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The Joy of Responding To and Setting Writing Exercises

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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 good week. Have resumed gentle swimming after my fall. Seems to be helping. Lady has caught up with one of her friends this week and I’m looking forward to my book signing in Salisbury next week. All go but I like it that way.

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Am delighted to share The Joy of Setting and Responding to Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Naturally I put this into practice for this week’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group!

I list my favourite writing exercises, what I have got out of giving them a go (published work in many cases for one), and share plenty of useful tips for getting the most of any exercises you’re set.

I also look at life on the other side of the fence here in that setting writing exercises is a great way to make you think outside of your usual “comfort box”. You want something you know people can do but will also be a challenge (and they’re a challenge to me too because I ensure I do them too, it’s a great way to get more flash written).

Hope you find the post useful, whichever side of the writing exercise fence you are on. I regularly switch sides here!

The Joy of Responding to and Setting Writing Exercises

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Nice day. Another gentle swim today went well.

Writing wise, I’m pleased to share a link to Hannah Ruth Retallick’s Substack post about If You Keep Missing Writing Errors, Try This. All sound, sensible stuff and something every writer needs. Many thanks to her for a shout out to me for a tip I share here. It’s one I’ve often shared here but it bears repeating.

One thing I was chatting about last night with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group was to write first, edit later, and to see the two things as separate, different creative tasks. This ties in nicely with Hannah’s post because if you do give yourself the time away from a piece before coming back to edit it, you are much more likely to pick up on the mistakes. Time away does help and while you’re resting a piece, you can of course be drafting another one!

As for draft writing, the group and I drafted some flash fiction pieces last night. Naturally I’m resting mine for the moment!

Talking of writing exercises, which I love, my Chandler’s Ford Today post tomorrow will focus on The Joy of Setting and Responding To Writing Exercises. I’ll be sharing plenty of useful thoughts here so watch out for it. See above.

Hope the day has gone well. Lady was delighted to catch up with her Hungarian Vizler pal today. The dogs haven’t seen much of each other recently thanks to the summer holidays and the heatwave so this was nice to see.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing The Joy of Setting And Responding To Writing Exercises for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. Link up on Friday. See above.

Talking of writing exercises, I have set some for tonight’s meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group and yes I plan to have a go too.

And I’m getting lots of spam emails regarding Seeing The Other Side. Am deleting the lot. Only thing to do. Talking of the new book, I hope to share news about the blog tour for it before too long so watch this space.

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Hope your day has gone well. Had some proper rain earlier. I got caught in it on the way back from an appointment. Was torn between wishing it had held off for ten more minutes or delighted it had come down at all! I suspect I might get a flash fiction story from a character caught in the rain at some point…!

Want to draft a flash piece over the weekend to submit to Hannah Kate’s show on North Manchester FM in due course. As the weather has started to turn autumnal, it is timely her call for stories for her Autumn Equinox show is timely.

Looking forward to being in Salisbury next weekend for my book event for Seeing The Other Side and not long after that there will be the blog tour. Plenty going on.

Had a lovely evening with members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group yesterday. Many thanks, folks. Yes, we did draft some flash pieces. I hope to return to mine in a few days or so. One nice thing about groups like this is we all share news which is amazingly handy at times.

One such bit of news came from Jenny Sanders who highlighted the fact Hannah Kate of North Manchester FM is looking for flash stories for her Autumn Equinox show. See the link for more details but I’ll be looking at having a go at this later this week. The show itself goes out on Saturday 19th September but the deadline is by midnight on Monday 14th September.

Top Tip: When I submit stories to Hannah Kate’s show and I’ve polished them up as much as I can, I record them on Zoom. I hear how they sound. I can make sure I’m not speaking too fast or too slow. And Zoom gives you the timing of your recording so you can’t get that wrong. I’ve also found a word count of about 150 words or thereabouts works well here.

Autumn Equinox Stories Wanted for Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM

 

Flash is remarkably flexible given its restricted word count. I think a major factor in this is it has to be character led (as you have little room for much in the way of description so the characters have to show everything).

Characters can be put into any situation and time. I have a lot of fun here which is why I’ll always recommend flash for all writers even if it’s never your main work. I think it is a no-brainer for anyone who loves creating characters.

The discipline of writing to a tight word count pays off for other forms of writing. I’ve found this to be the case for my blogging, for example. It is much tighter now than it used to be.

Fairytales With Bite – Pride Before A Fall

We all know the saying. It’s a great theme for a story. Sadly it proved to be true literally for me last week when I took a tumble. Thankfully only painful bruising but my ego took a bit of a tumble too. (I tripped over a service cover in the pavement – these things are never level and I just didn’t lift my foot high enough).

In the magical world, how could pride come before a fall? I’ve written flash pieces on this where an arrogant younger magical being is shown she is not the be all and end all by a much older, wiser magical being. Good fun to do.

But you could show pride in a magical development by the society as a whole only for the thing to go horribly wrong. What would the consequences be? Would your society be honest, admit to it and clear up the mess or would they try and cover up the fact anything went wrong at all?

Good story possibilities there, especially since I think if they went for the cover up route, there would be bound to be a whistleblower somewhere, concerned about public safety perhaps?

Happy writing!

This World and Others – Necessity is the Mother of Invention

You may have noticed I’ve got a bit of a thing about old sayings this week. But they do make great themes for stories and, in many cases, can be used for titles too. These sayings are timeless so your story ideas shouldn’t date either.

In a magical world, you could have fun writing about what needs to be invented and why, whether the thing is invented or not and who by and what problems they had to overcome, and whether anyone else tries to stop the invention. Plenty of story ideas there.

I must admit I have a soft spot for stories when the most unlikely being comes up with something useful. I guess that is a hangover from my love of the fairytales where the most unlikely character often turns out to be the hero.

So what would your world need to invent? Would it invent something to stop it having to copy something from a planet they despised such as our own dear home? How well or otherwise do things work out?

As for the creative minds behind all of this, are they respected, feared, mocked or what have you? Not everyone appreciates geniuses and even they do it’s often after someone’s life time. Could that happen in your setting?

Food for thought there.

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Book Launches and Associated Activities

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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?

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Publication Week

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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 weekend. Plenty of behind the scenes work happening with Seeing The Other Side. More news soon. Lady and I are enjoying the return of the sunshine too.

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Hope the day has gone well. Lady caught up with her Rhodesian Ridgeback pal only today but a fab time was had by both of them, despite me managing to lose one of Lady’s toys. (The whippet who lives in the garden where the ball landed will be pleased at least!).

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Publication Thoughts for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday and will look, in a shorter version, on the same topic for Authors Electric. Link up for the latter on Thursday.

Naturally this is a topic preoccupying me this week (!) but I do share thoughts and tips, especially in the CFT post, which I hope will prove useful to those approaching their own publication days.

Character Tip: What makes your character fascinating to you? What makes you keen to write their story up?

Answer those questions and you will get to what will make readers like them too (and sometimes at least love to hate in the case of villains. I still say in many ways Dolores Umbridge was more scary than Voldemort in the Harry Potter series so who was the bigger villain there?).

Hectic as ever for a Monday but Lady was delighted to catch up with her Hungarian Vizler and Rhodesian Ridgeback pals today. Weather lovely and the three dogs had a great time.

I shared this story on my Substack yesterday but now it is time to share it here. Busy days = time to unwind = stories. Well, I think it’s a perfectly good equation.

Hope you like my latest Substack tale – Get Writing. I used a random verb generator to trigger three words for this one. And it ties in with my YouTube story this week too (Moved On). See further down.

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Hope the weekend has gone well. Lovely to see the sunshine back. Lady and I made the most of that earlier.

Writing wise, this coming week should be a cracking one with Seeing The Other Side due out. I will share links as and when I can. A huge thanks to all who commented when I shared the book cover. Much appreciated as further comments have come in since I last thanked you all which is lovely.

Will be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday shortly but am putting competitions to one side for the moment. Hope to get back to those later in the summer. Am looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday.

All in all, it will be a busy, flash fiction focused week but I like that!

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Busy here with preparations for the publication of Seeing The Other Side. More news in due course.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Publication Thoughts – Seeing The Other Side on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ll be looking at some of the work which comes after your book is published, as well as celebrating the fact it has been! I hope others will find that post useful. I will be sharing some pointers here.

Newsletter Tip: I find it useful to have a theme to write to for my newsletters. It means I can focus on relevant tips and keep the newsletter to the point. I think it makes it more interesting month by month too. Certainly, the newsletters I subscribe to tend to do this and it also means I know what I’m going to be writing about and can plan what I do when for this.

Topics can of course include general writing ones but if there is something special coming up, you can base a newsletter around that. Naturally mine at the moment are full of news about my new book. I suspect later in the year I will share news on launches (and tips on having these. I know I’ve found these kinds of tips useful in the past).

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Flash comes in various forms and I like writing to many of them. It also is a great challenge and writing should stretch you. You want to build on what you’ve written already and try and improve on what you do.

My favourite flash fiction forms will always be the 50 and 100 worders (also known as dribbles and drabbles respectively). I do come across more competitions for the 100 word form so if you like competitions in the very short form, it would be good to practice writing to that word count.

Am looking forward to meeting with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group tomorrow.

It’s Monday. It has been hectic. Story time then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Moved On. It ties in with my Substack story – Get Writing

.Why would a witch want to be kind to a young fairy who crashed into her gingerbread house?

Find out here.

 

Will be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly. It has been a joy re-reading my Seeing The Other Side collection as part of the process of it coming out into the world. Hope you will enjoy reading it too. Will share links as and when I can. Hope to be getting creative with marketing items for the new book soon too.

I like to use a variety of ways to create new flash stories. I often use proverbs and phrases (sometimes as the theme, sometimes as the title, sometimes both together). I also use a huge range of random generators. Just generating a single word has given me several story ideas. Object and photo generators (as well as photos from my phone I’ve taken) can inspire ideas too.

The books of prompts are useful too (and I’ve contributed to some before now – Bridge House have a Big Book of Prompts which is well worth checking out – see link).

Indeed in Seeing The Other Side I share how I’ve created some of the tales in there. All of the generators, prompt books etc do so much to encourage creativity. I’ve occasionally used these for non-fiction ideas too.

Happy writing (and reading!).

Naturally this coming week is a big one for me on the flash fiction front! More immediately, I’m looking forward to flash fiction Sunday as ever tomorrow. I am going to have to put competition thoughts to one side at the moment but hope to resume writing stories for and entering these later in the month/early into July. Mind you, it is great to be so busy with a new book!

I do say on the back cover for Seeing The Other Side that I hope the book helps people to discover the joys of flash fiction as a format. I like the idea of promoting the form, as well as my own work, because flash is a great writing format and I’ve learned so much from writing it.

Goodreads Author Blog – Publication Week

This coming week is a special one for me in that my third flash fiction collection, Seeing The Other Side, is due to be published. This latest collection has been a long time in coming and will be my biggest book to date. Am so looking forward to holding my copies in my hands too!

Publication week does act as a kind of validation for most writers. We work for years on stories, novels, what have you, and then there is the hard work of trying to find a publisher or do the hard work necessary if you go down the self publishing route.

My books are with a traditional small independent press, who are great. (I had some input into my book cover, for example. I know not every author can get to do that).

After that comes the work of letting people know about your book. So there is so much going on around a book being published.

Let’s hear it for all of the authors out there!

And the best thing of all? We add to the books and stories out there. We add to human creativity (and I can’t stress that point enough).

Books are wonderful things but they have to be written by humans for there to be real meaning to them, I think.

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Discovering Classic Authors New to You

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Image Credits:-
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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.

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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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Light Reading

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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 one scottish photo – spot the dog! 
Hope you have had a good weekend. Had a lovely week on the north-east coast of Scotland last week. Now back to normal routines though Lady is pleased to be seeing her pals again.

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Apologies this is a day later but I’m now delighted to share my latest Authors Electric post on A Change of Scene (and yes I’m talking about the same topic for Chandler’s Ford Today this week too. There is plenty of think about on this one!).

For Authors Electric, I look at how our characters would have the change of scene which would do them good and act as a pivotal story point. I also look at whether such changes of scene need to be “dramatic” or not.

Hope you enjoy the post and find it useful.

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Hope you’ve had a good start to your week. Lady was especially pleased to see her Hungarian Vizler chum and Coco, the lovely Labradoodle, for the first time in ten days or so. Great time had by all.

Pleased to share my latest story on Substack. Hope you enjoy I Wish. It also ties in with my YouTube story for this week. See further down. Both come in at the 50 word mark. Pleased to get back to the good old dribble writing again.

Have spent the last week on the fantastic north-east coast of Scotland, enjoying the breathtaking scene and the bracing air! Now it’s time to get back to “normal” though Lady was pleased to see one of our other regulars, the wonderful Stately Stanley, over at the park today.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing A Change of Scene for Chandler’s Ford Today next week and will focus on how we handle changes of scene for our characters. More to come on Friday. After that, there will be a super interview with Esther Chilton about her latest children’s book, Myths and Magic, so plenty to look forward to on CFT.

Shortly, I’ll be cracking on with flash fiction Sunday. Later in the week I’ll have editing to return to and a PowerPoint to finish off. It’s just as well I like to be busy!

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Am on way home after a wonderful break in the north-east of Scotland. Seeing plenty of snow on the Cairngorms as we drive through the national park. Very impressive.

Writing wise, I’ll be back to my usual writing routine from tomorrow though it has been lovely doing some writing while away. Well, when you’re writing with views of mountains around you, it is a great encouragement to write. The creativity of the natural world can and does inspire writing.

I suspect some of the fantastic scenery I’ve seen this week will end up in my stories as settings.

Photos can make wonderful story prompts.

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Hope the day has gone well. Lady caught up with her Hungarian Vizler pal again today and a nice time was had by both. I enjoyed resuming my swimming today though must admit it was hard work!

Writing wise, I’ll be working on presentations, blogs and editing for the rest of this week, which I’m looking forward to doing. Always pays to enjoy your work, generally and most of the time at least.

Also hope to book my train tickets for The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick soon. I’ve found it pays to book ahead and have saved money doing that but it also means one of my favourite events of the year is getting nearer. That is always a cheerful thought, especially this year when I have my Seeing The Other Side with me too.

It’s Monday. Why is it the first Monday back after a holiday is even more hectic than normal? Oh well, it’s time to unwind with a story then.

Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Working Things Out. This ties in with my Substack story this week – I Wish. Both come in at 50 words. I like to mix up my word counts every now and then and writing to a specific word count is a great writing exercise.

 

Flash fiction is also good for those short moments which are a complete story in and of themselves but which could not be expanded into a standard length short story. Indeed, it is a great writing exercise to practice writing to 50, 100, 250 words etc because the art of flash fiction is to write what has to be written in as few words as possible.

This is why it helps you improve your editing skills because you learn to go for better turns of phrase, cut out repetitions (unless you’re using it for effect but then you’re doing this knowingly), and to kill most of those wretched adverbs.

Incidentally there are always exceptions to any writing rule but for adverbs, so often you could express something without using them so why not do so and save on the word count?

Flash fiction focuses on important moments in a character’s life but what is important varies from character to character. What matters is readers can see why the moment matters.

The lovely thing with flash is those moments can be funny, sad, or what have you. I love mixing up the moods of the tales I write but then I think fiction reflects all aspects of life.

Having said that, I especially love writing the lighter stories. Life is grim enough as it is and fiction can do much to give some much needed escapism.

Goodreads Author Blog – Light Reading

I love lighter reads. They bring much needed cheer and provide escapism. For me, lighter reads include Jane Austen. I love the thought of some of the classic novels being light reads too.

What a light read isn’t is a simple read. There are plenty of depths to Pride and Prejudice, for example. A light read, for me, is an easy read with plenty going on and which keeps you gripped to the end, but it should also make you smile.

The fiction world does need the darker books but I would like to see the “seesaw” going in favour of the lighter reads. I’ve never liked lighter/genre books being looked down for not being “worthy” enough.

Entertainment is just as valid a reason to read as anything else, after all.

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AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES

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Where Do You Read?

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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 weekend. Lovely one here. Plenty of writing, even had more sun, and it was a refreshing one for us here. Plenty coming up this week including a super interview on Friday on Chandler’s Ford Today.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lovely weather again. Lady and I are so making the most of this. Well, you don’t want to blink and miss it, do you?

Writing wise, I’m sharing a super author interview with Wendy H Jones on Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. This is to showcase the latest anthology to come from her – A Right Cozy Historical Crime. The interview will form part of a blog tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines Vlog.

As well as flagging up the other authors in this great book, Wendy and I discuss the joys of blending historical and crime fiction. Am so looking forward to sharing this on Friday. Do look out for it.

Hope you’ve had a good weekend and a promising start to the week. Lovely weather here. Lady made the most of it at the park.

Writing wise, I posted my first flash fiction to my Substack yesterday and I plan to do this regularly. To subscribe to my Substack, just head over to Substack.com/@allisonsymeswriter1

As well as receiving what I post here, you should also receive my articles on Writers’ Narrative. My next one here appears on 7th March, later this week.

Was also delighted to review a flash piece over the weekend and send that in. Will know more about how what does later this month.

Delighted my author newsletter went out earlier today. Many thanks to all of my subscribers and I do hope you find the special pdf which comes with it useful. It was a joy to put it together.

Writing wise, I’ll be getting on with flash fiction Sunday shortly plus I’ll have article and blog work to do too – all great fun. I like having plenty of writing to do. Literally never a dull moment. Okay, I grant you checking for typos etc is not the world’s most exciting task but given it helps improve my work, I see it as a case of I have got to do it so let’s get it done and done well. Then I can move on to something much more interesting.

Writing Tip: Planning out what you write and when, depending on your other commitments, helps in terms of knowing when you can get the duller side of writing out of the way ahead of doing something much more creative. With the duller bits done, I can go full steam ahead into more creative work and enjoy it more precisely because I have got the duller stuff out of the way. And we all have to do the dull stuff so it is a question, I think, of fitting it in when it won’t get in the way of longer writing sessions. When I have a longer writing stint, I just want to get on with much more interesting work than checking for typos.

Hope your weekend has got off to a good start. Lovely to see some sun out again today. More flowers appearing too.

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing a superb interview with Wendy H Jones for Chandler’s Ford Today next week about her new anthology, A Right Cozy Historical Crime. Several other authors are in the book with her and full details about the anthology as well as a wonderful talk about the joys of historical fiction, will be in my post next week.

So looking forward to sharing this one as it combines several loves of mine – short stories, anthologies (they are great books), and historical fiction. This interview will form part of the blog tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between the Lines Book Vlog.

My next author newsletter will be out tomorrow, 1st March, and will have something special to celebrate a significant birthday of mine later on in the month. Do look out for that in your inbox.

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Another hectic day today but I did enjoy a swim and Lady and I both enjoyed the sunshine again. Glad to have sent off a flash piece over the weekend and I shared my first one on my Substack account too. I hope to do more of that in due course.

Why is flash fiction such an addictive form? I suppose it is because having written a 100 word story, say, and it works well, I want to see if I can do this over and over again. The challenge is an ongoing one to have a proper tale with a proper beginning, middle and ending in that word count (or any of the other ranges flash fiction offers up to 1000 words). Also it is such fun playing with genre because I can set my characters anywhere, use the first, second and third persons, and all of that offers up so many more story possibilities.

As ever, it’s a hectic Monday but, hooray, it is at least a sunny one where I am! Much appreciated. Still time for a story though. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Apple Seller. No prizes for guessing the inspiration behind this one…

A market stall holder selling apples recalls a strange conversation with an old woman and wonders where Snow White has got to.

 

Hope the weekend is going well. Mixture of sunshine and showers but I’m seeing more spring flowers emerge every time I take Lady out. That cheers me up no end.

Flash Tip: Read flash fiction collections (and yes I know I’m biased here with two of mine out there) but you will get a good feel for what flash can do and be. You’ll also see how it looks on the page. It can challenge you to raise your game to which is no bad thing, as you’ll inevitably come up with writing you would not have written otherwise. Do check out the independent presses for potential publishers. They are usually more open to unagented writers. I always flag up The Mslexia Indie Press Guide here because it kind of does for the indie presses what The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook does for the bigger publishing houses.

At the end of February already – I suppose you could say it is the “flash” month of the year. Not quite a case of blink and you’ll miss it but it speeds by. What is cheering about it is seeing more evidence of spring coming as the month goes on.

Talking of which, give some thought as to what would help your characters look on the brighter side of life and how this would help them in their story. A story isn’t a story unless there is a point of change and often this is where a character has to do something or change in some way. Their mood and mind set can directly impact on how successful or otherwise they are in changing what has to be changed.

An optimistic character is more likely to see the need for change and implement it. A pessimistic one may well wonder why bother? An optimistic character is more likely to succeed in their quest. They will take the actions and advice needed for this. A pessimistic one may well fail – would they be willing to listen to yet alone take advice which would help them?

Where a pessimistic character may see they need to change, what or whom would help them there?

Goodreads Author Blog – Where Do You Read?

I’m sometimes asked in surveys etc where do I like to read. I love reading in bed just before settling for the night. It’s a fantastic way to unwind, though I grant it is not the time for horror stories, at least it isn’t for me. I also like to read (usually a magazine) at lunchtime.

When away, I usually get to read more during the day. Over the Christmas break, I like nothing better than to curl up on the sofa with a book present and some chocolate (the eating and drinking kinds!).

I suppose a more important question is do you read? I was once at a Book Fair with my table and someone walked past it saying they “didn’t do books”. I had to bite my tongue because I so wanted to ask “what are you doing here then” but deemed it probably wouldn’t help.

What led me into reading at all? Well, I must bless my late mother here because she encouraged reading at an early age and read to my kid sister and I regularly. We also saw her reading. Libraries were (and still are) fabulous places to visit. I developed a love of magazine reading in my teens. That continues but the topic has changed. My focus now is on writing magazines and sometimes things like The Oldie. That will tell you I left my teens behind some time ago!

But what matters is we read and keep reading. It is such a wonderful thing. (And you still can’t beat reading in bed or a comfy sofa for the best location!).

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