It's sloe time!

As you'll probably be aware if you're a regular reader of the Scribbles, Mr Squidge and I like to make wine. We also make flavoured gin - rhubarb, blackcurrant (my least favourite) and sloe.

Now my first introduction to sloe gin was at father-in-law's house when Mr Squidge and I had been going out for a while. It only ever got served at Christmas (alongside exploding mince pies - I'll tell you that story another time!) so I've always thought of it as a festive drink.

A few years ago, Mr Squidge found some lovely sloes in the hedge when we went for a family bike ride, and he expressed a burning desire to make sloe gin because his dad had moved away and access to sloe gin was limited to visits to Yorkshire at Christmas. So we did - make some, I mean. And it was absolutely gorgeous.

Nearly every year since, we've made at least a litre of the stuff. We have our favourite sloe-picking place (not going to tell you anything other than Quorn, or you'll all be there, stripping the hedge!) as well as a few spots in the field where Bob, our windmill, stands. Although windmill sloes aren't a patch on Quorn sloes...

Anyway, Mr Squidge went on a bike ride the other day and spotted that our favourite sloe hedge had recently been cut back by the farmer. Disaster! There were tons of sloes on the ground, going to waste...

Closer inspection revealed that there were still sloes there - but really high up.

So guess what we did today? Walked across the fields, armed with an aged window pole and a couple of ice cream tubs, to try to pick those high sloes. It was gorgeously sunny and sure enough, we found the sloes hanging like grapes, but too high for me to reach. Even a bit too high for Mr Squidge (who is 6'3" and long-armed!)

Nevertheless, we got almost two tubs full of fruit and set off home.

(Incidentally, I seem to remember last year that a gin company was offering people the opportunity to be given some sloe gin if they picked sloes for the company. The trade off was ridiculous - a teeny tiny bottle in exchange for pounds of sloes. When it's so easy to make yourself, why would you take the sloes to anyone else?)

We felt really awful for a chap we met on the way back. He was after sloes too - had only found a few and they were no bigger than blackberries. I took the lid off the tub to show him ours and his face fell. I mean, it's not a competition as to who gets the biggest sloes, but ours were definitely superior!

Now these sloes are humungous - some of them bigger 

than a 20 pence piece. Almost gobstoppers.

We felt so sorry for him, we told him where we'd picked ours. I'm hoping he managed to reach a few; he wasn't much taller than me!

Back home now and the sloes have been washed and pricked and dropped into a plastic cocktail dispenser.

T

Two litres of gin and 500g of golden caster sugar later, we're on...

Now all I have to do is find somewhere to put it for the next few weeks where it won't be in the way but I remember to give it a daily swirl... Roll on, Christmas!

Den of Writers

A short while ago, I posted a brief mention of my new web-based writing community - Den of Writers - following the demise of the wonderful Cloud.

In the last week or so, many ex-cloudies and others have joined the Den, but we're aware that some cloudies are having problems finding us or logging on. (Advice from Admin:  "go to the register button top LH side of screen on a PC or laptop, on the black border outside the immediate forum screen. That should work." ) 

Because we know that a fair number of cloudies used to follow the Scribbles, consider this blog a call-out to them - and any other authors or would-be authors - who are a bit lost now in the internet ether. Especially if you are reading this and trying to find a place to be with writers where you can get help and advice from your peers, support each other and share celebrations and commiserations with writing friends.

The site itself is constantly being worked on at the moment, as the Admin team discover glitches or make improvements - one of them being that the site is now https rather http. (Which even this techno numpty knows, is a Good Thing, even if she doesn't know what it stands for.) So don't be surprised if things change. And like the cloud, it takes a while to be able to navigate around the different forums, but we're getting there...

To join, follow THIS LINK - there are a plethora of other Writers' Dens or Dens of Writers on the net, but THIS ONE is the one you need. (Yes, I have just posted the link twice. It never hurts to repeat yourself if you're sharing Good Stuff.)

And look out for https://twitter.com/denofwriters if you are a Twitterer - we've already had folks find us that way, too...

So if you fancy being a Denizen, come on over and join the rest of us... I can promise you won't regret it.

Squidge with her TBR pile... 

PS - Book statue is in the grounds of what used to be Newcastle Poly, taken on a weekend away with Mr Squidge a few years back. 

Writing prompts...what floats YOUR boat?

This week was our monthly NIBS meeting, and it was great. I love being the facilitator for this group, because it gives me a chance to trawl through lots of different writing prompt ideas which challenge us and often produce some excellent pieces of work. Although I do have to be careful not to choose only the prompts which appeal to me...

Autumn hues - got to love conkers!

Whenever you look for a prompt - especially if you're choosing it for a group to work from - there are several things you probably need to take into account.

How well do you know the group you're working with? If you know them well, you can look for something suited to their abilities or preferred genres. If you have only a general idea - like when you go into a school, for example, and know only that there will be a wide range of abilities - you might have to have a mixture of prompts, or a prompt with a few extra pointers for those who need a little more direction or lack a wild imagination.

Three things - taken from a bag of many, the weird and wonderful combos
always get younger children fired up 

Are you working with visual or wordy people? Is a picture going to be better than a written starter sentence? (I've found that children work best with visual prompts for example, because not all of them have the same writing or reading ability, but they do still have damn fine story ideas!) Is it worth trying a tactile prompt, using physical objects to awaken the senses?

Paint charts - as good for the pictures of rooms as for the paint names

As someone with a very vivid and visual imagination, I get rather twitchy when I find something that feels too restrictive to use as a prompt. For example, I found a smashing picture prompt on a website, but my interest waned when I saw that the prompt wasn't actually the picture as such, it was the half-page story starter written to go with it. I didn't want to finish off someone else's story, especially not a detective story. I wanted to write my own. I didn't want what I was being offered - and of course, I don't have to use it as given. You can apply the self-edit mantra of 'Accept, Adapt, Reject' just as easily to writing prompts as to a WIP - but straightaway I felt tied to one direction only with this particular prompt (and many others on the same site). I much prefer more open prompts to give myself, and those I'm helping to write, the best possible chance to come up with something they want to write.

My absolute favourite prompt - paint samples.
Be inspired by the colour or their names

You'll know from past blogs that my previous NIBS prompts have included baskets of autumn leaves and seeds; random objects taken from my shelves; CD playlists; photos; Victorian photographs; paint samples... I think you really are only limited by your imagination as to what you can use as a prompt. But the secret in group working is to keep the prompt as big as possible so it's accessible for pretty much.

This particular month, we had two starter exercises, which created a lot of laughter with some really off the wall scenarios. (Wotsit bikini, anyone? Or a war between Wotsits and Pringles?)

NIBS Task 1.
'Due to the incident on November 14th, Wotsits are no longer allowed in the canteen. Thank you for your consideration.'

We had to describe the incident in question - I envisaged a new starter being told to "Stick those Wotsits in the canteen", and the manager coming in later to find them literally stuck to the walls with mayo and ketchup and brown sauce...!

NIBS Task 2.
'There was a list of things that could have gone wrong that day, but ........... was not on it.'

What went wrong? I had finding a pirahna in the bath. Or Hairy Harold coming in for a back wax. *shudder*

NIBS Task 3 - the main event.
We all had to bring a writing prompt taken from the website of Tomi Adeyemi, author of YA fantasy Children of Blood and Bone. A lot of the prompts were quite dark, and not everyone in the group is used to writing dark, but there were some inspired and unsettling pieces. Most startling was that two people used the same prompt and came up with the similar scenario of a childhood memory replaying in the narrator's head - one based on personal experience - and yet they couldn't have been more different in style and approach. (Which is another good thing to do with a prompt - give everyone the same prompt, and see how many different directions it can go to, or not, as the case may be)

Anyway, I chose this one: 'Every night you visit me. Sometimes in dreams. Sometimes in nightmares.' Here's what I ended up with...I think it's more of a poem than a story?

Every night you visit me.
Sometimes in dreams.
Sometimes in nightmares.
My subconscious sees you, my love,
   sees the light and the dark.

I leave the dreams reluctantly,
the ghost of your arms wrapped around me,
the gentlest of kisses weighing heavy on my lips, 
my heart beating a lover's tattoo.

But the nightmares I fight to escape, 
struggling to reach consciousness.
To lie in the darkness panting 
   as though I have run from you for real,
skin tingling from lines you carved in it,
throat tight from the squeeze of your fingers.

Every night you visit me, sometimes in dreams,
   sometimes in nightmares.
Which is our truth, my love?

What kind of prompts do YOU prefer as a writer? Which do you struggle with? And do you have a favourite you'd like to share? You never know, you might have found something that the NIBSers could use!

On a happier note...

Decided that today's blog post is going to be a lot more upbeat than the last one.

For a start, now that it's getting a bit cooler, I can stand to do some hand quilting. There was no way I was going to sit with a quilt over my knee in 30 degrees plus over the summer! Back in October last year, I began to work on a second large quilt - one that reflected the colours of my bedroom. Earlier this year, I bought the wadding and backing fabric for it, and decided to challenge myself NOT to quilt in straight lines, but to do something more random.

Now, my old sewing machine and I did not think we would get on very well with 'free style' quilting, so as on previous quilting projects, I decided to hand quilt - spirals, for a complete contrast to the straight lines of fabric in the quilt top.

In principle, that was fine. Except that I couldn't work on the 'top' side of the quilt because the gorgeous batik fabrics meant I couldn't see to draw properly circular spirals - the first few went decidedly off piste. Added to which, the lovely greeny-turquoise cotton I chose to match the colours didn't always show up against the patterns, making it even harder to see the line and keep things even. So I realised I had to draw and stitch with the plainer underneath fabric facing me to ensure my spirals kept their circularness. (Is that a word? Perhaps not, but you get the gist!)

It's taking flipping ages. Not only is there a double bed sized expanse of fabric to quilt, but I didn't think about how when you stitch a spiral, you start - well, I do - at the outside and work inwards. So effectively, you're not making any more progress than the outermost edge of your spiral each time, but there can still be a lot of stitching within that boundary. And of course you HAVE to fill in the gaps with smaller spirals so there's not lots of empty space...

Yep, teeny tiny stitches in my spirals...

It looks good, but I don't think I'll be finished by this winter. Not with a novel to try and finish as well, vicar interviews to hold, Christmas services to plan (yes, already!) and everything else that my life holds!

The base fabric on the quilt is the exact same colour as the four gallons of blackberry wine we put up this week. We had to bottle the four gallons of gooseberry wine first, to free up the demi johns, and the 'Mighty Fine Blackberry Wine 2018' is blipping away merrily in the kitchen. Which now smells like a brewery...

Blip...blip...blip...

But the best thing to have happened recently is that, after the demise of the Cloud, I have a new writing home. Hooray!

A few cloudies, having heard the rumours about SocialGo, decided to set up a new writing forum. Run by writers, for writers, it would keep all the good things that we loved about the cloud - particularly the community feel - and aim to provide a place for writers to practise their craft, find friends, offer critique, and generally just hang out with other peeps who understand how difficult a writer's life can be. And by complete coincidence, it went live just before the cloud went down...

So that means I am no longer a cloudie. I am, instead, a Denizen, in the Den of Writers. It's taking a while to find my way round, especially as the site is still developing and being tweaked, but already it is buzzing with activity and home to faces both old and new, many of them cloudies. It has certainly taken the edge off the loss of the cloud, and fills me with hope for the future.

So if you fancy joining me in the Den (when I'm not writing or wine making or quilting or doing any of the other things I listed above!), pop on over and register. I'll see you there.

The end of an era

No, I'm not quitting blogging. Although I admit, I have been very lax at getting blogs written recently. I will endeavour to do better!

The title of this blog refers to the Word Cloud. Many of you know that I have been a member of this online writing community for a number of years. It was a fabulous place, where writers could find other writers to talk through the technical stuff, get feedback on their writing, make wonderful writing friends, and ultimately celebrate and commiserate with each other on their writing journeys.

You'll notice, perhaps, that I wrote 'was a fabulous place'.

Because the Cloud is no more.

SocialGo have removed support for whichever version of their software the cloud used, and two or three days ago, the cloud disappeared. There were rumours about SocialGo pulling the plug, but no firm dates. I managed to save some of the lovely comments I'd received about some short stories I'd written, but other than that... I couldn't face trawling through years' worth of written material. So I left everything. And hoped.

But to no avail. There is now only a blank screen - and no cloud.

It's disappearance takes with it probably hundreds of blogs. Some which made me laugh, some which made me cry. Some recounted the long, hard road to publication. Some existed to provoke heated discussion about all manner of topics. Some told deeply personal experiences. And others were written purely for fun.

Also lost in the digital ether are the seeds of several published and best selling novels. There are even competition winning short stories, or opening chapters, or flash fiction.

There were conversations between friends. Photographs of memorable moments. Links to useful writing related sites.


All of it has gone - in the blink of an eye.

There is a glimmer of hope... But at the moment, I'm feeling too sad about the cloud. I'll tell you about the new place tomorrow.