Apologies, Excuses and New Beginnings

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Henry Ford

Ok so firstly I want to apologise for my prolonged absence, I have been away for too long and have missed reading all your lovely blogs and writing mine.

Now for the excuses (for whilst they are true, excuses are nevertheless all they are): 

I started a new job, which, whilst exciting and challenging, completely exhausted me for the first few months whilst I got settled in.

Christmas and New Year brought family from abroad followed by a visit to sunnier climes to see more family

Then on 11^th January 2012 my cousin Serena died unexpectedly aged 25.   

Now I am moving my focus back to writing and blogging and writing and drawing and writing.

Having said that, during my online absence I have not been completely quiescent.

I have written and illustrated two picture books*, have another twisting and twirling and growing in my head and I am looking forward to spending time scribbling lots down much more regularly.  Following that I joined a critique group, which I am looking forward to participating in and am now a fully paid-up member  of SCBWI!

I have also had my first commission – although it was not for writing! 

My friend @snipsnaphappy asked me to do an illustration for a poster to advertise her new knitting group and this was the image she chose:

So I hope to be online a lot more, catch up on all that you have been doing and start writing here again.

To new, more intelligent beginnings as a result of failing to prioritise xx

*Not submitted yet, just written and drawn!

Anonymous asked: Hello, my name is Michelle. I wasn't able to comment on your third campaign post. I wanted to let you know that you're moving on to the finals! Congratulations!

Hi Michelle,

I am sorry you weren’t able to comment - I think there are some issues with my blog in IE and I am working to resolve them.

Either way, that is great news - thank you so much!  :)

Final Challenge - Show Not Tell

The last few weeks have been hectic, starting a new job and settling into a completely new routine.  I apologise for being so absent and will be visiting everyone and resuming normal blogging soon!

In the meantime, it is the third and final challenge for the Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign.  The rules are:

Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

that it’s morning,

that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach

that the MC (main character) is bored

that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting

that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: “synbatec,” “wastopaneer,” and “tacise.”   (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).

I did my best… I hope you like it!

Digging.  He can’t remember ever doing anything else; even his blisters have blisters.  In reality it has not been that long, but the early morning light is making it harder.  Turning a luminescent pink, the sand is beautiful except that now he can actually see it caving into the hole: he has to dig for twice as long to go half as deep.  The monotonous work allows his mind to focus on the puzzle. 

It started with a map he was given earlier on, with the strange inscription: Tacise wastonpaneer: Synbatec.  Hours of playing with the words trying to decipher them, he finally uncovered their hidden meaning: it was a code, which he solved with the accompanying magical ring.  

In a top secret case: Awny Beast. 

What was the awny beast?  What would it do?  More importantly, could it help him to complete his Empire?  Gulls screamed as they fought over bait dropped by fisherman long at sea.  He paused to thank his lucky stars the hole was upwind. 

A cold sensation tickling his toes alerted him to the incoming tide – he needed to hurry.  He dug with renewed vigour: surely he would find the case soon; it had to be there!  As he began to lose hope in his quest, his spade hit something solid.  He had found it!  He reached into the hole, pulled out the wooden box and opened it. 

Inside was the Awny Beast!  Dragging him up the beach by his ear, he ran to his sandcastle and sat him on top.  As he ran off his mum called out, “don’t leave Beardy Bear there honey – teddy bears and sand do not mix!”  He didn’t hear; he was already galaxies away on another adventure, arm bands glowing orange in the sun.

Imago: an adult insect or the retained idealised concept of a loved one formed in childhood?

Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word ― Julio Cortázar

The time has arrived to attempt the Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign’s second challenge!  The challenge is to:

Write a blog post in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should:

- Include the word “imago” in the title

- Include the following 4 random words: “miasma,” “lacuna,” “oscitate,” “synchronicity,”

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional and included in the word count), make reference to a mirror in your post.

For those who want an even greater challenge (optional), make your post 200 words EXACTLY!

Before I attempt to meet all the criteria, I just wanted to apologise for being so quiet this week, it has been a bit manic with a change in my day job and I hope to catch up with you all in the next few days.

So here goes, my attempt to incorporate random words into my blog post!

I love words – how they evolve and how we can use them.  So there is some synchronicity with this challenge as I had been planning to write about them for a while. 

Words allow us to apply alliteration, play with puns and dabble with double-entendres. 

When is a door not a door?  When it’s ajar…

Add to this onomatopoeia, homographs, homonyms, malapropisms, tautology, pleonasm, tongue-twisters, rhyming slang, spoonerisms and mirror-image palindromes and we are starting to see some of the fun we can have with language and words. 

A dictionary can be essential when navigating the miasma of misunderstanding that might surround words and meanings.  They also consider neologisms: new words entering common use but not yet accepted into mainstream language.  Did you know that, on average, 14.7 new words are created every day?  That’s one every 98 minutes!  Reportedly, the Oxford English Dictionary added 45,437 words to its latest edition.

The lacuna in this post?  There are many, which are due, ironically, to word limitations.  However I hope this brief look at words has made you oscitate in wonder not boredom.  With a bit of luck it will inspire you to play with existing words and create your own.

Bobard ou pas bobard?*

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t - Mark Twain

A game-show was recently broadcast on French radio where the host would give a situation to the contestants and ask “Bobard ou pas bobard?"  Bobard means Old Wives’ Tale in French and the contestants would have to guess whether or not the given situation was true. 

It got me thinking about how easy it is to tell the difference between fact and fiction, truth and tall tales, reality and imagination.  Where do great stories come from?  Are they inspired by truth?  Do they have any truth to them at all?  More importantly, does it make a difference? 

Take Little Red Riding Hood.  We all know her story.   The Brothers Grimm are famous for writing it but it actually dates back to the 14th century, where French peasants told the story of the False Grandmother.  Was there once a girl who got lost in the woods?  More plausible is that she was created to stop children from straying too far: if you wander off you might get eaten by a wolf!

Compare this with the lovable Mog stories by Judith Kerr.  All of these were inspired by the real life Mog and, later, by the antics of her real life kittens.  Kerr also based Mog’s house and family on her own house and family. 

Then there is Mo Willems’ Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale.  This is a story about a little girl who cannot speak but needs to communicate something vital to her dad.  Did this actually happen to Mo and his daughter?  Perhaps it was his niece or nephew?  Maybe he heard it from a mother at school or perhaps it never happened at all and he made the whole story up. 

Is any one of these stories better than the others?  Does the fact that Kerr’s Mog stories stem from reality make them more timeless and loved than the potentially true Knuffle Bunny or the fictional Red Riding Hood?  Could you tell from reading them whether they were based in fact?  Does inspiration need to come from real life events to make the story timeless? 

I think not.  More important is that children relate to the tale being told: trying to get Dad to understand that Knuffle Bunny is missing or watching Red work out that her grandmamma has very big teeth!  I believe that all good stories are true to their audience whilst they are being told, regardless of whether or not they are inspired by reality.

As long as they capture the imagination and captivate the reader it makes no difference whether stories originate from actual occurrences or pure flights of fancy and stray wanderings of the imagination.  Many stem from a mixture of the two: an event is twisted and turned and tumbled in the author’s imagination until the story is created.

My inspiration comes from everywhere and anywhere.  Sometimes a snippet of conversation I overhear at a bus stop, other times something that has happened to me.  Often my stories come from dreams I have had or random thoughts or phrases I have swirling and twirling and curling through my brain.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Do you bring your everyday life into your stories?  Are they utterly fictitious and built up in imaginary lands inside your head?  Do you think it makes a difference?  Bobard ou pas bobard?

*Merci à mes parents pour avoir inspiré cette question

Tag! You’re it…

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored - Aldous Huxley

I got tagged by Janina Williams to divulge ten random and unknown facts about myself.  So here they are…

1. My answer to the age-old question “what super power would you want?” is a bit unconventional.  No flying or invisibility for me.  Oh no.  I would love to be able to look at a building and know the history of it: who built it, who lived there, what they were like, what happened to them.  I find buildings and, more specifically, their history and the history of the people who lived and worked in them fascinating (although I have little to no interest in architecture).

2. Swimming is my favourite way to exercise and butterfly is my swimming-style of choice.

3. I love to bake, however most of the time they never see the light of day as I eat more of the raw ingredients than I ever end up baking! 

4. I have very selective will power.  If there is a sealed packet of biscuits or chocolate in my house, my will power is very strong and I won’t open them.  Once they are open, however, my will power disappears along with the seal and I will eat the lot without blinking!*

5. At school I did better in French than I did in English.

6. I like to think of myself as being quite crafty and try and make new things.  To date I have made a knitted sheep, some of Snipsnaphappy ‘s Matryoshka dolls and half a t-shirt and I have a huge bag of scraps of fabric and wool under a chair in my living room waiting for my next project.

7. Every year since I was a teenager I have always tried to watch the World’s Strongest Man Competitions – I think it is amazing watching people excel in ways that 99.8% of the population couldn’t even dream of doing.  They pull trucks that weigh two tonnes people!**

8. I absolutely adore snow but absolutely detest being cold. 

9. When I was 9 it became compulsory to join the school band.  We told our teacher which instrument we wanted to play, were given a trial and then instruments were assigned to us.  I chose the drums – I thought they were cool and by playing them I would be cool too.  I was allocated the flute: apparently I have no sense of rhythm or timing.

10. I am extremely superstitious.  I never walk under ladders and I always touch wood to prevent something bad from happening.  

So that’s it, ten things you may not have known about me.  Thank you Janina for tagging me – it was fun trying to think of things that might be interesting to people (I hope I succeeded!)  She has revealed her own ten facts here.

Now it’s my turn to tag some bloggers:

Isabella, Catherine Johnson, Brittany, Susanna Leonard Hill and Ali (aka SnipSnapHappy) you’re it!

Stacy S Jensen, Dawn M Hamsher and Rosalind Adam are also part of my group and have already played (much more succinctly than me!) so go check them out too.

*Having said that, if I have baking ingredients I will use them regardless of whether they are sealed or not.  Chocolate chips do not last long in my house!

**I would also like to point out that WSM is very different to body building competitions, which are all about very muscley men wearing nothing but some oil and a thong, posing in unusual positions to show off their bodies.  I want to stress that I have never had any interest in body building. 

The Door Swung Open…

A bad review is like baking a cake with all the best ingredients and having someone sit on it - Danielle Steel

Goodness how time flies!  This week has been full of finishing my WIP, illustrating it and packaging it up with a beautiful ribbon, ready to be presented to its hopefully eager recipient.

Added to which, I am changing jobs!  So it is going to be busy busy over the next few weeks but I will be back and reading blogs much more regularly than I have been this week :)

So, to the point of this blog.  Rachael Harrie has set her first challenge as part of her Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign. 

The challenge is to:

Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count.

If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: “the door swung shut.” (also included in the word count)

For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!

Never one to resist a challenge, I have opted to write exactly 200 words, beginning with The Door Swung Open and ending The Door Swung Shut.  My entry is below.  Do please go read everyone else’s entries here, they are all wonderful!

The Unexpected Delivery

The door swung open, Neville walked in and stopped in his tracks.  Everyone had stopped writing and was grinning at him: even his teacher, Mr Ross.

His gaze travelled from face to face, trying to determine exactly what they found so amusing, but their expressions conveyed nothing.  Nothing but those idiotic grins.

Finally Mr Ross pointed at the three enormous cardboard boxes in the middle of the room.  Neville walked over and saw they were addressed to him.  He looked quizzically at Mr Ross then ripped them open.

Inside were packets of cake mix.  Green cake mix.  With purple icing.  Hundreds of them.

Who would send Neville cake mix?  His birthday wasn’t for another 37 days!

Then he saw a letter.  It explained that the cake was from the company he had written to last month as part of his English assignment - they were so impressed with him they decided to send their cake mix not only to Neville but to everyone in his school.

He threw packets to all his friends (and one for Mr Ross).  Then they all set off, shouting and celebrating, to deliver the rest around the school.  Their cheering faded as the door swung shut.

All’s well that ends well

It is much easier to begin than to end - Plautus

Do you ever have that gut-wrenching feeling when you are writing: you know your story is a good one but you just cannot make it work?  Either it doesn’t flow properly or the ending (those horribly hard to write endings!) doesn’t resolve things in exactly the right way and, for the life of you, you cannot see how to make it right?

That has happened to me recently. 

I looked at my story upside down and inside out.  Backwards and forwards.  The more I looked, the less I could make sense of it.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I left it.

I ignored its cries to finish it.

I put it in the corner underneath a copy of “War and Peace” and tried to forget about it.

I tried to write something else, develop one of my new ideas.

I read “A Little History of the World” by E.H. Gombrich.*

I worked some more on my new idea - I could really have something here.

I caught up on some correspondence (I had been meaning to write to my long-lost great aunt in Timbuktu for a long time, I was sure my letter would reach her.)

I drew a treasure map: surely this would come in handy some day?

I learned as much as I could about axolotls.  They truly are fascinating creatures, did you know they can regenerate severed limbs? 

Then it happened.  At 2am I was awakened by my ending.  It was smacking me in the head trying to get me to wake up and acknowledge it.

Now I was faced with every writer’s dilemma: do I get up and start writing, or do I go back to sleep and hope that I remember it when I wake up!

I opted for something in the middle, scribbling my new ending in my notebook in the dark.  Thankfully, when I woke up I could just about decipher my near-illegible scrawl and my story was finished!

How do you knock your story into place when it is not going where you want it to?  Do you keep working on it or do you try and ignore it so the ending will come to you when you least expect it?  What tricks do you use to try and coax your endings?

*Brilliant, well worth a read!

Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign

I have just joined Rachel Harrie’s third Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign!

She describes it as:

“a way to link writers, aspiring authors, beginner bloggers, industry people, and published authors together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms”

I only found out about the second campaign after it was fully subscribed and so I have been patiently waiting for the third to start - and now it has!!!

The campaign will run until 31st October and you can sign up anytime before 31st August.  I am very excited about being involved and am looking forward to meeting lots of new people :)

Thanks for organising Rachel!

WriteOnCon

I am late in posting but wanted to tell those of you who don’t yet know (I was amongst your numbers until a bit earlier today) that next week is WriteOnCon - a fabulous writing conference for childrens’ book writers.

It was started last year by these lovely ladies and is full of information, authors, agents, publishers and all people writerly.  I am very excited!

Running from 16th August to 18th August it is a totally free interactive conference - there is much more information about it here.  I have now signed up and would strongly encourage you to do so as well.

I was completely oblivious last year and am very much looking forward to dropping in this year (unfortunately I will be at work for a lot of it but will be visiting every night!)

In the meantime I have been working hard to finish my work in progress by my early September deadline and also submitted my manuscript to Mary Kole at kidlit.com for a critique following her picture book webinar, which is exciting but scary!

I hope all is well with you and hope to catch you over at WriteOnCon in a couple of days.  Here is some more information about the live events.