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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 great weekend. Had a lovely time out at The Dorset Museum with editing colleagues and the weather is pleasantly cooler. Lady and I are not sorry about that. My latest newsletter is now out and am so looking forward to Seeing The Other Side come out later this month.
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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady did. She managed to have a puppy party in the park today with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals plus Coco, the lovely Labradoodle. Tired and happy dogs went home. Job done there then. And we’re all thankful the temperature has come down somewhat.
Writing wise, am cracking on with blogs and material I will need later and enjoying this. There is a writing competition I’ve got in mind to enter but will have another look at my “story store” over the weekend, I hope, to see if I have something which would suit. The theme is an open one which helps!
Also found out today another competition entry didn’t make the cut but I will have another look at this story later and see if I can find another home for it. Sometimes, I can.
Hope today has gone well. Lady was reunited with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal for the first time in a couple of weeks today. Both were thrilled to see each other and had a lovely time in the park. None of us are sorry the temperature has come down.
Has been a busy day or so on the writing front. My author newsletter went out again today.
Plus I share here my latest story on Substack which went out on that platform yesterday. I hope you enjoy Banners Banned. It was great fun to write. Back to the good old drabble (aka the 100 word story) for this one. Incidentally I used a random word generator and the word “banner” for my stories here and on YouTube this week.
Hope the weekend is going well. Cooler and pleasanter day today. It was a joy for Lady and I to be out (so unlike most of last week!).
Writing wise, I’ll be getting on with flash fiction Sunday afternoon shortly. The coming week will probably be based around various blogs and background work for when Seeing The Other Side comes out. All will be a joy to do.
I love all forms of creative writing and editing so it is always a joy to be back at my desk. Yes, there are some writing admin and editing tasks which are less interesting, but when you think these things will help improve your work and can make the difference between being published or not, then that thought makes them easier to deal with.
Editing Tip: Do think of reading work out loud (or recording on Zoom/Audacity etc and playing back) as one of your rounds of edits and yes, there will be more than one round! This kind of editing alone can show up clunky dialogue, missing words and much more and is so worth doing.
For longer work, break this down into chunks such as chapters or two or three scenes in a chapter. I’d also recommend, as you play something back, making notes as to what isn’t working and then go through and amend once you have a complete list to work through.
For short stories and flash, this won’t take long. For novels, as I say, you may want to do one chapter or significant sequence at a time but work through your list and make amendments once you have gone through the lot. When you look at the list as a whole, you may spot where the weaker bits are but I think you do have to see the whole to be able to do that.
I can’t recommend this technique highly enough.
I drafted this on my way down to Dorchester to revisit The Dorset Museum for a Thomas Hardy exhibition. I caught up with editing colleagues here and it was great to see them. On the train home, there was a splendid writing and editing conversation going on.
I used my Senior Railcard for the first time. Today’s trip, including posting the tickets to me, came in at a very good rate indeed.
One thing we know about as editors is deadlines. I’ll be talking about that for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday.
Deadlines are a fact of life for writers and editors alike, of course. I’ll be sharing tips on handling deadlines which I’ve found useful over many years and still do.
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Flash tightens up your writing thanks to its restricted word count but another advantage to it is if you have a character and storyline you’d like to do more with, you can.
I’ve sometimes expanded a story which started life as a flash piece and turned it into a longer standard length short story but only because the character and plotline were both strong enough for that.
With my competition judge’s hat on, you can spot where you think someone has padded out a story and this is why that kind of thing never works. Every part of a story, regardless of its word count, has to feel to someone reading it as if it must be there and couldn’t work without it.
Now there’s a challenge for us all!
It has been a cooler and frankly more pleasant Monday today compared with the sweltering heat of last week. Mind you, it is still a Monday and that means it’s story time again. I hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Proper Spelling and Everything.
Joey thought he was doing the right thing with his banner but his teacher shows him there could be a downside. Find out what here and what Joey did get right.
Almost time to get on with flash fiction Sunday, which is always a joy. As I’ve been out and about and am now catching up with work, I may need to put back looking for another competition to enter until next weekend.
One good thing about that is I do know there will be something out there which will be worth my while trying. There are far more flash fiction and short story competitions about so there is more choice but, as ever, always check the background of the competition out and ensure all is as it should be. Entry fees should be proportionate to the entry fee. You shouldn’t have to give up your copyright either. And you should be able to find a track record for the competition organisers.
Flash Fiction Tip: Lead with your character is usually my way into creating a new flash piece. I have to know who they are, what their major trait is and from there I can work out the kind of trouble they’d be likely to get into – all good fun!
But I often also start with a line of dialogue or internal thought. Just writing that down can give me a good indication of my character type. Someone who speaks “posh” will use certain words while those who aren’t “posh” would speak in a different way.
From that you can work out where someone is likely to live and something of their background. So if you’re thinking of creating a character and am not sure where to start, write down a random line of dialogue and see what it shows you about the speaker and where this is likely to take them.
Happy writing!
Have been out and about on the trains today having a lovely time.Naturally part of this is looking out for those sparks which can trigger story ideas.
Those sparks can include things like overhearing interesting snippets, spotting oddities (or things which strike me as that), spotting wildlife (there can be room for them in stories too) and much more.
Will be fun finding out tomorrow, hopefully, if any of my “finds” make it into my tales I draft for this week’s flash fiction Sunday.
Goodreads Author Blog – Discovering Classic Authors New to You
I spent the last Saturday in May 2026 visiting a Thomas Hardy exhibition at The Dorset Museum in Dorchester with editing colleagues. We like a jolly every now and then! The exhibition was fascinating and I’m glad I went but must confess to not having read Hardy.
And it made me think about how do you discover those classic authors whom everyone has heard of but you yourself just haven’t got into their works.
I suspect this trip out will lead me into reading Hardy and that may well be the point of exhibitions like this.
My late well read mother had Dickens and Austen at home. But it was at secondary school when Pride and Prejudice was a set book, I discovered dear Jane for myself.
As for Dickens, I watched the old black and white film of Oliver Twist on BBC2 one weekend afternoon which led me into reading Dickens. This film starred Sir Alec Guinness as Fagan and Oliver Reed as Bill Sykes. They were both seriously scary. I had to read the book to see if the original story really was like that. And yes it is.
Which classic authors have you yet to read for yourself? As a writer too, I’m aware of the need to read contemporary fiction, which I do, but it is good to read the classics too. You will often spot the influences on other writers from them.
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Hope today has been a lovely peaceful Sunday for you. It has been here. Lady is currently happily curled up having had a couple of lovely walks and play times. Hopes to catch up with her pals during the week.
Hope today has gone well. Quiet one here – back out creosoting the fence. Am making good steady progress. Sometimes you come across descriptions which are perfect. Well, our fence was described as being made from rough cut timber. They were right about the rough bit!
It’s a Bank Holiday Monday where I am. It’s been a hot one too. But it does mean it is time for a beginning of the week story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Liberating Luck.
One element to flash fiction which can be overlooked is that it gives you skills you can use for any form of writing. I’ve found this to be the case. You tighten up your editing skills, for one thing.
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!
Am posting early as busy but enjoyable weekend this time. Hope the weekend is going well for you. Weather forecast for next week looks almost summery which will be nice. Touching to see such a wonderful turnout in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral. TV figures etc will be even higher of course. He will be much missed.
Hope you’re having a lovely Sunday. Enjoying a quiet one after a fabulous do yesterday. So good to see everyone. Lady is still pretty tired from yesterday!
It’s Monday. It’s been even more hectic than usual my end. Definitely time for another story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Breaking the Contract.
Flash fiction isn’t new, far from it. Its name may have changed over time (I know of micro fiction, sudden fiction, and many more names besides), but the format is an ancient one. Think about Aesop’s Fables or Jesus’s parables in the Bible – pretty much all of these come in at under 1000 words. 
Good questions to ask potential characters for a flash story:-
Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Had some sun today which is lovely and have potted the first crocus emerging in my garden.
It’s Monday. It’s been stormy (overnight) and so muddy in the park. Definitely time for a story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – People Watching.
Lovely church service this morning. Enjoyed that. Lady also got to see her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal unexpectedly after that and both dogs were so pleased to see each. Very sweet to see.
It’s Monday. It’s cold BUT the sun came out today, hooray! Note to anyone not in the UK – most of us have had several days of grey, murky weather. Okay not unusual for February but it is so nice seeing the sun again! Still time for a story though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Listening to Reason.
Will be sharing Story Tips on Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Useful for flash fiction and writers of any length of story. Link up tomorrow. See above.
