Squidge's Writing Prompt #1

I realised I haven't written much about writing recently. You can thank CV-19 and my current fixation on knitting socks for that!

However, I have been posting prompts in our NIBS (writing group) facebook page as we can't meet in person under current UK restrictions. And there have been some surprising results. I received two emails out of the blue from folk who either don't or can't attend meetings due to distance; they were sharing what they had written as a result of the very first prompts I posted. They were lovely pieces, too - bowled me over!

Now, although there are lots and lots of prompts out in the world already, (just search 'writing prompts for...' and you'll see what I mean!) I've decided that I will start a habit of posting a weekly writing prompt here on the Scribbles. I will endeavour to try to write something myself based on it and share it with you. There's no pressure to share what you write yourself unless you want to (if you do, either post a short piece (200 words max) in the comments below or post it to your own blog if you have one and paste a link below) however it would be good to know if you find the prompts helpful.

Here goes...have fun.

Squidge's Scribbles Writing Prompt #1

There were two stark choices. 

One : open the box. 

Two : don't.

Bits and bobs of news

Been a busy few weeks with family and church 'stuff', so here's a few bits and bobs you might find interesting!

Tilda.

The launch went well - Tina was a fabulous host at the Bookshop, and even got me involved in recording a piece about Tilda for the Merton Talking News October Magazine... I pop up at around 7 minutes into the recording.

I had some lovely surprises in that folk popped into the shop I hadn't expected to see at all, and it was lovely to spend the day chatting to old friends and new about all sorts of things. Course, I sold a few copies as well...

If you read Tilda, do please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads; word of mouth is the best form of recommendation, and there are some banging reviews up already. (Five stars!)

Family.

We've been down to Bristol to fit secondary glazing in Squidgeling J's flat, because the old sash windows were so drafty. My cardmaking skills of days gone by came in useful, especially when we had to peel the backing off the double sided sticky tape. All went well until Mr Squidge fitted some shims to prevent the plastic being ripped off when the windows were opened; when he went to test it, he realised he couldn't.

We'd forgotten that once the plastic was on and shrunk, there was nothing to hold onto to open the window! An emergency visit to Wilkos and three handles later... Voila! Opening windows.

Combined with the new boiler that's been fitted in the flat, Squidgeling J is now toasty in time for the winter.

We also went up to Manchester in the same week to see Squidgeling T - he came home with us for the weekend. As is the way of things, we didn't see too much of him as he caught up with friends at home, but it was good to hear about how his course is going. He's not developed a 'rock star' look yet, but there was passing mention of tattoos and piercings... *gulp*

Word Art.

At NIBS in September, the group worked on an 'I remember' exercise focused around people we had loved and lost, with a view to turning it into an artwork for a community project exhibition at church called 'The Art of Remembrance'. On large sheets of paper, we wrote some of the words and phrases we'd generated, often with a more artistic arrangement, and then the large sheets were chopped up.

Well, this week, I've been helping Jacqui Gallon, the artist who is facilitating the exhibition and associated workshops, to sew the paper onto fabric to create the final artwork.

A DIY MA in Creative Writing.

I've taken the decision to work on a course designed by the amazing Andrew Wille with a group of Denizen friends. It's basically everything that goes into a formal MA course, but you can work through it at your own pace. We've tried to structure it a bit, timewise, and I've attempted a couple of exercises. Only problem is that I don't seem to have much writing time... 

So, to that end, I've just bought myself an academic diary to try to plan my writing a bit better. The 'free' days I had hoped were going to be writing opportunities are getting eaten up fast by lots of different things. And yet developing writing practise is a big part of the MA - it almost feels like I'm failing before I've even started. I've been here before though, when life gets in the way and writing's always - ALWAYS - the first thing to get shoved onto a back burner. I would do NaNoEdMo again, but I'd have to set myself a very, very low word count!!

Anyway, I'll stop rattling on here, and get down to writing up an overheard dialogue exercise... If only I hadn't been so interested in eavesdropping, I might have written down more of the conversation!

See you later, Scribblers.

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!

Writing 'energy'

I am an author. I write.

But I'm not very disciplined, so I write when I can in the day, and try to write every day, even if it's not on the current novel.

However, I've noticed that I only seem to have a certain amount of 'writing energy'. By which, I mean the amount of time I can write for without my brain getting fuddled and needing a break on some other creative project.

That's part of the reason I've not been blogging so much recently. It's not that I've not been up to anything - far from it! Writing-wise, I've been putting together the text for a website, dealing with the history of Charnwood International camps (I wrote a couple of blogs about it after Charnwood 2016). I've also been editing Rurik-Reeka-Tilda for the umpteenth time - a task I set myself voluntarily which has now become rather more urgent as I've had some interest from a publisher and need to get it finished. Add to that sorting out NIBS writing exercises, tweaking some short stories for a couple of competitions, oh, and everything else that makes for a busy Squidge household, and the energy to write is spread too thin and becomes rapidly depleted.

I know it's all getting too much when I start to 'flit' from one thing to another, not really making headway on anything. 'Jack of all trades, master of none', isn't that how the saying goes?

What should be my priority? If I don't crack on with the current WIP, I won't have anything else to publish (fingers crossed). If I don't enter comps, I won't stand any chance at all of maybe, possibly, getting placed. And if I don't get the history finished, I'm letting someone down who's relying on me.

So, if I'm a little quieter on here over the next couple of weeks, you'll at least know it's because my writing energy is needed elsewhere, and not that I've given up blogging! Normal service should resume about Mid-March...

And just to prove I do do things other than write, here's a pic of me and Mr Squidge (along with George the dog and his owner!), planting hedgerow in a field. Cos, y'know, sometimes you just have to be doing something different...

NIBS - 'First'

We had a full house for NIBS this week, our first meeting of 2018! So it seemed only appropriate to have a theme of 'First' for the evening.

We kicked off with a short warm-up, of three words. The words could be taken as three nouns, or two nouns and a verb, as one could've been used for either.

Some great hilarity ensued, as folks produced either multiple sentences for different selections of words, or produced a short section of text based on just one.

My own offering is what follows, based on 'Ghost, Wheelbarrow, Watch.'

The ghost of the first gardener kept watch over the wheelbarrow. That's what they told me.

I didn't believe it of course, not until the day I ran it into the potting shed wall and put a great dint in it. The wheelbarrow I mean, not the wall. 

Course, I left it. Was only a wheelbarrow after all.  

Nothing went right the rest of that day. There was compost spoiled, pots broken, and stems snapped.

"You've got to knock the dent out," Seb told me. "The First Gardener (and yes, he gave it capital letters) won't let you get on until you do."

"Rubbish," I muttered, and ignored the dent. Up until I cut my finger for the umpteenth time taking apple cuttings. I threw down the knife. "Right, have it your way." I stomped over to the wheelbarrow and did what I could. It wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but I gave the wheel a drop of oil to make up for it.

"Will that do you?" I asked no-one in particular. "Will you let me work in peace tomorrow?" 

If I believed in ghosts, I'd have said that someone breathed 'that'll do' in my ear.

But I don't. And they didn't.

I've never run the wheelbarrow into any walls since, though.

The only problem with having a full house of eight members meant that the feedback took a bit longer than normal, so we launched ourselves into the second task as quickly as we could, whilst still allowing enough time to share whatever we were going to write.

I'd found out and scanned a selection of first pages from novels at home, trying to cover as many different approaches to openings as I could. I asked the NIBSers to choose one, read it, and at a point of their choosing, continue writing the story... One sentence was the minimum requirement.

Unfortunately, I'd given the group far too much choice of potential text to use; I tend to be quite impulsive in my own choices when doing these types of activity, and can make a decision quickly. But others within the group had a much harder job deciding because I'd overwhelmed them with too much choice. Eventually, everyone picked something, and silence descended as we scribbled. (As a result, our February meeting theme will be 'One' - a single picture to provide inspiration AND cut out choice completely!)

The results from these continued first pages were amazing. Some remained in the idea stage, because of course we have planners as well as pantsers among our merry little band, and although the planners knew what they wanted to achieve, they hadn't written anything 'finished' to read back. Those who are pantsers produced some fabulous work, very emotive in some cases and full of laughter in others. I would have to say that the quality of several of the pieces were worthy of submission to competitions, and I told their authors so!

If we'd had more time, we'd have tried to work on another short piece, based around first prize, first glance, first love, first person or first encounter. But we didn't, so I offered it as homework to anyone who wanted to scribble a bit more between meetings.

Anyway, here's what I wrote, based on the opening sentence in my friend Jody-Klaire's book, The Empath.

'My problem is that I know too much.' That's why they're after me, sir. I tried not to see, tried not to listen, but when you need to light the fires, you have to go into the bedrooms while they're sleeping.

If they didn't want anyone to find out, they should've been more careful. She should've woken him early, pushed him out from under the bedclothes to get dressed in his night-chilled shirt while she stayed warm in the love nest they'd created.

I promised not to tell, I did. And I wouldn't, cos I've seen with my own eyes what they do the ordinary folk caught up in a lovemeet. Effra knows what they'd do to those as important as the Chairman of Elders and the White Woman.

No, I wouldn't tell. But they woke, and seemed to think I might, so they gave me a headstart. Until the sun rises, that's all the time they gave me before they started after me. When they catch me, they'll silence me.

So excuse me sir, but I have to run... 

I feel quite fired up about writing at the moment - long may my enthusiasm continue! And these two bits of flash feel like a good start to the new writing year.

When NIBS met Trefoil Guild

Last night, I did an author talk - not at a school, but to  the local Trefoil Guild.

I was a guider with the Guide Association for twenty years from the age of eighteen - in fact that's where the name Squidge came from. The Trefoil Guild began as a way of old guides keeping in contact with their units, and has grown and developed to become a section in its own right within the Guiding Movement.

The Trefoil Guild in our District meet at the same place we meet for NIBS (the writing group). NIBS often meets on the same date upstairs, while they meet downstairs.

Because I know many of the current Guild, I was asked to go a Trefoil meeting to tell them about my writing. It just so happened that the date they requested was also a NIBS night, so we combined the two...

It's the first time I've given a talk to a social group. I decided early on that it wasn't just going to be me, talking. I would make Trefoil work, too.

After the 'this is me and how I got to where I am' talk, we tried a few exercises.

Trefoil Guild in their red and beige uniforms

I started with 'I remember...' about school days. As most of the ladies are older, their memories included things like travelling on the utility bus with its wooden seats, but there were other memories that could have been set in any school today. Like being the model that the class painted on a 9th birthday, or going into assembly in alphabetical order. But it warmed everybody's pens and pencils up...

I demonstrated my story bag items, and shared a few of the ideas that the children I've worked with have come up with in the past; the flame-farting dragon who loved baked beans went down well.

There's always a rainbow sock in the bag...but only one!

And then...you guessed it...paint colours! On one table we had a 'Cup of custard' to go with the raisinless 'Raisin Pudding'. On another, a spurned woman burnt the orchid (Burnt Orchid) sent by her lover. 'Benjamin's Buttons' were always green, but he hated green. And 'Bavarian Hops' was going to be developed into an Alpine dance...

Pens, pencils and brain cells hard at work!

The ladies certainly seemed to enjoy themselves, and it gave me the confidence that even in a shorter, evening social meeting, you can still share your writing journey and get people writing for themselves and having fun with words.

And look what they gave me as a thank you - a beautiful orchid, because they'd heard I liked them and mine were often in flower (unlike my mum, whose orchid flowers die back and from then on only send up leaves...)

NIBSing in August

Our most recent meeting was a little thinner for numbers (holiday time!) but was no less rich in material created because of it. So for your enjoyment, here are two ideas for writing inspiration - and two pieces of flash.

One of our activities was based on a book I'd read on my holiday - The Keeper of Lost Things, a stunning debut by Ruth Hogan. I'm not going to say much about the book - other than 'READ IT!' - because it is a beautiful story, and as an author I was struck by how cleverly it was constructed. Dotted throughout the book are the stories behind the lost things, and it was this idea - of writing the story behind the lost object - that I thought we could use as inspiration.

So, as is often the way before a NIBS session, I ran round the house collecting things that people might have lost.

I chose a button badge with 'I read, therefore I am' written on it and came up with this...


     "Ow!"
     She jerked her hand and the last book out of her bag and stared at the bead of red on her finger. Then she almost threw the book onto the pile and sucked her stabbed digit, tasting metal and salt.
     Perhaps she ought to wear the badges on her lapels instead, like most other people did? Except that this was her book bag, and she always used it to bring her books back to the library. It wouldn't be the same without the many book-related badges rattling gently on the fabric.
     She checked her finger. Still there. Not bleeding any more. So which of the badges was it this time? She reached for the bag and-
     "Hullo, Jean. What you been reading this week, then?"
     Her cheeks glowed. Frank Abbott was talking to her. "Um..."
     "I had a rather tasty little gothic horror to keep me up at night, but I see you're a bit more of a fantasy buff?"
     They both glanced down at the pile of G.R.R.R. Martin.
     "Um...yes...I..."
     Frank took her elbow in one hand and grabbed the straps of her bag with the other, dragging it across the counter. It snagged, momentarily, and there was a metallic 'ping' but neither of them heard it.


Our second exercise used paint charts. No, not the individual colours like I've used before (to create flash like this one called Planet Fever). Whole paint charts, which double up as inspiration if you can't think of colour combos for your own rooms.

Because there are so many pictures of rooms, decorated all sorts of ways, I challenged the NIBSers to find a picture of a room and write about it. There were some smashing pieces as a result - in one, an author described a particular shade of red as 'Bad Day at the Abbattoir' - which gave me a whole new idea for rewriting the paint names as something more realistic. Like a shade of green - 'The Morning After'. Or blue - 'Frostbitten Toes'.

Anyway, in the paint books were quite a few studies.

Study? Or writing corner?

Now 'study' to me, is a bit different to a mere writing space, and in my head, drums up a totally different image to the photo - like the one above - that I was looking at. Most showed writing spaces rather than studies, but it set me thinking about exactly how small a space would you need to claim it as a study...?

   "And here's the study." Andy flung the door open. Or he would've done, except he remembered - too late - that the door opened outwards, onto the landing.
   There was an embarrassing wait while he asked his clients to back up a bit... a bit more... I think one of you needs to step into the bathroom, please, thank you... and finally he could pull open the door.
    Mr and Mrs-to-be surged forward and there was a three-way shuffle while Andy manoeuvered himself into the bathroom to allow them to stand, shoulder-to-shoulder, in the narrow doorway.
    "It's a bit small," Mr said.
    "Well, you don't need lots of space to be sat down really, do you?" Andy pulled his mouth into what he thought was an encouraging smile. "Notice the high level shelving for all your books and papers and pencil pots." He watched the backs of their heads as they lifted their eyes to the ceiling.
    "In any other house that'd be called a picture rail," Mr muttered, taking one step into the study.
    To be fair, one step is all that could be managed. And when he pulled the desk chair out and sat on it, the back legs ended up on the landing, forcing Mrs-to-be to take one step back. "The desk is tiny."
    "It's a space-saving design, created by the previous occupant in a midnight moment of genius," Andy chipped in, hoping he'd remembered that right.
    Mr swivelled in the chair and fixed him with sharp eyes. "It's just a wider than normal windowsill."
    "Yes, it doubles up as one of those too." He was getting flustered now. He really needed this sale.
    Mrs-to-be flung her arms around Mr's neck and hugged him. "Darling, it's perfect. How much is it again?"
    Had he done it? Andy choked the words out. "Three hundred and fifty thousand."
    "We'll take it," Mrs-to-be said, before Mr could open his mouth...    

'Spring'-ing into action with NIBS

Our April meeting had a Spring theme to it.

Our warm up was an Eggs-traordinary piece, where we imagined we had an egg - but WHAT would hatch out of it? Mine had a baby mermaid, but there was a multi-coloured dragon, a one-legged chick, a river of golden light...

Our second exercise used story telling dice. If you've not seen them before, they look a little bit like this:

Instead of numbers, there are simple pictures on each face, which you can interpret any way you like. So, for example, in the picture above there is an image of a house. That could be taken as a literal house, as home, a roof over your head, security, a hotel... Nothing is off-limits.

There were six of us, so to begin with we each took one dice ( there were six in our set - other sets have up to nine or you can add 'booster' sets.) and rolled it. We then listed as many things for that single image as we could. Then we rolled all six together and tried to plot out a storyline using all six pictures. I have to confess, I was alright with one dice, but got overwhelmed using all six - there was almost too much choice for me; I couldn't pin it down. Others faired really well though, including all six images in their outlines. What was weirdest was that the first story read out involved a trip to the opticians; the second, an optician who joined a dating site; the third, an online date that went wrong! Strange how the ideas sort of ran on as we went round the table - and yet there had been no discussion about how each of us were going to use the six different images...

Our final activity was in honour of The Bard. April is the month in which Shakespeare was born and also died, so I looked up how to write a sonnet and we had a go. It wasn't to everyone's taste...some of us are not keen on poetry of this type because 'it's HARD!' I've never done any Shakespeare, apart from The Merchant of Venice for CSE English Lit, so I was up for the challenge, but yes - it was hard!

We worked as a group, and managed to get the first quatrain (sounds posh - just means verse!) finished before the end of the meeting. Here it is...I might be tempted to complete it, later!

A (bit of a ) Sonnet for Spring.

From Winter's death a Spring is newly sprung
As first new shoots of green from ground emerge.
The day begins as liquid notes are sung
At Equinox, as day and night converge.

Put your best foot forward...

I've an excuse for being a bit quiet on the blog recently - the next round of edits arrived for Kingstone, so I've been working through them to make sure Bink have the completed and polished version in plenty of time for publication in June.

I've still been scribbling, though: I've entered a couple of competitions with some flash and a couple of short stories I've written for other things (I don't usually go for comps as they can be very expensive, but these are local and somewhat cheaper than usual) and I've been scribbling with NIBS.

Last month's theme for NIBS was feet.

We kicked off with a description of a walk, and there were plenty to go on... A favourite walk on the parade at Wells-next-to-Sea; a walk in shared silence with a family member; favourite moments from walks with the dog; a walk to school, and a list of sayings which involve walking - like 'a walk in the park', 'walk this way', Ministry of Silly Walks' and so on.

Then we had some story openers, choosing one from the following:
One more step...
Her feet were killing her...
There was something on her shoe...
The floorboards creaked under her feet...
The bloody footprints led to the basement door...

I chose 'one more step' and wrote a rather fractured piece about a rogue muck raker robot that had its 'head' knocked off by a farmer... I know. Bananas!

And then we turned to pictures for our final task. You know the saying, 'If you want to understand a man, you have to walk a mile in his shoes'? I thought it'd be a good idea to find some photos of different shoes and we could write about either the people who they belonged to, or the shoes themselves.

However, in my quest for something a bit different to farmer's boots or slippers or stilettos, I typed in 'Ridiculous shoes'.

Oh. Boy.

I found centaur feet shoes. Rattlesnake cowboy boots. Winged biker boots. And then I found a pair of crocodile shoes. So here's my short story for you to enjoy...


Crocodile Shoes.

The advert seemed innocent enough.

One pair crocodile shoes. Worn once. Size 7. £15. Collection only.

Crocodile costs. You've seen those designer bags...hundreds of pounds, if not thousands. And here's a pair of shoes going for less than twenty quid? Fashionistas like me know a bargain when they see it. I whipped the card off the noticeboard and rang the number as soon as I got home.

"Yes, we've still got them. Cash only. Bartock's Shoes. Midden Way. Behind the Post Office, you can't miss us."

The windows were streaked with grime and plastered inside with brown paper and flattened out shoe box lids. I pushed the door open and walked in.

"I've come to collect the crocodile shoes."

"Oh yes. Money?"

I counted out three plastic fivers.

A wooden shoe box - wooden? - was thrust into my hands, and I was outside and on the pavement before I could say "thank you", propelled by hands that felt even keener than my own.

"But - " I turned back.

The open sign flicked to closed.

I trudged home in the rain, clutching my bargain to my chest, resisting the urge to peek. The wait would only increase the pleasure...

Inside at last, I prised the lid loose, shut my eyes and held my breath as I slipped my hand inside.

Snap!

I screamed and snatched my hand back, staring in disbelief at three fingers and two bloody stumps.

Crocodile shoes. They weren't kidding, were they?

Getting in touch with my dark side

Last night, we had our monthly NIBS meeting. I chose to take the paint sample cards again as we'd had fun with them in the past and after my recent school visits, I have *ahem* obtained quite a few more to choose from... (Mind you, I resorted to sending Squidgeling J into B&Q last time because I think the staff are beginning to recognise me...)

Special mention HAS to go to AT, whose piece had us all laughing again. I've mentioned before that Valspar, the company who produce these paints, have a creative team working on names for the thousands of different shades they produce. In a nutshell, AT's piece was about a member of that creative team; a gentleman who, after years in the job, finally went a bit doo-lally because there were only so many names he could come up with for 'pink'!

I chose 'Skein of Blue' to start with, but nothing gelled so I plumped for 'Ceremonial Ochre' instead. Ended up with this (unfinished) piece:

The priest pounded the red earth, mixing it with great gobs of his own saliva into a paste. Aleeka shuddered, knowing that before long, some of the revolting mixture would be smeared across her forehead.

Payter's grip tightened on her upper arms. "Don't show them you're scared," he hissed into her ear.

"I'm not scared," she growled back.

"You should be."

And yet she wasn't. Even though she knew that smear of paste on her skin would mark her out as the village's latest sacrifice. 

No-one ever came back from the cave. You knew you were as good as dead as soon as you picked out the black pebble from the reindeer skin bag. Aleeka had stared at the stone, numb and disbelieving, looking up only when her mother's ululations broke the silence of the choosing ceremony.

She had since been guest of honour at her own death feast, her face whited out with ash so that all present would know she was not of this world any more. 

Fear had not figured in her emotions then, and now she experienced only raw excitement...

Might be the start of something bigger, I think. Today, I've used some of this and combined it with an older bit of flash (also created at NIBS) into a piece of flash for a competition. That means I can't share it with you yet - but of course I'll share when it doesn't win and I can do what I like with it. *winks*

Our second activity used a rather unusual resource. Have you seen those sets of postcards based on book covers?

I picked a set up from an 'unwanted Christmas present' stall at church; the box contained 100 Penguin classic book covers. I'd thumbed through them and though I'd heard of many of the titles, there were even more I hadn't. Like...The Case of the Curious Kitten. August is a Wicked Month. Vile Bodies. Kiss Kiss.

So I sorted out a few with a darker feel to them and challenged the group to visit their Dark Side. Sweet Danger, Not to be Taken and The Half-awakened Wife were picked by the others for their grisly and gruesome stories, but I chose Vile Bodies... It wasn't really so much a story I wrote as a racist handbook, something that might figure in a dystopian novel. See what you think...

Among a homogenous race, the vile body must be removed. Consistent standards must be maintained at all life stages. Aberrant forms will not be tolerated.

Height charts will be consulted to ensure growth patterns are within normal range. Excessive growth will be curbed and insufficient growth encouraged by compulsory chemical intervention.

Regular weighing will dictate dietary requirements and exercise regimes.

Skin colour will be restricted to shades B26 to B71. And shades outside of this range will require bleaching or UV exposure as necessary.

Sensory perception will be maintained at 90% effective, minimum. Intervention techniques may be used between 80 and 90% effectiveness, but anything under 80% will not be tolerated. 

Bodies which do not meet homogeneity standards will, in the first instance, be corrected. If correction fails or bodies are deemed to be vile and beyond correction, then euthanasia is preferable.

*shudders*

It seems that the writing mo-jo is definitely switched on again,,,even if it is churning out some shadowy stuff! Hooray!

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?

Where did the summer go?

Actually, that's a misleading title.

If we're talking weather, then the summer is well and truly here this week, with very warm days and the threat of thunder. By 'summer', I'm talking about the holidays. Long, leisurely lazy mornings and nothing much planned. Instead, we're back at school (Leicestershire goes back immediately after the August Bank Holiday) and hit the ground running with new timetables, changes to after-school clubs, scouting, meetings...it's a bit of a shock to the system.

Add to that a wedding (more of that later), the Festival of Writing and a NIBS meeting, and I've not really felt much like blogging til now.

So let's start with the wedding. It was held in the Roman Baths in Bath, and was a beautiful occasion, full of love and very emotional. I'm only going to share one photo with you though. This one, taken outside the door of Bath Abbey by an obliging passer-by:

An ageing hippy/intellectual type with an armful of paperwork offered to take the pic for us. As the four of us (sis, Mum, Dad and me) posed, we started to giggle because our well-meaning photographer had the camera at a weird angle. It seems to be the trendy thing to do, to slant your photos, but we just laughed and let him get on with it. Look to the right of the photo too - he managed to get his pile of paperwork in, even if he did chop mum and sis off... 

The Festival of Writing...always a fab experience, and no less special this year than in previous years. The best bit, as always, is meeting friends old and new, and catching up on how everyone's doing in their quest to be published. I will blog about some of the sessions I attended and what I learned about myself and my writing this time, so more of that later...

And NIBS. Our little writing group met last night to get in touch with our inner child (inspired by a couple of York sessions). One of the exercises we tried was to produce something in the style of a well known children's author. When the Squidgelings were small, one of their favourite bedtime books was Peepo, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, so that's what I used as a starting point. Thought I'd share it with you...

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

On his way to school

What does he see?

He sees his neighbour sitting

in a chair all alone

But he carries on by 

Cos he's kicking a stone

He sees a little lady

With a big black dog

And then he pretends 

To be a green frog.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

Gets to the playground

What does he see?

His friends Ben and Jerry 

are running round and round.

Chasing little Katy

With a leaf they've found.
He sees the dinner trolley
With packed lunches piled high
And the mums and dads all talking
as a plane flies by.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

sits in the classroom

What does he see?

He sees the teacher smiling

as she ticks off names

and a table in the corner

where there's lots of games

He sees the coloured pencils

in the pencil pot

And the numberline and playdough

and a book he's got.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

Eating his dinner now

What does he see?

He sees the dinner ladies

in their aprons blue

and chips and bananas

and fishfingers too.

He sees his squished up sarnies

with the marmite in

and the juicebox of orange

with a tiger's grin.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

outside for P.E

What does he see?

He sees a bag of footballs

and some bright red cones

A running track of nice green grass 

and no sharp stones.

He sees the teacher's stopwatch

hears the whistle too

And remembers - should've gone before!

He needs the loo.

Here's a little schoolboy

One, two, three.

The schoolday's over

What does he see?

He sees his mummy waiting

With a smile on her face

And there's his little sister

in the usual place.

He sees the clock hands moving 

Til they point to three

The door opens - out he runs

It's nearly time for tea!

So if you had to write in the style of a children's author you love, who would it be? 

Seven by seven by seven

One of the writing prompts I've found that's quite useful if you want to kick start a writing session, is the 7x7x7 prompt.

Basically, you go to your bookshelf. Select the seventh book on it, turn to the seventh page and find the seventh sentence. Use that sentence to start your writing...

Last night, we used this expanded idea at NIBS, our little creative writing group. Our theme was simply - SEVEN.

Our starter was to take 'seven' and do what we wanted with it. Could be a seven-line poem...seven things...a thing associated with seven... Basically it was left wide open to the writers. As you'd expect, the variety of pieces after 15 minutes writing was huge; some took the letters of the word 'seven' to start each line of a five line poem. One person started from 'seven days' and multiplied the seven up and up and up, finding something that each multiple represented (like 42 days equals 6 weeks, the length of the school holidays).  Another began with 7Up, the drink, and passed through all sorts of associations until it came full circle back to where it stated, with 7Up...

My own little piece was based around stuff going on at home at the moment:

Seven rucsacs in the hall, belonging to just three people.
Seven Lindt chocolates left when a moment again there were eight. Squidgeling T?
Seven o'clock on the alarm - a veritable lie-in!
Seven veils of housework and routine...peel away the layers to find the dancer underneath.
Seven pots in the garden planted with summer colour.
Seven steps on the ladder to the revamped tree house.
Seven more shirts to iron...then no more until September.

We moved on from that to choosing one of three options, again linked to the number seven. Seven sisters (the cliffs or the water maidens of myth), the seven deadly sins, or seven NEW wonders of the world. They all sounded like fairly wide options with plenty of scope, but boy, did some of us struggle!

You know that sense of having a germ of an idea, but it just won't gel? And you end up crossing more out than you leave in? At least half of the group felt that way and didn't get very far at all. The other half, though were on a roll! There was a piece written with a lovely child's voice for seven new wonders, but the most outstanding piece started with the idea of the seven sisters paddling in the sea...which became the cliffs...which were a sign of hope - perhaps - to those seeking refuge on our shores. Very, very powerful and a lovely blending and linking of a mixture of images and themes into a cohesive whole.

My piece was one of the ones that didn't work. I had wanted to write about the seven NEW wonders, and thought it might be fun to write about them as wonders introduced by an alien race...but it went nowhere fast. So I gave up on it.

And you know what? It's OK to give up on something sometimes. I'm not going to flog myself over it, trying to force the idea to take shape. Perhaps I've captured enough of it to make it into something in the future, but for now, I'll turn the page.

So we moved on to the final part of the evening. I couldn't be sure everyone would remember to bring their seventh book, so I took a bagful of books with me, picked up from all over my house. Some were fiction, some non-fiction (Trinny and Susannah's What Not to Wear for eg!) and once everyone had chosen a book, we took the seventh page or seventh chapter and found the seventh sentence. We all got on a lot better with this prompt anyway, fuelled by the wide variety on offer.

Once again, I had an idea from the sentence 'He trailed bits of bark and soil as he crossed the room.' Unfortunately it faltered before I had time to finish it, but what little I did write took on a bit of a spooky/horror direction. I've edited it slightly, but here's where I got up to;

Jessum trailed bits of of bark and soil as he crossed the room.

Amara backed away, her hand pressed over her mouth to push the scream back down. The marks on the step should've stopped him! Certainly the cut on her thumb throbbed with the memory of its creation and the use to which it had been put. But then Amara saw the fine drizzle through the open door and the damp cat sitting where she'd painted the sigil...the sigil that was now blurred and smudged.

Jessum lurched a step closer and the grave-stink hit her then; peaty and meaty and rotten. 

"A...mmm...arrrrr...aahhhh..." A single wriggling maggot fell from his lips with her name. He reached out, the movement slow and stiff in death.

A sob escaped her then. "I'm sorry, Jessum! There weren't nothing I could do!"

And that's where it finished, because I hadn't decided what Amara had done to cause Jessum's death and why he'd come back for her or what would happen next! But it's a start. Of what, I've no idea, but it's a start. Keeps the words flowing, which is good as I've started to write notes for The Crystal Keeper's Daughter, my new WIP, in which you'll be introduced to a young lady called Zanni...

In the meantime, it's holiday season here so posts may be a little thinner on the ground than normal - expect HUGE ones when I get back around mid-August! Don't forget to take your copy of StarMark on your hols, or to enter the summer reading competition, and I'll catch up with you all soon!

Not officially 'on my holiday' yet, so here's
me and StarMark in my garden instead!

Three little words...and none of them 'I Love You'

Wednesday last was NIBS: the Nanpantan Improving Body of Scribblers. We meet monthly, and our theme this month was 'Three Little Words.'

If I'm honest, I was a little fearful for this meeting. I've not been writing much lately, being uninspired and a bit parched on the word front. I couldn't be sure I'd be able to write anything at all...but I did, thank goodness.

We started off with three words, pulled at random from a random word generator. Combinations included 'defeat, necklace, lion' and 'confidence, rabbit, clown'. The idea was, we'd spend ten minutes pulling out new combos from the pile of paper slips and write a sentence to include all three words. Then we chose our favourite to share with the rest of the group (random words in bold);

The eagle's flight resembled a dance, choreographed to the phone's ring tone.

The wolf that had somehow found itself in the tower of evil was howling.

When I go to the dance at the Liberty Club on Wednesday, I always have to make sure I've have enough money to phone home and enough for a pint of Eagle gin with a cherry in.

Frustrated at the anger shown by the visitors to the planet, her shoes clipped briskly down the corridor.

There were many people killed and in pain when the train collided with the lighthouse that had inexplicably appeared on the track.

The third bunch of grapes down on the left hand side of the fireplace is thought by the castle's servants to bring them luck if they touch it.

Next step was to pick one of those sentences - not your own - and write a short piece using it. Well. As a result of that, we were introduced to the lovely ladies who drink at the Liberty Club on a Wednesday night (fabulous character sketches); a sci-fi birthday gift that hadn't been planned (His Pompous Ass, the Pompadour, did not expect THAT!); Malevolence, who actually never got round to including the two sentences the author wanted to use, but it was a flippin' atmospheric build up(!); a beautiful poem about an eagle's flight by a member of our group with a gift for poetry, and a poor wolf, trapped after an earthquake in a theme park called Armageddon...

The group found it quite hard to take someone else's sentence, because as one person pointed out "when you write your own sentence, you have a picture in your head of what the story looks like. All of a sudden, you have to build on someone elses's." Nevertheless, everyone rose to the challenge.

I took the eagle sentence as my inspiration. Here's what I wrote:

The eagle's flight resembled a dance, choreographed to the phone's ring tone. I ignored the caller, letting the notes of Fleetwood Mac's Albatross accompany its darker coloured Highland cousin as the bird soared above me. I shaded my eyes against the glare, following the silhouette. Dark against a cloudless sky, wings stretched wide to catch the warm and lift the eagle higher and higher, turning in wide circles until the dot became too small to see and the phone fell silent, the caller no doubt frustrated by my lack of response.

Oh, for a wind to take me to higher things, to move me on. Instead I'm grounded, stuck where I don't want to be.

I glance at the phone. Missed call. Matt's number. 

The eagle calls - once - from the lofty heights and suddenly I know, deep in my heart, that I've made my decision and I feel lighter than I have for months, years maybe.

I'm leaving him.

The next part of the evening took a different list of three little words, which, when put together in a specific order, gave a possible title. Now if you try this yourself, then be prepared for some combinations to work better than others - only choose the ones that give you something real, however wacky that reality may be. And be prepared to add 'A' or 'The' to fill it out.

We had a laugh over some of them, even more so when the pieces were written. There was the poignant tale of a family reunion: The Last Apple Alliance. The conversation of night time insects on a balmy summer evening Lantern Light Conversation. An end of term show and a beach paradise with singing trees, both featuring the Dazzling Humming Bananas, and then there was Gwendoline's Magnificent Momentary Revolt.

Now the author of that piece deserves special mention. She's a lady whose writing often tends towards the darkly humourous, and it has become a standing joke that someone always gets killed off in her writing. We said that perhaps we ought to have a night where we challenge ourselves to write in a genre we didn't usually attempt - in this author's case, it would have to be romance. She took us at our word, and Lady Chatterley had nothing on Gwendoline, watching the gardener wipe beads of sweat from his brow...admiring his manly chest covered in fine hair...and enjoying the sight of him clenching his...biceps (yes, we all thought it was going to be something else beginning with 'b'!) etc, etc, etc. You had to be there, really, to appreciate it, but I was crying with laughter by the end.

(The author has sworn never to attempt romance again!)

I managed to bring the mood down after that with my offering of The Sacred Tooth Ceremony...

Oh my son, do not go to the Picking, I beg you! You have a paltry three hands of summers, when there are others who have five six - even ten! Do not follow them to the cave where the Red-Handed Man resides, for if you do, you will have to Pick.

Oh, my son, I know you are tall and strong and have worked hard since your father passed into the realm of darkness, but there is no reason for you to follow him, not yet!

Of course the Picking won't kill you - but what comes after will! Oh, my son, if only your father were here to explain, it breaks my heart that I must...

If you are Picked...if you select the burnt crust from the basket of bread...then the Red-Handed Man will pull every tooth from your head to offer to the Old Ones so they can eat again.

What do they eat? Oh, my son...they eat the flesh of the one who was Picked.

It was great to get the wordy juices flowing again. It just goes to show how something simple can spark an idea and get the bones of a little bit of a story fleshed out. Actually, I have a little mermaidy project that I've been struggling with, ready to submit for a third Random Writers Anthology. I think I'm ready to tackle it again.

Right, where's my pen? Catch you later, Scribblers! I'm off to write...

A little bit of flash - In the Darkness of Night...

As you'll have seen from my previous post, I've been busy editing StarMark. Still am, actually - had completely under estimated how much time it takes, but more of that at a later date! 

Last Wednesday, I took some time off from editing to go to NIBS.

We had a musical evening...no singing, but I did take a stack of CD's with me. 

One of the exercises was to pick a CD whose artwork appealed, and use that as inspiration.What was interesting was that they were my CD's - and I'd never looked so closely at some of the art before. Did you realise that on the Muse album Resistance, there's the world right in the centre of the rainbow tunnel? Or that on Muse's Absolution cover, the guy left standing has a gas mask in his hand? I didn't. (And yes, I have a lot of Muse!)

Anyway, I chose Madness's The Liberty of Norton Folgate. Here's the cover;

Now, at first sight, the shadow looks like he's dancing, but there's something about the silhouette that I found more sinister. Perhaps I'd been watching too much Dickensian...but it definitely felt a bit Victorian.

Anyway, here's what I wrote as a result...

In the darkness of night...

In the darkness of night, 

he comes,

in a coat made of shadow,

his cane tapping time away with every cobble it connects with.

A hint of swagger,

a dance of confidence,

where there is fear in a street cowed by his rule.

He trips lightly in this place,

tips his hat to the women he owns...

On the surface a gentleman-

but the cane breaks flesh and bone if his property fails to deliver.

In the darkness of night he comes,

to be caught only by the lamplight - never the law -

near dark alleys and dead ends,

watching and waiting with a tiger's smile

to entice the curious or desperate to sample his wares.

Until, as the gas lamps sputter and fade at dawn

he melts away until darkness falls.

November - the month of too much to do

There's something a bit depressing about the latter half of November. I don't think it's the nights drawing in, because I love shutting my curtains and cosying up in the lounge with the telly and a blazing fire. I don't think it's the fact that we've had Remembrance Events - in Loughborough, that's counteracted (for me) by our annual town fair, with lights and music and candy floss. Although once the fair's been, my thoughts do turn to Christmas...

And then it starts to get flippin' busy! My mum often tells me off for taking on too much for Christmas, because when I say 'yes' in October, I forget that I have to plan and action things in November to make them actually happen in December. Between now and Christmas Day, here's what's on, (assuming  I've remembered everything):

Black tie dinner with friends
Church council social
Two music concerts (in different schools)
Four choir practises
Three sketch rehearsals
Two carol services (featuring both said sketch and choir items)
A creative writing day for Y6 children
Helping at 'Experience Christmas' (held at the primary school in our parish)
At least one trip to Yorkshire
NIBS Christmas session
Editing StarMark (before the 14th Jan, so I've got a little bit longer...)
Outline plan for creative writing session for ESOL students at the College
Decorating church for Christmas
Two Christmas Eve Crib services

Add on top of that the present-buying, food-shopping, card-writing and house-decorating that is part of my normal Christmas... I ought to say no, but...

So if you see me and I look a bit frazzled over the next few weeks, you'll know why! How's your Christmas preparation going?

Autumn, according to NIBS

Last night was our monthly get-together for NIBS, the creative writing group I help to run. I chose an autumn theme, and went armed with some autumny pictures (everything from pumpkin soup to rutting deer and fantasy figures in dresses made of leaves), a basket full of coloured leaves, conkers and berried branches, and some quotes about autumn from Goodreads. (If you see anything here to get your writerly juices flowing, why not have a go and post in the comments below? Or link back to your blog space, if you have one?)

A basketful of autumn...

Autumn words and pictures

We started off with a quick reason-write; Exactly why are squirrels gathering all those nuts and berries?

The first one read out had us in stitches and stole the show; did you know that squirrels are working towards world domination and the berries are just a front for their weapon-making collaboration with the moles? We even got an evil laugh at the end of the reading... There were some great ideas coming through and it gave us a bit of time for everyone to arrive as unfortunately, there'd been an accident on the road up to church which meant a couple of folk had to turn back and come the long way round to get to us...

And then, for the first time at NIBS, we just did what we wanted. Normally, we try a few writing exercises, but this time, because everyone's fairly confident now at producing something off-the-cuff, we just went for it! Faced with the props I'd taken, there was free choice as to whether to write poetry, a story, a memoir - so long as it had an autumn theme, it really didn't matter.

We wrote for half an hour, and boy, did we end up with some beauties...

 - A short story, told from a conker's point of view, right up to the point of him becoming a 'sixer'. We were all nodding at the mention of being stuck in a pocket or polished on a trouser leg - how many times have we done that  as both children and adults?

 - A beautiful piece of poetry based on the quote 'autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons'. The author usually writes emotively and this was no exception - I was really moved and quite overwhelmed by the finished piece, which compared autumn's treasures to those of the other seasons. Quite beautiful.

 - A really interesting piece about autumn as the bringer of death - would you have ever described the leaves of this season as 'red as blood, yellow as pus in a wound and brown as crisp as burnt flesh?' Thought not! The author admitted afterwards to not liking autumn: it showed! And made a lasting impression...

 - Another took as their prompt the picture of a woman in a leafy dress, walking with her owl through the woods. The narrator was hidden in a tree, watching - we never found out why, but there was so much longing coming through in the writing, a real yearning for...something.

 - One author was fascinated by a particular leaf I'd brought - she wrote a short but gorgeous poem which made us feel the beauty of the colours and the contrast between the 'last crescendo' of the life of the leaf and its ultimate death.

Me? Well, I had a go at a poem and then did a bit of a 'five senses of autumn' thing, where I listed lots of things that mean autumn to me. Can't say I was entirely happy with either - I would have loved to have evoked some of the imagery that the rest of the group managed, but I tend to be a bit more matter-of-fact in my writing - plain speaking, almost - which doesn't have quite the feel I'd loved to have achieved. But I'll share the poem with you and leave you to judge. It was based on the quote 'October, baptize me with leaves!' and I've tweaked it a bit overnight. Here goes...


Autumn's baptism.

October, baptize me with leaves!
Pour your fiery shades into this chill, fresh morning.
Bright sun with no heat illuminates copper and gold and orange and brown
as the cold night forces the branches to finally loose their hold
and the leaves are let go.
They float down on a whispering breeze
which turns these thousands - millions - of individual deaths
into a short, illusory dance of life,
until they lay still on dew-damp grass.
I scuff through the crisp, rustling shell that blankets the earth
as summer heat is washed from the world
and I am baptised afresh in autumn's leafy waters;
a final blaze of glory before bare branches and glittering frosts bring winter.

Playing with dialogue

It's been a bit busy off-Scribbles recently - hence the lack of posts in the last week!

I've been in the school library, doing a stocktake of all the books every morning this week; been trying to make sure everything's washed and ironed (though I don't know why I bother with the ironing bit) ready for the kids to go to camp on Saturday; and I've been writing.

'The King Stone' (working title) is just one chapter away from being finished. It doesn't look like a proper novel yet - 'macrame' is more how I'd describe it at present, there are so many holes to be filled! But the story is there, my characters have their motivations, I have a killer twist...and it'll be complete as a first draft by the time I'm editing StarMark ready for publication.

But that's not what this blog post's about today; I want to tell you about a writing exercise based on dialogue. At our NIBS meeting last night, the lovely Kate (creative writing student at Winchester Uni) suggested the following for us to try...

Take several lines of dialogue - pure, undiluted dialogue. Nothing else at all. Then your job as the creative writer is to fill in the details; who is talking? Where are they? What situation are they in to result in the dialogue? (The trickiest part of the exercise is actually writing the lines of dialogue in the first place, because you have to keep it open enough to allow interpretation of a wide range of possibilities.)

Here's what I ended up with; the dialogue is exactly what was given to us, with one slight exception...


"Did you find it?" Hamish blew into his cupped hands in a vain attempt to unfreeze his fingers.

"Eventually."

Proctor was well wrapped, Hamish noted. Nice scarf. And he'd had the sense to wear a hat. It even had ear-flaps. "Where was it?" The words hung between the two men as a cloud in the frosty air.

The boss shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Let's go." He turned away.

Hamish caught Proctor's arm. "Where was it?"

Proctor shook him off. "I said it doesn't matter. Come on, or we'll be late."

Limping along behind, Hamish cursed his numb toes. Been waiting an hour, he had, in freeze-your-balls-off temperatures, and now Proctor wouldn't tell him. That's gratitude for you. "Still," he panted as he tried to keep up, "we searched the whole house! Where was it?"

"A chest of drawers," Proctor threw over his shoulder.

Hamish stopped dead. "Chest of drawers? A chest of drawers? I looked in all of them twice!"

Proctor halted and slowly turned back round. "Well, clearly you didn't look hard enough."

"I took all of the clothes out and everything." Hamish shuddered, remembering. "Trust me, there were some things I didn't want to see." The furry handcuffs...the neon pink gimp mask...

"You were clearly distracted then," Proctor sneered.

"I was not!" This wasn't getting him anywhere, so Hamish changed his tune, tried coaxing. "Come on, where was it?"

Proctor looked him straight in the eye. "In a tampon box."

"What?" Hamish snorted. "D'you really expect me to believe that?"

"It's true." Proctor didn't even blink.

"Who puts stuff in a tampon box?" Hamish's brow wrinkled as he tried to figure it out.

Proctor shrugged. "It's a safe place. No-one really wants to look there."

"You seriously found it in a tampon box?"

"Yes!"

Hamish shook his head in disbelief...


Our homework was to have a go at writing at least ten lines of dialogue to take to our next meeting. I'm quite looking forward to it; I'll let you know how I get on.

Forgot an important birthday...

The big day completely passed me by... no card, co cake, no celebration of any kind.

Ooops. Poor Scribbles.

Because - can you believe it? - Squidge's Scribbles has been up and running for 2 whole years as of last weekend! Two years!

Happy Belated Birthday, Squidge's Scribbles!

And what a year it's been... all 135 posts of it!

As regular readers will know, this blog was set up first and foremost because I'm an author.

The last twelve months have seen the publication of several short stories in KlicBait Volume 1 and A Seeming Glass, as well as the second book of Granny Rainbow stories - More Granny Rainbow. I've been on author visits, held reading sessions at the library and helped to set up a local creative writing group, NIBS (otherwise known as the Nanpantan Improving Body of Scribblers!) I went to the Festival of Writing in York again, and raised money for charity through auctioning my books for Comic Relief and Authors for Nepal. I continued to write bits of flash fiction and shorts, posting them here on the blog for you to enjoy.

The highlight of my authorly year was the news that, after spending last November editing StarMark (I did NaNoEdMo instead of NaNoWriMo), the novel was picked up by Bedazzled Ink in the US and will be published this autumn.

I discovered that I like writing 'nasty' and after a setback on Ani's story, I began a brand new story as part of my 100 days of writing challenge I set myself (working title - The King Stone) and I'm delighted to say that after 65 days (out of 76 days since I began) the s****y first draft is almost finished!

Oh - and the Scribbles won their first award!

But it's not just writing that I blog about. You're just as likely to find me writing about home and family. Like the problems we had with the new bathroom, or when the stove was fitted. Or I'll tell you about flower arranging with toilet rolls, or wedding bouquets or the Miss Piggy rose... Being a photographer's model... Relaxing with some colouring in... My skiing holiday... Perhaps even what Mr Squidge has been up to...

And you - lovely reader of the Scribbles - you've probably been with me for a goodly chunk of the past year, haven't you? There are over 50 of you officially following this blog, but I know many more dip in and out to see what's going on in my life. It's still a surprise to me when someone says they've seen my latest blog post, especially if I don't know they 'follow' me - it can feel sometimes like I'm just writing this for my own pleasure. (Which I probably am because it's my on-line diary!) I forget that I've invited you in to share it as well...but I love the fact you're here! Thank you for still being interested.

So - Happy Birthday to the Scribbles, and let's see what this next year brings to celebrate around the time of a third birthday...