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. A huge thank you to Keith Hinchy for taking and giving permission to use shots he took from the Swanwick Prom. More below.Many thanks also to Babs Trevitt for the image of me taking part in the Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night.
Talking of Swanwick, I had a fabulous time at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. The launch for Seeing The Other Side went brilliantly. Sold two-thirds of my stock at the launch and the rest a day or so later. First time I’ve had a sell out. So thrilled. Pleased I also sold copies of From Light to Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic.
It was a joy catching up with friends and chatting to new people to Swanwick. Hope to see them again there next year. Resuming normal home life – and the dog did mug me on my return!
Facebook – General
Pleased to be back on Authors Electric with Book Launches and Associated Activities. This one was a particular joy to write up given my recent launch for Seeing The Other Side at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.
I also talk in this post about what I learn from other launches I go to, what authors hope will happen at them (and onwards – I often note a rise in my Kindle sales a few days after an event), and share some tips I think will help any writer prepare for their book launch.
Hope you find this useful. My last launch was in 2020 as, aside from anything else, I’m thrilled to bits to be able to get out and about for book events in person.
Well, it is my first full day back at the helm after a fantastic few days away at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Am I shattered? You bet. It was nice Lady got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal again today though.
Writing wise, it’s Monday so it’s time for my Substack story for the week after my break. Hope you enjoy Stuck on Q. This one isn’t just for Scrabble players, honest!
Lovely to be back at church this morning and taking the dog out again afterwards. The latter is probably the most exercise I’ve had this week! Nice to be back at my desk “properly” and am looking forward to cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly. Also nice to bring back some lovely books of prompts from Swanwick. Know they will be a great help.
I use prompts from a wide range of sources, including books, and will take something I like and put my own spin on it. Sometimes I will splice prompts and get a new one from two put together like that.
Story cubes are brilliant too. So many combinations available, depending on how many cubes you have. You won’t run out of the random generators any time soon either and with almost all of them you can set your own parameters, which again increases their usefulness to you and the ideas available.
Prompt Tip: If you use the generators, don’t generate too many in one go. You’ll feel swamped and that stifles creativity. Limits are so useful. They make you think more deeply and yes I know I’m biased here being a flash fiction writer but it is true nonetheless.
For books of prompts, pick out a few you think you’d like, say three or four. By the time you’ve done that, you should find there is one which is “grabbing” you so that’s the one to go for.
It takes a few days to recover from a fabulous time at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick but am slowly getting there. It was nice for Lady and I to get back to walking together and we even caught up with her Hungarian Vizler pal. It’s the first time we’ve seen them in a good couple of weeks as everyone is getting out earlier than normal for dog walking and we all have different ideas of what early is!
Talking of Swanwick, my Chandler’s Ford Today post next week will be Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch For Seeing The Other Side. Am looking forward to sharing that one next Friday.
Will be resuming flash fiction Sunday tomorrow and it will be lovely to get back to that again.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
One of the joys of The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick is the end of school party. Many thanks to Keith Hinchy who took these (and many other) fab shots.
June Webber and I had a great time at the disco. We often get together online the rest of the year with other Swanwickers (it is one of those things where people drop in as and when) but it is special to be able to get together in person.
Fabulous way to wrap up another year’s school. Writers spend so much time at their desks.
Just sometimes we get up on the dance floor too!
It’s Monday, it’s marginally cooler than last week, I stress the marginally, but it does mean it’s story time.
Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Scrabbling Around. The eagle eyed amongst you may spot a connection to my Substack story this week in terms of theme.
Is Linda really cheating at Scrabble, as Mark suspects, or is there something else going on? Find out here.
Looking forward to resuming sharing my Substack and YouTube stories. Now just to get on and write them which I’ll do shortly.
Sometimes when deciding where to start, I will think about the mood of the stories I want to tell. Funny, dark, or somewhere in between? Sometimes I’ll think about the character type I want – someone who is overdue their comeuppance or someone worthy of support getting that in an unexpected way?
It pays to ask yourself a few questions as to what you want your stories to be and what impact you’d like them to have on readers. From there, you can start to outline situations and/or characters and off you go with your first draft.
Happy writing!
The highlight for me at Swanwick this year was of course the book launch for Seeing The Other Side, but it was closely followed by the Open Prose Mic Night.
I love these. I get to hear a marvellous range of stories and, when I take part as I did again this year, I can highlight something about what flash fiction is and can be simply by performing some of my stories. I hope I get to introduce some folk to the form this way.
It is another reason why I include reading work out loud as part of my editing process. I know a story has got to read well on the page and out loud for Mic Nights and the like.
It is amazing what errors you can pick up simply by reading your story out loud and if you record it on Zoom and play it back, you can (a) get your timings right which always goes down well with a Mic host and (b) you will take in the story as the audience would.
That in turn helps you spot what might be missing, what doesn’t flow as well as you might like and so on. Gives you a chance to put all of that right before you do perform the pieces. Can’t recommend doing this highly enough.
GOODREADS AUTHOR BLOG – Reading Time
I suspect most of us would like far more reading time than we have got. I think it’s part of the territory of so many books, not enough time, and having other wonderful responsibilities. Time doesn’t stretch that much.
The irony for me as I write this is I’m off to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick where there will be so much love and appreciation shown for the written word in all its forms.
Yet most of us will be busy catching up with friends, learning from the writing courses and so on to get much actual reading done while here!
I expect most of us will bring home new delights from the Book Room though! The To Be Read pile never goes down much, does it?! But then maybe that is as it should be.
I find it encouraging there will never be a shortage of good reading material.
And now I’m back from Swanwick, I can confirm I have brought more good reading material home with me! Sorry, couldn’t get to post this last week while away but will now resume weekly posts.
Ironically it was due to being at a place where every writer loves books, their own and others, and we spent a lot of time celebrating the fact, as well as learning more about our craft.
Now back home again, we can resume our usual reading with more material to add to the mix but then that’s never a problem, is it?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
