Tag: mixing up reading

Taking Stock

Leave a comment
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 good week. Enjoyed the Bank Holiday weekend here. More to come this month too. Doesn’t affect the writing. I usually write in the evenings. Do you have a good time of day for writing? I prefer to write when I know I’ve got most of what else I have to do behind me for the day.

BookBrushImage-2023-5-2-20-2025

Facebook – General

Hope you have had a good day. Lady had a good run round with her Aussie Shepherd friend this morning. I swam 100 lengths in my local pool today in a personal best time. Lady and I shall sleep well tonight! I did think when I resumed swimming seriously I would use the time in the pool to think out story lines, blog ideas etc. Not a bit of it. The mind goes blank. Mind you, that can be relaxing so maybe it is not a bad thing.

Reading Tip (makes a change, yes?): Mix up what you read in terms of format as well as genre. I like to mix up reading paperbacks with reading magazines and ebooks. I mix up fiction with non-fiction. Within fiction, I mix up humorous writing with crime fiction with contemporary with classic etc. It makes for an interesting reading life. That in turn inspires the writing too so win-win here.

May be an image of text that says "Reading can take you places without you having to lift a step."

I like the month of May. More evidence that spring is with us (usually, she says hastily!). My late grandmother was called May. Charming lady. Charming name. Charming month.

Author newsletter went out this morning. Am looking forward to sharing my review of Spring Trio staged by The Chameleon Theatre Group which I went to on Thursday. Post will be up on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. The combination of plays was interesting. Good twists too. And as a friend said you can’t beat good local live theatre. For me, it’s a fantastic and different way of taking in stories – what’s not to love there?

No photo description available.

Wow, the end of another month already. Don’t forget my author newsletter goes out on the first of each month. If you’d like to sign up head over to my website landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

I have an exclusive story this time as well and I also break down how I wrote this. I know from having read interviews with authors where they’ve done this, you can learn so much from that technique. I hope you find it entertaining and useful. So look out for my latest missive in your inbox tomorrow!

A huge hello to all who have signed up and those who have done so recently.

Completely off topic, my better half recently redecorated the office in which I work. Has done a grand job. I am still sorting out the boxes of stuff I had on my desk. Who knew I had so much clutter on there? Well, me now! Am determined to keep desk decluttered. Wish me luck!

Allison Symes - May 2023 - Springing Ahead

Newsletter advert - share tips etc

Glad to say it’s my turn on More than Writers, the blog spot from the Association of Christian Writers. This time I look at Taking Stock and why doing this every so often can give you the encouragement to keep going. We all need that kind of encouragement from time to time. Hope you find the post helpful.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I was talking about Reading Moods on Goodreads this week and this is where reading flash collections has an advantage. Short story anthologies share this advantage too. And yes I am biased given I have a foot in both camps but the bliss of these is you can mix up your reading mood within the covers of one book! I deliberately mixed up the mood of my stories in my two flash collections as I wanted to give a good flavour of what flash fiction is and can be. Good short story anthologies do the same thing. And as I’ve mentioned before, these books give you a chance to try out the works of authors new to you.

May be an image of 1 person and text that says "Tripping the Flash Fantastic by Allison Symes carefully crafted collection of story worlds"

It’s Monday. Okay here in the UK it’s a Bank Holiday Monday but it’s still time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Circles.

 

Had a lovely time at the ACW Flash Fiction group on Wednesday. I always set exercises for these things and jot down ideas, along with the group, on the night of the meeting. I love live writing like that and everyone came up with ideas to work up later. I am hoping some at least will go and submit their finished pieces somewhere. Now have a few ideas to work up for story submissions. Win-win there!

This is where practicing writing to different prompts helps. It means you’re not fazed by whatever it is you’re set. Even if you haven’t done the actual kind of exercise before, you will know you can write to exercises and prompts because you’ve already got the practice in. It does pay off, honest!

May be an illustration of sugar candy and text that says "Add in "What If?" here and γσu'νe got the best writing prompts of the lot, I think. WHAT WHERE WHEN HOW WHY WHO"

Hope you have had a good day. Loved my trip out to the theatre on Thursday night (which consisted of three plays, more on that in a future Chandler’s Ford Today post). Mind you, there are always moments in a theatrical production which could be turned into a flash fiction story!

Flash focuses on one important moment for a character and in any great play, there are loads of those stand out moments which, individually, could be explored in prose. With a play you have to go on to the next moment and then the next one until you get to the end.

I often outline my character first and that will give me a good idea of the kind of situation they’re likely to find themselves in and from there I can work out what their most important moment is to write about.

May be an image of text that says "Where will your fiction take your readers? This world or somewhere else?"

Goodreads Author Blog – Reading Moods

Does your mood change what you were planning on reading? When life is especially grim, I will often turn to humorous works for sheer escapism. Indeed, I think humorous writing has a major role to play here. Funnily enough, the cosier end of the crime market can have a similar effect.

I have to be in a reasonably upbeat mood to begin with to cope with anything grim reading wise. That decision is backed by the fact I only have so much time in which to read so I want to make sure I enjoy what I do read! For non-fiction, if I’m reading history (as I currently am with 1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke), I find mood matters less.

Regardless of mood, whatever I read, I want to “zip” along and finish my reading session feeling I could have carried on reading all night if it wasn’t for the need to get some sleep!

So over to you then. Do you find you have to be in the right mood to read at all? (Not a problem with me – I will read, it is just a question of what I read). Do you find your mood dictates what you read (as it can do for me)? Or is it a question of working your way through your To Be Read pile methodically?

Screenshot 2023-04-29 at 20-14-37 Reading Moods

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

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

BookBrushImage-2023-4-21-20-227

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge – Ruth Leigh Interview Part 1

Leave a comment

Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Many thanks to Ruth Leigh for providing author and book cover photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you have had a good week. Why is it that the first week back after a holiday is frenetic? Am not sorry to have got to Friday! As well as Part 1 of Ruth’s interview, I share my latest Friday Flash Fiction tale, a belated Authors Electric post from me, and look at magical shopping, as you do. It won’t be the kind of shopping Ruth’s fabulous character, Isabella M Smugge, would go in for though!

BookBrushImage-2022-10-21-19-5432

Facebook – General – and Chandler’s Ford Today

Am thrilled to welcome Ruth Leigh back to Chandler’s Ford Today for the first part of a two-part interview. Ruth launches the third of her Isabella M Smugge series tomorrow with The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge.

In tonight‘s post, Ruth and I discuss her launch, how easy or otherwise does Ruth find coming up with stories for her leading lady, and about keeping track on what a writer needs to know about their recurring characters. Readers do pick up on discrepancies.

Next week we’ll be looking at marketing amongst other topics. And if you haven’t checked out Isabella’s adventures to date, you are in for a treat when you do.

Ruth Leigh and The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge – Part 1

This slideshow requires JavaScript.


Many apologies, folks, but I forgot to share my latest Authors Electric post which came out on 18th October. This time I talked about Writing Exercises and Why I Love Them. (It’s as well many blogs have a limited word count. I could give chapter and verse on this topic as I have had, and continue to have, a lot of fun with various writing exercises. Several of my published stories started life as a writing exercise challenge).

Screenshot 2022-10-21 at 09-25-08 Writing Exercises and Why I Love Them by Allison Symes

Writing Tip 4,007 or thereabouts: Deliberately mix up the type of book you read as well as the genre. I mix up reading novels (across genres), flash and short collections, and non-fiction. I also ensure I read magazines (especially writing related ones). Ideas for flash stories have sparked for me by reading non-fiction and other genres of books. I see it as feeding the creative mind. Give it a good banquet! You don’t have to worry about calories here!

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Am pleased to see some familiar names on Friday Flash Fiction this week.

Am also pleased to have my latest story, Hope, on there. The opening line here is something I adapted from a random line generator (and one used for poetry as a rule too).

This is another bonus to using these things. You can use exactly what comes up or tweak it as you see fit and you still get new story ideas. Hope you like this week’s tale. Find out what happens when a vicar and one of her grumpy parishioners discover there is hope out there.

Screenshot 2022-10-21 at 09-23-17 Hope by Allison Symes

It was great to see everyone at last night’s Flash Fiction group meeting (ACW). Much fun was had as we looked at titles and I hope people to get to write up stories to one or two of the ideas generated.

I jotted down ideas for myself too here. I often don’t prepare answers to homework I set in advance. I want to do do “live writing” too! It’s fun and really gets the cogs whirring! Where I do prepare homework in advance, it is because I want to use how I did it as an illustration. I’ve learned so much myself from when authors break their stories down like that.

Am busy getting next author newsletter ready to go out on the 1st. I share flash fiction tips here as well as links to my stories online. If you would like to sign up please head over to the landing page of my website at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com – would be good to have you “aboard”.

Newsletter advert - share tips etc

Will be looking at titles as part of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting tonight. Titles are your first advert whether you’re writing an epic fantasy for a 100-word drabble. I find I have to have a working title to get started on my pieces but it often change. It often happens a better title idea will occur as I’m drafting a piece. I just make a note of the new idea and compare it with my original one. I change it if it is better. Only the Ten Commandments were set in stone, folks!

Fairytales With Bite – Magical Shopping

Where does your average magical character go to get their shopping and what would they shop for? I can see potential for some humorous fantasy stories here. Meanwhile here are some thoughts to be going on with

Fairy Godmother – Almost certainly going to head to the grocers to get anything but pumpkin.

Dwarves – The DIY store for reinforced shovels and picks. Well, that gold won’t get itself dug, will it?

Wizard – The employment agency for a “proper” apprentice (and possibly the DIY store for bigger buckets).

Witch – Again the grocers probably fotr the shiniest red apples she can find. Also the arts and crafts shop for needles and sewing equipment (and tips for where to get a spinning wheel in this modern day and age).

Dragon – The bank. All the gold in there is simply going to waste. Said dragon will liberate it to sit on it. Also if there was anywhere that sold dwarf repellent the dragon would consider shopping for it. Saves flaming the perishers every time they try to raid the dragon’s gold. Dragons have a simple concept of ownership. A bit like cats really.

BookBrushImage-2022-10-21-20-4634

This World and Others – Business and Commerce

In your fictional setting, what does the world of business and commerce look like? What is traded? What is imported? What does your world have to import and what does it consider luxuries?

Also, are there certain things only the elite can have and what would happen if the “ordinary people/beings” found out about that? Could they be in a position to protest/rebel, especially if what was considered a luxury was something we would rightly consider to be a basic necessity?

Is there a trading sector in your setting? How is it made up? What, if any, regulation is it subject to and how is any regulation enforced? Would your world trade in magical skills? If so which would they be happy to trade and which would they keep strictly to themselves?

What kind of business would the “ordinary” folk in your setting do? Are there ways to improve on what they can do? Is magic valued more highly than working with your hands or in trading as we would on Earth? What do the ordinary folk make of their business sectors?

BookBrushImage-2022-10-21-20-5215

Twitter Corner (2)

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Processing…
Success! You're on the list.

Being Interviewed

Leave a comment

Image Credit:  As ever Pixabay/Pexels unless stated.

Interview News:  It was fabulous being interviewed by Paula C Readman on her blog. More details below.

Facebook – General

Is it me or are the nights drawing in earlier than usual for August? Still I suppose the upside to that is it encourages me to be either at my desk writing or curled up with a good book reading.

Talking of which, most of my reading I do at bedtime. I’m not seeking to analyse a story at this point! I just want to be entertained and go to sleep having enjoyed a good read. I DO, however, make a note of whatever particularly grabbed me about the book/short story. You can learn a lot from that.

I mix up reading fiction and non-fiction too. A good non-fiction book will grip me just as much as an excellent novel etc and reading non-fiction regularly can help trigger ideas for stories. Having said that, you should see my TBR pile, “real” and electronic versions! Still, those will keep me out of mischief for some time and that is never a bad thing!😀

Photo by Tuur Tisseghem on Pexels.com
Photo by Pew Nguyen on Pexels.com

I am delighted to be on the other side of the interview desk tonight with my appearance on #PaulaReadman‘s blog, Funeral Birds to Stone Angels. Hope you enjoy the interview (and do check out the other interviews on here too (see the Guest Book Tour Page). The chats are fabulous and I find I’m always entertained by what other authors have to say. I usually learn something useful too so win-win!).

Allison Symes - Published Works

Yours truly and some of my collected works! Image by Adrian Symes

FromLightToDark_medium-2

Delighted to see this on the Waterstones site. Looking forward to seeing Tripping the Flash Fantastic on there too!

I do enjoy writing character thoughts. I love creating dialogue too but with my 100 word stories in particular, I often don’t have room for my characters to get a conversation going!

I can get them to think though and thoughts reveal so much about the character.

What would you make of a character who thought something such as “I can’t be bothered to go to Helen’s”?

What would your initial thoughts be? That the character was lazy? Dog tired and just can’t face going out?

A lot of the assumptions you make here will depend on how much of the story you’ve already read.

But what if that was the opening line? You would be expecting to see a lazy character maybe get their comeuppance perhaps? That might be the point of the story. And it may well be BUT one thing I also love is layering so how could I layer that line to get something more from it?

“I can’t be bothered to go to Helen’s. I’ve been around there so often in the last few weeks and yet she never comes here.”

Now what would you think? Maybe you would feel more pity for this character now? I know I would.

The lovely thing about layering is you get to direct how it goes and you can throw in a red herring too.

“I can’t be bothered to go to Helen’s. I’ve been around there so often in the last few weeks and yet she never comes here. I reckon that agoraphobia she says she has is just an excuse to never go out. It only needs one bus ride to get here. Just what is her problem?”
Allison Symes – 24th August 2020

Any sympathy for this character has now gone right out of the old window, yes?

Work out what you want to reveal about your character and remember you don’t have to share it all at once!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I can’t say I was impressed with Storm Francis. (I should imagine the Pope might not be too happy at having a storm named after him. I wasn’t impressed there was a Storm Alison a few years back – okay having the second l in the name was probably too much to hope for. I know I can be a right shower at times but a storm? Really?! 😀😀).

Have got an interesting challenge for this week’s CFT post. I’m reviewing the summer! No. Stop it. It is NOT a two word article ending in the word “awful”. Honest. Link up on Friday. Probably best leave it there I think!

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

I hope you enjoyed my story, The Special Offer, in my last post. It was great fun to write and I do love using the random generators to trigger ideas. With most of them you can set your own parameters too.

The great thing with all of them is you can choose how to use what you generate. Will the words be a title, a theme, or just be placed in the story somewhere? And you can combine all or any or all of that of course.

With the number generator, you could use the numbers for times (as I’ve mentioned before), but how about a number being used as a house address where something spectacular happens? Or where the number has special meaning for your character?

It can be useful to write down a list of ideas that occur to you. The first few will be the “obvious” ones but those further down the list are unlikely to be so self-evident. THAT is where you may well find the germ of an idea that YOU can turn into something special.

Have fun!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was great fun taking part in #PaulaReadman‘s post on her blog today. Just so you know, I do have an interview page on my website, to which I gladly added my appearance on Paula’s blog earlier today. Scroll down and enjoy the read! Hope you enjoy the other interviews on there too. (And Paula is very generous with the cake too!).

It’s always an interesting experience for me being interviewed given I spend a fair amount of time doing the interviewing for Chandler’s Ford Today. Best thing of all? I get to talk about my big fictional love – flash fiction!

 

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com
Photo by Lex Photography on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Photo by Dominika Roseclay on Pexels.com
Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

I hope Monday has been okay for you. Can’t say I’m looking forward to the storm that’s heading to most of us in the UK tomorrow. Still I guess I won’t need any help blowing away the proverbial cobwebs tomorrow!

I’ve just shared on my author page a flash story I created to illustrate a point I was making about layering your characters and not revealing everything about them all at once. I’ll share that story here too.

“I can’t be bothered to go to Helen’s. I’ve been around there so often in the last few weeks and yet she never comes here. I reckon that agoraphobia she says she has is just an excuse to never go out. It only needs one bus ride to get here. Just what is her problem?”
Allison Symes – 24th August 2020

Now you’ll notice immediately there’s one thing missing. Something I’ve often said is important to a tale and that is the title. It is the first “lure” into a story for your reader. So how do I go about choosing a title

?Sometimes a title comes about as a result of the theme of the story. Sometimes it can be based on the character name or their attitude. But here what would I go for and why?

I’d probably call this I’m Not Going Again because (a) it fits the story and (b) will hopefully intrigue a reader enough to find out who is the I in the tale and why they’re not going to somewhere again.

The reason why is important in fiction. Readers lap up a story because they have got to find out what happens. And that’s a good thing.

Think of the stories you’ve loved. What kept you reading them?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I was right not to be impressed with the storm. Oh it was windy and rainy all right, but Lady and I were not sorry to get back home after our walk today. Was nice to see some sunshine later though.

Now when it comes to my flash tales I write a mixture of “sunny” tales and others which are darker in tone. This is partly due to my writing reflecting what I like to read and directly inspired my first book’s title of course.

Also because I cannot write “light” all the time.

I think it was Terry Pratchett who said you needed to have some tragic relief sometimes. The older I get the more I appreciate that.

My first love will always be light prose (and ideally funny with it) but I do think you need the darker stories as well. Doesn’t that reflect the human condition? Okay there is a limit to how dark I go but I love a well crafted crime novel as well as a funny memoir or short story collection. And there will always be room on my shelves for both.

Flash fiction is fantastic here as the form lends itself well to playing with character and seeing what you can do with them. Therefore it gives you plenty of opportunities to write lighter tales and darker ones and every which shade in between.

Photo by Lukas on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Photo by Caio on Pexels.com
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Goodreads Author Blog –The Wonders of Non-Fiction

The majority of my reading, whether in paperback or on my trusty Kindle, is fiction to be honest. But I’m a fiction writer so you would expect that.

However, my non-fiction “reading diet” has increased over the last couple of years, partly because I also blog for an online community magazine and a good general knowledge, as well as good sources of research, are useful for that.

But I have found I wanted to read more factual work in between the escape from it all in fiction kind of books.

I’ve enjoyed a few of Ben Macintyre’s books and have developed a greater appreciation for what is known as creative non-fiction.

Gone are the days of worthy tomes gathering dust on shelves somewhere and rightly so. You want books to be in the hands of eager readers and that goes for non-fiction too.

And non-fiction writers still have to know their audience and draw their readers in every bit as much as fiction writers must do.

So what do I look for in a good non-fiction work?

1. I still want to be entertained and often that is with a narrative that grips and is telling me an exciting “story”. The only difference with fiction is that here the story is a true one.

2. I want to learn something new and/or back up the knowledge I already have on a topic. (Ideally I’d do both).

3. I want the non-fiction book I’ve picked to encourage further reading on the topic and give me a source of ideas as to where to turn next.

So what are your favourite non-fiction books? Have you made any great discoveries this year?

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.