Tag: courses

Meeting Up With Other Writers

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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, as was one photo for my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. The photo of me being “mugged” by Lady while on a previous holiday was taken by Adrian Symes. He also took the shot of me holding up a copy of Creativity Matters. Always handy having someone on hand for photos!
Not long back from another fabulous few days at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Hope to write more about that for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. Getting back to my usual writing routine – a bit at a time in this heat, mind you! Lady was so excited to see me back, which was lovely. It was fabulous taking her round the park again. What I also relished was a welcome return to the swimming pool. In this heat, I never want to get out of it!

Facebook – General and Chandler’s Ford Today

Lady got to see Daisy, a lovely cocker spaniel we see from time to time. I returned to the swimming pool for a shortish swim but it was so nice!

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share Meeting Up With Other Writers for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. It’s an apt post given I’ve just come back from Swanwick though I hope to share specifically more about that next week.

For this post, I look at the many benefits of writing events and getting to know your fellow authors, whether these events are online, in person, or you mix both. I like to do that. Why not get the best of both worlds after all?

Quick reminder for readers in my area – John Puzey will be holding his book event at Chandler’s Ford Library tomorrow, 16th August from 10.00 am, to discuss his new book, Captive Audience (Authors Reach Limited). All are welcome.

Meeting Up With Other Writers

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Am on my way home as I type this. Have had a fabulous time at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. No surprises there! Am looking forward to catching up with my family which will include being mugged by an excitable collie cross!

While not directly about Swanwick, my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is called Meeting Up With Other Writers. I explore why this is a good idea. Link up tomorrow and I hope to write specifically about Swanwick for Friday week. See link above.

Hope all at Swanwick had good journeys home. Hope to see you there next year.

Update: I was home by early afternoon, which was great. I was indeed mugged by said excitable collie cross. Even got my laundry done. Now back to my writing life – but it will be a slow return to it. So muggy here (but it was in Derbyshire too). Pic below from a previous holiday but when Lady wants a cuddle, she wants a cuddle!


Well, it’s the final full day of The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick 2025 and I can hardly believe where the time has gone. My courses today were Effective Listening by Heather Swash and Magic In the Archives by Dr Erica Canela, both of which were fascinating and informative.

The latter also proved to have great acting skills in last night’s Page to Stage, which is our evening entertainment after dinner on the penultimate night of the School.

The performances for that were all wonderful. Scripts are written by Swanwickers and submitted for independent judging ahead of the School taking place. Winners are selected by the independent judges and the mini plays are performed (and directed) by brave volunteer delegates.

The rest of us get to watch some fabulous dramas and comedies. We vote on these at the end. It is always hard to choose the one drama, the one comedy, the one actor in each of these, which stand out for you. They would all be worthy winners. Winners are announced at the farewell event after dinner this evening.

Will I be back next year? Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

The competition Friday Flash Fiction runs to tie in with the Edinburgh Festival ends today, 15th August, so again, for this week, there are no names or comments on the stories.

But I am sharing the link to the latest and last batch of drabbles for the competition, which does include another one of mine. You could enter two stories over two weeks.

Hope you enjoy the tales. There is fabulous work here.

It is true what they say – time flies when you’re having fun. It seems like yesterday when I was arriving at Swanwick. Now I’m heading home.

Pleased to see flash fiction had a good shout out at Swanwick. As well as Esther Chilton’s specific course about it, it cropped up in Della Galton’s short story one too.

Well, flash, for me at least, is the ultimate challenge in the short fiction forms precisely because of that 1000 words upper limit. Having said that, one of my favourite short stories comes in at just under 4000 words and couldn’t be any shorter or longer without something vital being lost. This is how you know when your story is at the right length for it to be the story it is meant to be.

What is that short story? It’s Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl.

Update: Back home, Lady thrilled to bits I’m back, and do read Dahl’s masterpiece. It is a classic story. I first came across it when it was adapted for Tales of the Unexpected.

Sometimes ideas for flash fiction (and indeed other stories) can come from unexpected places. This has proved to be the case for me again today at my final full day of Swanwick 2025. A course on what you can find in archives to inspire your writing (fiction or otherwise) has inspired ideas I hope to write up further once I’ve had chance to come down from the magical creative writing world which is Swanwick. That will take some days I expect!

Fairytales with Bite – Writings in the Magical Worlds

What kind of writings exist in your magical settings? I am thinking outside of things you would expect like spell books. For example, has someone written down the legends which apply to your setting? Did they do this with official blessing or have they written a strictly unauthorised account? Can anyone in your world access these kinds of writings?

What led to someone realising these things had to be written down? Would your world permit books and other writings on things like its geography, its political history and so on? (Could be useful to an enemy though to me it would make sense residents in your setting would understand what their geography is so they can take better care of their world – humans, please note!).

I’ve just come back from a wonderful week at a summer school for writers. Would there be such a thing in your setting to encourage your world’s creative writers? Could your world’s government do something like this to ensure things were written down “in the right way” (and yes there could be sinister implications from that)?

This World and Others – Historical Writings

One of the courses I attended at a recent summer school for writers looked at how what you can find in the archives can inspire your writing (and that includes fiction too). I found the course fascinating. Diving back into history can inspire fictional works. So in your setting what kind of historical writings exist? Who wrote them? Are they accurate?

Are writers encouraged in your setting at all? Can they write as they wish, or do they have to stick to strict guidelines, including on how your world’s history is written about?

What kinds of historical writings exist in your setting? How are they stored? Are these things used in schools and other educational establishments? Or are certain tellings banned? Naturally someone would find a way to access anything banned so how could this apply here? What history do they want to expose in your world? What historical writings are considered dangerous?

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Books at Writing Events

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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, as were most of the photos takem at The Hayes, Swanwick.
A big thank you to Madalyn Morgan for taking images of Joy Wood and I holding up From Light to Dark and Back Again, which I signed for Joy. Also huge thanks to Penny Blackburn who took the shot of me reading Time for a Change at the Open Prose Mic Night. That story will be in my Seeing The Other Side out in May 2026.
Talking of which, I didn’t have time to share last week’s partial serialisation over on CafeLit but plan to share a double helping on Sunday, 17th August. So there will be plenty of reading! Am having a fabulous time at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Learning so much from the workshops and courses. Enjoying catching up with friends whom, for the rest of the year, I only see online. It is whizzing by, as usual. 

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My, does Swanwick week fly by. At Tuesday already!

I went to the Writer Beware! course led by Gerald Hornsby and Anita Belli. Such useful information. It pays to be aware of the industry you are going into (or hope to get into) and to be aware of the potential options you have for your writing.

Sadly though, and not just for publishing, where there are options, there are scammers all too willing to prey on your hopes and dreams. You DO need to now what you sign up for/buy into and courses like this are excellent at awareness raising.

After lunch, I went to Reviewing the Situation led by Julia Pattison, before having some free time before dinner, which I used for my writing. It is lovely to be back doing walks around the glorious lakes here too. Peaceful for me but the fish are so active this year. There are some small goats and cattle around The Hayes grounds too.

Enjoyed Sharon Cook’s Life Happens – Write It! Great insights and some exercises I am sure I can bring into my flash fiction. I’ve often found any kind of non-fiction inspires story ideas, which is one reason I read non-fiction regularly.

Also continued with Della Galton’s course on Writing Short Stories to Make Money. Plenty of fab advice and I hope to turn what I drafted as exercises here into flash pieces once I get home again.

Hope to go to the Poetry Open Mic night later too. I did – see further down. Having a fab time catching up with friends here.

Started the day running the Lift Up Your Pens pre-breakfast session. Talked about positive and negative traits and how we can use those to create characters. Also looked at using the positive and negative aspects of the traits chosen. There can be downsides to positive traits and something positive can come out of the negative ones. All good ways to create character and story ideas.

Will be at the flash fiction course run by Esther Chilton this afternoon and then on to Fulfilling Fillers run by Maggie Cobbett. Later tonight there will be the Open Prose Mic Night, which is always good fun.

Am on my way to a major highlight of my writing year, The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Am so looking forward to seeing everyone again.

I know roughly the courses and workshops I’ll go to but one lovely thing about Swanwick is you don’t need to prebook these. So you can change your mind. I tend to follow the four part full courses through, though I know others who mix these so they get a flavour of all of the courses on offer.

I hope to get a Chandler’s Ford Today post out for next Friday but it will be time dependent. Did manage to prepare this. See further down. My daily Facebook posts will come out at different times but I will be fully immersed in the writing world for a few days, which is one reason Swanwick is so special for me.

Update: Now here, just finished unpacking, just off to have a fabulous time!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Loved listening to the various readings from the Poetry Open Mic Night. Thoroughly entertaining and it confirmed in my mind I am no poet! I admire hugely those who can write in this form. Lovely mix of styles and moods too. Congratulations to all who took part.

Will be getting to share a Chandler’s Ford Today post this week – it will be about Meeting Up With Other Writers and why this is such a good thing to do. I hope to write specifically about this year’s Swanwick the week after.

Plus I am planning to turn some of my draft exercises into flash fiction from the courses here this week. Most of them have the potential for this so I will see them as useful first drafts! I have gone on to have polished up work, which started life as an exercise, published too.

Flash Tip: Mix up the type of exercises you do for flash fiction. Deliberately make yourself have a go at six word stories, 500 word ones, 100, 300 etc. It gives you more scope for competitions. I often see 100 word competitions. The next most popular categories I’ve seen are the sub 300 and sub 500 worders.

Though I am at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, having a thoroughly fabulous time, I have managed to create my usual Monday story for YouTube. Hope you like it. Aptly for Swanwick week, I’ve called this one Writing It Out.

Sometimes you really do want to catch the post person, find out why here.

I enjoy walking around the lakes at The Hayes when I am at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. The fish are especially active in them at the moment. There is something peaceful and calming about looking at this.

Prompt Idea: What would make your characters calm and peaceful after hard work or if they have had an otherwise strenuous time of it? Can they get to have said peaceful and calming moments? What would they do to make sure they did get the break they needed?

One course I will go to at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick will be the flash one led by Esther Chilton. I recently interviewed her for Chandler’s Ford Today. Did go to Esther’s course. It was great. Fabulous to chat in person too.

One aspect to writing I consider wonderful is you never stop learning. Regardless of anything else, learning, and being open to learning more, is so good for the brain.

It has also been, and continues to be, a great joy to see how the flash fiction world has expanded in recent years. More people are aware of it and it can give more publication opportunities.

I’ve found flash techniques have sharpened my writing skills considerably. I’ve also lost all fear of editing.

Both of these things help any writer, regardless of what your writing work is.

Goodreads Author Blog – Books at Writing Events

When this post goes live, I will be at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick again. It is a major highlight of my writing year because I get to spend a few days fully immersed in the writing world with wonderful folk who understand the drive to write.

The School also has that most wonderful of things – a Book Room. Authors can put their works out there for sale and I am looking forward to seeing my two flash collections in there again. I’m looking forward even more to Swanwick 2026 when my third book, Seeing The Other Side (Bridge House Publishing), will be in there too!

Naturally I shall be a customer too! It is a lovely privilege to support other writers like this and I do get my purchases signed for me too. I am always thrilled when someone asks me to sign a copy of my books for them.

So if you are going to writing events this summer, and I hope you are, I hope you bring back plenty of signed new material so you have lots of good reads to be getting on with.

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Writing Humour and My Swanwick Report

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Image Credits:-

All images from Pixabay. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

Book cover images from Bridge House Publishing, CafeLit, and Chapeltown Books.

Images from the 2021 Swanwick Writers’ Summer School taken by me, Allison Symes.

Am learning so much at Swanwick and it was lovely catching up with a fellow Bridge House Publishing, CafeLit, and Chapeltown Books author, Linda W Payne, too. More below.

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Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Firstly, it was a joy to be back at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School. Oh how I have missed so many friends there.

Glad to meet up with most of them again (and I hope to catch up with the rest this time next year, God willing). As ever, the courses, workshops, and guest speakers were excellent.

And the quiz team I’m part of, Prosecco Queens aka this year as Prosecco Avenue(!😄😄), finished in medal position for the general knowledge and literary quizzes. (Silver and bronze respectively before you ask…☺). Great fun. Oh and Minnie the Minx turns out to be older than I thought. It is amazing what you can learn from these things!

Secondly, I am delighted to welcome back to Chandler’s Ford Today Fran Hill and Ruth Leigh, who write wonderfully funny books in very different ways. Naturally this two-part interview had to be called Writing Humour.

Fran and Ruth share fabulous insights into the joys and perils of writing humour. Hope you enjoy the post. Can’t wait to share the concluding part next week.

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The Joys and Perils of Writing Humour Part 1 – Fran Hill and Ruth Leigh


Final part of the flash fiction course at Swanwick today (Thursday). Focus was on marketing and it was good to get plugs in for CafeLit and Friday Flash Fiction. Also sold another From Light to Dark and Back Again afterwards, which was unexpected and lovely.

Also enjoyed the Competitions course, which was packed to the brim with tips and useful advice.

And I’m pleased to say my Side Benefits of Writing article is now up on Mom’s Favorite Reads.

 

Had a fab Wednesday here at Swanwick. (This is the nearest I get to being a roving reporter by the way!😄).

Della Galton’s flash fiction course is engrossing and yes I have flash pieces from it. I’ve entered one of them for the flash competition here. And I will submit the other one after I get home. Have a few ideas where it would fit.
Also went to a non-fiction workshop which was packed full of useful info. I do have a long term project on the go here so this hour session was timely.

Also went to Diana Kimpton’s course on creating a series. Could I apply that to flash writing? Well, the course has triggered ideas.

Outside of Swanwick, Part 1 of a fab interview with Fran Hill and Ruth Leigh on Writing Humour will be on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Looking forward to sharing that. (See above).

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Was on way home from Swanwick as I drafted this. So good to be using Evernote again. Drafted some flash pieces for me to work on further and got on with editing a bigger project too so pleased with my efforts.

Thrilled to have had my best year at the Swanwick Book Room too. You can never know how these things will go. But I can say I waved the flag for flash fiction, which is something I love to do.

Delighted to come home and discover It’s An Ill Wind is now up on #FridayFlashFiction. Hope you enjoy it.


Screenshot 2021-08-13 at 19-12-37 It's an Ill Wind, by Allison Symes


Final day at Swanwick. The week flies by. Final part to the flash course was very good and looked at editing and marketing. Always useful topics.

Hope to get a piece in for Friday Flash Fiction over the weekend. I sent in a piece before Swanwick so hope to check if it made the cut for this week on my trip home tomorrow.

 

Glad to say all copies of Tripping The Flash Fantastic in the Swanwick Book Room have sold. Thank you, everyone.
Good to come across other flash authors here. I love the differing things you can do within the format. Don’t forget many a writing exercise can be turned into flash stories. Why not give that a go?

Fairytales with Bite – Five Things to Avoid

  1. Trying to be clever with magic you are not qualified in as this has never ended well.
  2. Annoying older folk. Just be aware they may not be all they appear. Many an arrogant idiot has discovered that nanoseconds before being turned into something ugly.
  3. Misreading a spell. It won’t be you in uncomfortable footwear but a heroine with feet cut to ribbons won’t do much for your career advancement.
  4. Annoying wildlife. In a magical world they will be more intelligent than you.
  5. Coveting gold. Not a good idea in any world as it could lead you into legal and other trouble. In a magical world, you could face being blasted away by a dragon. I know. I’ve written on the topic!

BookBrushImage-2021-6-25-20-1448

 

This World and Others – Five Things to Include

  1. A sense of where your created world is in the overall scheme of things.
  2. Who lives in it, how they survive, and how the world is ruled.
  3. The similarities and differences between your created world and what we know here.
  4. How your created world gets on with others in its solar or equivalent system. Or not as the case may be.
  5. Does your world send out explorers or welcome any coming to it?

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