Tag: Youtube channel – Allison Symes

What Do I Love About Writing?

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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. Photos of me with Creativity Matters were taken by Adrian Symes.  One promo image of Creativity Matters was kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo of Lady having a wonderful time at Druridge Bay.
Hope you have had a good weekend. Had a fabulous holiday in Northumberland last week. We all enjoyed it. Lady had a wonderful time. All those walkies! Now back to the normal routine – the common thread here? I kept writing in the evenings. Writing is work but it is also a great joy. I have to be ill not to want to do it!

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Hope you have had a good day. It was good to get back to swimming again today. Mind you, it was hard work!

Don’t forget my author newsletter will be out again before too long. To sign up for news, tips, story links and more, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

Writing/Editing Tip: I’ve always found it helpful to get that first draft down, warts and all, before doing any editing on the story or article. I’ve got to see the whole thing written down before I can judge it objectively enough to deal with the inevitable faults. But this is what the first draft is for – get those warts out of your system by writing them out and then stamp on them during the editing process!

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Hope Monday has been kind to you. Lady was overjoyed to see her two best friends, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and Hungarian Vizler, in the park today, especially after a lovely week’s break away in Northumberland last week. It was sweet to see.

Writing wise, am slowly getting back to my usual routines. Was pleased to get plenty of story writing done yesterday, including a submission. Another is fleshing out an idea I’ve had for a while and beginning work on it. Was pleased with how that has gone but plenty still to do. Will be back on this later this week, I hope.

Pleased to be back on Authors Electric with my Out and About – Inspiring Ideas. Sometimes ideas for blogs feed in to each other and my recent Chandler’s Ford Today article (which is longer) explored this theme too. The Authors Electric post gives a good summary though of things which can help inspire your writing when out and about, even if you don’t wander far from home. Hope you find it useful.

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Hope the weekend has got off to a great start. Am on way home from a fabulous week in Northumberland. Great time had by all.

Writing wise, I’ll be welcoming Val Penny back to Chandler’s Ford Today about a short story collection she is contributing to and on something different for her. This anthology is called The Ring which follows what happens to a Roman ring over time. The book will be raising funds for The Reading Agency too. More on this next week.

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What do I love most about writing? Hard to pinpoint exactly but a huge part of this is the sheer joy of meeting the challenge of creating something new which will hopefully resonate with readers.

For flash fiction, my initial thought was to see if I could write 100 word tales. Then the challenge went to could I write 50 worders? Could I write right across the spectrum for flash? Then could I get a collection together?

There are always new things to try in writing, whatever your field. Each article and story I write is a new challenge in and of itself. I do love this. What helps is knowing I can write short stories, flash, articles etc.

The challenge always is can I do something with this topic, this story idea – will they work this time? It keeps you on your creative toes (which I think is beneficial, if only because you don’t rest on your laurels. You also don’t take anything for granted).

It’s a lovely sunny Monday but still a Monday and time for a tale. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Breaking the Chain.

The opening line to this one is based on an exercise I set the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group recently. I only changed one word – the starting one to give my character a name. The name occurred to me as I was drafting the story. That happens.

Sometimes I don’t name a character deliberately (usually when I feel it would have more of an impact keeping a sense of the unknown going usually though that wasn’t the case here).

Why does Louise know her grandson, Mark, smashed the last thing her late husband, Tom, gave her? What will she do about it?

 

Sometimes I link flash stories. For example, my recent one on Friday Flash Fiction, Rivalry, links to my YouTube tale, The List. You can check them both out below. Mind you, I don’t think I would trust Shirabelle any further than I could throw her. See what you think!

Why link stories? Sometimes it is because I can think of a further idea which the 100 word limit in Friday Flash Fiction (the one I prefer to adhere to) won’t allow me to include so I get another longer tale out of it for my YouTube channel (and another post to share like this one!).

Best reason of all though? Simply because it is fun to do this sometimes. I like to mix things up and reusing a character or two is one way I do this.

Just got back from a lovely break in Northumberland. Have followed my own advice in yesterday’s Chandler’s Ford Today on Inspiration Ideas as I have taken lots of photos. Plan to use some of these to inspire flash stories later. Landscape ones will be especially useful I think.

Hope to look up more flash competitions to have a go at soon too.

Goodreads Author Blog – Holiday Reading

I recently had a lovely holiday in gorgeous Northumberland and naturally took plenty to read with me.
Equally naturally, lots of walking and fresh air in forests and on beaches meant I didn’t get to read as much as I’d planned! But there is no way I wouldn’t pack plenty of reading material. You just do, right?

I like to take my Kindle, one or two books, and magazines. All easy to pack, of course.

Mind you, when I could read, I made the most of it. Comfy chair, gorgeous outlook, drink to hand – perfect reading conditions.

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Having A Superpower

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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. Weather back to being all over the place though – sun, strong winds, rain etc. Looking forward to sharing further author interviews soon on Chandler’s Ford Today so do keep an eye out for these. Meantime, I reveal in this week’s CFT post what I would choose if I could have a superpower. Well, what would you choose? Comments are welcome on the CFT page.

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Hope you have had a good day.

Glad to share Having a Superpower for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I share what I would pick and why. I also discuss why it pays, even in fantasy, not to allow your characters to have unlimited powers. If everything could be solved by the wave of a magic wand, where is the story? I also look at the problems of superpowers. Hope you enjoy the post.

Having a Superpower

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You can find out what I would choose as a superpower in my Having a Superpower post for Chandler’s Ford Today tomorrow. See above. The idea for this post came from a prompt I set as an exercise for the recent Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting. Lovely to get a non-fiction post from the idea.

Writing Tip: The random generators (words, numbers, pictures, themes etc) are great fun to use to trigger ideas but do bear in mind (a) these things are a starting point and (b) there’s nothing to stop you taking what has been generated and you then put your own twist on it. I’ve done this a lot.

It’s also a good idea to make yourself write to the prompts that emerge because they will come up with things you would not otherwise have thought of and I’ve found it great fun to find out just what can I do with this idea. They are great ways to encourage you to think outside of your usual creative thinking box.

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Hope you’ve had a good day. Lady got to see her two best girlfriends again today – three days in a row. All three dogs very happy about this.

As well as my author newsletter, I do have a YouTube channel where I post flash fiction videos. (I usually post here once a week). New subscribers are always welcome.

Just go to https://www.youtube.com/@allisonsymes

I use BookBrush to help me create the videos and then I upload them to my channel. Easy and fun to do and I am grateful Dawn Kentish Knox flagged up to me how to add audio to these. Nice selection of tracks available, some of which you have to give accreditation to, but you are given the form of words to use for this when you’re putting a description of what your video is about in the relevant box. You just copy and paste this form of words in – easy peasy. I’ve only used the odd one or two of these. I mainly stick to the ones I can just use without that.

But it is lovely being able to have a form of story sharing which is both visual and audio. I like this a lot. Works well for flash tales.

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It’s Friday. It’s the end of the working week (for many if not all). It’s time for a story. Hope you enjoy my latest on Friday Flash Fiction – Regrets. Billy may be a bestselling author but he has regrets too – find out what and why here.

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Good to see the first review has come in for The Best of CafeLit 13. If you’ve read the book, please do leave reviews. They help all of the authors in the anthology. Thank you.

I do review books myself. I try to keep my reviews short (writing flash fiction a lot helps with that!). They don’t take long to do and, other than buying the book itself, reviewing is one of the other most important things someone can do to support authors.

When I review I like to give an idea of what I liked without revealing spoilers. I’m always intrigued by characters so if they grip me in a story (as they should do), I will mention that and why they did this.


Looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting in a couple of weeks. Am working on a presentation for it. I like to work to a theme (same as with my newsletters funnily enough) as these make useful “pegs” to hang relevant material from. It also means we cover different aspects of flash fiction writing.

A writing exercise in three stages for you to try:-

1. Using a random name generator, pick the fifth name which comes up and write a character outline up for that name.

2. Using a random theme generator, pick the fifth theme which comes up and then get your named character to meet that theme in some way.

3. Using a random sentence generator, pick the fifth sentence which comes up and use it to either start or finish your story with.

Have fun!

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Fairytales with Bite – How Characters Handle the Unexpected

How characters handle the unexpected reveals a great deal about them no matter what the story genre might be. In a fantasy setting though you can have even more fun here because just what would count as unexpected in a magical world, for example?

Would that be something like a sudden shortage of magical powers (the equivalent of us having major power cuts basically)? Could a character find they can no longer perform certain magical tasks they always used to be able to do (and could this be related to their aging process perhaps)?

Can the unexpected situation be reversed or dealt with in other ways? Or do your characters have to find new ways of handling matters and how easy or otherwise do they find this? How do they cope with the stress of having to find new ways of handling things, especially if they are under any kind of time pressure? (Good way of raising the drama that one!).

What could the unexpected lead to? Does your world setting have to change its ways? Has the unexpected shown them something of themselves that really should be put right? (You need the equivalent of the kid in The Emperor’s New Clothes here to call out what is wrong here, I think).

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This World and Others – How Things Get Done

How do things get done in your setting? Does your world have the equivalent of engineers, inventors, scientists etc? When they come up with useful ideas for your world, how do they get these out into the public domain so all can benefit from them? Are there safety procedures in place, proper testing done first etc before anything new does get unleashed more widely?

When things go wrong, as does happen when anything new is being developed, how is that handled? Does this have an impact on the general population or is it contained because nothing gets unleashed until this kind of testing is done and done thoroughly enough?

Who controls the way things are done? I’ve often mentioned in this blog the powers that be. This matters. Nothing exists in a vacuum. So your characters will be in a world setting. There will be governments, politicians, and so on. Someone has to over see things. For the inventive side of things, there has to be some organisation which will test things, ensure they are safe for general use etc. So how would this work out in your world?

Could you tell stories about the characters who do this kind of thing and show the problems and stresses they face?

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Resting Stories and What ARE your characters like?

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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. Had one of those lovely weekends where I was out in the garden and managed to get lots of writing done. Lady has had a good start to her week, seeing her two closest girlfriends on Monday. It is smashing to see them get on so well. When we’re leaving the park, it does look a bit like “the girls are back in town” as the three dogs walk together!

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Drizzly all day. Never worries Lady though she didn’t get to see her chums today.

In happier news (Lady misses her pals when they’re not in the park), I’ll be running a two part course on editing at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in August. So looking forward to that but I will also be offering 1:1 sessions during that week too. My topics are flash fiction and editing (general tips). See screenshot for more information. Looking forward to this too.

My attitudes to editing became far more positive on realising good edits make all the difference to being published or not. Prior to that, I’d just seen it as a chore. Now I see it as part of the overall creative process but do find I have to get the story written (or blog post) and then edit later. I can’t do the two tasks at the same time. That just doesn’t work for me.


Hope you have had a good start to your week. Lady got to see and play with her two best buddies, so she has had a good start to her week. Crocuses are starting to spring up. Lovely to see that.

Writing Tip: Think about what your characters like in terms of what they like to eat and drink, do they appreciate the natural world, what kind of music do they like etc. Also think about what they loathe.

Now put them in a situation where they have to put up with what they loathe, they have no choice. How do they handle this? How do they get out the situation which has landed them in it? Good story possibilities there. Could also take this in a humorous way or a more serious one so give some thought as to what mood you want to convey here.

422035451_828776429262220_1929857604074121295_nToday has been lovely. Nice church service. Sunny, a bit warmer than recently, and more signs of spring on the way. Love days like this. Lady does too.

Don’t forget my next author newsletter will be out on 1st March. How quickly February whizzes by! To sign up for news, tips, links to stories etc., do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com and I will just say many thanks to all of my subscribers. Support much appreciated!

Writing Tip: I’ve talked before about resting stories before editing them but how long should a rest period be? There is no one straight answer to this but I’ve found a couple of days is another for a flash fiction piece.

I tend to rest a longer short story (1500 words upwards) for a week or so. The advice I’ve come across for novelists is to leave your work for at least a month. The reason for resting any kind of story is so you can “escape its world” for a while and when you come back to you will see the tale with fresh eyes, as if coming to it for the first time. That is the way to be objective about your stories.

Newsletter with envelope imageHope you have had a good weekend so far. At least it’s dry today in my part of the world. Managed to get out and do some gardening. Had a lovely task today – to proofread my three stories which will be in The Best of CafeLit 13. That was a joy to do!

I’m looking at Writing Themes and Saints’ Days for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. What on earth is the link there and how can writers make use of it? I will share all on Friday. Looking forward to sharing that. Ideas come from a wide range of sources and this post is an example of one that came as a surprise to me but I trust the post will prove useful to other writers.

Have had a good week. I’ve submitted another story to a different market. Will say more assuming I hear more though this may not be for some time. I followed my own advice and, having checked things out and being happy with what I found, I figured I had nothing to lose. Didn’t cost anything either. There are good reputable free to enter competitions and markets out there. It is just a question of finding them.

In this case, it was from a tweet I saw and I then followed it up. Have done this kind of thing before but previously, on checking things out, I found something I wasn’t comfortable with so didn’t go further with it.

Never be afraid to walk away from a market or competition if you are not entirely happy with it. There are others out there with which you will be happy. You need to think a little longer term here and think along the lines of would I be happy with my work appearing here. If the answer is not an emphatic yes, do walk away.

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Many thanks for the views coming in on Likely Story, my latest YouTube story which I posted yesterday. (See below). Much appreciated. Subscribers to my channel are always welcome.

I love creating the flash tales here. I use Book Brush to help with creating the video itself and then use YouTube’s own vast library of audio tracks (free to use etc) to add music. But I create and edit the story itself first. Sometimes I have to think laterally to come up with a suitable video background but that is always a good challenge!

It’s Monday. It’s slowly getting lighter in the evenings where I am. Hooray! More spring flowers emerging. Double hooray! Still Monday though. Still time for a story. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – Likely Story.


I’ve occasionally started two flash fiction pieces with a similar opening line. See Mishaps and Jumping Time in Tripping the Flash Fantastic. These stories were written together, are meant to follow on from one another, and were fun to do. It meant I could take the character I created for Mishaps, the first story, and get even more use out of him for the second story!

As both of these are humorous tales, there was more fun to be had with two tales rather than just the one. They also worked better as two stories rather than one, there was a natural end point for the first story, which gave me a good start for the second one.

I had in mind from the start how these two stories would look on the printed page later, naturally hoping they would make it into print! It is no coincidence one is on the left page and the other on the right either. Layout can sometimes help your stories have more of an impact too.

So this is another aspect to flash fiction you could use. If you have a character you love, put them in more than one story. Use that to help you sort out your running order for your book in due course. It will flag up to a publisher and future readers this is a deliberate use of the same character.

Also to get the most impact from two or more stories with one “star”, that impact will be the greater for keeping the tales together.

BB - Flash with a Dash for TTFFOne of the things I love about writing for Friday Flash Fiction is that I am effectively given a weekly challenge to produce new writing to a 100 word count. So I do! The themes I can set, it is just the word count which is fixed, and I know now, after a lot of experience, 100 words looks like two to three short paragraphs. You can see what I mean via the link.

I find being able to visualise what the word count looks like enormously helpful. I know I’ve got two paragraphs and the second one of those has to wrap the story up. The first one, of course, reveals what the story is so there, straight away, I have a story structure in place. Love that too.

 

Goodreads Author Blog – Themes in Stories

Do you have favourite themes for stories? I think mostly this is an unconscious thing. I know I like to see justice done, to name one example of a theme, so this is one reason why I love the classic fairytales, where it generally is done.

I also like crime novels where justice is done. (It is one reason why I love the Agatha Christie books).I don’t like the ones where justice is perverted. But I pick the fairytale or crime novel to read based on what I can read of the plot outline and then decide whether it is for me or not. It is funny though how favourite themes do come out time and again in what I choose to read.

As for themes I like to write to, I do like the character who turns out to be more than what others expected. Again I’ve got fairytales to thank for that one, especially The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christen Andersen. It is a good lesson in not judging by appearances, another theme I love reading about/writing for.

The best stories do have timeless themes behind them. Writers will always have something to say about these things. These themes will always have resonance with readers. Certain things about us as a species will not change which is why these themes resonate and why they make such great stories.

Screenshot 2024-02-10 at 17-25-53 Themes In Stories

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Flash NANO Update and Using Colour/Senses

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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.
The Remembrance weekend was so moving, as always. Some things should never be forgotten. Writing wise, you could work out what your characters would consider they HAVE to remember and why. Even if you don’t use it in the story itself, it will give you a clearer insight as to what motivates and drives them, what they would do, what they would never do etc. That information is bound to help you with your characterisation.

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Have been enjoying listening off and on today to the historic snippets from the last 75 years and classical music to go with them on Classic FM to celebrate HM The King’s 75th birthday (on 14th November 2023). Nice idea. The snippets have brought back many memories for me from the 1970s onwards, one of which was there being snow in the summer of 1975. Yes, remember that, and the drought the following year. They appointed a Minister for Drought as that wore on. Within days, the heavens opened. There’s a lesson there somewhere.

The Flash NANO challenge yesterday was the first where I’ve needed to go to the full word count for flash – 1000 words. The prompt involved a partial scene already laid out and it was a “what happened next” prompt. Bear in mind you could create a character and use the what happened next idea to create a story for him/her/it (I have occasionally had characters as “its” for good reasons).

Also bear in mind classic story ideas can and have come from the simple questions of Who? What? When? How? Why? and Where? (also known as Kipling’s serving men I believe). I like to add in What If? to that little lot. You’ve got yourself an outline right there. Now fill in the gaps! I love this kind of thing. It’s a fantastic way to trigger writing ideas (and talking of which that will be the very topic I’ll be writing about for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday).

Also to the good folk at the Medway Mermaids for making me so welcome last night at our Zoom meeting, thank you! I hope you find the editing thoughts and tips useful.

Also ask what if and does the reader need to know thisHope you have had a good Monday. Lady did – got to play with her two best buddies and the rain had stopped so that counts as a win.

Am looking forward to running an editing workshop for the Medway Mermaids later this evening on Zoom. (If I mention the word zoom to Lady, she’ll immediately assume she is up for the zoomies with her Rhodesian Ridgeback friend!). I look at editing from the viewpoint of an author, an editor, and competition judge as I am all three. I’ve learned so much from being all three.

Am enjoying the Flash NANO challenges so far. Might have to do today’s one tomorrow but you can always play catch up with these things. I found that handy last year. Word count is varying so far from 100 to just under 400, my natural flash “home”. Am not surprised by this. Found the same was the case last year.

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12th November 2023 – Remembrance Sunday

As ever it was a moving service where my family and I go. The village including the two churches gathers around the War Memorial. The poppy wreaths cover the steps. The colour stands out especially on a dull day.

On to writing, using colour or any of the senses sensibly can help readers picture your scenes better. It gives them a hook if you like. So if you are describing anything or getting your character to observe something, add in some colour or use a sense which seems most apt to them and your story.

I must admit that colour and sound are the two things I pick up on when noticing anything. Sometimes the lack of colour/sound/anything you would normally expect to find can be used to good effect, especially for horror tales.

On a lighter note, am so looking forward to meeting the Medway Mermaids on Zoom again for an editing workshop. Always fun to do these. And it was great fun too. Always pleased to spread the word about the joys of editing and there are joys to it, honestly!

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11th November – Armistice Day

Hope you have had a good day. Glad it stayed dry for the Two Minutes Silence today. Would like dry weather again for Remembrance Sunday.

Will be discussing Triggering Writing Ideas for Chandler’s Ford Today next week. As I am always writing flash fiction and blog posts etc., I am always keen to trigger ideas whichever way I can. I have several ways of triggering ideas and use them all regularly. I’ll be sharing some of the ways I use in this post next Friday.

Tomorrow is one of the days when I get a lot of flash fiction written and/or edited. It’s a lovely way to spend Sunday afternoons – in the warm, writing in the format I love most and with a decent mug of something nice (hot chocolate if it is cold, fruit tea if not) alongside me.

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I enjoy creating story videos for my YouTube channel. I see it as part of my marketing and it proves my point, I think, that marketing can be creative and fun. I write the story and then create the video in Book Brush before uploading it to YouTube. Is also easy to share on social media. New subscribers to my channel are always welcome though. Do see the relevant link here.

 

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It’s Monday. It’s been a tiring day. It’s dark far too early. And it’s Monday. Time for a story then. My latest on YouTube is Waiting To Write. Hope you enjoy finding out what my character, Tracy, does about poison pen letters.

12th November – Remembrance Sunday

Today is Remembrance Sunday. It is a day full of memories, rightly so too. I’ve long been a fan of the classic TV series, Dad’s Army, which is still shown regularly, gets good ratings, and is full of humour and often pathos. If there are two TV series to watch at this time of year, that is one of them. The other is Blackadder Goes Forth, especially the last episode, Goodbyeee.

Words have such an impact and perhaps we are more conscious of this on days like today. It is where we recall the writings of the war poets, the hymn writers like Isaac Watts, and so on.

Whether you write to entertain, to share a “message” without preaching, or do both, I hope you get much joy from your writing. Words matter. Stories matter. Stories can convey things long after the original storytellers have gone on. So write, enjoy what you write, and hopefully others will too.

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Just to say there’s a good offer on From Light to Dark and Back Again on Amazon at the moment. See link for details.

Am slowly getting a Christmas list together and there will be books on it. That won’t come as a surprise, I’m sure.

Yesterday’s Flash NANO challenge one was an interesting one and not of a kind I’ve come across before. You write ten sentences to make a story. You then change the order of those sentences to make another one. Great fun and the perspective of the story can change depending on your ordering. That I am sure is something which could be exploited to good effect by someone and I may well try this one again myself at some point.

Will be cracking on with today’s challenge later.


Goodreads Author Blog – Annuals

I’ve always loved annuals. They make smashing Christmas presents. I’ve enjoyed The Beano, The Bash Street Kids, and others in my time. These days and in a completely different mood, I love The Friendship Book. It’s a gentle, often amusing, and thoughtful read and a great comfort book. Other family members get the Private Eye annual. I know I turn to the cartoons first there when I get to look at it!

Annuals, I think, serve a great purpose in encouraging further reading. They are perfect for dipping into when you know you want to read something but don’t want anything “heavy”. I will add flash fiction and short story collections are also great for that but hands up, I am bound to say that, given I am published in both! It is still true though!

Which annuals do you enjoy?

D.C.Thomson, that wonderful publisher based in Dundee, are responsible for many of them.

Long may they continue.

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Windsor Castle and Cake Glorious Cake

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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. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for taking the image of me reading at the Swanwick Open Prose Mic Night back in 2019. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos from Windsor Castle.
Had a lovely day out with my younger sister over the weekend. It was a trip down Memory Lane in some ways. While we’d not been to the Castle itself before, we have been to Legoland and, prior to that on that site, the old Windsor Safari Park. (That was very much of its time). In both cases we remembered the magnificent views of the Castle from those places. This time, it was nice to see the views FROM the Castle!

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Posting early as have a busy evening ahead. Have another one again tomorrow with the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom. Talking about flash fiction is always fun and it has been great to see people with this group have works published on Friday Flash Fiction etc. The proof of the pudding etc etc. Writing exercises (and I set these regularly) do spur creativity and are worth having a go at for that reason alone. If you can then go on to get the works published, even better.

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Today would’ve been my father’s 86th birthday. He would have heartily approved of my kid sister and I having a trip to Windsor Castle over the weekend. The last time we were in the area at all, we were kids and he was driving. Yes, I am going a long way back. I have a long way TO go back!

Lady had a good time with her two closest pals, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and the Hungarian Vizler. It has been cooler today – nobody in my acquaintance, human or otherwise, has been sorry about that!

Looking forward to welcoming Gail Aldwin back to Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. (Many thanks again to Francesca Tyer for her two part interview – it was great).

Have submitted a short historical piece as an entry for an article competition. So enjoyed writing the piece too. Am pondering whether to have a crack at a flash fiction competition – deadline end August.

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Another hot day (though cooler than yesterday). Lady and I are not sorry about that.
Many thanks for the great comments coming in on Deserved Desserts, my most recent tale on Friday Flash Fiction. The opening line here is an odd one even by my standards but huge fun! Hope you enjoy it if you missed the link on my book Facebook page on Friday (From Light to Dark and Back Again).

Sometimes I will start an idea from a quirky opening line I’ve jotted down (usually during one of my brainstorming sessions). I then work out what I could do with that line and I usually find something. Don’t forget you can use random generators to come up with opening lines (quirky or otherwise). This makes for a good writing challenge. There are competitions which are based on opening lines set by the competition organisers so this is well worth having a go at on a regular basis.

Screenshot 2023-06-23 at 09-56-26 Deserved Desserts by Allison Symes

Had a fabulous day out at Windsor Castle with my kid sister. Lovely time had by us both. So hot though. What is nice is we’ve been able to convert our tickets so we can visit again during the next year during the times the Castle is open to the public. We hope to get to do that. No extra money for this either. Also very impressed with how well organised they are for those with mobility issues.

Looking forward to sharing a fabulous interview with Gail Aldwin whose The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is out soon. Link up on Friday. And then I’ll be sharing more news about the Book Fair I’m going to be part of in July.

I’ve occasionally written a flash piece based on a work of art. Gill James set this as a challenge ages ago and it was fun to do. Will I do it again? At some point, yes. I was impressed with the Van Dycks and other masterpieces I’ve seen today at the Castle so plenty of inspiration to be found there! Am not short of potential material at least…

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I mix up the pieces I use for reading at Open Prose Mic Nights etc – in terms of mood, word count as well as by using different tales. I rehearse reading these (and yes I do often record them on Zoom to play back) but the important thing is to have a good read through (ideally several) as it is too easy to assume you know the material, you can wing it. Err… no.

What I do find the rehearsals do is help calm my nerves because I know I have rehearsed. It helps. The tricky bit is working out how much to drink (non-alcoholic as alcohol can dry the throat aside from any other side effects!) ahead of an event because you don’t want to have a dry throat when reading (it can lead to coughing) nor do you want to be caught short! I find about an hour before hand works well.

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It’s Monday. It has cooled down a bit! Still time for a new story. Hope you enjoy my latest on YouTube – Cake Glorious Cake. Is on the dark side, probably like the chocolate involved in the cake. Hope you enjoy it.

 

Internal thoughts are a great way to show character attitude (and usual practice is to have these in italics. It distinguishes them from “speech” and flags up the the reader this is a character thinking). I use this a lot as I often want to get across attitude and don’t we all think things we don’t then go on to say? Characters can do the same thing! What the thoughts will do is influence their behaviour and show the reader directly why your character is acting the way they are, both useful things.

May be a graphic of text that says "Thoughts are effectively internal dialogue but should still suit the character you portray and the genre of the story."


Looking forward to running the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting on Zoom next week. Always good fun and it is an enjoyable challenge for me to find a useful topic to set exercises on. I like setting (and then doing) writing exercises. I’ve had several stories go on to be published which started life this way.

Now I must admit I find the hot humid weather not the easiest of conditions to cope with but it led me to wonder if you could get a character to find the same thing. How would that change their attitudes and behaviour? How would that change the course of your story? And are other characters tolerant of their struggles to cope with the conditions?

Goodreads Author Blog – Classic -v- Contemporary Reading

Now for me there is no debate when it comes to whether you should read classic or contemporary works of fiction and non-fiction. You do both of course. For non-fiction you need to be aware some information is likely to be out of date but there is still inspiration to be had from what people thought at the time of publication. That could even lead to fictional story ideas.

I often mix up my reading so I’ll read a novel, before going on to a story or flash collection and then I’ll move on to some non-fiction but it is a good idea to mix up between classic and contemporary as well. You don’t want to miss out on the classic works and you want to see what is out and about now. I see this as having a good reading diet (which I find helps inspire my writing too).

It’s also encouraging to know great writers have always been inspired by others’ stories. So I should be too! But it is interesting that ideas for stories often come when I’m reading non-fiction. And I can be as taken away by fabulous tale whether it is a classic or contemporary one.

Screenshot 2023-06-24 at 20-52-27 Classic -v- Contemporary Reading

AMAZON AUTHOR CENTRAL – ALLISON SYMES
Allison Symes - Flash Fiction Collections

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Publication/Submission News and The Flash NANO Challenge

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Weather all over the place so far this week. Busy week with publication and submission news and the Flash NANO challenge continues… am never short of things to do writing wise. And that is the way I like it!

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Lady and I spent a lot of the day getting wet. When I went out earlier it was to go swimming! You couldn’t make that up!

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Part 1 of a fabulous interview with fellow Mom’s Favorite Reads contributor, Jenny Sanders, over on Chandler’s Ford Today later this week. Link up on Friday. More interviews to come too.

Progressing well on Flash NANO. Also looking forward to the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting at the end of the month. And I’ve proofread my story – Ever Green and Good to Go – which will be appearing in Evergreen, this year’s Bridge House Publishing anthology. More details on that publication as and when I have them.


Busy day as usual for a Monday. Hope things have not been too hectic with you. Pleased to get my usual batch of stories prepared and scheduled/submitted yesterday. Sunday afternoon is flash fiction writing afternoon! The rest of the week is blogging and more flash writing but I do reserve Sundays specifically for getting new material prepared and out.

It is like responding to “live prompt” writing with a very short deadline to meet and I enjoy doing that. I was pleased that something I prepared for Flash NANO will fit perfectly for something coming up shortly so I have gone and submitted it. Also submitted my third flash collection over the weekend so am pleased with weekend’s achievements.

I have some wonderful author interviews coming up on Chandler’s Ford Today so am looking forward to sharing these with you over the next few weeks.

Author Interviews coming up on CFT

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Hope you have had a good day. The service at the War Memorial in the village where we go to church was most moving. Remembering and being grateful for sacrifices made is so important.

What would your characters consider important to remember? What does this reveal about them? What stories and poems do they choose to hold dear? Also what would they be prepared to sacrifice and what would drive them to do it?

And remember you can use a character’s memory as a point of conflict with another character. How would that then play out in your story?

May be an image of text that says "Dream Inspire Courage Harmony We should understand where our characters come from even if we don't agree with them. What dreams do they have? Would we dream the same?"

Many thanks for the comments coming in on my In The Blink of an Eye, my latest tale on Friday Flash Fiction. I’ve loved getting back to the 100-worders (aka drabbles) again. These were what first got me into flash fiction writing at all and is a joy to be writing these weekly for FFF.

For Flash NANO, I’ve found my word count has been variable but that’s okay. They’ll be even more variable when I get to edit these pieces! But it will result in, I hope, thirty new stories written by the end of the month and I know I’ll be doing plenty with those.

Screenshot 2022-11-11 at 08-57-23 In The Blink Of An Eye by Allison Symes

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Am glad my story on YouTube, Time Management, has gone down well. Also thank you for the comment left on this one over on my YouTube channel. Don’t forget you can subscribe to my channel and new subscribers are also welcome. Many thanks to those who already do!

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14th November
You know the drill. It’s Monday. It’s getting dark early. It is still flaming Monday, and it’s time for a new YouTube story from yours truly. I concede I may be a little early with this one given the subject matter (Time Management) but hope you enjoy it anyway!


Flash NANO challenge continues to go well. And I submitted my third flash fiction collection yesterday so fingers crossed time!

Over on my author page, I was thinking about the use of memories for story ideas. Flash can be an ideal form for monologues. So you could focus on one character and one specific memory and how that changed them to create a poignant flash piece. (I did this with my They Don’t Understand in From Light to Dark and Back Again. I think it works well precisely because it has to be kept short and pertinent).

The memory you select has to be something that has changed your character and which would rivet a reader into wanting to find out why the character was changed by it.

Allison Symes - Flash Fiction Collections


Flash News: Hannah Kate will be running her Three Minute Santas again on North Manchester FM. See the link for more details but I hope to submit something for this and it is easy to do too. Have since sent something in. Again fingers crossed time!

What I do is prepare my story, edit it, and then when I’m happy, I set up a meeting with myself on Zoom and record it. When you end your meeting Zoom turns the file into a mp4 file for you. Not only can you hear it back, you get the timing for your file too. (And reading your work out is always great for hearing whether your story flows as well as you thought).

3 Minute Santas

Goodreads Author Blog – Book Memory Associations

Books are special for so many reasons. Not least is the fact books have so many positive memory associations for us. I still have my Reader’s Digest Collection of Fairytales which my father bought for me many, many years ago. I think he saved up cigarette coupons to get the books. You could back then!

You went into what was a effectively a catalogue shop (a bit like Argos) and redeemed the coupons. One irony here is I know I did get a recorder thanks to those coupons thanks to Dad’s smoking habit, which I am glad he gave up much later on. Anyway, I still treasure those fairytale books. The spines are taped up because I read them so much when I was younger.

Then there are the books I inherited from my mum. There are the books I bought for myself to start my own collection off. There are the books I’ve written or contributed to and there are plenty of books on my shelves written by friends. I love them all!

There are books I associate with reading at certain times of the year. There are those I dip back into occasionally but I am just glad to know they’re on my shelves somewhere. For me a home isn’t a home without books in it. They are a great comfort.

So which books have great associations for you? Which books could you not bear to part with under any circumstances?

Screenshot 2022-11-12 at 20-08-03 Book Memory Associations
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Roses, Zebras, and Sherlock Holmes

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Special Note:  Before you ask, I haven’t chosen the post’s title using a random generator, honestly! These are all things which have either occurred in my writing life so far this week or are going to before the next post comes out on Friday. Yes, an interesting week! Mind you, if there is a prize for unusual blog post titles, I think this one is in with a shout…

Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. See above for the kind of week I’m having so far!

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I’m looking forward to chatting again with author Ruth Leigh whose The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge came out on 22nd October. In this week’s Chandler’s Ford Today post, Ruth and I will be looking at marketing and the characters Ruth loves and loathes amongst other topics. Link up on Friday.

And talking of marketing, may I say a huge thanks for the views on my latest YouTube story, The Zebra Who Lost Its Stripes. It clearly struck a chord!

This story started life as a title idea which came from the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group meeting I ran last week. I’ve mentioned before about brainstorming titles for writing up into stories later. It means when you have longer at your desk you’ve got something to work on immediately. I do practice what I preach here!


Weather far better today than yesterday but it wasn’t a difficult bar to cross! Lady got to see her best mates today, the lovely Ridgeback and Vizler, so all three dogs well pleased with that.

The Ridgeback’s owner and I were given a bunch of roses on the regular walk back by someone who has these donated as part of a charity collection but this time they had far too many flowers to be able to use so were giving bunches away to people who were walking down their street! We met someone else coming the other way who was also carrying a lovely bunch of roses and who, like us, was smiling broadly at the thought of them!

There is a flash fiction tale in there somewhere, I swear! Talking of which, I chose two of the titles I came up with from last week’s ACW Flash Fiction Group session and written the stories up. I’ll be sharing one of these over on my book page shortly as it is my new YouTube tale. Good fun to do.

And I will be setting the challenge soon for the December issue of Mom’s Favorite Reads. Meanwhile, why not check out the latest fab issue? See link below.


That storm overnight/earlier this morning was quite something. Am so grateful Lady isn’t frightened of thunder and lightning. (She gets annoyed by the louder fireworks rather than becomes frightened of them – again am thankful for that). Week ahead is looking a bit grim – not just weather wise, unfortunately.

I must admit I find writing both a joy to do and therapeutic. There is just something about putting yourself in your character’s shoes and working out how they would act/react that takes me out of myself for a while – and especially with the news being so grim, I find that incredibly helpful.

Many thanks also for the comments coming in on Hope, my latest on Friday Flash Fiction. If you missed it, see the link.

Screenshot 2022-10-21 at 09-23-17 Hope by Allison Symes

Hope today has been okay. Got soaked in two minutes rushing to bring washing in earlier. Hello, autumn, my old friend!

It was fantastic chatting to Ruth Leigh on Chandler’s Ford Today yesterday. Part 2 of her interview will be up next week and we’ll be looking at marketing as part of that. Link up on Friday.

I’m off to The Chameleon Theatre Group next week as well to see their latest production – Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery at Mallen Hall. Sounds fun. Will review in due course. Am looking forward to meeting up with Janet Williams, my lovely CFT editor for this too. Seems like ages since the last “CFT works outing”!

Did I get any ideas from the ACW Flash Fiction Group meeting on Wednesday? Yes and not yet. I’ve got some ideas for titles I’d like to work up into stories and hope to do that soon. Am pressing on with my third book collection as I am nearly there with that and I do want to get that submitted this autumn. And, yes, these things always do take longer than you initially think!

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I mentioned over on my main author page tonight I was delighted to see such a great response to my The Zebra Who Lost Its Stripes story. Am glad you enjoyed it. Brainstorming title ideas for writing up later pays off!

I usually put up a new video on my YouTube channel once a week, unless away or ill, and I got into doing this as I wanted another way to share flash stories.

The idea of doing something visual with them appealed and hence I went to YouTube. I use Book Brush to help me create the videos. All good fun and of course it forms part of my overall marketing as well. New subscribers are always welcome to my channel and you can find this at the link below.

Short videos are easier to share and of course flash is a great form to link into that.

Screenshot 2022-10-25 at 20-56-26 Allison Symes


My latest YouTube flash tale comes from a title I came up with for the Association of Christian Writers’ Flash Fiction Group meeting last week. Hope you enjoy The Zebra Who Lost Its Stripes. Given this has had an amazing reaction (see screenshot above, I was pleasantly stunned!), I make no apology for sharing it twice here! Am so glad it went down well. This is probably the nearest to a children’s story I get.

 

I was talking about titles with the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group on Wednesday. What you want is something that lures your reader in – to give them an intriguing premise they have to read the story to find out what happens. I will often brainstorm title ideas when I have small pockets of time and I want to write something.

The joy of this is it gives me something to look through and work up into stories later on when I have more time. I will also brainstorm titles for use for non-fiction topics for my blog on Chandler’s Ford Today, my spots on Authors Electric, More than Writers, and Mom’s Favorite Reads.

Titles are your first advert in many ways and I find I have to have one to get myself started on a piece, fiction or otherwise. It can change – and often does given when I’m drafting something other ideas for titles often pop up. I just make a note of these and compare them with my original thought and then go with the one I like best. Sometimes it does mean sticking with the original but at least I then know it is the best one to use for that piece.

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For my flash pieces, I’m looking for a strong central character to “carry” the plot. In some ways here writing can be a bit like acting. You need the right cast to make it work. This is why I need to know my character really well to make sure they’re up to the work!

I interview my characters. I look for traits and what can come from those (including the flip side to them, there always is a flip side). I also like to know something of their tastes (knowing what their sense of humour is can give good indications of their character type funnily enough. Do they like quirky humour? Are they a bit strait-laced etc?).

Often outlining a character throws up ideas for the stories they would work well in so this, for me, is another reason to outline.

Top Tips

Goodreads Author Blog – The ABC of Books Part 1 – A to M

A = Annuals, often treasured for years. Which was your favourite?

B = Back catalogues – I often don’t pick the first book by an author to read so if I like the book I did read, I have a lot of fun catching up with the others!

C = Characters – where would any book be without them and again name your favourites. I have loads.

D = Dialogue in books mirrors real life speech but can’t ape it exactly as there’d be far too many ahs, ums, stutters etc – not easy and boring to read!

E = Entertainment and enrichment – what good books always do whether they’re fiction or non-fiction.

F = Flash fiction – my genre – fun and stretches across genres too as I’ve written crime flash, ghost flash etc.

G = Great writers of the past still inspire today though I am thankful I don’t need to be as descriptive as Dickens had to be for his readers who could not travel to see the places he wrote about (or have the benefit of film/TV to see them).

H = History – fiction and non- fiction – a wonderful category and can inspire all sorts of fictional works.

I = Intellect and Imagination – reading widely doses so much for both of these.

J = Justice – a major factor in the popularity of crime fiction as justice is usually seen to be done here.

K = Kindle – ebooks have transformed reading by giving us another format. It has also given more writers a voice too.

L = Life – in all its forms and several alien ones – can be found across the whole spectrum of book categories.

M = Mysteries – as well as the obvious crime section, there is the paranormal mystery book, the non-fiction books trying to lift the lid on mysteries and so on.

Part 2 next week but I do know books should be celebrated!

Screenshot 2022-10-22 at 21-05-13 The ABC of Books - Part 1 - A to M


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Out and About in Northumberland

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots and holiday photos taken by me, Allison Symes. Hope you have had a good weekend. Am making the most of a late autumn break in Northumberland – as is Lady, see below. I think the fresh air and loads of exercise is certainly doing something for her. Sleepy puppy is the obvious caption here I think!

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Went inland and over to the west for our trip out today. Went to the Kielder Forest (Forest Drive end – the whole forest is huge – and went for a lovely walk to a great waterfall. If this doesn’t say “potential for fairy glen” I don’t know what will!).

We then came back to Rothbury where we walked alongside the river taking in the scenery. Lady in her element of course. She loves woodland walks. She loves riverside walks. She loves walks and has done so much for my better half and I in making us get out and about. This is where dogs are good for you.

Writing wise, I look forward to sharing Author Voice, my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week. Link up on Friday. I’ll be chatting to Ruth Leigh, author of the Isabella M Smugge series, on 21st October and looking forward to sharing that too.

And I’ll be starting to put together my November newsletter soon (probably on my return from holiday. If you’d like to sign up for hints, tips, story links etc, do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com – always good to see people following me there!).

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Our adventures today took us from Seahouses to Bamburgh. Wonderful walking, glorious beaches, and fabulous views. A great time had by all. Lady currently crashed out where we are staying.

Looking forward to scribbling out some postcards soon. Great practice in writing to a short word count!
It reminds me that flash fiction has been known as postcard fiction in its time (and understandably too. It makes a good visual clue as to the kind of word count required – literally what you can get on the back of a postcard. Mind you, my handwriting is tiny so I can get quite a bit on one of those!).

Brisk, breezy, and bright at Duridge Bay today. Glorious scenery and plenty of walking done. No way would the beaches be this quiet down south.

Writing tip 2001 or thereabouts: write what you can, where you can, when you can.

Sounds simple but I know I’ve wasted so much time in the past fretting about not having a lot of time in which to write.

Now, if I’ve got five minutes, I’ve got five minutes and I know I can do something with that. Likewise if I’m out and about I’ll use Evernote to jot things down. If I’ve got the laptop, it’s good old Scrivener. And there is always room for the good old notebook and pen. Often tying in with the time factor, if I can’t write a full blog, I’ll write part of it and finish later or draft a shorter flash piece instead.

What matters is I am writing something I know I can use later on.

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Loving the changing colours of the leaves as I head north towards Northumberland. Looking forward to doing plenty of walking – all kitted up with woollies and boots. Lady just goes as she is!😊

Many thanks for the comments coming in on A Quick Sandwich, my latest on Friday Flash Fiction. Will be having a quick sandwich myself on trip up! (Update: before you ask it was shared with Lady!).

Will be looking at Author Voice as a topic for Chandler’s Ford Today. This will tie in nicely with my interview with #RuthLeigh the week after.

Screenshot 2022-10-07 at 08-58-14 A Quick Sandwich by Allison Symes

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As I’m away, there’ll be no YouTube story or Friday Flash Fiction one from me this week. Back to normal on both of those next week I hope. Meanwhile do check out my YouTube channel anyway – new subscribers are always welcome. It is fun to create and share flash fiction tales here. Hope you like them too.
Screenshot 2022-10-11 at 19-47-32 Allison Symes - YouTube

One joy of going to new places is you get further opportunities for people/place watching. For example, today, I was on the beach at Bamburgh and loved looking up at the castle there. I wondered about who might have lived there. I wondered about the people who passed by me on the beach. Will that lead to new flash tales from me? Possibly. (I have in my time been struck by the colour of an item of clothing someone I’ve passed by was wearing and put that in a story!).

But just going somewhere different can help inspire story ideas. I love the idea of just having the possibilities here! The nice thing here is you don’t necessarily have to go very far. It is a bit ironic that my family came from London yet we didn’t visit Kew Gardens until we left the capital. So is there somewhere you’ve always meant to go to which is localish to you? Can changing your location for an odd day out help you inspire story ideas? Worth a go and a break does everyone the world of good.

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Am enjoying catching up with old episodes of Just a Minute while writing as I enjoy my autumn break. I love quizzes and programmes involving word play. I guess it goes with the territory of being a writer. It’s amazing what random topics come up on JAM but then I like random things and words. I will often use the random word generator for story ideas and love working out how to place the generated words in a way which makes sense and moves the plot along.

And it is fun exploring the different types of random generators available. I’ve used a number of them now and have come up with stories which I wouldn’t have written because I wouldn’t have had the inspiration for them in any other way. The random generators make me think outside of my creativity box and that’s no bad thing.

May be an image of text that says "I use random question generators to trigger ideas for topics. DID YOU SMILE Instead of applying a question like this to yourself, apply it to your character. TODAY T What would be the answer? What made them smile? What made them NOT smile?"

While away, I hope to work on various flash-related things. There is a competition at the end of the year I’d like to have a go at and I need to look at some tales not accepted elsewhere to see what I can do to improve thelr chances out there.

Also hope to start work on something for the next Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group meeting later in the month.

Having said that, I also plan to have lots of lovely walks with my better half and the dog (and maybe I’ll get some inspiration for stories from what I see over the next few days. Certainly the views I’ve seen so far are stunning).

May be an image of road and text that says "The writing journey is full of twists and turns."

Goodreads Author Blog – READ

Read!

R = Read widely and well – in and out of your genre, why limit your choices?
E = Ebooks, audio books, the good old paperback – love them all!
A = Adult fiction, YA fiction, classics, contemporary – have a good mix.
D = Drag out old favourites, buy new ones, visit your library – have a fabulous reading diet!

Screenshot 2022-10-08 at 19-42-38 Read!

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Publication News, Flash Fiction, and Impact

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Am thrilled to be in print again in new release, The Best of CafeLit 11. More details below. The thrill of being published does not dim!

 

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26th July 2022 – Publication News – The Best of CafeLit 11
Am thrilled to say The Best of CafeLit 11 is now out. I have a story in here, Flying Too High. I love collections like these, even when I’m not in them, as they’re a great way to try out authors new to you. You also get a real mix of stories and moods too.

I am also thrilled about this for another reason – I am on the front cover as one of the editors. Each editor had a month or two to work on but naturally did not edit our own work.

You never want to do that anyway. Why? Because you really do need another pair of eyes to assess what you have written. You are too close to your own work to be able to judge objectively. But it is lovely be on the front cover as an editor for the first time. It was a joy to work on this book and to be in it.

Many congratulations to the other writers in this new collection. It is always wonderful to know you have work in a book out! And it will be lovely to celebrate in person with you later in the year – I do hope you can get to the celebration event. Always good to meet up with old friends and make new ones here.

 

Hope you have had a good Monday. Not bad here. Lady got to see one of her best pals, the lovely Hungarian Vizler. Good time had by both, especially now the air is much cooler.

Will be sharing Zest In Fiction for Chandler’s Ford Today on Friday. I’ll also be talking about Advice to A New Writer for More Than Writers, the blog spot for the Association of Christian Writers again on Friday. Will put up separate posts with links. I know – no blogs for ages and then two come along at once.#

My current story on Friday Flash Fiction, called Tomorrow, is loosely based on real experience though I will say I haven’t done a sky jump. Nor do I intend to – the birds have enough to contend with in the skies without strange women jumping out at them – and I hope that has got you wondering. Story link here.


Screenshot 2022-07-22 at 09-05-01 Tomorrow by Allison Symes


Am enjoying writing with my French windows open now we’ve got a decent breeze to go with it. Most refreshing. I must admit I did find things pretty hard going on Tuesday when we had a record breaking high temperature in my part of the world.

I felt sluggish and it was hard to focus (except on thinking things like this is too hot, is the dog okay etc etc!). And yes Lady was fine but she is much happier now things have cooled down a bit. I do always drink plenty of water by the way which does help with concentration but on Tuesday I think it was a question you couldn’t drink enough of it to overcome the wave of heat that hit most of us here in the UK.

Will have two blogs out next week. My Chandler’s Ford Today weekly one will be out on Friday as usual. It will also be my turn on More Than Writers, the blog for the Association of Christian Writers, again on Friday. I write for them on the 29th of each month so this means I get every three Februaries off! So must remember to do a double Facebook post on Friday.

So looking forward to Swanwick next month and the Bridge House Publishing event in December. Had been looking forward to going to see our local theatre group’s summer production but they have had to cancel unfortunately. I hope to get along to their autumn show though (and before we know it, it will then be panto time again!).

Writing Tip: Every so often go through your old notebooks and look at exercises you took part in during conferences etc. Revise those stories and see if you can submit them. I’ve done this and had work published that way but I also know it is far too easy to forget what is in your notebooks.

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Hope you have had a good Saturday so far.

It’s hard to believe I’m almost at the end of my In Fiction series for Chandler’s Ford Today. Next week I’ll be looking at Zest In Fiction. Where did 26 weeks go?!

I sometimes use the random generators for ideas for topics for posts. The random question and theme ones are great for this.

For example, a random theme I generated a moment ago came up with the idea of sliver of hope. I can immediately think of some fiction ideas for that but for a blog, I could write a factual piece about where a sliver of hope changed the life of a famous historical character. Or even speculate where it might have done had it happened – two sides of the same coin there basically.

A random question I just generated came up with If you lost all of your possessions but one, what would you want it to be?

Interesting question and this could make a great article simply by my answering this myself.

So for non-fiction fans, the random generators can be useful for you too.

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Many thanks for the views coming in on my latest YouTube tale, Enough Is Enough. If you would like to subscribe to my channel, you can do so at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPCiePD4p_vWp4bz2d80SJA – new subscribers are always welcome.

I usually post a new tale here once a week unless I’m away, ill etc. Good fun to do too. It is proving to be a great way of encouraging my flash fiction productivity and it is fun to think visually – to work out what videos would best suit my stories.

Screenshot 2022-07-26 at 20-40-16 Allison Symes

It’s Monday, It has been a long day. It is definitely story time. My latest tale on YouTube is called Enough Is Enough. Hope you enjoy it.

F = Focus – flash is a great way to sharpen your writing as you must concentrate on what matters to your character – no room for waffle!

L= Liberating, as despite the word count restriction, you can write across genres, in the first, third persons etc.

A = Acrostic flashes can be great to do – pick a relatively short word to use as these work best.

S = Story, story, story – it is all about the story – flash has to be a complete tale in and of itself.

H = Historical flash, humorous flash – have fun exploring genres here.

Advantage to flash is setting characters anywhere

I’ve talked before about the impact of flash fiction and that’s because it is one of the genre’s strengths. You haven’t got a lot of words to play with so you do have to make a great impact with the ones you have got!

This is why I think about the emotional response I want my story to have on a reader. I then think about what kind of character could fulfil that and the likely setting for them. Then I draft my tale.

When I know what my twist ending is (because I’ve drafted a few possibilities to use at a later date) I will know from what I drafted what the emotional impact is going to be already. I can hit the ground running here (which is another great reason to draft ideas for writing up later!).

Sometimes a story ends up being longer than I initially thought. That’s okay. If it works better at 300 words rather than 100 words, I leave it at the larger number and find a different market for it.

What matters is the story and its impact. You don’t want to dilute a powerful story for the sake of a word count. You equally don’t want a wordy story which could genuinely be cut and sharpened up. This is why I ask myself whether this is really necessary as I go through my draft. I’ve got to always be able to say yes to that.

AE - July 2021 - A well rounded character will show us something of ourselves

Goodreads Author Blog – Light Reading

Light reading is something I do all year round. When the world is being especially grim, as it is right now, then that’s the time to turn to books that help you escape. I was not surprised the sales of Wodehouse rocked up during the pandemic. People need an escape and lighter reading can be a great way to have that escape. (Especially if you really can’t go anywhere to get that escape another way!).

Light reading for me also includes reading short stories and flash collections, no matter what their theme. I just love short reads (and getting plenty of value for money by having lots of stories in one book!).
I do wish genre fiction wasn’t looked down on by some. It is snobbery. Genre fiction helps subsidize the more literary works and everyone has different tastes in books anyway.

Screenshot 2022-07-26 at 20-49-39 Light Reading

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What Keeps You Reading?

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the photos from the recent Golden Jubilee weekend.
Hope you have had a good weekend. It was lovely having a quiet one after a very busy and exciting one at the Association of Christian Writers Golden Jubilee weekend. Think fun and hectic for that one!

ACW workshop info

Facebook – General

Free read time, folks. Do check out the most recent flash fiction pieces which came in as a result of my column Numbers in Flash Fiction for the June edition of Mom’s Favorite Reads. All great pieces and it is amazing how you can work in numbers into a story.

My article explains more about that but I would say the impact of a number with meaning to a character is greater in flash because the form of writing is so short. Where you can have fun is working out why that number has meaning and what that can do to the story outcome.

Screenshot 2022-06-14 at 11-39-46 Flash Fiction

 

Hectic day as always for me on a Monday but Lady and I did enjoy the lovely weather at the park earlier this morning.

It was good to get back to normal in writing editing and submitting a story for Friday Flash Fiction and another for my YouTube channel. I’ll share that over on my book page shortly. To check out all of my story videos, see the link below.

It is great fun creating these stories. I use Book Brush to make the video and then simply upload it via YouTube. The editor function there makes it easier to add a music track too. It’s a nice way of bringing visual and audio to a flash fiction tale.

Allison Symes – YouTube channel 

Screenshot 2022-06-14 at 20-40-58 Allison Symes - YouTube

Gloriously sunny day in Hampshire – hope it is lovely where you are too. Nice to be back in church this morning too after a month’s absence. I was away at the ACW Golden Jubilee weekend last week and before that I was under the weather with a thankfully mild dose of You Know What. So good to see everyone once more and the singing was lovely.

Writing wise, I hope to have some exciting news to share soon – all I can say now is it is workshop related. Looking forward to sharing more on that when I can. It is funny how the pandemic combined with workshops has led to me re-discovering the joys of PowerPoint! I didn’t see that coming.

Do you like film or TV adaptations of books? I loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson) and enjoyed Hogfather, Going Postal and The Colour of Magic, which were wonderful Pratchett adaptations. Tim Curry was superbly evil in the last one. Well worth checking out if you love Discworld.

AE - March 2022 - the creative spark
Hope you have had a good Saturday. Already a week gone since the ACW Golden Jubilee weekend – it was lovely to see everyone there. Now back at home listening to the main theme form Wallace and Gromit on Classic FM’s Saturday Night at the Movies! (And before you ask, I do appreciate some “cracking cheese” as does my dog! If you’ve not seen these wonderful animations do check them out, you’re in for a treat).

I’m back to my In Fiction series for Chandler’s Ford Today this week. I’ll be looking at The Rule of Three this time. Link up on Friday for that. And talking of that number, I thought I’d share three top tips here.

1. Don’t expect to write a perfect first draft. Nobody ever does. Shakespeare didn’t. Dickens didn’t. We’re not going to either but that’s fine. Getting things right is what the editing process is all about.

2. Take off about ten days from any official deadline. Why? It gives you time to go through your piece again and pick up on those annoying typos etc that you missed on your previous edits. Trust me, there will be something, there always is!

3. If you edit on screen, change your font, the font size, even the colour, anything to make your text seem different. When you come back to edit, it is more likely you will spot the things that need to be corrected. I’ve found that on paper, it is easier to pick things up.

With screens, it is easy for your brain to fill in the words you meant to put in but which you didn’t actually get to type in. Making the text different will help you spot those omissions. And you will need to correct the changes before you send the piece out as again it is a chance for a final read through to make sure all is well before submission.

Top Tips

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

Time for a prompt. Not quite such a mad day for me, which I always appreciate Tuesdays for (!), but that led to me thinking what days do your characters dread/look forward to and why? Am sure there are stories to be told there!

If your setting is not of this world, what time elements does it use? Does it mirror ours or are their concept of days literally alien to us? And even in that concept, I’m sure you can think of a story where a character has a right rotten time of it and you then have fun trying to get them out of the mess they’re in.

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It’s been a busy Monday so time to chill out with a new story on YouTube. Hope you enjoy my The Unexpected where magic is not of the variety my character expected. Find out how she was nonplussed here. (It is a tiny tale so you may need to play it through twice).

 

One-liners can make excellent opening lines for a flash piece, but have you tried using one as powerful closing line? When I write twist in the tale flash stories, or humorous ones, I will usually write the twist or the punchline first and then work out how I could have got to that point. Spider diagrams to work out different possibilities are useful here and I always go for the one that makes the most impact on me. I figure a reader is likely to react in the same way.

Trying to put yourself in the head of your Ideal Reader helps here. I try to work out what I think they would like and to ensure everything that is in the story meets the needs of said reader. A well edited story is one where you can’t imagine a word being taken out or added. Thinking of your Ideal Reader helps ensure you cut the waffle out!

I sometimes jot one-liners down for use when I only have a few minutes of writing time. Why? Because I am still doing something creative. I can come back to those one-liners later on and then decide if they’re going at the start of a tale or at the end of it. When I have a longer writing session, I have something to work with immediately.

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Last week’s ACW Golden Jubilee weekend was good fun and it was a joy to share my flash fiction workshop. Many thanks to all who came to it and for the lovely feedback. One thing I looked at was the benefits of writing flash fiction even if it is not your main writing form, I’ve found I’ve lost all fear of editing thanks to writing flash.

And so often at conferences you are set exercises to have a go at (I always set them incidentally!) and, in the time given, you’re not going to have time to write that much. The great thing here is (a) you can finish that piece off later and (b) even if the piece remains short, you now have a market for pieces like that.

There are so many more flash competitions about these days too – and don’t forget the online markets. A great way to get some publication credits too!

 

Goodreads Author Blog – What Keeps You Reading?

I don’t think there is any one answer to this question but it is a good one to make you think about why you read. For me, I can’t not read. I can’t imagine life without books and stories in my life and neither do I wish to! So the love of the written word in and of itself is one reason I keep reading.

The main reason though is because I am gripped by the characters in the stories and have to find out what happens to them. Only one way I can do that – read to the end! I rarely abandon a book but on the odd occasion I have, it is because I have lost all interest in the characters. Now that serves as a lesson for me with my own writing. I try and look at what made me switch off and try to avoid replicating that!

I don’t often read a book because it is “in”, the current flavour of the month etc. I have to be intrigued by the premise of the book and then by the characters to read and keep on reading. Life is too short to waste on a book which doesn’t grip me.

For a series I love, such as Discworld, having read one and loved it (Jingo was my starting point there), I had to read others in the series. Now that’s what every author wants to happen!

For authors new to me, I often read their works on Kindle first to see if their stories grip me. If they do, as does happen most of the time, I am more likely to get their paperbacks later on. But again they have to keep me reading.

So what keeps you reading? Have you stopped reading a book? If so, why?

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