Black (and blue) Friday

There's going to be quite a few people who are black and blue after Black Friday.

There are reports of violence in stores across the UK - people fighting each other to get their hands on what appears to be a superb deal. Folk on facebook have posted pictures of hands reaching desperately for TVs - and under that is a picture of hands reaching desperately for food aid. Ridiculous amounts of money have been spent and credit cards have no doubt been maxed to their limits.

And all in aid of what? Twenty quid off a coffee maker you'd probably never have bought otherwise? A couple of hundred pounds off an even bigger TV, because the 48" screen you've already got just isn't big enough? If you really want a big screen, go to the cinema.

There's only so much stuff you need. After that, it's all nice-to-have, not need-to-have. Are you buying because you need it, or you want it? There's a subtle difference.

I'm all for a bargain - but as I was told many years ago, it's only a bargain if you really need it.

Oh...Bumble!

Harry Secombe as Mr Bumble (Oliver Twist 1968)

Bumble? No disrespect to Dickens, but it's better than some of the things I could've said...

Why the language? Well, I set aside some time today to flesh out the idea I'd had for my 'Kansas' story - to be submitted to a writing comp over on the cloud.

Except I've run smack right up to a brick wall. I can't make the idea work.

The concept around which I want to build this particular story is quite simple: a method of recording life events. However, the story will therefore cover too long a time period - I'd have to include loads of flashbacks or rely on an unreliable narrator to get the events across. And my gut reaction says the latter wouldn't be a nice story, I can feel it in my bones. I can't see any way round having huge jumps in time or a shed load of recalled backstory. More worryingly, I can't get the 'lost' bit in either, which is pretty essential because it's the flippin' theme.

I spent my precious time this morning filling about 6 pages of A4 with scribbles that are going nowhere and I'm sitting here writing a blog post instead of trying to iron it all out.

When I entered this competition the first time, I had such a clear concept for the story and everything fell into place nicely. The second time, I struggled with where I'd chosen to set the story and ended up writing what was essentially fan-fic. This third comp seems even harder again. Am I having a crisis of confidence? Maybe it's the theme not floating my boat? Or maybe my original concept is just pants...

I could keep writing and hope there's a nugget in the mire somewhere to pull me in the right direction, but I keep getting to a certain point and can't see where to take it from there on. The picture in my head isn't complete - it's a jigsaw that's missing a corner piece, a red flower and a couple of bits of sky.

Maybe inspiration will strike and everything will suddenly click.

I can but hope... in the meantime, BUMBLE!

Christmas Tree Festival

Today's post is going to be unashamedly Christmassy and full of photos!

We started at Bunny village (yes, really - it's called Bunny!) Christmas Fair. It was inside the church where half the nave was given over to a fabulous array of stalls and the other half to tables and chairs for folks to have refreshments. We went because J is part of a string quartet formed as an offshoot of the Loughborough Schools Area Orchestra - they were playing for about half an hour over lunch.

Then we went to the Community Christmas Tree Festival in All Saint's Church, Loughborough. There were 100 trees listed in the programme from a wide variety of community groups and businesses. The Guide and Scout movements were well represented, as were choirs, local schools and other faith groups. Politicians, the Council, the University, U3A, support and craft groups all had trees too. It's an event that opens your eyes to the various groups and official bodies that play a role in our community, including several that I was completely unaware of.

Anyway, here are a few of my favourite trees...

The NIBS (Nanpantan Improving Body of Scribblers) Tree - tiny book covers, pens and notebooks. There were a couple of other book-ish groups represented; one had book covers and scrolls of words, the other had focused on places in the world as their notice said 'Read a book - see the world!'

My church's tree - with over 50 handmade stars
created by members of the congregation.

The Wicked Brewery, Hathern

From L to R: Co-op Funeral Directors (they wear top hats, so the tree is decorated in top hats and candy canes), a Brownie group (toilet roll squirrels in the tree, hedgehogs and badgers at the bottom) and a tree full of owls - think that was a Brownie group again.

Celebrating 100 years of Ladybird Books

A Ladder tree..

Recycling and upside-down...

1st L'boro Scouts - T is a scout, J helps out as an Explorer.
It's an upside-down camp tree.

The lovely Delice Deli tree - remember I held Granny's launch there?

A tree full of spoons...knitted, pottery, wire, or straight out of the cutlery
drawer but decorated with wool, ribbons and beads.
Created by the High School.

 

Another Scout tree - the top half is tent pegs, painted in the different group colours
and with the names of the members written on them. There are a few more still
to be added so that everyone is represented...

This tree was awesome - I think it was a nature group. All the decorations were made from sycamore seeds (the stars) or melon seeds (the red flowers).

Snowflakes - all made of tatting by the Charnwood Tatters.

 

The Tree of Remembrance.

See where the coloured tags start on the Remembrance Tree, about half-way down? Every single one contains at least one name, of someone who has died but is remembered by a visitor to the festival...

There were so many other trees I could've included, but this blog post would have been far too long if I had! Best to go and experience it for yourself - the festival runs 'til tomorrow, 5pm.

Starting something new...

The More Granny Rainbow stories are in the bag, ready for publication early next year.

StarMark is finished and could well be published late next year.

Rurik is finished and...well, he's finished. Just not sure what to do with him. Yet.

So that means I can start a couple of new writing projects.

The first is a small competition running over on the cloud - peer judged - and I'm playing with a few ideas for it at the minute; there's a wrinkle in my plot I can't iron out. So that's kind of simmering away in the background. It'll be a short story, so I'm looking at producing around 2,600 words before 17th January... Easy-peezy. Er...no, actually. But I've done it before and know I'll manage something credible by the deadline.

Once I've done that, I can start something BIGGER. The only problem there is that I haven't got a sound enough idea to begin a new full-length novel. I keep looking at the planned outlines of two possibilities and can't see either story in its entirety.

Do I grasp the nettle and begin anyway? Trust to my instincts that the story will reveal itself as I work through it? Am I brave enough to do that? My instincts have been right in the past - maybe they'll lead me in the right direction again. And if I do, should I hand write the first draft? It's pretty daunting to think of writing 60,000 words by hand, but I have found recently that things seem to gel better when I hand write them first.

It's making sense of all the notes and scribblings out afterwards that really worries me...

Being realistic as things start to get busy before Christmas - and this year with the added complication of health issues for family members which means at least one will definitely be out of action from the beginning of December for a few weeks - I'm not going to get much writing done before the New Year. Ah well, gives me plenty of time for mulling ideas over...

Or maybe I ought to mull some wine instead. It might make the decision easier, even if it doesn't help the writing! What d'you reckon?

Christmas comes early...

There are carols and Christmas songs being played in the shops. Decorations are up and in some cities, the lights are already on. The TV ads have started. I've had to hoover glitter out of my carpet too, 'cos the fab paper I found with glittery reindeers on it sheds like billyo!

Very pretty - but the glitter gets EVERYWHERE!

In some respects, I really dislike the fact that Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year.

But I do find I have to start prepping around mid-November. Coming from Loughborough, there's a psychological thing that once the Fair's been, it's time to think Christmas. As the last ride packed up and moved on late Saturday night, I know I ought to be knuckling down to the serious business of cards and presents and decorations.

Except there's often a lot of church-related Christmas stuff around this time too, which means my own plans need to go on hold for a while.

To begin with, there's a Community Christmas Tree Festival at All Saints Church in the town centre. I 'volunteered' my own church to do a tree - and NIBS, the writing group. The church one's organised - remember the stars I wrote about? All packed and ready to go up tomorrow. The NIBS one features tiny laminated book covers, pens and mini-notebooks. Maybe I'll blog about them later in the week, when I can go down to see the other 100+ trees on display.

Some of last year's trees...

We're at the stage of putting together our Christmas Crib and Carol services for church. I've put together an outline of the Crib Service, based around an idea that NIBS helped to write, and I've got to learn my part for a sketch I'm in at the first carol service. That's the disadvantage of a small church building - we have to have two carol services and two Crib Services to get everyone in! I've also got to make an Advent star - it will be travelling around our parish in December and end up in church on the 24th, just in time for the Crib Service and Christmas Eve communion...

And then there are the flowers. Mum and I have to get the ideas for decorating church finalised so we can order flowers in good time - and then decorate church in time for the last Sunday before Christmas. I'm also doing a mini 'Ready, Steady Flowers' Demo at a Christmas Coffee Morning...5 flower arrangements against the clock which will then be raffled off. I know what I'm doing - just got to order those flowers too.

Here's one of the Ready Steady Flower ideas...

Notice I haven't even mentioned cards, presents, or Christmas menus yet?

So how are your Christmas plans coming on? Is everything wrapped and on its way to the North Pole for Father Christmas to deliver? Or are you burying your head and saving it all for Christmas Eve?

Dunno about you, but I already feel a bit fa-la-la-la-laaa, la-la-la-laaa...

NaNoEdMo

November sees a flurry of writing activity as writers the world over sign up for NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that during November, you knuckle under and write every day - at the end of that time, you'll have at least a 50,000 word novel completed. A lot of my writing friend are taking part and I'm cheering them on from the sidelines as their word counts creep or leap in the right direction - up!

It doesn't suit everyone as a way to work. Chuck Wendig, whilst being adamant that writers need to write to succeed (which is obvious really, but you'd be amazed at how many of us say we're writers but faff about on Facebook or blog or paint bathrooms to avoid getting proper words down sometimes...), admits that such a structured, pressured way of working might not be for everyone. Quite frankly, I wasn't sure I'd have the self-discipline...

Anyway, this year, if you're a regular reader of the scribbles, you'll have seen I've been struggling to know what to do with the two complete novels I've written. Neither of them have that something special to make them stand out. Add to that a major flaw in how I structure my stories, which became apparent after the York Festival of Writing, and I reached a point where I had to decide whether to fix the flaw or start work on something brand-spanking new where the flaw would not appear. 'Cos now I know about it, it'll never appear again, right? Hmm...

NaNoWriMo seemed like a good opportunity to start a different project. I'd had an idea...a shadow of a new novel that I had actually planned out to make sure that flamin' flaw was not going to be there. NaNoWriMo might give me the impetus I needed to get stuck in. Problem was, I still wanted very much to self-pub one of my already completed novels next year - probably just a small print run and a digital version - see how it would be received by readers. I still love the story, you see, can't let it go...

As a compromise, I decided to adopt NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month. I would work every day on that flaw as best I could, so the book would be ready to publish after Granny Rainbow 2.

And I've done it.

I'm now in the processing of listening to Dragon read it all back to me - and there's nothing like an inhuman digital voice putting the wrong emphasis on a sentence, or struggling with words it doesn't recognise because I've written an accent, to focus the mind on what you've written! Hopefully, I'll get the final chapters listened to before the weekend and then...

Then, it's going to a publisher who has seen a sample of the novel and asked to see the full MS. It's only a nibble, and might not come to anything, but there's hope. And even if it goes no further, I will publish it myself next year as planned - so I win either way!

After that, it'll be JaNewNoStar - January New Novel Start! Wish me luck.

Poppies

The commemoration of the centenary of the beginning of the First World War has been marked in numerous ways this year.

Since 1921, poppies have been a central theme in remembrance. There's a great summary of the history of the poppy for remembrance here. They are not, however, without controversy. Some prefer not to wear them, because it shows an apparent favouritism for one particular charity. Others baulk at the idea of 'celebrating' the lives of soldiers who, while fighting to protect a particular way of life, killed many thousands - even millions - in the process. Some prefer to adopt a white poppy instead of red, as a sign of peace...

But in spite of all this, the poppy remains. And this year particularly, we have seen it used in numerous ways.

The poppy hijab

On buses and trains...

The Every Man statue in Trafalgar Square

And there are others...far too many to mention here.

Who cannot fail to be moved by the sea of blood-red flowers that have been planted in the moat around the Tower of London?

The images are overwhelming - I'm not sure I'd be able to handle seeing the installation for real. 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' contains nearly 900,000 individual blooms, each representing  a British or colonial life lost - in just one conflict. I wonder, if we could see the toll of present conflicts in such a visual way, would our world leaders be keener to pursue more peaceful avenues? Especially if they included civilian casualties...

The Sea of Blood has inspired several displays in my home town. The local bead shop, Bojangle Beads, has made ribbon and felt poppies; their window features a display of the brooches they'd made, although you could buy a kit to make one of three different poppies yourself. For every sale, a donation was made to the Royal British Legion - over £600 has been raised raised.

In the Centre for Faith and Spirituality in Loughborough University, chaplain Jo Leatherland created a display from old, dismantled wreaths that had been removed from the university Garden of Remembrance.

And in my church there was a display, similar to this, last Sunday, which featured the names of the men of Nanpantan who fought and died. This particular arrangement was created in September, to coincide with the centenary of the actual start of the First World War.

Three white poppies to represent both the Trinity,
 and the promise of eternal life

Loughborough's Remembrance Parade was held in Queen's Park, where after the two minutes silence, crowds of onlookers were showered with poppy petals from the top of the Carillon.

Will I be wearing a poppy today? Yes. Not because it glorifies current conflicts as some have suggested. Not even because it's a sign of appreciation for those who lost their lives fighting to give me the life I enjoy today.

To me, it symbolises the blood of all who lose their lives in conflict - not just soldiers - and the continuing need for peace in our world. If we don't look back, how can we build a better future?