Chandler's Ford Today

Allison Symes

Using Autumn In Your Writing

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Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided.

I’m never sorry to welcome September back. It’s a lovely month and I’ve always loved the changing colours of the leaves. Okay the darker evenings are a downside but then again does that give more time for reading and/or writing? I would hope so. Of course, following the heatwave this year, the cooler autumn temperatures are also welcome.

But I thought I’d look at using autumn in our writing for this post and hope you find it useful. It’s always a delight, incidentally, to create pictures via Book Brush for my Chandler’s Ford Today posts but I had a wealth of wonderful images to choose from for this so hope you enjoy these too.

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Out and About in Salisbury

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Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were photos of Salisbury. Book cover shots are from Chapeltown Books.

I’m delighted to say I’ll be taking a lovely trip on our local train service to the fair city of Salisbury on Saturday 5th September 2026. It’s a great run from Chandler’s Ford, and a direct one, and you see some wonderful scenery but why am I going?

If you’re thinking along the lines of she’s not just doing this for the fun of it, you’re spot on.

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The Joy of Responding to and Setting Writing Exercises

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Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided.

Writing exercises are a major part of my writing life. There are several reasons for this.

What I produce as a result of the writing exercise is more work I can polish up and eventually submit somewhere. I’ve had work published thanks to doing this.

Exercises got me used to the idea of being a “proper writer” as I was responding to a prompt set by someone else. They’re excellent workouts for the brain. They’re also good practice for writing to competitions with a set theme.

Most exercises I’ve been set are at events, day trips, online ones, or The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. These are a natural part of the writing life and the whole idea is to get you writing more than you would have done alone and to tackle themes you might not have thought of trying.

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Swanwick 2026 and Book Launch for Seeing The Other Side

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Image Credits:-
One image created in Book Brush using images taken by me, Allison Symes and from Chapeltown Books and The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. AI images avoided. Many thanks to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick and to Gemma Owen-Kendall for the pictures of my book launch for Seeing The Other Side. Other images of Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Babs Trevitt for taking the image of me reading at the Open Prose Mic Night. Also many thanks to Liz Pacey for the photo of the members of the Association of Christian Writers who were at Swanwick.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of Chandler’s Ford Today I (a) went to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick and (b) had a fabulous time there. Having said that, this year’s school was especially meaningful for me. Why?

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Writing Events and How to Make the Most of Them

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Image Credits:-
Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Images from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to the school for kind permission to use the poster photo for my launch there.

I’ve just come back from a wonderful few days at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. I hope to report more on that next week, including details on how my book launch there for Seeing The Other Side went. But it was the thought of the launch which led to the idea for this post.

Writing events didn’t come into my creative life at all to begin with. The thought of going to any terrified me but as it became clearer to me, writing wasn’t going to just be a hobby, I knew I needed to network, to learn more about the industry and so on. So that meant writing events would need to be something I got used to.

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Author Interview – Val Penny – Murder in Gilmerton

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Many thanks to Val Penny and Lynsey Adams (Reading Between the Lines Vlog) for supplying author photos, fabulous shots of Edinburgh, and book cover shots. Other images created in Book Brush using their images or Pixabay ones. AI images avoided.

It is with great pleasure I welcome back Val Penny, Scottish crime writer, to Chandler’s Ford Today. This interview is part of a blog tour organised by Lynsey Adams of Reading Between The Lines Vlog.

A lot has happened since I last chatted to Val, not least of which is her change of publisher to Joffe Books. They are reissuing Val’s back catalogue and Murder in Gilmerton is one of those books to be reissued.

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Reworking Stories

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Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. AI shots avoided.

Reworking stories is something I do all of the time given I don’t think anyone has ever written the perfect first draft in one go. I know I don’t!

I love the much missed Sir Terry Pratchett’s view “the first draft is just you telling yourself the story”. Spot on and the second draft is where you get rid of all of the things you realise you don’t need. Then comes the next draft and so on. Eventually, you end up with a finely honed piece of work which is ready to submit somewhere.

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Summer Reading

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Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. AI images avoided.

What would you consider to be the perfect book for a summer read? I know I’d want something on the lighter side of fiction, though my overall preference heads that way anyway, but there is something apt, I think, for a light book to match a light mood. Summer usually encourages a light mood, I find. If nothing else, a good summer read can distract from the hayfever…!

So straight away I’m heading towards the funnier side of fiction so at some point I’m likely to dip into the wonderful works of P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, and Terry Pratchett. Now there’s a fabulous trio of authors for you.

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Update – Local Author News – Allison Symes – Seeing The Other Side – Publication News

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Image Credits:-
Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images or photos provided by Bridge House Publishing/Chapeltown Books. Some images directly from the publishers. A huge thank you to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick for sending the the poster which will advertise my book launch at this year’s school and for permission to use that poster here. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Adrian Symes for filming a certain marketing video. AI images avoided.

This post is an update for the one I wrote a few weeks ago. I’m thrilled to say my Seeing The Other Side has now been published by Chapeltown Books (as at 16th July 2026). I’m very happy with how the book looks and now have my stock with me. I’m now in the happy position of starting to organise events to celebrate my new third flash fiction collection. More details as and when.

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Marketing and Writing

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Image Credits:- 
Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for the image of me taking part in a previous Open Prose Mic Night at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes. AI images avoided.

Marketing and writing are strange bedfellows for most writers. Most writers (including me) much prefer to be writing than carrying out any marketing, yet we need to accept the latter is part of our overall writing life. How else will people know about our writing?

I now know my Seeing The Other Side is coming out on 16th July 2026 so over the next few months I’ll be engaged with marketing. I am hoping to have a blog tour for my third collection plus I will be launching the book at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in August. I also hope to arrange other in person signings and to have events on Zoom.

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What I Look For In A Writing Guide

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Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes. AI images avoided.

Over the years, I’ve collected a number of excellent books on the craft of writing. I still refer to many of them. The ones I tend not to refer to much are those where I thought I might go down a particular path in writing but have not gone on to do so. I’m loathe to ditch these books, simply because I know how writing journeys can change and it’s not impossible I might come back to these things later.

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Using Dates in Fiction

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Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided.

I sometimes use random generators (and there are loads of them) to trigger ideas for stories. There are historical event generators which come up with what happened on a certain date in history to name just one example. There are random date generators too, separate to the historical ones.

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Publication Thoughts – Seeing The Other Side by Allison Symes

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Image Credits:- 
Book cover images from Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes. Other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images or photos from Bridge House. AI images avoided.

I’m thrilled to share with you the good news my third book, Seeing The Other Side, is about to be published by Chapeltown Books/Bridge House Publishing . This is my third flash fiction collection and is the largest I’ve written to date.

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Discovering Classic Authors

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Photos from The Dorset Museum, Dorchester were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were pictures from my garden and any screenshots. Other images were created in Book Brush using either my photos or those from Pixabay. AI images avoided.

I recently revisited The Dorset Museum in lovely Dorchester with editing colleagues from The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading. We were visiting a Thomas Hardy exhibition and it was fascinating.

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Deadlines

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Image Credits:- Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.

Deadlines are a fact of the writing life and apply equally to non-fiction as well as stories of all lengths.

Douglas Adams, renowned for his The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, famously said he loved the sound deadlines made as they “whooshed by”. Hmm… I do feel sorry for his editor and publisher here. Someone has to meet printing schedules etc. Clearly, Douglas Adams left that for someone else to worry about!

Having said that, you would get short shrift if you tried that now. You would have to be a very big name indeed to get away with that and I’m not convinced even by that. There is a greater awareness of how the book market works. Everyone wants their books out in time for the Christmas market and, for certain books, the summer holiday one. You definitely have to meet deadlines to have any chance of achieving this.

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Esther Chilton – Author Interview – Myths and Magic

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Image Credits:-
Many thanks to Esther Chilton for supplying author and book cover shots. Other images were created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos or images supplied by Esther. AI images avoided. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.

It is with great pleasure I welcome fellow Swanwicker, Esther Chilton, back to Chandler’s Ford Today to talk about her second book for children, Myths and Magic. This is part of her Saffy’s Secret Quest series. As well as writing for children, Esther also writes flash fiction and short stories, is a tutor for The Writers’ Bureau and tutors at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.

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A Change of Scene

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Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes, as was the photo of a splendid Scottish loch.

I’ve just returned from a wonderful break in the north-east of Scotland. The scenery there is amazing. Naturally, the change of scene has been rejuvenating (as were the winds!). One highlight here was as we drove through the Cairngorms National Park to get to where we were staying, we saw plenty of snow still on the mountains. In the valleys below them were fields of oilseed rape in full bloom. Quite a contrast!

Now fiction reflects life. So if we need our metaphorical batteries recharging, it is likely our characters will need something similar themselves. Even superheroes have weaknesses (Kryptonite, anyone?) and/or need time to recharge before getting on with their acts of derring do.

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Story Essentials

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Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes.

The essentials for any story are to have a proper beginning, middle and end. This conveniently helps with this post as it automatically gives me three sections to write about. But the following thoughts will apply to any fiction, regardless of length, and, as writers, we will always be looking to improve our skills. For a story to grip a reader, there has to be something for the reader to be gripped by!

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Book Event Tips

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Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Janet Williams for taking the images of me at the most recent Hiltingbury Book Fair.

It is with great pleasure I can reveal my third flash fiction collection, Seeing The Other Side, will be published by Bridge House Publishing on 18th June 2026. I hope to share more news as and when I get it but it does mean, for the first time in six years, I need to start thinking about book launches and events.

Six years ago, I was launching Tripping The Flash Fantastic but thanks to the pandemic, all launches and promotional work had to be carried out via online means only. These were a lifeline, of course, and I still use Zoom regularly for all sorts of things and am very glad to do so. But it will be lovely to have more options this time around.

Having said that, and having been to various book fairs and launches of my own (and others), I have picked up various tips so I thought I’d share these here.

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Local Author News – Richard Hardie – Podcasting – “Know and Tell with Kosmas”

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Image Credits:-
Many thanks to Richard Hardie for supplying poster images and author head shot. Other images created in Book Brush by Allison Symes using Richard’s images and others from Pixabay. AI shots avoided.

“Know and Tell with Kosmas” is a podcast with one of the largest audiences in India and throughout Asia. It’s run by Kosha Shah Chandaria, a celebrated Indian author, and each month she invites two authors to join her on the podcast to talk about how they started writing books and how they plan them.

She tends to choose authors from the same genre and this month I was lucky enough to be asked to join her and Sohil Makwana, who, like me, writes detective mystery fiction, and is one of the most prolific writers in India.

The podcast is done on Instagram and if you go onto YouTube, it can be accessed at www.youtube.com/@_kosmos_85 you can listen in and see us in all our glory!

The podcast lasted about an hour and from my point of view it was fascinating to hear how another mystery writer undertakes his craft. Amazingly, Sonil and I write in very similar ways, though I suspect he’s more disciplined in how he writes.

Overall it was a fascinating experience and I felt honoured to be asked to represent the UK!

Richard Hardie
Author of the Temporal Detective Agency series.
Book Publishing MD of the Year 2026 (UK): Richard Hardie
Most Innovative Book Publisher 2026 – UK

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