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Delighted to share Festive Flash Fiction Writing on Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Honestly, I’m not too early with this one. The post explains why and shares useful thoughts and tips ahead of you writing material for your website, author newsletter etc, all things which may end the year with a smile or two, I hope.

I look at Festive Focus (the season itself acts as a framework and those are so useful for any length of story) and Festive Characters (and you can add to what is known, whether you’re writing on the secular side of the season or the Christian one or both. I’ve written both).

Hope you find the post useful.

Festive Flash Fiction Writing

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This is becoming an annual event now but I’m currently tuning into Classic FM’s Pet Classics show which will be playing calming classical music from 5pm to 10pm for tonight (Bonfire Night) and the 6th and 7th November too. The late Bill Turnbull started this and I’ve found it does help with Lady who loathes fireworks.

The music keeps me calm too which also helps her and I just turn the sound up. Is worth a go if your pet is worried. (Only piece I can think of they won’t play is The 1812 Overture which has fireworks in it!). We also make sure Lady is never alone. That helps too.

Writing wise, I’m glad to report I’m in the December issue of Writing Magazine under Subscribers’ News with Seeing The Other Side. This slot is one of the first I turn to when the magazine comes in as I often see friends and their works in there. It’s been a while since I was last in – the last time would’ve been when Tripping The Flash Fantastic came out in 2020. Note to self: try not to leave it so long next time.

Will be sharing Festive Flash Fiction Writing for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. Hope it will prove useful. See above.

You know I said it was chilly yesterday? Well, today’s temperatures beat that by some considerable margin! Not that it stopped Lady having a good time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler chum.

Writing wise, I’m sharing Festive Flash Fiction Writing on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. Now is a good time to get some flash pieces written for use on your website etc. Hope you will find the post useful. (And yes I really must get around to drafting some myself!).

Hosting an online group for ACW tonight, that should be fun.

Looking forward to booking train tickets later this week for my event in Salisbury later this month re Seeing The Other Side and my tickets for the Bridge House Publishing event in December. Am on the list of readers for the latter event and I plan to read from the new book. Huge thanks again to Salisbury URC for inviting me to take part in their Christmas Fayre event. Hope to report back on both events later for Chandler’s Ford Today.

Newsletter Tip: Think themes. I find it useful to have a “peg” to write my newsletter around. Seasonal ones are also helpful and my December one will focus on the festive season for obvious reasons. But having that “peg” makes it easier to write pieces of interest around that “peg”.

I go for general themes such as light and dark. You can then break those general themes down in to the areas which most interest you. For the light and dark one, it was about how these things impact on characters.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Lady had a fabulous time in the park with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals. Earlier in the morning, Lady also caught up with her Australian Shepherd “boyfriend”. Am hoping she’ll be so tired, it’ll help against the fireworks.

Classic FM’s Pet Classics did help and we’ll be having this on again this evening. But I do wish people would use the silent fireworks. You can draw curtains etc to blank out the light flashes. Noise is more difficult. Ho hum.

Writing wise, and in keeping with my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week on writing festive flash, my thoughts will turn to writing some of my own for this year soon. It is fun to do and I hope to share a couple of pieces later via CFT, my newsletter, and on my website.

As with any flash piece, I focus on the character first. Who will be my star? Will it be a secular story or one loosely based around the Nativity? Will it be one to make someone smile or a thoughtful piece? (It is possible to write darker work here when you consider the story of King Herod!).

Happy with how my editing has gone on competition pieces this week. Will have another look at these stories soon as am hoping to get them out by the end of this month.

Hope today has gone well. Lady had a lovely time in the park with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal. Thankfully not as cold as yesterday though I did dry and dress after my swim today in record quick time. I think the centre could do with putting the heating up!

Writing wise, am pleased to have got around to editing my flash competition entries. Much tighter. Need to just type up the amended versions and rest them again. I hope to get these off by the middle of the month or so in plenty of time for their respective deadlines.

Pleased to be flagging up flash fiction and my Seeing The Other Side in Writing Magazine this time thanks to their Subscribers’ News slot.

Flash Tip: Have some fun inventing short snappy titles and then writing a flash piece around them. If unsure where to start, take a familiar saying and put your own spin on that.

For example, instead of, say, using A Stitch in Time, why not change that to A Stitch in Margate. (Am not disparaging Margate by the way!). You can then start thinking about why Margate, why does needlework of some sort come into this and how, and above all who is responsible for the “stitch” in the first place.

If I was writing this one, I’d be looking at a crafts fan who perhaps makes something (say a blanket) to raise money for a special cause in Margate. You get the idea.

Happy writing!

Hope today has gone well. Not bad here. Happy with stories I’ve picked out for competition entries. I need to reduce the word count on them but I can see easily where I can do that without losing anything important.

It is where having a break between writing the story and editing it helps enormously. I also print out my draft flash pieces. I do find it easier to spot things on paper rather than on screen and at least with flash I can always use the reverse side for notes etc. Nothing wasted here.

Editing Tip: Think of editing as stages. My first edit is to check does the story work? Is its structure okay? Are the characters consistent in terms of name and how I’ve portrayed them?

Second stage for me is then to look at how well I’ve phrased things. There is always room for improvement.

Third stage is the typo and grammar check.

For competitions, my final check is to ensure I’ve followed all the competition requirements for formatting, whether my name should appear or not (often not – they usually want a cover sheet or it is done on the Submittable/Duotrope form and not on the manuscript itself). In between stages, I’m drafting a story and/or coming back to a story I rested a while ago.

I see editing as a different form of creativity to writing the first draft. Both need “their time” and it pays not to rush either. I build myself in a deadline well ahead of any competition deadline to give me the time to do all of this.

Fairytales With Bite – Beyond The Stars

I was saddened to hear of the loss of Patrick Stewart. His role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation is rightly iconic. I’ve liked seeing many tributes to him, including various thoughts on his now going beyond the stars.

When it comes to your own magical settings, do your characters stay firmly on their own world or do they explore their universe/other universes? If the latter, does magic help them or can it be a hindrance? It could certainly make non-magical species they come across wary of them, as they would be of any power source they don’t know/understand.

Would your characters study the stars they can see? How would those stars differ from the ones we know (am thinking in terms of size, colour etc here)? Could they see the same stars we do but they know them by different names? What would be the basis for their naming stars? We often use classical mythology for our naming system.

Would your setting send out the right characters to explore beyond their stars and report back? What would your characters find?

Plenty of story thoughts there.

This World and Others – Contacts

One of the recurring themes of all of the Star Trek series and films is contacts – first contact with other species usually. Some of these are the beginning of friendships and others are definitely not!

Would your magical world seek to make contact with other worlds and its peoples or do they prefer to keep themselves to themselves? Has your setting had bad experiences with contacts with others before so isn’t prepared to risk if again? Definitely story ideas to explore there.

How would your magical world react if another world, magical or not itself, made contact with them? Would that be welcomed or not and, if the latter, how did the contact happen? Did your world not have enough shields in place to ensure such contact couldn’t happen? What would be the results of this unexpected connection? Could something positive come from it?

Again, plenty of story possibilities there. The lovely thing with the theme of contacts is there has to be two sides to this, whether the contact is welcome or not. Plenty of opportunities for misunderstandings, clashes etc, all of which is great for a writer!