Finding The Time to Write

My writing plans have gone awry of late, so it was good to finally get down to doing some writing last week.  I managed to write two new short stories (2,000 words each) and sent them off to two competitions (The Quercy Local Short Story Competition and Mslexia Short Story Competition).  It was liberating to be writing some new material.  I now need to get back to writing novel number two so no more procrastinating!

The Best. Winners and Runners Up from the International Club of Bordeaux's 1st Annual Short Story Competition (English Edition)

This anthology by the International Club of Bordeaux contains stories by some members of the Parisot Writing Group.   The ebook is available from Amazon and is free of charge until Wednesday. Just click on anthology or ebook and it will take you to the relevant Amazon page. 

Another Flash Fiction Success!

Delighted that my flash fiction story, Pilgrimage, has been selected for publication in the Gascony Writer's Anthology, which is due out in May 2016.  This story is close to my heart as it is based on a place high in the Pyrenees where my husband and I camped ten years ago when we trekked from the Atlantic Coast to the Mediterranean Coast.  

Second Place!

I am thrilled that my short story, The Wedding, was placed second in the Flash 500 competition.  My other story, Angel was short listed too so feeling very happy!  The challenge of flash fiction lies in its brevity - in this case 500 words.  It is important to make each word count yet create tension and drama.  In The Wedding I combined backstory and several key characters, which was a challenge.  You can read The Wedding here.  

A perfect weekend

This weekend I was at the Parisot Literary Festival (Festilitt).  Festilitt is held in the small medieval town of Parisot in the Tarn et Garonne. The event was popular, bringing together the local and wider community.   For me, there is nothing better than hearing an author talk passionately about their books and the craft of writing.   Appearing this year on the English programme were Deborah Lawrenson, Sara Taylor, Helen Dunmore and Kate Mosse.  The illustrator and writer, Ella Frances Sanders brought both French and English together in her session about her book, Lost in Translation. (Click on the author's names for links to their websites) The sessions were well attended – Helen Dunmore and Kate Mosse were by reservation only and the Salles des Fetes was packed.  Along with 14 other people I was lucky to attend a short story workshop being given by Greg Mosse and I'm hoping to apply what I learned to some of my unfinished stories.

Thanks to a team of volunteers admission to Festilitt is free, the only charge being for the dinner with the authors on the Saturday evening.  I felt privileged to be able to chat to the authors in such an intimate and informal setting.   I came away from the weekend feeling energised and inspired, but a little sad that it was over for another year.  As you can see, I have a pile of books signed by the authors, which I can’t wait to read!  

Critiquing

This summer the Parisot Writing Group met up for some critiquing sessions.  The idea was to keep to a 1,000 word limit and to circulate our pieces a week before the date to allow people time to read each other’s work.  I found the sessions extremely helpful.  It seemed to work better when the group was smaller (six instead of ten for example). Furthermore, at the first session everyone spoke at once and this made it difficult to take on board all the comments.   At subsequent sessions we adopted a different strategy and each member of the group took it in turns to speak.  This seemed to work a lot better.

Critiquing is difficult to get right – it takes time to build trust and some people are better at giving/receiving criticism than others.  I think it's one of those things that improves with practice.  On my Open University course when we critiqued each other’s work we were told to imagine we were creating a “praise sandwich” by doing the following:-

• Firstly, try to acknowledge what works overall.

• Follow it with an objective criticism, commenting on why the piece might not pull you in, why the voice might not be realistic or engaging, whether anything is over the top or underdeveloped.  As long as the criticism is objective, it can be useful to speak your mind. 

• Lastly, add a comment on any touches of the writer’s style that you particularly liked and state why.

For me, I think the most important thing is to be encouraging.   After all, it’s very easy to say what doesn’t work, but it takes more time and effort to say what does. 

The Parisot Writing Group

It has been a great year so far for The Parisot Writing Group.  Amanda Hodgkinson came back to do a weekend workshop with us in April.  In May, Jacqueline Yallop, did a workshop with the group on sub-plots.  This week Tracey Warr did a workshop on creating probable worlds by using maps, places and objects.  One member of the group commented that she still has so much to learn.  I think as a writer you never stop learning and it is this journey of discovery and being part of a coterie of kindred spirits that, for me, makes the writing process fun.