Saturday, 23 April 2016

World Book Night

Last night was amazing. I attended World Book Night at Bideford College Library and got to hear lots of talented authors talk about and read extracts from their new books.

The authors included Victoria Eveleigh, C J Busby and one my favourites Claire Barker. I should mention here that they're all children's authors, but you're never to old to get lost in a children's story.

Claire Barker has series of books called Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog and last night she was signing copies of the second in the series called Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog and The Last Circus Tiger.

I always love meeting Claire. She's super friendly and always has time to talk, so if you're lucky enough to go to one of her events, stop by and say hello!

My mainly happy family with Claire and our signed copy of Knitbone


In addition to purchasing Claire's book, I also got signed copies of Victoria Eveleigh's and C J Busby's new books too. There was also a selection of free books to take on arrival, I think it's fair to say I was in book heaven.

My goodies from World Book Night
If you've never attended a World Book Night, try to get along to one. I'm already looking forward to next years.

Keep writing and keep chasing your dreams!

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Sunday, 20 March 2016

I'm a Student Again!

Hello!

I'm super excited to announce that I'm a student again! Yay! Not bad for a 32 year old.

I graduated from the Open University last year with an English Literature degree and if I'm honest, I missed having a deadline to work towards. They keep me focused and make me finish pieces of work that I'm working on.

I never planned to study again so soon after my degree, but I noticed that the OU had started a Masters degree in Creative Writing. I couldn't resist signing up for this as creative writing was my favourite module in my degree.

Having recently finished a first draft of my first novel I decided to use this masters as platform to move my story forward. I can't wait to get started and I can't help but feel like a teenager again having one of these:

My student card!

I wonder what new stories I will come up with during this course...excites!

Keep writing and keep chasing your dreams!

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Monday, 4 January 2016

Happy New Year

Hello and happy new year to you all!

I have a number of goals that I'd like to achieve this year. I like to list them and then see how many I can tick off my list before the year is up. So below are some of the goals that I'd like to achieve in 2016:

- To get one of my children's picture books published. This is a goal I'll always work towards, plus I love writing children's stories.

- To start editing my NanoWriMo novel 'A Woman's World.' This is going to be a real challenge for me as I've never edited a novel before...I'm up for the challenge!

- I'd like to achieve something musically! After becoming a semi-finalist in the UK Songwriting Contest last year I feel inspired to enter again this year. I might even become a finalist...it could happen!

- I'd also like to try and record some of my songs professionally. Although if I can make it into the studio even once to record an original song I'll consider that an achievement.

So there we have it, my 2016 goals. Lets see how many I can tick off my list! What will you achieve this year?

Keep writing and keep chasing your dreams!

Steph on Twitter

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Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Cry

Hey! It's been a good week since I last posted on here but don't worry, I haven't been doing nothing.
I've been enjoying trying out some different ways of writing. Flash fiction has always interested me so I've had a go at that. The small word count has been a trial so I'm still working on this piece of writing but I will share it with you as soon as it is finished.

I've also been writing some poetry which I haven't done for a while and I've loved getting back into it. I've written three new poems over the last couple of weeks and I thought I'd use this post to share one of them with you. It's called 'Cry' and I'd love to know your thoughts on it.

Cry

They spy
They lie
They watch people die

Don’t let them see you cry

They openly criticize
They’ve evil in their eyes
We’re the ones they despise

A nation grieves and cries

Here to scrutinise
There to patronise
People to terrorise

Still a nation cries

Listen! Let’s unify
Dare to defy
Make a stand, try

Whatever you do, don’t cry

I hope you enjoyed this poem, feel free to leave any comments, I'd love to hear from you and I look forward to sharing a piece of flash fiction with you on my next post.

Keep writing and keep chasing your dreams!

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Friday, 28 August 2015

Writer's block? ...What writer's block?

'You know you're a writer when your imaginary friends won't talk to you anymore.' I love this quote, it sums up writer's block for me anyway! We all hit a brick wall in our writing at one time or another but I'm writing this blog to tell you that there are ways to break through it.

Below is my tip on how I conquer the inevitable writer's block when it hits, It requires many notebooks!


Categorized Notebooks 
OK, so my first piece of advice is to buy a pack of notebooks. I can highly recommend the ones in the photo above from Amazon. They're an ideal size for carrying around and they come in a pack of ten for a bargain price. Check them out!

Once you have your notebooks, start to categorize them. For example I use categories like Characters, Potential Settings, Potential Lines and Story Ideas. I also have other notebooks for Book Review Notes, Morning Pages and Poetry. If you have any other ideas for notebooks I'd love to hear them.

Having done this begin to fill them with as many ideas as possible, even if they sound silly at the time, It's always worth writing them down.

Now you have your notebooks and ideas you never need to be stopped by writer's block again. Start having fun. If you've hit a brick wall, dig into your notebooks and start mixing up your ideas. Choose a potential setting, pick a character to place into your setting and give them your potential lines to say. (If they sound silly even better!) 

If you've filled your notebooks enough, you'll rarely run out of ideas to have fun with. After all we should be enjoying our writing and you never know, what might seem silly to start with could end up inspiring a bigger piece of work.

Keep writing and keep chasing your dreams!



Friday, 21 August 2015

Character Development

Hey, I've got to admit I've had a slow week of writing. Last week I submitted my short story Azaria to the Costa Book Awards competition, and I'm still working away on Moonlight Jasmine for the Dragonfly Tea 'Story in a Teacup' short story competition. 

I'm currently working on a second draft of Moonlight Jasmine but (like all writers) I hit a brick wall this week. To get through the wall I decided to take a break and go back to basics, so I've been working on some character development for Jasmine to see if I can find her voice and make it come across in the story. 

I thought I'd give you some tips on how I approach character development. Personally I think the best way through it is to create a character questionnaire. This questionnaire should include important information about your character. Here's a few things that I include:

For each main character apply the following profile:

Name (and maiden name /previous names /aliases if applicable)
Date of birth
Birth sign
Marital status
Religion
A detailed physical description; height & weight, eyes; hair; special abilities
Parents; names and histories (jobs, education, religion, ethnicity, etc.)
Siblings – names, ages, relationships etc.
Relationship with immediate family members
Education
Job (and previous work history)
Salary
Interests/hobbies
Fears
Prejudices
Desires
Attitudes
Friends
Enemies
Pets
Passions
Disposition (temperament, character, mentality etc.)
Mannerisms
Likes
Dislikes
Any other traits you might want to add
I find that by doing a simple exercise like this, I can find a way through the story again. The idea is not necessarily that you make use of every single detail from the questionnaire in the story, more that you get to know your character(s) in greater depth, and can draw inspiration from the details of their life.

I'm now looking forward to getting stuck into my second draft and finishing the story ready for submission. I hope this blog has helped you out if you're struggling with developing your characters. I always find this exercise very useful.

Good luck and keep chasing your dreams!


Monday, 3 August 2015

Azaria Excerpt

It's a busy time at the moment. This month I have two short story competition deadlines and the first one is this Wednesday, 5th August. It's a piece for the Costa Book Awards short story competition, everything else has gone on hold for the last couple of days to get it finished.

My story is called 'Azaria.' Azaria makes things happens on Earth via his paintings, its the way he interacts with the humans, but the humans are not listening and are doing things their own way. This leads Azaria to decide to send a warning to the world via Daniel and Ruth about a punishment that will befall them if they don't start doing what is right. 

Here's a sneak preview from 'Azaria.'

"...Azaria had just finished painting the last of the trees with a striking lime green. They lined a long straight road that stretched the length of the canvas and gave no clues as to where it might end. Azaria sat back; he tugged on his beard and stroked his chin in deep thought. ‘Hmm!’ he mused. ‘What I need is a messenger.’..."

I hope you like it and are looking forward to reading more. I will keep you informed of any progress during the competition.

Thanks for reading and keep chasing your dreams.