Monday 29 April 2013

Rejections

Unfortunately my competition entry for the Bath Short Story Award was unsuccessful.  Della Galton in her book, How to Write and Sell Short Stories says  "........not winning a competition isn't exactly a rejection, but it can still feel as though you've failed......".   She goes on to say that whatever we do, we cannot avoid getting rejections - the only sure way to guarantee you won't get a rejection is not to have a go in the first place.  So with that in mind I now have my eye on a competition in Writers' Forum.

Monday 22 April 2013

The Gift


My friend kindly offered to read the first draft of my novel (The Gift), all 55,000 words of it – thanks Tanya.  I handed it over and promptly stopped looking/thinking about it for a few weeks and instead wrote a short story.  Tanya’s comments are now back so I guess I should stop procrastinating and get on with draft number 2!  

Friday 19 April 2013

Haiku


You will see that I have added a Haiku tab.  A Haiku is a Japanese lyric form, which encapsulates a single impression of a natural object or scene in seventeen syllables arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables.  Writing a daily Haiku can be helpful in developing a writing habit.  It trains your attention and your ability to capture a moment in a concise way.  One of the advantages is that it can be practised anywhere!  So, why not give it a go?

Tuesday 2 April 2013

The Writer's Toolshed

I've just finished reading the Writer's Toolshed an ebook by Della Galton.  It had lots of useful tips on Creative Writing aimed specifically at writing short stories.  It was good value too at only £1.88.

Monday 1 April 2013

Competitions

This weekend I entered the Bath Short Story Award Competition my first short story competition for over a year.  The long list will be announced the end of April so fingers crossed.  I'm also going to send a couple of stories into the Writers' Forum Competition.  After all, what have I got to lose?