmas-christmas-special-19122020/

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One of the highlights of Christmas for me is the Carols by Candlelight service. Of course, this year the way it is held is different. It was pre-recorded and then put on Youtube. It was lovely to be able to sing along. I gave one of the readings (I went down to the church to record it a couple of weeks back) but the whole service cheered me no end. Yes, sure, it is not the same as being there but it was the next best thing so a huge thanks to all who worked so hard on making this happen.

By this stage of the writing year, my poor old writers’ diary is looking more than a bit tired (as indeed is this writer!). But I do find this an invaluable aid to planning out what I am writing and for when. I know it seems old-fashioned to write with a pen in a paperback diary but it works for me! I didn’t use any of the writing prompts in the diary this year. I will try and make up for that in 2021.

Am almost at the end of the first draft for my non-fiction project so am pleased with that. I am on target to have this written by the end of the year (though possibly not this side of Christmas). There will be no Chandler’s Ford Today post from me this coming Friday (I wonder why!) but I will be posting on New Year’s Day. And I’ve got a good initial draft of a third flash fiction collection to work on while I’m resting my non-fiction for a while so I can resume work on that with a fresh eye in due course.

But I must admit I do hope we can get back to some sort of writing events where we can meet people. Here’s hoping!

Candlelight - Book Brush

Delighted to say it was my recording of my reading Up To Scratch that went out on Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM earlier this afternoon. Many thanks, #HannahKate for picking my story. I hope to share the link to the show in the next couple of days or so.  (Done, see further up!). Well, there is always time for a flash festive fable! (And I do hope to submit stories to Hannah’s Bookshelf in the future. Flash works well on audio given it is so short).

This story was one of those where I had the “voice” for my characters immediately and is a tale told entirely in dialogue. Good fun to do. I’ve always found dialogue tales work best when kept short so they’re a good choice for flash fiction writers.

How do I know when I’ve got the voice for my characters? It isn’t just a question of knowing how they sound funnily enough, It is a question of knowing yes this is the kind of thing they would say, the kind of vocabulary they would use because…. , and also knowing what wouldn’t suit them. For example the two characters in this story would not swear. Therefore, they didn’t!

Oh and to make sure I don’t forget to do this, please find below a little something created using Book Brush this afternoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTenqfNs3k8

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

One thing I love about writing for Chapeltown Books has been helping to choose suitable images for the book covers. For From Light to Dark and Back Again I choose rippling circles with light playing on them. For Tripping The Flash Fantastic I chose a castle with lights shining in it with lightning seeming to strike one end of the castle. That image was not my first choice but it proved to be better than what I had chosen initially given there are historically based flash stories in this book. I also liked the idea of the lightning flash as being a kind of clue to the book genre.

What I do know is you have to be happy with your book covers and a good one will convey something of what the contents are likely to be. You then hope someone picks up the book, looks at the blurb, and looks inside to find out more (before going on to buy it of course). But it is easier for the writer to do the necessary marketing work if they themselves love the cover, the blurb, and the book itself. One of my favourite Wodehouse quotes is “God may forgive Herbert Jenkins Limited for the cover of……… but I never shall”!

Glad to say that has not been a problem for me!

TTFF squareBookBrushImage-2020-11-14-19-1939BB - blue poster for books


Taking part in Open Prose Mic Nights was not something I anticipated doing when I started writing flash fiction seriously but it is a very good vehicle for developing your writing skills, funnily enough. It pays to read your story out loud to yourself a few times before you do an event like this. You’re looking for anything that might make you stumble over your words. If you find anything (and you inevitably do), it’s time for a rewrite. The aim is for a smooth read for you and a smooth listening experience for your audience. Recording a story and playing it back to yourself helps too. All of this helps you hone your editing skills further too so win-win!

The Open Mic for Prose night

Many thanks to Geoff Parkes for this image of me reading at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School Open Prose Mic Night.

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Quick plug alert! Amazon say that the paperback of Tripping the Flash Fantastic can be with you for 22nd December if ordered today. See http://mybook.to/TrippingFlashFantastic for more.

If anyone would like a signed copy directly from me, just send me a Direct Message and we’ll take things from there. I would really need to get books off in the post by Tuesday, 22nd December at the latest to have any chance of getting this to you in time for Christmas. If you’re not in a hurry, then just message me anyway and we can sort things out after Christmas and Boxing Days.

And do remember if you are on the receiving end of book presents this Christmas (you are, aren’t you?!), please do review the book in the usual places. Reviews don’t have to be long but they do help the author.

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Horrendous weather off and on in Hampshire today. Mud levels in the local park are quite something now too. Not that Lady minds! I am blessing my dear old mum for leaving me a shed load of old towels. They do for Lady nicely!

Delighted my story Up to Scratch was on the radio this afternoon. Will share a link when I have it. This story was an all dialogue on between two characters only (though others are referred to in the tale).

I like the challenge of writing all dialogue stories from time to time but I think they are best used sparingly. The advantage of “standard” prose stories is I can take you into the heads of the characters and show you their thoughts. I can’t do that if I’ve got them talking to you!!

But that is where the challenge lies. What could a character be reasonably expected to know to be able to say to another character? It’s also got to sound like natural conversation (though without the ums and ahs we all come up with).

This kind of story makes for a good writing exercise too. Try it some time and see what you come up with. I’ve found this kind of story is best kept short (and I keep mine to about the 100-`150 word count length). It keeps the tale tight and to the point and you really don’t want characters wittering on!

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Goodreads Author Blog – Perfect Books To Relax With

What kind of book do you like to relax with? My favourites are fantasy (especially the humorous kind such as Terry Pratchett’s wonderful Discworld stories) and crime (though I am more at the cosy end of the market).

Though right now I am loving Peter Ackroyd’s London, which is a biography of the city. An interesting way of writing up a history and full of fascinating tales. It’s a fairly big paperback but is an engrossing read so very happy to recommend it.

If a writer’s style draws me in, as it does here, it doesn’t matter how big the book is! They’ve got this reader to the end (which is a challenge for all of us writers to ensure we try and do that with our own writing).

I can’t read in the bath. I’d be worried about dropping a book or Kindle in the water. Neither would come out well. This is why my main reading is just before I go to sleep. I am so relaxed then. It’s not the time to read a gripping vampire novel though. Mind you, I wasn’t planning on doing this so that’s okay.

For me books have to be entertaining and help me relax. If I want a challenging read, I will carve out time during the day when my brain is better able to cope with said challenging read!

I hope you have plenty of excellent new reads for Christmas and I hope you have a safe and as good a celebration as possible. If ever there was a year, we all needed books to help us escape, it is in 2020.

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Twitter Corner

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LAST BUT NOT LEAST

My next round-up will be on Tuesday 29th December. I’m having a couple of days off over Christmas though I still plan to write my weekly Goodreads Author Blog post. I am likely to move this to Sunday 27th December.

In the meantime, I wish you all as safe and happy a Christmas as possible in what has been such a strange year and I look forward to seeing you back here next week!

Many thanks for your ongoing support. It is much appreciated!

merry christmas sign

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Lessons from Writing and Scenic Scotland

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Image Credit: Pixabay/Pexels. Scottish pics and images of Lady, the daft but loveable Border Collie cross, were taken by me, Allison Symes.


Book cover images for The Best of Cafelit 9 and Tripping The Flash Fantastic supplied by my publishers – Bridge House Publishing and Chapeltown Books respectively.


Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today


Pleased to share the link to Part 2 of my Lessons series on CFT. This week I look at lessons learned from the writing life, all of which are useful beyond that.
So over to you. What lessons have you learned from writing and how have you applied these in other areas of life?

Went back to Dunnet Bay. Such a wonderful beach. Lady thinks so too! Walked for miles though it always seems further on sand than it actually is!

Plenty of brisk fresh air. Managed to see buzzards fairly close up (could make out the colouring underneath. Don’t usually get to do that). Also spotted a kestrel, sand pipers, and oyster catchers.
Now drum roll please… Very exciting news on Tripping The Flash Fantastic to come soon but in the meantime, take a peek at this!


Achievement of the week and possibly the year for me  – I climbed 600 feet in about a mile exploring the track that runs behind where I’m staying. Yes, it was a very steep track! But see the views below. 

Lady bounded up it with no issues at all before going on to have a splendid playtime on Dornoch Beach later in the afternoon. Result? One tired but happy dog!

What would be the perfect day for your characters and why? What would they do to anyone or anything that got in the way of them having that perfect day?

There are story ideas there for a start but also use questions like this for outlining your people. Work out what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Different writers have varying requirements here but what you do need is enough for you to get going on a story with characters who deserve to be written about.




Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again


I’ve learned so much from the writing life as I discuss in this week’s CFT post. The great thing is I know that learning will continue.
My hopes with regard to flash fiction is to continue to develop characters and stories.

Maybe try different genres within flash? Maybe write a novella in flash one day – who knows?

But while I know there is writing to do and things to try within that, I know the buzz of writing won’t diminish. And I love that!😄

Big news is that I can now do a book cover reveal for my second flash fiction collection, Tripping The Flash Fantastic. Will be sharing more news soon on this.
I will be talking about TTFF as part of an author talk with Gill James and Dawn Kentish Knox on 26th September.

More details next week and my CFT post on 18th September will give details on how to register for the FREE Zoom event at the end of the month.

Am I a happy bunny right now? You bet!
Lovely day back at Dunnet today. One great thing about dog ownership is that our pets break down barriers. I’ve had far more lovely chats with people since owning a dog than before! 
Although 2020 has been an awful year, I am so pleased to hear in one week The Best Of Cafelit 9, where I have flash stories included, and Tripping the Flash Fantastic, are “out there”. (Kindle only at moment for TTFF but paperback to follow).
Would still like 2020 to dramatically improve though and I know I’m not alone there.

I love autumn. I love the changing leaf colours. And the heathers on the hills around where I’m staying at the moment are such wonderful colours.

But there is a sense of transition this early in September as we leave summer behind. 
Flash fiction is great for demonstrating those senses of transition in your characters.

They go from one state of being to another – that is the story you’re writing after all.

What you need to figure out is which moment of transition is the important one to write up.


Fairytales With Bite – Favourites


My favourite part of most fairytales when I was a kid was when the fairy godmother etc turned up and you knew somehow from that point, everything was going to work out okay.
My favourite part of a fairytale now is harder to define but I like to see characters contributing to the fairy godmother’s efforts to help them.

I also like to see the villains get their comeuppance.And I know that last like is something I’ll always have!
I refer to a lot of my work as fairytales with bite precisely because they are not twee. Nor am I writing to the children’s market (Roald Dahl was the past master there in my view!). 
I’ve never liked it when someone dismisses something as “just a fairytale”. There is no just about it. Fairytales are deeper stories than some give them credit for!

 

This World and Others – Geography


I don’t refer to geography a lot in my flash tales but did use it in my unpublished (as yet!) fantasy novel.

I needed to know something about the landscape my characters inhabit and whether that gets in their way. Also I wanted to look at the differences and similarities with our world.
This is where photos come in handy for sparking ideas. I totally understand why so many fantasy works have a map with them. (I must check out the Discworld one for The Streets of Ankh-Morpork as that is one map which will be fun!☺).
The nice thing now is there are far more avenues of research available now. Archives, libraries, the web etc. I guess the danger now might be you could have so much fun researching, the writing takes a back seat!

So it would pay I think to plan out your research just as much as you would plan out the story itself.

Think about what you need to know, jot down where you think further research might be needed later, and write.

Also make a note of sources of research in case a publisher asks and in case you need to retrace your steps. It happens!

New Year, New Book

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Image Credit:  Unless otherwise stated, all images are from Pixabay.

Happy New Year to you all!

PUBLICATION NEWS

As you can imagine, I am thrilled to bits to start the New Year in such a positive way and look forward to bringing more news about Tripping the Flash Fantastic in due course.

Advance Notice

I am planning to change the name of my book page on Facebook from From Light to Dark and Back Again to something more flash fiction related nearer to when I know Tripping the Flash Fantastic will be out. That way the page can cover both books and I’ve been using this page mainly to discuss flash fiction anyway.

Facebook – General

One goal I have set myself this year is to try to prepare more posts in advance and schedule them to free up writing time for other things. I have done this before, mainly ahead of going on holiday, and it works well but I need to do this more often. (If I can do the same with Twitter as well, even better!).

I’m currently reading 500 Words You Should Know, which was a lovely gift from a friend who thinks I probably know most of them already. Hmm…. we’ll see. Incidentally I did pick up the word “soporific” from Beatrix Potter many, many moons ago. Reading is by far the most enjoyable way of improving your vocabulary.

I’m relishing being back in the writing saddle again properly now having submitted two short stories already and working away on several new flash fiction tales. What I love about writing is that buzz of creativity never loses its attraction! I always feel so much better within myself for having created something with words.

How I feel as I work my way through a draft to the finished story!
Always a good idea this!
I know I have lots of stories and books in my head but I didn’t mean it literally! Pixabay
Ideas, ideas, ideas! Pixabay.
So true. Pixabay.

Loved Part 2 of Spyfall from Doctor Who tonight as well and that’s all I’m saying on this for now, given I know people who haven’t seen it yet! Very much looking forward to the rest of the series after such a cracking start.

Hope to be able to share publication news again soon (so I think I’m off to a cracking start for 2020 too, not that I mind this, far from it!). Again will share news as and when I can but really looking forward to being able to do so soon.

One of the writing prompts in my new diary is to write a New Year’s Eve party from the viewpoint of three different characters. Not sure I’ll do this one mainly because I simply don’t do New Year’s Eve parties so feel I wouldn’t write convincingly on same! I would rather stay at home and curl up with a good book (and I would have done so in my younger years too. Yes, I know. Boring it may seem to be but give me a good book and I can assure you the hours whizz by very nicely reading and that suits me just fine!).

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Am thrilled to announce my second flash fiction collection, Tripping the Flash Fantastic, will be published by Chapeltown Books later this year. Will share more details as and when I have them.

What I love is that the buzz of being published never diminishes whether it is having a story online, or in an anthology, or you have another book out.

I only wish I could bottle the buzzy feeling for those times when writing feels like really hard work and you have to push yourself harder to keep going!

 

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Many thanks, everyone, on your wonderful support at my publication news yesterday. It is very much appreciated. I look forward to sharing more news as and when I have it.

I am also delighted for friends who I know will also be published later this year – well done, all. I look forward to seeing your books come out too. I never mind adding to my To Be Read pile!

Now back to the nitty-gritty! The writing life can be compared to a rollercoaster. It really is full of ups and downs. Stamina is useful!

Incidentally, I’ve mentioned elsewhere that you have to play the long game in writing. You can’t know that what you write will be accepted or successful. You can only give it your best shot (and be prepared to edit, rewrite, edit etc). So writing for the joy of writing is vital in my view. It is what helps keep you going when nothing seems to be happening.

Seeds can take a long time to germinate. That’s even more true of the writing seeds you send out there. But it is lovely when the first shoots and then the blooms appear! And it is important to cherish the moment, especially as you can’t know when the next one will be. It is equally important to then move on and keep writing and sending work out.

So I’d better get on then!

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Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Do you find when writing stories in batches one mood tends to dominate? In the last couple of days, I’ve written sinster and sadder but moving stories. I am hoping to lighten up a bit in the next few days!

What matters is being true to the characters you create. If their story is a sad one, so be it, but the character has to engage with a reader so they will want to find out what happens to said character.

I am very fond of stories where characters find a way of dealing with issues troubling them. I always thought it realistic that Frodo never did fully recover from all he went through in The Lord of the Rings. A happy ever after ending still has to be appropriate for the character. It wasn’t for Frodo, it was for Sam.

 

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I hope to be able to share exciting publication news soon so, as they say, watch this space.

Meanwhile, I’m happily drafting plenty of flash fiction pieces I will submit as and when over the next couple of months or so. I am also currently sorting out my running order for a further flash fiction collection I hope to submit at some point though I know there will be further editing to do on that once I’ve done this. I find sorting out the running order helps clear my thoughts and makes editing easier to do. Note I said easier, not easy!

Running order matters to a collection. It can make a huge difference as to how well the stories flow into each other. Also when you specifically want a contrast in moods (as I did with FLTDBA) you want that contrast to stand out. I grouped my stories in FLTDBA specifically by mood and that worked well. I suspect for what I am currently working on, I will probably organise it by type of flash fiction (e.g. group the historical ones together, group the funny ones together etc).

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As mentioned on my author page, I am delighted to say Tripping the Flash Fantastic, my second flash fiction collection, will be published by Chapeltown Books later this year. Will share further details as and when possible but naturally am thrilled about this. (I had the great joy of sending the signed contract back today. That’s a good job to have!).

Meanwhile there will be more flash stories from me on Cafelit later this month and in March. Naturally I hope to get some more on there throughout the year too.

You have to accept, I think, that you are playing the long game when you are writing and seeking publication. There are no guaranteed results for anyone. You do have to work hard on your writing and be prepared to edit and edit again etc but the joy of publication is truly a wonderful thing and never diminishes!

 

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Many thanks for all the kind messages here and on Twitter re my publication news yesterday. All very much appreciated.

Whatever your writing projects are, I hope they are going well and that you are having the proverbial ball writing them.

Writing should be enjoyable. Yes, it can be a hard slog but there should be the joy of being creative in there too. I love it when I hit that moment when I know my characters have come to life for me. (If they do so for me, they will do for other readers).

There is something fantastic about storytelling, whether you read stories, write them, or do both. It is certainly worth celebrating!

What great books and stories will emerge from your laptop this year? Image via Pixabay.
Images from the magical world… Image via Pixabay
I could spend many a happy hour here – the library at Prague. Image via Pixabay.
Books are fabulous, whatever the format. Image via Pixabay.
Where good ideas start… but good ideas need refining and editing, Image via Pixabay
This is an old CFT post of mine but all writers have a journey and I don’t think any two are ever quite the same. Image via Pixabay.
Says it all really. Image via Pixabay. And am glad to say my poorly border collie, Mabel, has very much been showing this spirit.
Books have their own sense of time and space. Image via Pixabay.
Reach for those ideas. Pixabay image.
This statue reminds me of myself when I was a lot younger. Okay I wasn’t made of stone (I’m still not!) but I did always have my head in a book. (And do so as often as I can now!). Image via Pixabay.
Generating the writing ideas. Image via Pixabay.
What we all strive for in writing. Pixabay
How the very best fairytales start… Image via Pixabay
What fictional world have you created? What ways and rules have you set for your characters? Image via Pixabay.

Goodreads Author Blog – Happy New (Reading) Year!

Happy New Year!

I’m looking forward to discovering authors new to me this year and getting plenty of reading done. The TBR pile, unlike my ironing pile, is one where I’m not that sorry if it stays pretty much at its high level!

I’d like to read more non-fiction this year too and expand my range of subjects.

The biggest problem, of course, is time. I always mean to read more over the Christmas break and, yes, I did catch up a bit. However, I’m usually too tired to read for long so I never get as much done as I was hoping for.

Am trying to read more (particularly magazines) at lunch time and am enjoying that.

I’d also like to get back to more humorous reading and suspect it will soon be time to resume the works of P.G. Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett, both of whose books bring me much joy.

Whatever your reading plans are this year, I hope you have a fabulous time with them. I intend to!

Great characters = great books. Image via Pixabay.
Says it all really and applies to non-fiction equally as fiction. Image via Pixabay.
Escape with a good book, it’s good for you! Image via Pixabay
Imagine the wealth of fairytales and other stories in here. Image via Pixabay.
There must be some truly fantastic fiction here. Image via Pixabay.
Fantasy may look at other worlds but often reflects on our own. Time is different too. Music can interpret worlds too. Think of classic film scores like that for The Lord of the Rings. Image via Pixabay.
The virtual library. These days ebooks and emagazines are available at libraries. Chandler’s Ford library are running surgeries about them. Image via Pixabay.
Such a beautiful place to read. Image via Pixabay.
Hope you have lovely books as presents! Pixabay image
Books invite you into their world. Go! Image via Pixabay.
My smartphone has not yet managed this! Pixabay image.
Let the writing flow and if music can help it along even better! Image via Pixabay
The ultimate Book Circle – now where to start?! Image via Pixabay.
What worlds will new books show you? Pixabay