Facebook – General
Would anyone be able to identify you if there were no distinguishing markers and the only clues someone had were three books you own?
I ask as I played the Guess the Book Owner game recently. I was part of a team and it wasn’t easy to match a book to who nominated it from the other team.
The good thing was there was an eclectic mixture of books and the teams were clearly well read!
Which books would you choose and why? In the game I played I could only pick one book and that was tough.
The idea was to look for clues in what was chosen and deduce the owner also from what was already known about them. And we still got many wrong on first guess!
I chose The Great War by Dawn Knox, a book of 100 x 100-word stories all linked to WW1. The characterisation is wonderful and the stories deeply moving. Do check it out.
Flash fiction may be short but it can pack quite a punch for its word count size.
One joy of the smartphone is listening to Classic FM on my travels via my trusty headphones. Good music of any genre, like good books, can take you away from the cares of the world for a while.
I suppose this is one reason why I love fantasy and fairytales. I know those worlds will be very different to anything we experience here. Perfect escapism though I often feel a sense of huge relief I don’t live in the worlds I’ve just read about!
Mind you, I can think of characters of mine I would never want to Mmeet in life! I should imagine crime and horror writers always feel like that!
Well, how did your Monday go? I’m back to the fray after a lovely weekend away.
Tonight’s post comes to you from my desk.
Last night’s came from the 5.12 pm train from Waterloo to Weymouth, which took a detour via Twickenham and Chertsey before finally reaching Woking and carrying on with its normal route.
Still the extra time travelling meant more writing was done by yours truly. (Couldn’t tell you what Twickenham and Chertsey looked like as by the time we got there, it was dark. If you can’t have a good view, get on with some writing is my motto).
Pockets of time like this mount up and it’s amazing how much you can get done when you’re made to focus. (So from a writing viewpoint there IS a point to engineering works!).😀😀
So sorry to hear the news of the death of Nicholas Parsons. I adore Just A Minute and my late mum had the show on almost religiously every Monday at 6.30 pm.
I can’t hear the theme tune (Chopin) without thinking of her old radio in one corner of the kitchen and JAM blaring out. Mum was particularly fond of Nicholas Parsons and Kenneth Williams.
JAM is not only good fun but it can be quite educational in terms of what you can do with the English language. I’ve always adored word play and JAM is an excellent example of it. If it’s not something you’ve come across, see if you can check out back episodes of it. It can help improve your own vocabulary too and above all it is great fun.
I very much hope they can continue the show but it won’t be the same without Nicholas. Nor do I think we’ll see his like again. To be broadcasting the same show for over 50 years is some achievement.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
Name a moment in a book or a film that took your breath away. I can think of several but my favourites include the Ring of Power being cast into Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings, and the truth about Severus Snape being revealed in the Harry Potter series.
Both of these are emotionally charged and you are gripped by the characterisation. You have to find out if the Ring gets destroyed and what Harry’s reaction will be to what he now knows about Snape.
So what are your “have to find out” moments in your stories? There is rarely a case for lowering tension in a tale!
It was lovely sharing the news about Tripping The Flash Fantastic with my colleagues on the ACW Committee this weekend. We were at a Retreat making plans for events we run etc. It was also lovely hearing everybody else’s writing news. There is a great mix of styles and genres represented here too.
This is one aspect of writing I love. There are so many genres and styles, there will be at least one which suits you. And there is plenty of scope for interesting chats at writing events. I am always fascinated by what others write and why they went that particular route.
Naturally I wave the flag for flash fiction!😄⭐⭐
Monday, Monday, fly away,
Come again another…. week.
After a long, hard day’s work
It’s inspiration I seek.
Allison Symes – 27th January 2020
I suspect this will ring true for many of you! If you do find one particular day of the week tougher than others to get going on the writing front (and tiredness is such a huge factor here), try some flash fiction writing.
Have fun, pick a word count of your choice to aim for and go for it.
When you’re tired and you don’t feel like writing much, having some flash fiction on the go gives a useful writing exercise you can polish up and submit to markets later on, when you do have more time and don’t feel so tired!
Creativity is good for you. Having smaller things to work on is particularly useful when you haven’t as much time or energy as you’d like. Nobody said creativity always has to be about the large projects.
There will rightly be many tributes to the late, great Nicholas Parsons, who hosted the wonderful Just a Minute for over 50 years. The word play on this show is fabulous and I think inspirational for all writers, whether you stick to the very short form or enjoy penning epics. Showing you what you can do with the English language has to be something all writers can learn from, I think.
One of my favourite aspects to JAM has been when Paul Merton came up with fantastical stories on all kinds of subjects and speaks for a minute without interruption, deviation, or repetition. Flash stories in radio format, maybe?
If you get a chance to listen to old episodes, do so and listen out for these in particular. There is some fabulous storytelling too. Kenneth Williams could also be brilliant at sharing wonderful snippets of information on this show yet get it across as if he was telling a story. (Stories are to my mind one of the best ways of getting information across. People like to listen to stories. They don’t necessarily want to listen to facts told in an unentertaining way!).
The challenge to writers is to get our stories and articles across in a way that people will want to read them/listen to them. Playing with the language is fun for the writer but also for the reader when it is done well.
Goodreads Author Blog – Books With Meaning
All good books have meaning (especially to their writers!) but some are so special.
I inherited my mother’s hardback Charles Dickens collection and, while I confess I have not read them all, every time I see them, I smile and think of Mum.
I also have an old edition of Pride and Prejudice, which I read ahead of reading it officially at school.
Did I regret having to read it again? Oh no. I picked up on points directly, and thanks to the guidance of my excellent English teacher, Miss Mackenzie, thanks to that second read.
And Pride and Prejudice can withstand multiple readings, which is always a sign of a good book!
Allison Symes: Collected Works 