A (short) commercial break

My short story Kerb Drill is published by Alfie Dog Fiction today.

It’s a feel-good, family story about a problem every parent has to face sooner or later: how do you let go of your children, yet still keep them safe?

Available HERE for just 39p!

In a variety of e-book formats – if you haven’t got a Kindle, iPhone or similar gadget you can download Alfie Dog stories to read on your ordinary, old-fashioned computer.

Happy Halloween

I’ve never celebrated Halloween and, to be honest, I don’t really understand what other people see in this mishmash of ancient superstitions and modern commercialism. But I did enjoy painting pumpkins and other autumnal vegetables at last week’s art group meeting. They’re a lot trickier than they look, but I thought this one came out a treat!

 

Of course the main significance of October 31 for thousands of people all over the world is that NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow. I’ve decided not to do it this year, but I’m also having pangs of regret as I feel the excitement mounting all around me.

So I’m going to compromise and set myself a mini-NaNo challenge:

 1,000 words a day throughout November.

I won’t be creating a new novel, but I’ll try to use the NaNoWriMo energy to increase my writing speed as I work on several projects that have been clogging up my brain and computer for far too long.

If you’re using Halloween as an excuse for a party – have fun!

And if you’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo – good luck!

Cut, cut, cutting

 
      If I could explain
       the whole thing
        in one page
          it would be
           a short story!













 Am I alone in suspecting that publishers and agents ask for a synopsis as a way of discouraging would-be novelists?

Word of the week (20)

The writer was schbuufy with joy when her novel was accepted for publication.

(Puzzled because you can’t find schbuufy in your dictionary? Take a look at Fran’s Hill’s blog to discover the origin of this expressive new word.)

Short but sweet

So it’s only 75 words, and there’s no payment, but I do feel quite proud of getting a paragraph accepted on Paragraph Planet today. It’s one of my favourite websites for these (short) reasons:

• It takes less than a minute to read each daily paragraph but together they cover a huge range of genres, subjects and styles.

• Telling a story, introducing a character, or describing a scene in exactly 75 words forces a writer to examine every one of those words very carefully.

• If you want to improve your own writing skills you can click over to Paragraph Planet’s companion website Writing Workout and try some of its very short exercises.

 Now back to the  l-o-n-g  job of editing The Novel!

An invitation

No time to write anything here today, as Henry Mitchell has invited me to put a guest post on his blog Tales and Wanders. I met Henry through Alfie Dog Fiction and was immediately impressed by his elegant writing style. I was surprised to find that he didn’t decide to start writing fiction until he was in his 70’s, but I’m not at all surprised to learn that his first novel is soon to be published.

If you haven’t come across Henry before, do click here to take a look at his blog, it's well worth a visit.

How this writer’s mind works (2)

I took a day off from writing to catch up on some jobs I’ve been neglecting in my other world. One of the items that’s been on my to-do list for a long time was to make some cushions. I saw this teddy bear fabric in the market and couldn’t resist it.

As I sewed, I started thinking about all the bears I’ve known over the years: my own long-lost childhood companions, my children’s teddies, those perennial favourites, Rupert, Pooh, Paddington ….

And as my mind filled with cuddly images I began making up a story. Something about teddy bears? No, that would be too easy. This one’s going to be a really complicated murder mystery …

Do you love bears? Have you written about them?