New Year, new writing

At our recent NIBS meeting, we took the theme of 'New'.

We didn't do New Year Resolutions, but we kicked off by writing down what we'd have if we could have one new thing for the house and one luxury for ourselves.

Mine were a new lounge carpet - it's so threadbare, you can see the plasticky backing and even when the cat walks over it, you get this funny crackling noise where the backing's exposed - and a housekeeper, so I don't have to worry about the ironing or cleaning or washing up or cooking, but could just get on with writing!

Next, we looked at new resources. I found a site called Reddit Writing Prompts, which has the wildest and wackiest selection of story-starters and prompts you ever did see. I think folk can join and send them in - there are hundreds! I picked a few and we had a go at writing something inpsired by them.

And finally...have you read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? It's written by Ransom Riggs and I read it non-stop, in 24 hours. The reason we used this is because the book (and subsequent novels after) use some really weird and wonderful vintage photographs around which the story was shaped. I found the mix to be unusual and yet perfect for this story, so I did a bit of googling and found a few strange vintage pics of my own. (If you do this for yourself, be warned - there are some VERY strange and disconcerting photos out there. Especially when you take into account the Victorian thing of having family portraits taken with your dead relatives...Anyway, to continue).

We spent some time talking about the pictures, devising characters and what particular 'peculiarities' they would have, in the style of Ransom Riggs' characters. There were some interesting ideas, and we tried to put them together into little stories. Not sure we pulled it off as well as Ransom Riggs...

Have any of you tried anything new in your writing so far this year?