Degree Show Time!

If you've followed the Scribbles for a while, you'll know that every year in June, round about my birthday, I go to the Fine Art Degree Show at Loughborough Uni. Of course, there wasn't one last year because of covid, but I was delighted to see the show advertised again this year.

Obviously there were covid restrictions in place, which meant you had to book a time slot to attend, follow the one way systems, and read QR codes if you wanted to find out more about the individual artists, but it was SO nice to see what had been created by the very talented students after a year away.

It's difficult to credit the individual artists, as I only realised about the QR codes quite late on in my wanderings, so I hope they will forgive me for not saying who they are. 

I wondered whether there would be a darkness to this year's show, following the pandemic, but was pleasantly surprised at the amount of colour and light on display. So...as usual, here are some of the things that really caught my eye. All the photos are from my phone this time, so I'm not sure how well they will show the pieces. Seeing a photo is never quite the same as seeing the real thing, but it'll give you an idea of what I found particularly interesting. 

This incredible paper-folded sculpture seemed to writhe like a snake, suspended over your head. Always love to see some fabulous paperwork.  

There were two obscured mirrors as part of this installation - I was struck as I looked at my refection in them how much of me was obscured, and yet I could clearly see my rainbow mask and the rainbow hearts on my t-shirt in the gaps...

This one I loved - only the rocks under the telly are real. The large boulders are actually beanbags, printed with photographic images of lichen-covered rocks. The artist had managed to capture the irregularity of the rocks not just by the image, but how the beanbags were shaped, too.

Took this one for Mr Squidge, to show him how he could get creative with bike bits!

The textile prints are always gorgeous - and in this case, embellished with stunning pearl and diamante centre buttons which accentuated the print beautifully.

The colourways here were stunning - maroon with red and burnt orange. The collars are covered in 3D beaded and fabric flowers, and would be great to add to something plain.

These were like geometric stained glass and very textural. The colours aren't as vibrant as in reality, but I was impressed by the workmanship and the weaving techniques that held each sheet together.

There are always some amazing textiles and garments, and this photo really does not do the clothing justice. I loved the idea of 'melting' trousers - and the beadwork down each panel was exquisite. The blue jacket was quilted into contours, and had lots of blue beads and eye tokens sewn all over it. (The eye token is always blue and white, and I always associate it with Greece). What you can't see on the picture are the beads dripping off the fingers of those yellow gloves...

Again. the colours aren't so good in the photo, but the vibrancy of the orange and yellow against the green and blue just stood out for me.

This graphic design used one of my teenage heroes - Adam Ant - so I just had to take a pic...

This piece was in the most gorgeous earthy tones, with each square meticulously slow-stitched. It might be just running stitch, but I know there are hours of work on display here.

This artist must REALLY love pistachio nuts. I cannot bear to think how long it took to feed shells into the channels in the sheer fabric, or to drill holes in the shells and then string them with tiny clay beads to create another rather intriguing textile. 

I'm always fascinated by beadwork, and this looked exceptionally real. Even the eyelashes are beaded, and the lids are sculptural rather than flat.

Last bit of beadwork - teeny tiny beaded spiders, sewn at intersections between the different fabrics.

The piece that had the biggest impact on me, I didn't take a photo of. To do so felt intrusive, as you'll probably realise when I describe it...

The piece was a portrait. An old man, and around the central portrait of his face were other, smaller studies of his folded hands...his nose...the bald patch on the top of his head...a closed eye... It was a fragments portrait and yet it was a whole. Then I realised one of the smaller studies wasn't of the man at all. It was of a brass plaque, with a name - Thomas - a date - December 2020 - and an age - 75 years. 

That's when I realised that the siver grey background depicted in so many of the individual pieces was satin.

I was looking at a portrait of a dead person lying in their coffin.

It wasn't gruesome. I felt very much that it was a study of Thomas, painted with love, that made the viewer really take notice of the little things about the physicality of him as a person. I sat on the floor with it for a while, writing how it made me feel in the notebook left by the artist for that purpose.

There were two other pieces in the same installation. One was a picture of a skull, made from photoshopped images of some of Thomas's personal effects - his glasses, tablet box, false teeth and other items. On the wall opposite to the skull was a framed hospital incinerator bag, surrounded by images of items of clothing laid out on top of incinerator bags. 

It was all very moving - sad and emotional because of the subject, but also uplifting in that the tribute to Thomas was evident in the meticulous paintings, even though one assumes his passing was not an easy event. 

I do love the Art Degree Show...

Cirque de la Vie

Delighted to announce that my short story, Cirque de la Vie, has been placed as a runner up in the Retreat West quarterly circus themed competition! 

Part of my prize was to have the story professionally recorded by a voice artist...and I have to say it's flippin' awesome! There are all sorts of background noises that add to the atmosphere of the story. You can listen to it here:

It was a story that came to me all at once. I wanted to include various circus performers or acts, and I had in my head 'the circus of life' as a working title. But which characters or acts to link to which aspects of life? 

As is the way with stories, it combines fiction with life in places - I loved the Bat Out of Hell musical; I was a lumbering lump when pregnant with Squidgeling T, and that really is what the midwife said to me when he was born! 

If you want to see what the judge had to say about it - or read the story rather than listen to it - you can find it here.

I am god of my own universe

I recently met up with old schoolfriend and fellow author, Mark R Brandon. Ever since we made contact again after 40-odd years, we've been supporting each other in our writing and often end up chatting about plotting/editing/publication. 

Mark has inspired me to market myself more effectively (exciting things happening soon!) and has also been patient enough to listen to my current problems writing Tilda #4.

On this occasion, over tea and lemon drizzle cake, while trying to explain why I was so frustrated with the current WIP, Mark said several things that really stuck with me and helped me to see a way ahead.

Lemon Drizzle Cake and lots of writing chat over a cuppa

If you've been reading the Scribbles for a while, you'll know I have written in the past about various workshops I've attended on plotting, and how difficult I find following structures - even though they make perfect sense to me. Mark is my complete opposite - he thrives on having the structure to follow. 

One of my main issues with Tilda #4 is that it is the penultimate in her series; I know where she's come from in the three books up to this point, and I know where she's going to finish in the fifth. Although I have lots of ideas I want to include in #4, I have this voice at the back of my head, telling me I've got to make this particular book work hard to become the successful link I need it to be, and something about what I've created to date just isn't achieving that. 

As a result, I've become frustrated and - dare I say it? - bored with writing this particular story. 

And Mark 's initial response - pretty blunt - was that if I was bored writing this story, it was going to bore the readers, too. 

True. 

We delved into why I might be bored a bit more, and in doing so, he suggested I apply a five-act structure approach across the five books; that helped to explain why I was in a slump with #4, as without giving too much of the plot away, my antagonist isn't present enough to give the required build up of conflict this story needs. The fact that I have stuck to Tilda's POV in these stories was also limiting me... 

As Mark reminded me, 'you are the god of the universe you have created'. I could do anything I wanted in it, including using multiple POVs when it's not something I've done - yet - in this series. (If you've read StarMark, you'll know it's something I have done before though. There were at least three POVs in that...)

He threw a few ideas my way, (when you read Tilda #4 eventually, the credit for the crab scene is entirely his!) and I threw a few back at him, and when he'd gone, I sat and wrote solidly for three-quarters of an hour, because suddenly, I could see how I could change Tilda #4 to give it the conflict it needed AND lead into the finale in Tilda #5.

All I need to do now is print out 'I am the god of my own universe' and leave it somewhere prominent to remind me of the thing I tell people during my author talks whenever I sit down to write more Tilda; it's your story, you tell it how you want to, and you make whatever you want to happen, happen.

I need to listen to my own advice!

Some Personal Thoughts On Flash (Fiction)

Image from Flash Gordon Returns! My big blonde crush
Friday July 31 2020, 12.01am, The Times

Flash! Ah-aaah! Yes, I think the film's barmy and brilliant, but that's not what this post's really about...

On this site, I've often posted short stories that have come about as a result of a writing prompt. (The 'Free Fiction' page will take you to a list of links if you've not read any of them before.)

I've always called them 'flash fiction' as they are quick to read - though not necessarily to write - and most of them have a definite beginning, middle and end as you'd expect from any story.

I entered a piece into a flash competition recently - it's been longlisted and I'm waiting to hear whether it gets any further - so I must be doing something right? But I have to admit that, when I read competition-winning flash, my confidence in my ability to write it usually takes a nosedive.

Does it sound awful to say that I don't understand some of these winning entries? I read one recently that appeared - to me - to be a random putting-together of unrelated sentences. I had no idea what the story was. It felt as though the author was trying to be really 'literary' and in doing so, the story (whatever it was) was hidden so deeply in the prose that I couldn't find it. It had been shortlisted with  others - the majority of which I found equally as confusing to make sense of.

Now I'm certainly not dissing flash fiction as a form; there is very definitely an art to writing a story in very few words that still has impact and takes the reader on a journey. I actually enjoy the challenge of condensing the essence of a story into 500, 250, 100, even 50, words. Every single word needs to earn its place, there needs to be a story although it may not be slap-you-in-the-face obvious, and the ending often lies rather more open-ended than you'd get in a novel, hinting at possibilities rather than drawing a definite line under the action. It's very, VERY different to writing a novel.

I'm no expert, either - though there are plenty of other authors who are. 

When I do compare my own flash pieces to those of other authors - especially to those that are long- or short-listed - most of the time mine feel too simple. I'm not sure how they could ever stand out in a field of poetic prose and deeply hidden plot. I mean, I realise I must've caught the judges' eye for some reason to have been longlisted with the current piece, but it's still on the surface a very simply written story. I can tell you that I think it's good, because it's clever in its structure, but the language is simple and there's no attempt to hide the story as it moves through from start to finish. 

Of course in any competition, however good your piece is, it needs to connect with the reader/judge. If it doesn't - for whatever reason - then you probably won't be placed. Sometimes, you get lucky, other times not. 

I think I'm coming round to the idea that I have to write flash in the way I can, not in the way I can't - that I essentially have to keep in mind the voice I want the piece to have, and that my natural style leads to a simpler prose compared to other authors. I need to embrace that I am a different kind of author. And I musn't try too hard to be something I'm not, making sure to work to my strengths rather than focusing on my perceived weaknesses. 

Then, when I read the flash of others and perhaps don't understand their particular nuances, I have to remind myself to stop making comparisons. I need to accept that each author knows what they were aiming to achieve, and sometimes the reader/judge will get it, sometimes they won't. Either way, it's probably less a reflection on the author and more on me as the reader.

I'll keep writing flash of course - it keeps the old brain ticking over with new ideas - and submitting to competitions, but only if the piece feels really, really good to me. 

Discovering your personal Writing 'Rules'

I've been having an interesting conversation in a writing community about writing rules and quotes from famous writers that could be taken as rules. 

You know the kind of thing I mean... 'You will only be able to write well if you write in exactly the same way that I (insert name of author) do.' 

I'm being somewhat facetious here, because of course no one would ever be that blatant. But authors sometimes fall into the trap of believing that because they have achieved good writing in one particular way, then of course if someone else wrote in the same way, they're bound to produce good writing too.

In fact, I did a quick search under 'writing rules' and you'd be AMAZED at how many rules there apparently are... Take a look for yourself if you have half a mo.

Whenever I see these kind of quotes or rules, and I have an opportunity to comment on them, I often do! Mainly because, in my experience of working with fledgeling authors of all ages, there is a tendency for new writers to take all these 'rules' to heart. And quite quickly, they come to believe that if they aren't doing what they're being told to do, well, they'll never be a writer, will they? This can drastically affect a fragile confidence, and put undue pressure on someone when they are still very much learning about writing and themselves as writers. 

I'm not saying that there isn't value in some - if not all - of these 'rules'. You are bound to improve if you write regularly, for example. Using adjectives and adverbs sparingly is sometimes a good thing. Taking the time to edit a story after it's 'finished' is good practice. 

I could go on... 

What's important is that you look at the rules and pick the ones that work for you. Take writing regularly; I have writer friends who write every day, without fail. I don't - I'm a fits and starts writer, who tries to keep the non-writing time to a minimum. I have writer friends who write in silence to avoid distraction, whereas I like to write with songs I can sing along to. (Current music of choice - eighties electronic anthems). Some writer friends use a three act structure to plan their plot before writing anything - I think planning is a great idea, I'm just not very good at sticking to a formal planning method. 

Authors are many and varied in their processes, and their individual 'rules' are as many and varied as the stories they write. 

If you ask me for help with your writing, I'll try hard not to give you 'rules'. I'll give you advice, sure. And I'll always be honest in sharing what works for me, and what doesn't - because even though it doesn't work for me, it might for you. It's up to you to find what works for you. What is an essential self-imposed 'rule' that will help you to write productively, as opposed to working to a 'rule' imposed by someone else that ends up getting you tied up in knots? 

Pick and choose. Try things out. Don't be afraid to ditch any 'rules' that don't work for you, bearing in mind that any set of 'rules' applied to writing projects may change, depending on the type of project and your circumstances at the time of trying to write.

And I'll continue to respond to these quotes-that-could-be-taken-as-rules, to demonstrate that none of them need to be written in stone.

A little bit of...poetry?

I'm not known for my poetry. I have written poems, but they tend to be ones that rhyme because I find it relatively easy to write to a rhythm, but I've never really understood or appreciated haikus or sonnets or other formal poetic forms.

That said, I do occasionally dabble. 

The first time I was published, I'd won a limerick competition (and £50!) in a writing magazine. It went something like...

A young lady who felt fashion keenly

Tried on a new-fangled bikini

With two bits of string, 

Some knots and a ring

The thing would've baffled Houdini! 

I did write some poetry - actually, it's probably more accurate to say I wrote rhymes - in one of my Granny Rainbow stories about the Poetic Postman. And I've sometimes put new words to familiar hymn tunes for Christmas services. But I don't write much 'proper' poetry - the stuff that is deep and meaningful, that makes a connection with the listener. 

But you might remember in my last post that I said I'd decided to try a bit more poetry after attending a poetry session at the online Writing East Midlands Conference. Well, last weekend, I got the opportunity. I attended States of Independence Day Online, an event usually held at De Montfort University in Leicester, where independent publishers, authors and booksellers get together. (The last time I went, I met an agent who took me on for a short while, having seen StarMark) The programme was a mix of live discussion panels on Zoom, and pre-recorded readings and workshops on YouTube. 

One of the workshops was by Maria Taylor, a poet who also happens to be a neighbour of mine. She gave three very different writing prompts and read some of her own poetry to show how the themes  of 'routine', 'ghosts' and 'the great outdoors' could be interpreted. 

So I had a go. 

Here's the one I was most proud of - which I wrote it out and pushed it through Maria's door to say thank you for such a great session.

Homemade wine

As I drink my homemade fruit wines - 

the blood red-black of mighty fine blackberry,

the rosy tint of red gooseberry, 

the dryness of next-door's plum, 

the sharpness of raspberry -

you are with me in every sip.

Your wines were pea-pod white, carrot, and parsnip,

tastes I never got to sample before you went,

because of my age.

I could only watch the bottles being taken

     from the darkness of an under-stairs cupboard,

to be opened by grieving uncles,

who raised a toast

to the maker of the vintages 

who was beyond drinking them by then.

Writing East Midlands Conference 2021

This conference, organised by Writing East Midlands in partnership with Lincoln University, should have happened last year - twice. I was booked on it... As with many things last year, it was postponed - twice - and took place finally last week, online, over the course of four days.

Now, I've been to other writing conferences in the past in person, so I wasn't quite sure how an online one would work. Most of the fun of a conference comes from networking with lots of other like-minded people and talking about all things 'writing'. How would an online conference achieve that? 

I needn't have worried. 

#WEMCONF21 used a classroom system - collaborate - which although it is primarily a lecture delivery system, still allowed sufficient interaction between presenters and made good use of the chat facility for attendees to ask questions and interact with other. (And we did that a lot!) Moderators did a brilliant job of reminding delegates before each session how to get the best out of it (turn your video and microphone off, and refresh if you lose the presenter!) and of helping when problems arose during the sessions, though these were few and far between. It felt really well organised and controlled. 

The striking thing for me about this conference generally is that topic-wise, it did not focus solely on the craft or a route to publication, as conferences I've attended by other providers sometimes have. It did cover some of these aspects, but it also gave presentations on things like creative citizenship (how do you/can you use your art to create change?), on opening up creative writing opportunities for writers with impairments, on how to apply for grants to enable you to further your own writing practice or deliver social projects and on the power of poetry. It was a much wider programme than I think I've ever experienced. 

There was also much more diversity apparent in the choice of presenters. Yes, there were some 'big names', but there were also names I wasn't familiar with and am now inspired to look up.

The overall feeling I got was that this was a conference for writers of all types, not just writers who want to know how to be published or how to improve their craft. The latter is well supported by WEM's many different courses and mentoring schemes, so I suppose in some ways, it didn't need to be covered in the conference as much. 

I really enjoyed all the sessions I attended and came away with much food for thought.