This is it – Last chance to enter Esther’s fabulous Flash Fiction competition. TODAY is the deadline.
My Monday motivational blog is to remind you that my Flash Fiction Competition closes tomorrow! So there’s still time to enter or for those of you who already have, to send another story. Here’s a quick reminder of the details:
Prizes: 1st £50, 2nd £25, 3rd £10
Entry fee: £2 per story
Word Limit: Stories of up to 250 words are invited on any theme.
Good luck everyone!
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There’s something wrong with my opening chapter. I’ve edited it eight times, two of those were major overhauls, the rest tweaks. But still… just plain wrong, and the closer I get to the end of draft one (and I am real close now) the more preoccupied I become with the first chapter. I figured the best way to work out what was wrong, was to study the masters. Examine the books in my particular genre that have made it, and see how they do it. And you know what… They have a formula. They all have a set of things in common. I’m not suggesting I need to follow their formula exactly, I still want to be unique, but I can at least learn from it. (more…)
One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is the elements; Earth, Air, Fire and Water. There’s a couple of reasons for this. One, in my novel, there are a set of characters that can control the elements, so I have been doing some research. Two, I am developing a new series which I will run once a week on the weekend. It will be totally different to anything I’ve done before so I won’t be launching the series for a few weeks until I am happy with the posts.
This weeks writespiration is Fire. Here’s mine: (more…)
I went to see Jurassic Park the other day, (I loved it, if you haven’t seen it and you’re a fan of the first three then go, you’re missing out.) Anyway, the film and Monday’s post about the loss of penmanship got me thinking about extinction. (more…)
Please welcome the fascinating Michael Martineck, you can find him on his blog, he has written two books:The Milkman and Cinco de Mayo. Michael has recently had huge success, so a big congratulations to him as he begins the interview. The Milkman was a finalist in Eric Hoffer book awards and a gold medal from the IPPYs. The Independent Publisher Book Awards competition: Best science fiction novel in North America, from an independent publisher. Congrats Michael. (more…)
A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to write the best worst opening line you could think of. Well now I am asking you to write the best WORST ending you can come up with. Once again, there will be a winner and runner up and if we get some funny entries I may just pick a comedic winner too!
What do I mean by worst? 1. Write it badly, break rules, make sentences long and arduous use adverbs… whatever you like, but do your worst, it needs to be so bad, its stinks. 2. Make the story ending stink too, what’s the worst ending to a story you can think of? Write that! Heres mine: (more…)
I made a point recently about the lack of ‘actual’ writing I do. You know, with my hand and a real life pen. The post discussed Distributed Cognition, a concept that debates where the boundaries of thought are and one example is the use of a pen. Does the physicality of using a pen change your thought process through the action of writing? Where do your thoughts end, and the pen and ink begin, and what is the reciprocal effect of the thought, hand and pen interacting.
Why am I talking about this again? Well, in my author interviews, I ask a provocative question making a point that the publishing industry is in decline (I don’t actually think it is, but it tends to provoke an interesting answer). That question got me thinking, is penmanship in decline? (more…)
I was nominated to take part in this photo challenge by Ali Isaac, who has a wonderful blog filled with fascinating tales of Irish mythology – check it out if you haven’t already, you learn something new with every post. I would like to nominate three of my blogging compadres to take up this photo challenge…
1. Ula because I think she’s fascinating and would love to see what she shoots
2. Keith – because he’s an awesome photographer already
See the rules below, never been much of a rule follower, so not only am I doing this over five weeks instead of five days, I highly doubt I’ll only post one story too! :p
The photo is of a common garden spiders nest of babies. Whilst they are growing as eggs they shed a skin. Once born they cling together usually in balls – but in trying to capture a macro shot I disturbed them – until they shed their second skin. (more…)
Sacha Black 