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 a lovely photo from my local wildflower meadow.
Hope you’re all okay. Am so thankful the weather cooled down over the weekend, especially on Sunday. It was a relief all around, including for the dog.
Writing going well. Delighted to say Seeing The Other Side is now up on Amazon for pre-ordering – Kindle version only as I write this. Paperback will follow. Am getting there!
Facebook – General
Another lovely cooler day and Lady again got to see her Hungarian Vizler pal so all well there.
Writing wise, my author newsletter goes out again tomorrow and I can hardly believe we’re almost into July. My Seeing The Other Side will be out on 16th July though so am very much looking forward to that. (The ebook is already up on Amazon for pre-orders).
Will be discussing What I Look For In a Writing Advice Book for Chandler’s Ford Today later this week and I share tips, which I hope will prove useful given there are many excellent guides out there. Link up for that on Friday.
Was so sorry to hear of the death of Dame Penelope Keith. Loved The Good Life and To The Manor Born. She was my late mother’s favourite comedic actress (and mine too) so another link with the past gone thinking about that too. I hope they put on some repeats of these two series. I think they stand up well over time. Also Dame Penelope’s appearance on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show was legendary! Well worth checking out, especially if you’re a fan of staircases… enough said.
In happier news, Lady was thrilled to catch up with Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, and her Hungarian Vizler pal in the park this morning. I think that was what Lady missed most of all last week in that heat – not being able to see her friends. All had a good and cool time this morning.
In other news, I’m delighted to be able to share my new post on More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers. ACW moved platforms for their blog last month and it is now on WordPress.
My post this time is on Sparkling Dialogue. Amongst other things, I look at how we can use dialogue to show a lot about our characters and the importance of not writing dialogue for the sake of it. As with any element of a story, there has to be a good reason for it to be there.
Hope you find the post useful.
Even cooler today and it was lovely being able to resume a post church walk with Lady today. She loved it. Also, our park has a wonderful wild flower meadow in it and it looks amazing at the moment. Photo below gives a good idea. The park has had a meadow like this for the last three years or so and there is a different mix of wildflower for each year. It’s a fabulous idea.
Talking of colours, bear in mind these can be great to bring into a story. It helps, for example, with picturing what a character is wearing. Also you can use colours to help flesh out your character more – what are their favourite colours and how do these come into their stories?
A character who loves pink, say, is likely to have an item of pink on them as they get on with whatever is going on in the story. I know I like to wear a mixture of favourite colours myself and even when not, I’ll have a bag or something which will be in one of those colours.
Colours can also be linked to memories. I recall my late grandmother, who died when I was a young child, always had Rose’s Lime Cordial in. I can still picture the colour of that green (delicious) liquid well over fifty years later!
There is a series of linked flash stories in my forthcoming Seeing The Other Side which are based around the theme of “red”. Great fun to write and I hope readers will enjoy them too in due course.
Thankfully it is cooler today though we’re still being cautious with Lady. She has been especially good this week. Dogs like their routines, it gives them a sense of security, so to have that disrupted can disturb even the most placid of dogs. It is due to become cooler still next week, which will be most welcome.
Writing wise, I’ll be looking at What I Look For In A Writing Advice Book for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. I’ll be sharing tips as to what I’ve found useful to know ahead of making any purchases. Link up on Friday.
Delighted to say my Seeing The Other Side is now available for pre-order on Amazon but with the Kindle version only. Stay tuned for further updates. It is just a matter of time before the paperback is up there too but I was so pleased to discover this late yesterday. The official publication date is now 16th July – not long to go!
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
At the end of June already! The year flashes by, does it not?
Talking of which, what do your characters make of time flashing by for them, whether they are set in this world with our time system or somewhere different which has its own ideas on how time should be?
I do know that whenever I do anything boring, such as the housework, time drags. Again, story thoughts here. What would your characters find makes time drag for them and what do they do to try to improve matters? I could see there being some humorous tales there.
Two stories to share here tonight – one for Substack and the other for YouTube. Hope you enjoy them both.
First up is my tale which appeared on Substack yesterday – Discussing a Problem With A Friend.
Find out why an icing gun comes into the tale.
Second up on tonight’s menu is my YouTube story – Timings 2 (Confession time: I forgot I already had a video with this title here but this story is different and amusing and I liked the title so it stays!).
The local kids’ football match has additional help nobody knew was needed. Excellent play and all that but there is a but. Find out more here. This one isn’t based on a true story but it could be!
Looking forward to cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly and very pleased to be doing so in much cooler conditions. The temperature where I am is in the early to mid twenties, as opposed to the late thirties during the week.
Ten may not seem significant as a number but in terms of lowering the temperature by that much, it is considerably something as Lady would also testify if she could!
Talking of the number ten, why not try a ten word story as a flash fiction exercise? I’ll let you have the title though! Hope you have fun with this. I find it a great exercise to return to every now and then. My examples below:-
1. He wondered if he’d finally find the ice cream van.
2. She couldn’t believe Granny left her a talking magical mirror.
3. When time is all you have, you will do anything.
The great thing with this kind of exercise is you can obviously write the stories up further and use these lines as the beginning, the mid point, or the ending of your tales.
Hope you have fun with your own ten word creations.
Nice the weather is cooling down a bit, Lady is far happier, but it will be much better still from next week so we soldier on.
Flash fiction is great if you like to write to the seasons. There can be broadcast opportunities for the seasons too – see Hannah Kate’s show on North Manchester FM for more on this. I was pleased an ACW friend recently was on the midsummer show.
I hope to submit something much later in the year when the season will be so different from what we have now. It will probably be sometime in the autumn when I start thinking out my ideas for this one. Hard to get your thinking cap on for it when the season is so different to what will be required for the tale. That is my excuse and I will be sticking with it!
Having said that, I do usually draft for seasonal writing well ahead of time given most deadlines for these things are either ahead of the actual days or are right at the beginning of them.
Goodreads Author Blog – Reading in Hot Weather
As I write this in late June 2026, most of the UK has experienced a severe heatwave with temperatures in the high thirties (and overnight in high twenties!). Thankfully it is beginning to cool a bit (anything is welcome, especially if you own pets) and it will be better still hopefully as we go into July.
But it made me wonder do you find it easy to read in hot weather? Generally, you may need to wind things down which may free up more time for reading but do you actually feel like reading?
I found I continued my magazine reading (writing advice ones) as usual. I often save these for lunchtime reading and that continues to be fine. My main book reading though is at bedtime and I managed to do some but nowhere near as much as I’d have liked.
There is something about hot weather which zaps concentration levels, even when you do all of the right thing especially regarding hydration, so I suspect this is why I struggled. I hope to get back to normal reading when the weather resumes normal for the UK for this time of year.
As for the kind of reading to be done, when you can, when it is so hot, I like to keep it light. Now is not the time for “serious literature” for me. I want entertaining and funny. It keeps my mind off how hot things are for a start!
MAILERLITE – ALLISON SYMES – NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
I write some seasonal flash fiction (especially at Christmas time) but could, I know, do more with this. The problem is remembering to do it! I have written some more lighthearted pieces recently for Friday Flash Fiction and my YouTube channel.
I love finding those moments which show a great deal about a character without my having to spell everything out. I can use names here (as I discuss over on my Facebook author page – see above). But you can also use things like style of dress, whether women were expected to wear hats or not (and if so you could indicate class by what kind they wore), and much else besides. 
