Autumn Again...

Goodness where has September gone?

No, I haven't been wasting my time since my last post. I've been working on an entry for one of the annual competitions at the writers' club and putting into practise some of the skills I learnt over the summer.

As home life has been a bit disruptive with various family members at home during the day, I've been trying out writing in the evening. Until daytime's settle down again I'm going to concentrate on rewriting in the evenings, while I can use the time during the day for research, admin, and catching up on interesting programmes and Twitter.

It's not ideal but I will be able to get quiet and work intensively.

Yesterday (Saturday) I was at a half-day workshop on dialogue, so I have been writing a bit.

On my travels around the city centre this month I've been taking photos of the various Hoodwinked robins that have been placed across the city. They've been part of an art trail along with a number of book benches.

The robins have been sponsored by local businesses, and each Robin has been decorated by a local or national artist.

Best of all the robins will be auctioned off in October to raise money for the Nottinghamshire Hospice.

They've been popular with children and adults during the school summer holidays and at weekends. After today (30th September) they will be gathered up and taken to Fernleigh House and Garden to join two more special edition robins.

The robins will be getting a tidy up first as I'm sure they've had a few sticky finger prints on them, as well as whatever the weather could inflict on them.

I didn't get to photograph them all, but I did get eight of them. In fact one of them is on the back cover of the autumn issue of Scribe- the club magazine of Nottingham Writers' Club.

Goose Fair, Goose Fowl...

This one was just off the Market Square. It's very appropriate as this week is the annual Goose Fair and in the past it was held in the Market Square.

Nowadays it's a funfair held out at the Forest Recreation Ground and the car park- of the tram stop next door!

Like any tradition it has its roots in history; at this time of year Geese would have been driven into the city to be sold for the Michaelmas dinner. The Geese came from Lincolnshire and would have been walked all that way.

You can find out more about the origins of the Goose Fair over on the Nottingham Hidden History Team site. They're a fantastic resource for Nottinghamshire history.

Do look at the picture of the huge Goose sitting on the roundabout. Every year this heavy duty statue comes out of storage and appears at the roundabout just by the Forest, on a bus route so it can't be missed; and if you forget it's Goose Fair time its appearance soon reminds you...

Trying a New Method...

At the moment I'm working on a shorter project set in the late 1920's.

1920's Red Cloche Hat
from Shaping The Body Exhibition
Castle Museum, York.

With the school/university holidays there's not as much quiet around me as I need to concentrate on the editing of draft 1 of my Nottinghamshire short novel, so I'm researching and jotting down ideas on this other project.

I've always written sequentially, so start at chapter one and work through to the end, but this shorter project isn't working that way.

I have scenes and dialogue in my mind but not the joining up or narrative pieces.

So I decided to try something different; write the dialogue in the scenes I do have in mind and fit it together later on when I'm clearer on the descriptions and narrative.

Admittedly I was sceptical  that it would work, but surprisingly it has worked well and I'm making progress quicker than I anticipated.

The core prompt has been in my ideas book for years, and despite considering a few possibilities- one set in the early 19th century- it didn't go anywhere, until the couple from the past revealed a brief conversation that made sense of the 1920's plot.

One day I'll write that other story that will tie up the early 19th century to the 1920's...

Meanwhile the disadvantages are that I've got to learn about everyday facts of 1920's life.

For example can my heroine turn on a light? How widespread was electricity in country houses?

It's interesting in another way, because my mother was born in the early 1920's so some of the questions & answers will relate to her childhood too.

At least I'm writing... :-)

Nothing is Wasted...

Every writer knows the value of carrying a notebook or some device to record those moments we all get when an idea pops into our heads; we see something that attracts our attention, or we overhear a conversation and there's a line or phrase we just have to use in a story.

I've been known to be walking down a road in the city centre, hearing someone on a phone, stopping and then sidling to a discreet position to casually remove a notebook and pen, before madly scribbling down the words that attracted my attention- and listening for more.

Many of these 'moments' disappear into my notebook and don't emerge again until I'm reading through them weeks or months later.

Others stick in my mind, then years later other thoughts immediately bring that long ago note to mind and a story starts to emerge.

Many years ago- before the tram lines were put in Nottingham city centre- I overheard a phone conversation, and put a single line of dialogue in my notebook. It was asking for a story, but none of my ideas worked, so it was stored.

Ideas...

Last week at the informal NWC meeting in the pub, in conversation I mentioned the comment I'd overheard. We all laughed- because it did sound funny- and back it went into my mental filling cabinet.

Then over the weekend I was reading an article by Patsy Collins in last month's Writing Magazine (February 2016 issue) '101 Ways to Inspire Ideas'. I've no idea which one or more of her ideas started it, but two voices began holding a conversation around the words I'd heard all those years ago...

There's a competition I want to try writing it for, with a deadline in March. Whether it is good enough, or finished in time, I don't know, but I have to try... :D






Image courtesy of Ventrilock & www.freedigitalphotos.net.

It's Progress...

My rewriting of the short story is going well.

I've finished the first rewrite now and just need to go back through it, as I'm a couple of hundred words short of the minimum word count for my target magazine.

I did have to jiggle the dialogue around between characters as I had to lose one- they were surplus to requirements.

Though the narrative and description changed slightly, the dialogue didn't, it just fitted into place. I suppose it was because the characters hadn't changed...character.

Admittedly dialogue has always been a strong point, and I can hear the different characters as they speak - I just have to hope that readers can too, and it's not just me because I'm writing them!

I want to get this story done and out of the way so I can get back to Serena's Nottinghamshire story.

There's been no progress on the chapter two rewrite because the scene needs a few additions, and I have to bring in one of the minor missing (from draft one) characters, and get to know them.

My word count for the month has gone up because I'm now recording any writing I do, be it my blog posts, non-fiction, judging, information pieces for the writers' club magazine as well as fiction.

So I've discovered that I write more than I think- considering I can't touch type.

I'm making progress and that's the important thing...

Before winter and the
Blackbirds arrived...

One of Those Down Spells...

I've been having a down day on my writing.

You know those times when you think your writing is awful and you can never improve it? Well that was me today.

Having had some time away from my Nottinghamshire story I can see so many possibilities just in the first chapter.

Should I start with dialogue or leave it with the current opening description and narrative? I've started to wonder if actually shifting the position of some elements would work better...

With other stories I've written it's been a 50/50 split, though I know that on one project I'll be changing the start.

Once I get into rewriting the chapter I don't feel as bad, but now that nagging feeling that the start is wrong won't go. I have to seriously consider that may be right...

It's been some time since I've had one of these down spells, and I know it will pass, but I think having a deadline is making it worse.

Such are the trials and tribulations of the writer...

Dialogue & Dialects...

Last week at Nottingham Writers' Club we had a mini-workshop on dialogue.

Now dialogue has never given me issues, description yes, but not dialogue. But we all have areas of difficulty in our writing, and it doesn't mean we won't improve if we work at it.

For those who may not know, dialogue can be used to display character, provide information, but it must help move the story along...

When I was a teenager and started writing, my stories were dialogue heavy- emphasis on heavy. :D

I was fortunate to be exposed to different accents as a child; visits to my Somerset or London relatives, and regular trips to Lewisham market with different cultures emerging (in the 1960's).

Television and Radio no longer restricts what we hear to 'received pronunciation' (old style BBC English), and with regional BBC programmes you'll hear a wider range of accents. Actors no longer have to lose their natural accents to guarantee employment either.

Consider how many programmes have used regional accents/dialects and been successful: 'When the Boat Comes In', 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet', and 'Rebus' among them.

But what about dialect in books?

There was a recent article in The Guardian online, 'A Difficulty with Dialect' by author Debbie Taylor. She wrote a book called 'Herring Girl' and was advised to get rid of the dialect before submitting- she said she went for the "dialect lite"option. She regretted how much she'd taken out when she read it out to an audience at a launch party.

At our workshop some of the attendees didn't favour limiting dialect. As an experiment one member spoke in his natural dialect, and while some understood, or were able to make a reasonable guess at what he said, others couldn't. But we all agreed that it was easier to listen to, but probably wouldn't have been if we'd been reading it.

Personally, I prefer the occasional word or phrase that the reader might associate with a particular accent, and paying attention to whether a slightly different sentence construction is characteristic of the natural speech.

There are resources available if you want to hear how people from different parts of the country sound. Here's a few:

British Library- Sounds Familiar?

The International Dialects of English Archive.

The BBC-Voices.

(These will also help with social history too.)

Even though I've lived in the East Midlands for nearly thirty years I still have my southern twang- long sounding a's in words such as glass and bath being the most noticeable. :-)

So what are your thoughts on dialogue, accents and dialect?














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