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 your weekend went well. Some snow here though not too deep. Am wrapping up with multiple layers so I am waddling with Lady rather than walking with her right now! Hope the first full week back to “normal life” goes well. Pleased to be back writing and editing again. Needed and enjoyed the break but it is good to be back.
Facebook – General
Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler friend and, later, was escorted home by her Aussie Shepherd “boyfriend”. Lady is keeping her socials together, well enough!
Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Story Inspiration on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Always a timely topic, this one. Writing and editing works are going well – and I’m staying out of the cold as much as possible, all wins here!
Writing Tip: Think about what inspires you to write – favourite stories, favourite types of characters etc – and then look at why you love these things. You will learn something useful from doing this and it will help you as you create your own tales. More in my post on CFT on this on Friday – what I can say now though is this works.
You know I said yesterday (4th January 2025) we hadn’t had snow in Hampshire as yet? Well, it is a clear case of me and my big mouth. We did get snow over night (probably 1 to 2 cm, no more than that). You’ll be pleased to know I won’t apply for any job in weather forecasting! Think that would be best for everyone…
Lady saw her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today, both of whom were wearing coats. Lady doesn’t really need one (and I am sure she and her predecessors would consider them sissy for a collie/collie-cross anyway). All three dogs had a lovely time despite the cold and yes we owners did keep them moving.
Writing wise, am having a quiet evening getting on with various small writing pieces. Nice way to unwind after what is always a hectic day for me. And I get to stay well out of the cold too. Win-win there, I’d say.
Character Tip: What does your character make of their usual weather patterns? If cold is a regular feature of these, how does your character cope with it? (If they’re a northerner of any sort, they’ll put on their big coat. If they’re a southerner like me, they’ll put on a big coat with a body warmer under it – mind you, it did live up to its name today). How could cold weather help or hinder them? There will be story ideas there. Happy writing!
Hope Sunday has gone well. Bitterly cold and heavy frosts here in Hampshire but no snow (as yet anyway). Hope you are all okay. Lady has had a lovely day in that she saw her “boyfriend”, a lovely Aussie Shepherd, in the park earlier. He has a wonderful thick coat and I shouldn’t imagine felt the cold at all!
Writing wise, I’m making good progress with my editing work. I’ve also got ideas I’d like to develop this year and I hope to share some 100 word stories on Facebook every so often. I’ve enjoyed sharing my Friday Flash Fiction links most weeks and want to keep up writing the good old drabbles regularly.
One enjoyable task this coming week is to start reading the latest Writing Magazine. It came with its annual competition guide and I hope to work my way through at least some of that this year. There are more flash fiction competitions out there than you might think and I do find this guide immensely helpful.
Hope the weekend has got off to a good start for you. As I write this I am enjoying a trip down memory lane thanks to Classic FM playing the theme from Animal Magic. Older readers will remember that show!
Writing wise, I’ll be looking at Story Inspiration for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. It’s a timeless topic and I’ll be sharing some ways I use regularly to keep triggering ideas. I hope you will find it useful and look forward to sharing that on Friday.
Have resumed my editing work and making good strides with it, including on my own edits for Seeing The Other Side.
Writing Tip: I use an old school diary to note down deadlines for competitions, my own deadlines for when I want to get work finished by, and so on. It pays. I see it as making an appointment with myself and my writing and it has helped me to get more done. For longer work, I can break my task down into “manageable chunks” and put those in the diary. It all helps.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Tonight, 6th January, is of course Twelfth Night, traditionally the time the Three Wise Men visited Jesus in Bethlehem. My story, The Family Legend, in the recently published Magi (Bridge House Publishing) takes a thought from this story – that at least one of the men were still alive thirty three years later and found out what had gone on in Jerusalem – and I ran with it.
But you too can run with the idea of an unexpected and/or unlikely journey and the characters that do this. There could be some interesting flash fiction pieces here too though I suspect you would probably need the 500 words plus range to do this justice in the very short form.
Hope you try the idea out though. Good luck!
It’s a bitterly cold Monday, the kind where Good King Wenceslas would feel at home. For me it’s definitely time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Looking on The Bright Side.
A fairytale witch finally has to tell the facts of the magical life to her child, who is shocked to find out where their instructions come from. Find out more here.
F = Flash fiction – fun to write, easy to read, lots of impact due to its brevity.
L = Language and editing skills develop a lot when you write in this form as you do look for the right word which carries the right amount of weight for what you want to convey. No wasted words here. Where one word will have the impact I want, I’m using that not three or four.
A = Assessing the impact you want your story to have on readers and then working out the best way of doing it before writing anything is, I find, sensible for this format. I want to hit the ground running so to speak here.
S = Settings can be anywhere in time or space or in any kind of world you care to invent. What matters are the characters. People follow what they’re up to even if they’re a three headed purple dragon from the planet Zog. If people care about the dragon, they will read on.
H = Humour is fabulous for flash. It’s fun to end a story with a punchline.
Flash fiction is not new. It has been around for centuries. To name one example, all of Jesus’s parables in the Bible come in at well under the 1000 words mark limit for flash.
The form has had several names including postcard fiction (which I like – you can picture it); short short fiction (which I don’t like – it’s a mouthful); and sudden fiction (this is okay but doesn’t, to my mind, seem an apt term for thoughtful flash pieces).
But whatever you do call it, flash fiction is a fun challenge and I love writing to the various word count brackets within it. The most popular for competitions I’ve come across are the 100, 250, 300, and 500 word ones but the first three of those are the most common.
All of them are great fun so why not give them a go?
Goodreads Author Blog – New Year, New Books, New Authors
Happy New Year and I hope 2026 brings you plenty of books to enjoy. I hope amongst those books will be books and authors who are new to you. One of the great joys of reading is in discovering new stories to enjoy by writers you either already thought you knew well or by authors you’ve not read before. Everyone wins from that one.
I’ve not yet made any plans for my new reading year. I’m currently engrossed with the books I received for Christmas and loving them all. Then I may catch up on my poor neglected To Be Read pile or at least make some inroads into it. I suspect you may well be in the same reading boat, yes? I’ve not yet come across a reader and/or writer who hasn’t got lots of books “on the go”.
I used to feel sad at the thought I know I won’t get around to reading all of the books I would like to read. Funnily enough, I now feel comforted by the thought. Why?
Well, it confirms to me the world will never run out of stories to enjoy and that is a great thing.
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https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsliked Allison Symes's blog post: New Year, New Books, New Authors https://t.co/y3gYqbxqwW via @goodreads I don't know about you but I'm still engrossed with my Christmas books. I haven't made plans for my new reading year but I hope there will be authors new to me in that. pic.twitter.com/ZttR7FWsFy
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 3, 2026
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsIt’s a cold Monday. Story time! My latest on YouTube is Looking on The Bright Side.
— Allison Symes (@AllisonSymes1) January 5, 2026
A fairytale witch finally has to tell the facts of the magical life to her child, who is shocked to find out where their instructions come from. Find out more here.https://t.co/jWiMMcntCv
It’s Monday. The clocks have gone back in the UK. It’s darker earlier. There has been more heavy rain. It’s Monday. You know where I’m going with this – it’s definitely time for a story.
Allison Symes: Collected Works 