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the writing journey

New Year, New Writing Hopes

December 27, 2024 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

Image Credits:   Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes, as were the two photos from The Hayes, Swanwick from 2024.

I know it is a little early but Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2025 proves to be a good year. It would be nice to have less grim news but I think that may be something I will have to put on a wish list somewhere.

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Tags: am reading, am writing, Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group, editing, evaluating your writing, Happy New Year, having a writing agenda, new writing year, story competition judging, The Writers' Summer School - Swanwick, the writing journey, workshops

Journeys

May 17, 2024 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

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

By the time this goes live on Chandler’s Ford Today, I shall be packing up after a lovely holiday in Scotland with my husband and Lady and preparing to have a long journey home again. So with that in mind, I thought I would look at journeys in writing.

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Tags: am writing, creative writing, journeys in fiction, journeys in non-fiction, the character journey, The Lord of the Rings, the writing journey

Positives and Negatives

December 30, 2022 By Allison Symes 8 Comments

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

It’s almost impossible at this time of the old year to resist looking back and weighing up what kind of twelve months it has been. The days and months of the calendar never change (well, bar leap years I guess and even then only by one day!), yet our attitudes towards the passing of time can vary so much.

I must admit this year has struck me as a sad one. I’ve known several friends lose loved ones and I was deeply saddened by the death of the Queen. I was (and remain) saddened (and angered) at the war on Ukraine. So on the face of it, 2022 has not been a great year (and we thought 2020 was bad!).

What I find helps is remembering feeling like this is normal. Every year has its ups and downs though in some years, it is harder work to recall the positives!

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Tags: negatives, New Year, old year, positives, review, setting goals, social media scams, the writing journey, writing life

Out with the Old?

December 31, 2021 By Allison Symes 2 Comments

Image Credits:- Video and  most photos created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Other photos from Pixabay/Pexels. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes. Images of Wendy H Jones and Creativity Matters: Find Your Passion for Writing kindly supplied by Wendy H Jones for an earlier CFT post.

Happy New Year!

https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Happy-New-Year-2022.mp4

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Tags: am writing, auditing your year, creative writing, embracing change, old ways of doing things, remembering the positives, reviewing, technology, The Writing and Marketing Show, the writing journey, Wendy H Jones

Back From Brechin

December 3, 2021 By Allison Symes 2 Comments

Image Credits:-
Some pictures are from Pixabay. Others are created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Many thanks to Sarah Archibald for the Festival related photos.
Many thanks to my guests from the Association of Christian Writers for supplying their fab author photos and book cover pictures. Naturally I took my own pictures (though will credit Adrian Symes for my author photo. It is tricky doing that one yourself!).

It was a pleasure to be a part of the Brechin/Angus Book Festival from 19th to 21st November 2021. The event also formed part of Book Week Scotland.

Last year, I went to the Festival thanks to Zoom but it was lovely to be there in person this time, my first “big” writing event since before lockdown.

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Tags: Allison Symes, am reading, am writing, Association of Christian Writers, book event, books, Brechin/Angus Book Festival, fiction, flash fiction, genre fiction, memoir, narrative non-fiction, non-fiction, talk, the writing journey, workshop

Reflections

May 21, 2021 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

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).

 

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Tags: Association of Christian Writers, Authors Electric, blogging, Cafelit, Chandler's Ford Today, character studies, creative writing, discovering flash fiction, drafting, More Than Writers, reflection, story. point of change, the writing journey

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