Writing fiction. Trying to write a damn good story.
As I am about to start submissions, I hope this one doesn’t come back to bite me! I wrote this little ditty getting on for thirty years ago. It was inspired by an experience I had at sixteen when I still had, misguided, aspirations about pursuing a career […]
It’s done. After putting off what I hope will be the final revisions, I printed off the manuscript yesterday. I feel drained, emotionally and physically, so off to a QiGong class to reboot my energy levels. After too many celebratory posts on Social Media over the last year […]
‘For God’s sake, Hugh! Stop making that dreadful noise.’ Cynthia Baskerville-Clifford threw her arms above her head in frustration, before covering both ears with her hands. ‘It’s driving me mad!’ She spat out the words with a degree of exasperated venom, before inhaling deeply to calm herself while […]
THE EDITING NIGHTMARE – THE END! Well, all bar the kicking, screaming and the next wave of submissions. Or should that be the other way around?
Capturing the essence of a 90,000 words (±) novel is a bloody nightmare. We spend weeks, months and years, scripting stories, creating characters, in 500; is a bloody nightmare. Or is it because and I’m trying too hard too hard in my attempts to wow a potential agent?
When your writing life begins to smack of lemons, you start questioning your ability. Have you really got the courage to take that leap of faith and separate yourself from the rest of the pack? However determined you are to get into print, it is not enough. You need courage, shedloads of […]
Stone Angel is a short story inspired by a photographic writing prompt for a twenty-minute writing sprint while in the virtual company of Lorna Fergusson of Fictionfire.co.uk.
Bye, Bye week number 30, 2020. You’ve been an interesting one.
The last two weeks of my life are a blur. Flickering in my mind like a black and white cine film. I am running. Travelling at night under the cloak of darkness. Slithering out of the United States, escaping from the injustice thrust upon me.
Yesterday, was the dismal end to a shitty writing week, which left me teetering on the edge. Do I really have what it takes to become a novelist? Or, can I only dare to dream?
So far, July has been a bit of a damp squib. I was bordering on hyper during June. Honing and buffing the stories that have taken me months and years to write, so I could meet the deadlines for various competitions. I also started submissions again, approaching any literary agents who mention the word humour, somewhere, anywhere, on their wishlist. My excuse as to why not much blogging got done in June 2020.
After seventeen years apart, Lisa realises she is still in love with Jack, but after he misinterprets a fond farewell between Lisa and Rory, he flounces off home to NYC. This extract leads up to the agonising moment Jack realises he has got things horribly wrong. FEBRUARY 2000 Jack was […]
They both laughed until they cried; as if cavorting naked was something they had been doing together for years.
I am glad to report that my murder mystery spoof-in-progress, The Doyenne of Didsbrook, is taking shape, and DCI Middleton’s investigations are bumbling along nicely. A 3 minute 50-second read.
We are like family now. Bound together by an invisible thread, our stories intricately woven together, ad infinitum. I know everything about each and every one of them. I uncovered secrets from their past that I know they would have wanted to let lie. It doesn’t make them bad people. The sins of their past only make them human, fragile, vulnerable. We all make mistakes and, I believe, the truth has set them free.
I was flirting with fiction earlier this week, only as it turned out it wasn’t fiction at all. It was an article written by a young man. He believes that people of a ‘certain age’ writing a novel for the first time and thinking they can get it published, […]
I am grateful for many things in my life, but if I have learned anything during the first four months of 2020, it is that the material things in my life matter less. Our own home and a car, are things that many of us take for granted, […]
Thank you, Ben Huberman and Discover Prompts for today’s title prompt, Focus. My inability to do just that has been a problem during recent weeks, and I’ve even just eaten my last biscuit without noticing. As the Coronavirus pandemic started to take hold, Discover Prompts decided to post daily […]
During the week that President Trump advocated swallowing bleach to get shot of Coronavirus , I struggled with re-working the humour that stitches together one of my 92,000-word works-in-progress.
I was searching for a little light relief to come from somewhere, anywhere. Something, anything, to crack me up, and I eventually found it with Sindhu Vee, Live at the Apollo, on catch-up TV last night.
“The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair” Mary Heaton Vorse. Congratulations to all you wonderful witty women! You all inspire me to better apply the seat of my pants to the seat of the chair. […]
The Jersey Writers Social Group meet every Tuesday at 11.00 o’clock
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If you are interested in joining, please contact James Sillwood @ jerseywritersgroup@gmail.com
