So what do I mean exactly by a “good” writing topic? Surely whether it is good or not depends on the nuances, personal bias etc of the writer in question (and whether you agree with them or not!), and whether they “deliver” on the theme in an entertaining and/or interesting way?
By the time this post goes out, I will have returned from the Association of Christian Writers’ AGM and Writers’ Day held on 9th October 2021 at Mary Sumner House in London, which is the home of the Mothers Union incidentally. It will be ACW’s first in-person event since before lockdown.
What ACW did for events and groups was switch everything to Zoom and this worked well. The plan is to combine a mixture of live and Zoom events and group meetings in future.
How did I feel about going back to live events like this? I was fine with it, especially having been to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School in August. But what are the advantages of one-day events such as the ACW one?
This topic was inspired by last week’s post when I talked about Pinch, Punch, The First of the Month. I’ve often used well known sayings in my flash fiction. Sometimes I’ve used them as titles. Sometimes I’ve used them as themes. And I have written stories where the well known saying was both the title and theme.
[Read more…] about Sayings – Their Uses in Fiction and Non-Fiction
Image Credit: Book covers from Chapeltown Books. Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Author images taken by Adrian Symes.
Today would have been my late parents’ 61st wedding anniversary. (They made it to 55 years together when we lost Mum in 2015).
Anniversaries are important. They form much of our history (1066 probably being the most famous and yes the entire year is an anniversary date. A less “well known” year for this is 1936 – the Year of the Three Kings – George V, Edward VIII and George VI. There has been a Year of the Three Queens too – 1536 – Catherine of Aragon, who always maintained she was rightful Queen of England, Anne Boleyn, both of whom died in this year thanks to the same brute of a man, and Jane Seymour. I’m no fan of Henry VIII incidentally as you might have been able to tell!).
Image Credit: Book covers and author pics were kindly supplied by Maressa Mortimer. Other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
It is lovely to welcome back Maressa Mortimer to Chandler’s Ford Today. This week, Maressa shares her thoughts on marketing (every writer has views on that!), and how she feels her writing has developed. She also discusses book tours and why she has used Facebook Live for her book launches. So with no further ado, over to Maressa.
[Read more…] about Maressa Mortimer – Part 2 – Being An Indie Author
Image Credit:-
Many thanks to Maressa Mortimer for book cover pictures and author headshot photo.
Images for Creativity Matters: Find Your Passion for Writing kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones.
Most of the other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
One of the joys of the writing life is meeting other authors. I met Maressa Mortimer via the Association of Christian Writers.
Maressa, who is originally from The Netherlands, and I, as well as meeting at ACW events, regularly meet on her Zoom event held most weeks where ACW writers get together to chat. It can be very funny and at times therapeutic. There is nobody like another author who understands when you have had a rough week.
Likewise, those same authors will rejoice with you when things go well. What goes around comes around in writing circles. Most authors are supportive of each other’s efforts. We know it is not an easy thing to do. We know marketing and drafting the next work is tiring (and invigorating). You do need a shoulder to cry on sometimes (yet another reason to network well and develop friendships).
[Read more…] about Introducing Maressa Mortimer – Being an Indie Author – Part 1
Image Credit: All but one of the Swanwick photos were taken by me, Allison Symes, though I have used Book Brush for captioning purposes. It is a useful tool. Many thanks to Fiona Park for using my phone to take the photo of me signing books. It is tricky to do that kind of photo yourself! Other images from Pixabay as usual.
It was wonderful to be back at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School recently. For the first time in its 70+ year history, it was cancelled last year due to You Know What. So getting back together again at The Hayes Conference Centre in Derbyshire was especially nice given I met friends I haven’t seen in person for two years.
There is something special about getting together with fellow creatives in person. Many of my Swanwick friends I keep in touch with via Facebook/Twitter and/or Zoom, which is something positive about social media. It has been a lifeline like that but when you get together in person, you do bounce ideas off each other, share useful tips and so on. There is something in the atmosphere which encourages this.
And it was my first train trip since before March 2020. Annoyingly Cross Country had taken off the direct service from Southampton Airport Parkway to Derby (the service runs on to Newcastle) so I had to go in to London Waterloo, across to St. Pancras, and then go up to Derby.
To be fair it only added another 40 minutes to my journey, which is not bad, but I do still feel it was odd to say the least to send people into the capital when it wasn’t necessary. I am hoping the direct service will be back next year.
The Swanwick Writers’ Summer School runs from a Saturday to the following Friday and comprises workshops, talks, guest speakers, specialist courses, and shorter ones over the space of those few days. The range of topics is incredible.
This year’s school covered flash fiction, poetry, historical fiction, social media, non-fiction submissions, world building (fantasy and science fiction), crowdfunding, book trailer production, creating suspense, writing compelling crime, competitions, writing for children, and the list goes on! I haven’t named half of what was on offer this year.
All meals (which are generous!) and accommodation is included and I pay a little extra to be on the coach that takes me to and from Swanwick from Derby Railway Station. Many of us meet up at Derby to enjoy coffee and a sandwich before heading off to the school. For us, Swanwick week starts there!
After a full day of workshops and courses, the evening entertainment consists of guest speakers who are experts in their field. One talk was from Tony Faber of Faber and Faber who talked about the history of the publishing firm. (Yes, he does have a book out on that topic. How did you guess?!). But it was fascinating to hear the history and especially about the links with T.S. Eliot.
On other nights, there are quizzes. One is a literary one and the other is a general knowledge quiz. I am part of a team known as the Prosecco Queens (no prizes for guessing why) and we ended up in medal position for both (one silver, the other bronze before you ask) so we can hold our heads up reasonably high.
Before Swanwick, there is a competition called Page to Stage where writers are encouraged to send in a script for a five minute play. These are judged anonymously by a professional theatre company and the best scripts go through for performance at Swanwick.
This year seven out of eighteen entries went through. At Swanwick itself, these plays are staged and volunteers are sought for acting, to direct, and of course the writers get to see their plays being performed. During the week the plays are then performed in the main hall in front of the other delegates and we the audience vote on the ones we like best. The winners are awarded a “Swannie”, which is literally a small trophy made to look like an Oscar but clearly isn’t! Trust me, these things are coveted….
Swanwick has a Book Room where authors can put out their wares. Writers fill out a form listing the books we’re taking in for this ahead of the conference and at the end of the week, when we pick up any unsold books, we sign our unsold books out on that list. Payment is made via BACS after Swanwick.
I was thrilled to sell out on Tripping the Flash Fantastic and I only took three copies of From Light to Dark and Back Again back home with me. This was my best year at Swanwick for sales and my first live event since before lockdown.
Networking is the other big benefit. It was a joy to meet up with Linda W Payne, a fellow Bridge House Publishing/CafeLit and Chapeltown Books author especially. We usually meet at the annual Bridge House event in December and that too was cancelled last year. We have high hopes it won’t be this year.
But you also get to meet new authors, publishers, all kinds of people at Swanwick, and they tell you what they do and you tell them what you do. Nobody thinks it odd here that we sit at our desks and make things up all the time! Of course a lot of the networking takes place at another side benefit to Swanwick – the bar!
The grounds at The Hayes are wonderful to walk around (and the main time for this is after lunch and/or if you decide to not go to a workshop etc). The nice thing about Swanwick is you can pick and choose what you go to. Nobody worries if you decide you don’t like a course and then try the others out instead.
And, after Swanwick, you can download the notes from all of the courses, whether you went to them or not. I don’t know of any other writing event that does this. Most tend to let you download notes only from the ones you went to. And you do feel connected to the overall writing community in a way you simply can’t do when you’re sitting at home drafting a story or a blog post on your own.
The biggest problem most delegates have is when there is a clash of courses you’d like to go to on the same day. I don’t envy the Swanwick Committee for putting this together. There is no way of pleasing everybody but being able to download the notes later from the ones you couldn’t get to helps enormously here.
The Hayes is an old country house and it has its own Chapel. A daily service is held during Swanwick week (only for about 20 minutes) and I led a Lift Up Your Hearts session, as these services are known, on the Monday I was away. I shared my favourite parable, The Good Samaritan, and talked a little about how stories can be told in hymns. (Possibly another form of flash fiction going on here as all hymns are well under the 1000 word count limit for flash!). One lovely thing is here is that the names of Swanwickers who have passed on are specifically remembered at the services here. And Swanwick has its own war memorial too.
So there is a lot going on and a huge creative buzz but everything stops for afternoon tea which is fabulous but fattening!
Of course, you get a chance to try out workshops here on subjects that may interest but which you are not perhaps yet writing in and that is useful. I never started out as a flash fiction writer. Would I have gone to a course on it when I was starting out? Probably. Out of sheer curiosity to find out more.
The one thing I don’t join in with at Swanwick is the Fancy Dress Evening/disco. (I have two left feet when it comes to dancing. Trust me, I am being kind on everyone in sitting that out). On the Thursday afternoon, there is a Dregs Party out on the main lawn and, later in the evening, a formal Swanwick Farewell in the main conference hall.
There are a couple of mini competitions during the week so prizes are awarded for the winners at the Farewell. It is also when the Swannies are given out for Page to Stage and I was delighted a friend, Penny Blackburn, won Best Drama for her five minute short play. I didn’t win the flash fiction competition but another friend, Fiona Park, did. Fiona also took this fabulous picture of me happily signing copies of Tripping the Flash Fantastic – I have the feeling I will be using this picture again in marketing efforts!
I had a fabulous time at Swanwick as you will have gathered from the above. The Hayes, for the first time, created packed lunches for people to take outside when the weather improved and that was a great idea which went down very well. Prior to that, you could have had three cooked meals a day there!
There were plenty of sanitisers all over the place and people were pretty sensible about distancing when possible, masking in enclosed spaces and so on. There was plenty of ventilation in our rooms and in the conference rooms. (We all carried out lateral flow tests before going and I carried out another on my arrival home on the Friday. Both negative I am glad to say).
What is wonderful is there was a sense of normality coming back, something everyone picked up on and appreciated, I feel. Now for more author events, please, live and on Zoom. I hope to share more news later on in the year as I have a couple of things coming up.
Oh and you may well know The Hayes for something else. It is the setting for the book and film, based on true events, of The One Who Got Away. Yes, The Hayes did see the only German prisoner of war escape Britain. Oberleutnant Franz von Werra escaped from their marvellous grounds during World War Two. On previous visits to Swanwick, you could go and see the remains of the tunnel he escaped from (and it is tiny, even by my standards and I don’t even make it to 5’ tall!).
Will I be back at Swanwick next year? Let’s just say I can’t wait for the booking slots to re-open!
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Did you know that the Beatles have 229 songs to their name? The Fab Four have each contributed brilliant songs to this total but Lennon and McCartney were the most prolific.
Yesterday, we heard from our neighbours, who were visiting Liverpool, that they were drinking in the Cavern Club, birth place of the Beatles. It gave me the idea of writing a short story using the titles of some of those famous hits. It took fifteen minutes and I had a little help from my friend, my wife Jill. It’s not going to be a Booker Prizewinner but it contains 29 Beatles song titles (plus one repeat) and it goes like this: [Read more…] about Paperback Writers
I’m pleased to welcome back to Chandler’s Ford Today two of the funniest writers I know – Fran Hill and Ruth Leigh.
Fran’s second book, Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?, ought to get some kind of award for most amusing title. The book (which is a memoir of life in the classroom) is both funny and moving.
Ruth has created a fabulous character in Isabella M Smugge (to rhyme with Bruge) in her debut novel, The Diary of Isabella M Smugge. Think Hyacinth Bucket deciding to write her own diary a la Adrian Mole. Great combination of ideas there. And Isabella’s exploits, while often laugh out loud funny, are also moving.
[Read more…] about The Joys and Perils of Writing Humour Part 1 – Fran Hill and Ruth Leigh
Image Credits:–
Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Many thanks to Wendy H Jones for supplying the book cover credits for Creativity Matters: Find Your Passion for Writing.
Many thanks to Gill James at Chapeltown Books for the cover pictures for The Best of CafeLit 10.
Screenshots of Mom’s Favorite Reads, Friday Flash Fiction, and new ACW Flash Fiction Group details were taken by me, Allison Symes.
This summer, I have been kept busy with more Zoom talks. I spoke again to the Dundee City Writers on 19th July and am due to speak to another Scottish group, Byre Writers, right at the end of the month.
This is made possible thanks to the wonders of Zoom and a huge thank you to both writing groups (as I know here and now Byre Writers will make me very welcome!).
I had a lovely time talking about short story writing to Dundee City Writers. I am looking forward to talking about flash fiction writing with the Byre Writers. And there has been plenty else going on too.
[Read more…] about Local Author News – Allison Symes – Crossing Fiction and Non-Fiction
Image Credit: Most pictures created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos, others direct from Pixabay.
I’ve mentioned before that what goes around comes around in writing circles. A great example is my recent interview with Helen Matthews as she wondered about how an author could use a YouTube channel. Now I know the cue for another Chandler’s Ford Today post when I hear one so away we go.
I’ll take a look at how I use my channel and share what other authors do. I hadn’t anticipated using visual media to help my writing but I have found YouTube easier to use than expected and it is now a regular part of my marketing work.
Image Credit: Many thanks to Helen Matthews for supplying the author and book cover pics. Other images either created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos or are direct Pixabay images.
Welcome back, Helen, to Chandler’s Ford Today. This week Helen shares with me what drew her into writing domestic noir, her social media preferences, and reveals her top three tips for writers amongst other topics.
[Read more…] about Small World Syndrome – Part 2 – Helen Matthews
Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
I know, I know – Allison, you’re an editor as well as a writer so you’re going to be biased here.
Yes, guilty as charged, but I will say, even without my official editor’s hat on (naturally it is a red one to match the infamous red pen), I’ve always enjoyed the editing process. Why?
Simply because I’m taking a rough draft (and trust me it is rough!) and am honing it into what I hope will become a published piece of work. Without that honing, this piece of work is going nowhere. I’ve mentioned before nobody but nobody writes a perfect first draft (see what I did there!).
I’ve mentioned adverts before and the best ones are remembered for years. Brand recognition is important.
It is for writers too.
Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Themes, like story ideas, are all over the place. It is a question of having an open enough mind to spot them and then working out which ones you like best. Those are the ones you will put heart and soul into writing up.
I often use writing prompts to generate stories (standard length and flash fiction) and these come in a variety of forms.
Sometimes a prompt for fiction can be adjusted to generate ideas for future blog posts. (Before you ask, this isn’t the case for this one!).
Effectively, every writing competition with a set theme is a writing prompt – the theme is the prompt!
Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
Reflection is an important part of life. We reflect on what we have learned, the mistakes we have made (and hopefully ensure we don’t make again). We reflect on courage and service (as shown by the Remembrance Day events).
A time to reflect makes us take that time out of our busy schedules to ponder on things that are important. Reflection also makes us slow down, also not a bad thing.
Certain life events also give us cause to reflect. And the last year or so has given us all more time than usual to reflect on what is going on (and generally not liking it much).
This week I chat to authors from CafeLit, Bridge House Publishing, and Chapeltown Books about the importance of book covers. The variety of book covers is amazing but every writer has one thing in common. We all want our covers to be the best they can possibly be.
The three questions I set my guests were:-
1. What was the inspiration behind your book cover?
2. What do you think your book cover “says” to a potential reader?
3. Name one top tip for a great book cover you have found works for you.
What kind of stories do you like? I hope the sky is the limit here!
I read a wide range of stories and owe a huge debt to my late mother for encouraging my love of reading at an early age. I wasn’t to know how much that gift of the love of reading (and I do see it as a gift) was going to stand me in good stead for my writing.
As you know, the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me but all good fun and a great learning experience.
