Monday 30 November 2015

Lost for words


I was surprised, but very pleased, when my story 'Forever' was longlisted for the

I was amazed and delighted when it appeared in the shortlist.

But when I heard it had been awarded 1st prize – that’s right, it WON – I couldn’t think how to describe my feelings. At least, not in plain English words that made any sense.

When I come back down to earth I’ll have a good look through my thesaurus.

Until then ...

                           Whoo-hoo!
 Wowzoozle!
 Wha-hay!                          

Thursday 19 November 2015

Something different (2)


In my last post, I said I don’t ‘do’ poetry, but when I woke up to fighter planes roaring overhead, a passing muse was so alarmed that she dropped some jumbled words into my brain. That’s my explanation anyway. The result is here.

Sunday 1 November 2015

Something different

I’m a big fan of NaNoWriMo – and would advise every writer to try writing 50,000 words in 30 days (at least once!) – but I’m not signing up to the challenge this year. I’ve got too many other things going on in November.

But I can feel the excitement of NaNo all around me as other people begin their frantic scribbling, and it’s making me think I really ought to commit myself to some sort of writing challenge. But what?

A smaller daily word count?
A set number of new short stories to be completed?
A set number of old, rejected stories to be rewritten and resubmitted?
A set time to be spent on editing The Novel each day?       

As I wandered about looking for ideas, I saw this on my bedroom bookshelf.


Isn’t it beautiful? I was given this notebook for my birthday. Inside its gorgeous covers there are pages of smooth, white paper ruled with faint lines, a red ribbon bookmark, and a clever pocket at the back for storing … Treasure maps? Love letters? Secret recipes?

The only problem is that after drooling over admiring it, I had no idea what to do with it. Although it’s called a note-book, I didn’t want to spoil it with the kind of random notes that I usually jot down in cheap, jumbo pads of A4 or on the nearest used envelope. A beautiful book deserves beautiful writing. Something like poetry perhaps. Except I don’t ‘do’ poetry.

And then I found something else on that bookshelf. A copy of Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled. This book was also given to me as a present some years ago, but I’m ashamed to say I haven’t read it. I flicked through it when I received it, and thought it looked interesting with lots of examples of different kinds of poetry and exercises to try, but then I put the book away for ‘one day’ which, of course, never came.    

So.
I have decided.
I’m going to work through Mr Fry’s book over the winter, and next year I will sign up for NaPoWriMo – National Poetry Writing Month – a challenge to write a poem a day during the month of April.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? If so, good luck!
Have you done NaPoWriMo? If so, how did you get on?