Welcome to the fourteenth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story that starts, “On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood.” I like to post these up at 5pm (as I was doing with the 5pm Fiction stories) but I only started it writing it at 5.12pm (finished at 5.40pm!) because I’d spent the day writing another story for a magazine competition’s theme of Insomnia (which closed today and I got it done and submitted… just!). So below is my 412-word cabin story.
*
The Ramshackle Writer
On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood. It looks like any ordinary cottage but it’s the stuff of legends, the owner, the hero of legends.
Or so he thought.
“Tommy!”
No, that’s terrible.
On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood. Wood collected from the forest at the top of the mountain.
Jack pulled the piece of paper from his typewriter, screwed it up and threw it at the bin. It missed, and became just one of a pile of screwed up pieces of paper.
On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood. Inside sits a writer with writer’s block.
“How’s it coming?” Nancy, Jack’s long-suffering wife looked over his shoulder. “Oh dear.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“It’s a bit ‘Dark and stormy night’.”
“I know, but it’s the prompt for today.”
“Can’t you change it?”
“We can but I like to stick with what we’re given.”
“It is only for fun.”
“And to put on my blog. By five o’clock.”
Nancy looked at her watch. 5.25.
“I know. I can backtime it.
“Backtime? Is that even a word?”
“Don’t know. Backdate is.”
“If you used a computer like everyone else, it would underline it if it wasn’t a word.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m a writer, I can make up words.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Use a computer like everyone else.”
“It feels… I don’t know. It feels more authentic. Like Stephen King. Very… Secret Window.”
“Terrible movie.”
“I know. It’s all a dream and all that. But I’m more productive this way. My ideas flow better.”
“They’re not flowing today.”
“I know, but that’s not the typewriter, it’s the prompt.”
“Then pick another one.”
“No, I’ll persevere.”
Nancy shrugged. “OK, but don’t blame me if…” The rest was lost as she went into the kitchen.
“Another prompt,” Jack mumbled as he pulled out the paper, screwed it up and launched it at the bin. It hit the edge but fell in. He clapped, laughed and put another piece of paper into the typewriter, twisting down the end, until the paper was sticking out a couple of inches from the top.
“Another prompt…”
He sat up straight, hovered his fingers, claw-like, over the keys and started tapping.
It was a dark and stormy night…
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
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You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 092: Tuesday 14th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: artist, tutor, Jane, unlimited, card
- Random: Tuesday Title: Fortune favours
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Fortune favours
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 096: Tuesday 14th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: strange, not, what, lightning, vein
- Random: S/he has frequent hiccups
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Please forgive me
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and thirty-third, is of mystery / thriller and YA writer Michael Herr.
Michael Herr was born in Evanston, Illinois in December, 1942, and moved to California in 1946.
He received a Bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s College, a Master’s degree from California State University, Hayward, and several teaching and administrative credentials.
Mr. Herr spent 34 years in education first as a teacher (San Francisco Unified, Mt. Diablo Unified) and then as an administrator (Vice Principal Mt. Diablo Unified, Assistant Director and Director of Adult and Continuing Education Martinez Unified).
He and his wife, Barbara, to Rossmoor, in Walnut Creek, California, in May 1998. Two years later, in January 2000, Mr. Herr retired. He has a son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren who reside in Santa Cruz.
Michael’s wife, Barbara, was born in Honolulu. Her relatives can be found on every island in Hawai’i.
Michael and Barbara travel to Kau`i every year and spend three weeks at their timeshare.
Mr. Herr gave up writing when he began teaching and did not begin writing again until after his retirement. He published his first book, The Kaua’i Obake Bar, in March 2005. He published his second book, Is ‘Chicken Skin’ a Local Delicacy?, in November 2005. Mr. Herr published his first mystery / thriller, The Bones of the Kuhina Nui, in April 2006. He published, The Old Queen’s Murder, the sequel to Bones, in April 2007. The third book in what was now a series, The Old Queen’s Treasure, was published in March 2008. The fourth book, The Old Queen’s Guardians, was published in November 2009. The fifth and current book in the series, The Old Queen and the Maui Maiden, was published in 2011. The Kohala Coast Mystery series is set primarily on the Big Island of Hawaii, though much of the action in the latest book takes place on Maui.
Mr. Herr has also written a Young Adult book, set on Kauai, that is available only as an ebook at present.
All of Mr. Herr’s work is noted for its references to Hawaiian culture and cultural practices.
As of today Mr. Herr has sold over 7,000 copies of his books in both paperback and ebook format.
*
And now from the author himself:
Life is hardly begun before it’s over
I turned 70 in December, older than I ever dreamed I’d be, and began to wonder what, if anything I had accomplished.
Most of my life seems to have happened while I was looking elsewhere. I graduated high school, having avoided death from a ruptured appendix. During that same period I also avoided killing someone with my shotgun. But I lost my girlfriend, the only one I had ever had up until graduation. I went on to college and during my sophomore year I met the girl / woman who was to become the love of my life. Counting our college years we’ve been together for 50 years now.
Together my wife and I produced a handsome and intelligent son who, just as my hope was about to expire, found and married the love of his life. And they gave us the next love of our lives, our granddaughter and grandson.
The books I write are set in Hawaii because of my deep love for the islands. My wife first led me their while I was still in college and we were not married. The islands of Hawaii found a home in my heart immediately. We continue to return each year. The books I write are filled with my memories of these islands, and with all that I have learned about the islands over the years.
I started out writing humorous / spooky stories, but found that people would rather read stories filled with death and violence. I don’t write the violent stories that I read from more-famous authors, but my characters do encounter death quite often. My characters also encounter problems with which I am familiar — conflict with other family members, poor choices that lead to difficulties, and even diseases such as Alzheimers.
My Kohala Coast Mystery / Thriller series is currently five books long. A sixth book resides in my computer, waiting only for me to return and finish it. Following my publication of that book, I intend to do a crossover book. I will bring the characters from my mystery / thriller series back in time to interact with the characters from my first two books. I just have to figure out how to kill a ghost.
I love technology. The expansion of ebooks and ebook readers has allowed me to reach many more people. I hope that you can be one of them.
Mahalo and Aloha,
Michael A Herr
(no, not the Michael Herr who wrote Dispatches)
**
I just have to figure out how to kill a ghost”. I love it! Thank you, Michael. You can find more about Michael and his writing via his website: http://www.michaelherr.com.
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Michael Herr, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to Post-weekend Poetry and the seventy-third poem in this series. This week’s piece is by memoirist Jill Schaefer.
Game, Set and Match
Now as for tennis, I so love the game.
And without a net wouldn’t be the same.
No way to skim balls across the top
With a fast forehand or backhand shot.
A tennis court with no dividing net
Is no place at all for a six game set
Where to win you must lead by two
And best of three sets sees you through.
The crosscourt slice, lob high and smash
Add to your game some skill and dash
Of grip, strokes, ace serves and aim
But without a net, there’s just no game
So, dear Robert Frost, I agree with you
Your words to me ring so very true.
Yet tennis without a net is far worse
Than poetry written in free verse.
*
I asked Jill for the inspiration behind this poem and she said…
Robert Frost said “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down!” which inspired me to compose this poem.
Thank you, Jill.
**
Jill has lived on the California West Coast for the past thirty-five years, fifteen years of which were in Santa Barbara and Goleta and twenty in Lompoc. She, her late husband and three sons emigrated from England and Germany in 1974.
‘Up The Wooden Hill’ is a historical memoir about the author growing up in London’s Blitz and her husband in Nazi Germany before, during and after World War II, featuring two tales seen through different spectacles. Stories of love and war, tears and laughter, families, friends and foes.
From school days fraught with sibling rivalry and controversies with parents, lives are rebuilt, the Deutsche mark revalued and a father de-nazified. Both the young people mentioned in the book learn apprenticeships, experience calf love and the beginning of a postwar world.
Video: http://www.eopinion.us/videos/71/up-the-wooden-hill
“Coming of Age in California -English Style-” is a lighthearted account of the author’s true story of herself, a naive English teen, fresh from home and convent school, venturing forth with a girlfriend to the California of the 1950s. The duo travel from Southampton, England on the Queen Mary to New York City, cross-country by Greyhound bus via Route 66 to a welcome in Pasadena. The two girls first visit California’s small town of Bakersfield, then on to Hollywood with an involvement in a call-girl ring.
The journey continues to Long Beach and a job with the Miss Universe Pageant, and finally to San Francisco, city of sophistication and singles bars. Along the way they encounter climate, communication, customs, and cultural challenges…and a disintegrating friendship.
video: http://www.eopinion.us/videos/44/coming-of-age-in-california-english-style
In Quest of the Old West -A Driving Diary-:
A Driving Journal of Jaunts and Journeys by Jill
As a Cold War dilemma unfolds, an Anglo-German couple, Jill and Horst, drive off on a lighthearted jaunt through the western states of America, their adopted country.
Jill keeps a daily journal of their fortnight’s trip through the Western States to the Dakotas and back to their home in California’s coastal city of Santa Barbara. News alerts of the US / Russia drama up-date the couple on their driving journey of discovery, as they dig and delve into the past, dally with locals, delight at historical sites, and day-dream into the future.
Jill’s website is http://home.earthlink.net/~schaefer234
***
If you’d like to submit your poem (40 lines max) for consideration for Post-weekend Poetry take a look here or a poem for critique on the Online Poetry Writing Group (link below).
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Jill Schaefer, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the thirteenth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story of Sam Chase, who has a mysterious past and an uncertain future. Specifically: ‘Sam Chase has just left a meeting with the big boss. Sam has been offered a dream position — or at least a position that would have been a dream if it had been dangled out there two years ago. But lately, Sam has been beginning to understand that there’s more to life than ambition, career, advancement, the trappings of success. Oh let’s be honest: it’s been coming on ever since last summer. If the only constant is change, Sam thinks, I’m a walking illustration.’ Below is my 310-worder.
*
A win-win all round
Money used to mean everything to Sam. The harder he worked the richer he became… and the quicker it went courtesy of Libby, Mrs Sam Chase. Wardrobes stuffed with carrier bags; Prada, Versace and names he didn’t recognise but the lettering gave away their status, the status Libby thought washed off on her.
He’d not told her that he was up for promotion – he knew what she’d want him to do but it meant switching from ‘on the road’ to behind a desk which in turn meant more time at home, more time with Libby.
George had given him 24 hours to think about it. Sam didn’t need that long but he knew if he turned it down, George would take longer to ask again but Sam also knew that his colleague, Ted was better at his job, a more suitable candidate so it would be a win-win all round if he said “no”.
He left work then drove around for a while thinking about what he should do. Libby was at her dance session so he had plenty of time before she was due home.
Having seen the same shops half a dozen times, he found it wasn’t helping so went home.
There was a light on in the master bedroom when he pulled into his driveway and assumed Libby had forgotten to switch it off before she went out.
Sam let himself in, put his briefcase down in the hallway, read the post, and headed upstairs to change. Opening the door, a predictable sight greeted him; stacks of boxes and bags by the chair, piles of clothes on the floor but unexpected was his wife, dressed in bright red and black underwear. Not only was she not at the gym but she wasn’t alone.
Sam took off his jacket and threw it on to the chair. “Hello, Ted.”
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 091: Monday 13th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: find, aloof, food, backwards, tuneless
- Random: write a sonnet about writing a sonnet
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monologue Monday: Write a first-person poem about a neighbour
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 095: Monday 13th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: side, lose, other, act, forgive
- Random: S/he cries at the slightest thing
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monday Monologue: It’s her/his first ever visit to…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and thirty-second, is of Jan Christensen.
In the early 1990s, the writing bug hit Jan hard. She quickly finished the first novel she’d started in her twenties. It’s still in a drawer. She next turned to short stories and found she loved writing them. Over a period of a few years, she had three more novels written, plus a pile of short stories.
Some of the short stories began to appear in print magazines in the mid-to-late-90s. By this century, more appeared in both print and ezines, and now her list of published stories numbers over fifty. She’s been nominated for two Derringer Awards (for short mystery stories) and won several other awards for her short pieces.
In 2004, one of Jan’s novels, “Sara’s Search”, was published and is now available for the Kindle. Since then she’s had two more novels published, “Revelations” and “Organized to Death” with another, “Perfect Victim”, coming out in April, all in both print and ebook formats. Also, a small collection of some of her previously published short stories for the Kindle is available titled “Warning Signs”.
Jan has also had several non-fiction articles published and has a regular column about reading in Mysterical-e called Reading for Smarties. She blogs about writing on Fridays and personal organization and time management on Mondays to tie in with her new mystery series about a professional organizer.
*
And now from the author herself:
When people ask me what books influenced me the most, I have to list two books in particular, and one genre. The first book I remember my mother reading to me was Alice in Wonderland. The next book I can name that greatly influenced me was Cheaper by the Dozen. And the genre I enjoyed in my teens and into adulthood and still enjoy the most is the mystery genre.
Cheaper by the Dozen taught me about time management and goal setting. Although I don’t enjoy fantasy books very much as an adult, Alice in Wonderland taught me about humor and that books should be fun to read. (Cheaper by the Dozen was a fun book, too.) And many mystery writers write with humor.
Mix them all together, and except for the occasional segue into dark mysteries, most of my stores tend to be light and have at least a hint of humor. Frequently I have an ordinary person (like Alice) surrounded by extraordinary people and events. Another theme I seem to keep coming back to is female friendships. My first published novel, Sara’s Search, is based on one, and it runs through my third, Organized to Death. (My second, Revelations is one of those darker stories.) Back to a strong female friendship theme is my upcoming private eye novel, “Perfect Victim”.
Since I am fascinated by organization and time management (that Cheaper by the Dozen influence), I made Tina Shaw, the protagonist in Organized to Death, a professional organizer. Also in the planning stages is a second book with Tina and a non-fiction book about those two topics.
I do love to write short stories, and when you think about time management, a writer can get out a lot more of them in a short timeframe than she can novels. When I started writing and joined my first writer’s group, I decided to write a short story to submit every time we met—every two weeks. I experimented with all sorts of characters and plots, and I learned the habit of sitting down to write at a regular time and finishing what I started. It did spoil me, however, for sticking to one type of mystery story, and I’ve found it harder to market the novels because of that.
The most luck I had with a short story was one I first had published in “Hardluck Stories” ezine, later published in a western noir anthology edited by Ed Gorman, Dave Zeltserman, and Martin Greenberg titled, On Dangerous Ground, now out of print. In April “Going Where the Wind Blows” from that anthology will be available in ebook format from Untreed Reads Publishing. Untreed has also published my four short crime capers about a hapless burglar named Artie. He keeps running into beautiful women who need his help, and he’s helpless to turn them down. The wonderful thing about the stories being in ebook format is that they should be available for a very long time, maybe even forever.
When people ask me for advice about writing, I always say, “Write every day. Read every day.” It’s a wonderful life.
**
I couldn’t agree more. Thank you, Jan. You can find more about Jan and her writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jan Christensen, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the twelfth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story set at a wedding. Below is my 162-worder.
*
Making up the numbers
“Bride or groom?”
Robbie looked at the pews. Plenty of space on the left-hand side. Groom on the left. “Groom.”
“Name?”
Robbie went with his usual alias. “Jimmy. Cousin.”
The man with the clipboard looked at the left side of his list. It didn’t take him long. “Sorry, don’t see your name here.”
“Ah yes,” Robbie started his well-worn speech. “I was a ‘no’ because I was going to have to work but then at the last minute. You know…”
The man shrugged and added ‘Cousin Jimmy’ to the list.
Robbie took an end seat halfway down the aisle then turned to the woman beside him, holding out a hand. “Jimmy.” He then lowered his voice. “The bride’s side really but I thought I’d make up the numbers.”
The young lady giggled softly and Robbie noticed her blush.
He’d woken up that grey and gloomy Saturday feeling equally dispirited but now it looked like it might be a good day after all.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and thirty-first, is of romantic fantasy novelist Andrea Baker.
Andrea Baker has had ideas for stories and poems all of her life – as a child she would live inside stories that grew from her favourite novels, playing with these characters for hours, inventing “what happened next” scenarios. Her Mother had encouraged her love of stories, and she could read simple books before she started school, and this was further encouraged by one of her Primary School teachers, who, recognising her love of reading, challenged her to read all the “Famous Five” series in the second half of the school year. A challenge she happily accepted, and achieved. Her favourite childhood stories included “The Chronicles of Narnia” by CS Lewis, and as she grew older, she added the “Anne of the Island” series by Lucy Maude Montgomery, as well as the Bronte Sisters and Jane Austen. Each of these favourites was read several times, and she would regularly accompany her Father to the local library, as at one time she would bring home, and read, as many as fourteen books each week!
As she grew up, and left University, she convinced herself that these imaginary stories were something that she should have grown out of – that these daydreams belonged in the realms of childhood. For many years she fought against the ideas. Every time she read a different novel, the ideas would return – she couldn’t stop her mind creating these worlds and stories, but she refused to write them down.
Instead she focused on life, and developing a career for herself. As a result has worked across both the private and public sectors, and now runs her own interim management company offering support and consultancy to those same client groups.
Describing herself as “pretty normal really”, she met her husband just two months after leaving University. They now live with their young daughter in the beautiful county of Warwickshire, close to where Andrea grew up, and just a few short miles from the stunning locations of her books.
Becoming a mother seemed to fuel her imagination once more, and since the birth of their daughter the ideas returned and grew, refusing this time to be ignored. As a result, the Worlds Apart Series, an idea that has floated around her for many years now, has been created.
*
And now from the author herself:
Thank You Morgen, for inviting me to be part of your wonderful blog. 
It was quite strange reading through that author biography, as it brought back so many memories of those early journeys into writing my own stories.
Now my daughter is of the age to read the Chronicles of Narnia, it is strange how I still get that same tingle when she reads the odd piece aloud to me, the excitement that I remember feeling as I read those books. I love the fact that she too seems as enthralled by them as I was all those years ago. Of course nowadays we’d call these stories “fan-fiction”, and there is a growing market for them, from readers desperate not to have to leave behind their favourite characters. Although my own stories are now unique, I know that every single book that I have ever read has influenced my work in one way or another. Whether helping me to understand a situation that I have never been in, but find my character drawn to, or allowing my mind to rest, in order to find the escape hatch once more, they are all influencers in their own right.
Looking back though I can’t believe how many books I used to read, and I honestly wonder where I found the time. Even at primary school I’d read seven or eight books a week while at the same time I was also attending ballet lessons twice a week, learning to play the Violin, and having swimming lessons! I remember that I never went anywhere without a book though, and would read on every car journey too. As I grew up, I recognised that ballet wasn’t for me, and switched from playing the Violin badly, to being not so bad on the Oboe, a legacy from another primary school teacher, and an instrument that gives me goose bumps even now when I hear it, although I can no longer play it myself. That was when my reading peaked, to fourteen books a week, at the age of 13/14. Many writers are creative in other areas – some of my author friends are fantastic artists in their own right too, but the only other area that I could be described as being creative in was music.
I think reading is an integral part of being a writer, don’t you? There are so many fabulous books out there, and I can still easily devour a good novel within a day, if time allows. I find now though that I actually have to plan my reading, and pace myself. Since the idea for Worlds Apart became a series, just hearing a snippet of a track off my writing playlist can trigger the flow of ideas, and my mind will drift off on a path of its own. That’s fine when I’m at home, but not so good when helping a client with their CRM Strategy, or major transformation programme and someone has forgotten to turn their mobile off!
The biggest challenge for me though has to be finding the time to write. I work full time, and when I’m not at work, my first priority is our daughter, so I rarely get time to stop, let alone think, before late in the evening. When the story is flowing, I can easily get several hundred words written in the space of a couple of hours, and in fact the bones of book one, over 30,000 words, were written over several evenings during a six-week period. That’s not so easy however when I’m struggling with where the story is going – and many times I’ve sat at our computer, or with a laptop on my lap, staring at a blank screen. I often find that happens when I’m trying to force the story to go in a certain direction, and the characters aren’t ready to do that. I don’t know about your own writing Morgen, but my characters have surprised me with some of the things that ended up on the page. The story still goes where I’m expecting it to, but there have certainly been a few significant events along the way that I wasn’t quite expecting!
I have to admit though that when I first starting writing Book One properly, and the realisation that this was a complete product, not just another idea, I found it a very isolating experience. I’m quite shy in many ways, and told less than a handful of people, including my husband and parents, that I’d started writing properly again. So knowing where to begin in terms of marketing and getting published was really difficult. By chance I came across the Authonomy website, and although I don’t use that site very much at all, I joined a group of writers called the Alliance of Worldbuilders, all of whom are fantasy authors of one genre or another. Book One would never have been published without their support and advice, and I know it is a much better book as a result of their comments. I’d highly recommend that anyone new to writing, who really wants to get support and advice, seeks out and joins a similar forum for the genre they write.
Thanks for having me Morgen.
**
You’re very welcome, Andrea. I’m delighted you could join me.
You can find more about Andrea and her writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, Andrea Baker, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and thirtieth, is of novelist, speaker and poet Robert E Hirsch.
Robert Hirsch was born in Pusan, Korea in 1949. At age five, upon the conclusion of the Korean war, his mother placed him on an airplane and sent him to America under the adoption of his biological American father due to post-war hardships and the ostracism against Amer-Asian children that existed in Korea at the time. He did not see her again until forty years later in 1993 when they were finally reunited. Living in the South (Columbus, Georgia, 1954), he was prohibited by segregation practices from enrolling in public school because he was half Asian and deficient in English, and subsequently received his first four years of education in Catholic schools. From there he attended Department of Defense schools until age thirteen when he received American citizenship. His family then moved to France where, despite the fact that he did not speak French, he was placed in the French school system. Within three years, however, he became fluent in French and upon graduation from college at Cameron University in Oklahoma (1971), he became a French teacher. He retired from education in 2012 after a 40 year career in which he served as a teacher, Dean of Discipline, assistant middle school principal, high school principal, and superintendent. He is currently writing novels and serving as a public speaker / organizational consultant.
He has long had a passion for writing, has published poetry, authored a regular newspaper column, and has recently published his first fiction novel, Contrition, with JournalStone Publishing of San Francisco. As with most writers, witnessing the human condition has been utterly fascinating… a bittersweet communion of heartbreak and inspiration. “Due to the extremely unusual, transitional circumstances of my life and the many odd experiences it has thrown at my feet, writing has been cathartic for me,” says Hirsch. “We as feeble humans are often swept into the rushing tide of circumstance, and are consequently forced into making decisions that violate our core principals… and thus begins that inner struggle that so hauntingly lingers within the brackish backwaters of our conscience.”
*
And now from the author himself:
My writing delves into the cerebral aspects of the personal reflection that arises as we confront challenge and conflict. More specifically, I like to examine and expose the impact that previous failures, collapses, and misdeeds have had upon my characters, and how those past experiences affect the psyche of my characters as they grapple with the obstacles I have placed before them within my plots. I have determined by now through both personal experience and observation that regardless of our individual successes and victories in life, we each inevitably leave behind us a wake of damage as we plod forward through life. Often this damage to others is created through no malice or intent of our own, but comes about as a result of being swept into the currents of circumstance. Whether the damage done to others is deliberate or incidental, however, the end result is the same… hurting others. This may be of little consequence to the malevolent, but the decent soul is profoundly affected by the effect of his/her own errant actions upon others. And thus begins that parasitic inner struggle that slowly eats at the “good heart” as he/she struggles to navigate through the see-saw of the conscience.
In my novel, Contrition (JournalStone Publishing, August, 2012), the placid existence of a small coastal community is disrupted by the brutal murder of a ten-year-old girl within the attic of the house of the Brothers of Holy Cross who run the local Catholic school. Within the web of shock, mystery, and horror that begins to unravel as the crime is investigated, the disconnected lives of five characters begin to converge in an unanticipated communion of personal contrition as the murder of the young girl forces them individually to return to the pillory of their own guilt for things that occurred earlier in their lives. Contrition crosses genres (suspense, mystery, crime, horror/supernatural), but remains true to one simple theme… the human heart’s quest for atonement. Though the human heart is the wellspring of great strength, courage, and perseverance, it is also fragile… and once broken, can force the strongest of souls into the bottomless depths of depression, defeat, and inner collapse. The heart, then, is the very core of our humanity, and there is no medium in existence that can so effectively and precisely convey the struggles of the heart better than the written word of fiction. Solid writing entangles us within the lives, aspirations, and fears of the characters placed before us. Good writing sweeps us into plots and storylines, regardless of themes, settings, or time. And this, I find, is the exciting challenge of writing… imagining and creating emotion.
I have just completed two more novels, Promise of the Black Monks and Hammer of God, and have just this month sent them off to my agent (Loicano Literary Agency, Texas). These two novels form a prequel-sequel package and, unlike Contrition, are purely of the historical fiction genre. They cover the abandonment and subsequent upbringing by Benedictine monks of a ten-year-old boy during the political and spiritual turmoil at the close of the 11th Century, just preceding the First Crusade. Again, despite the complete left turn from Contrition in terms of setting, genre, and time period, my driving theme in these two books is the human heart and how it navigates one through both internal and external adversity.
**
Robert’s novel, Contrition, can be ordered through JounalStore.com, Kindle, Nook, Barnes and Noble, and Books-a-Million. More information and musings by Robert Hirsch are available at his website: robertehirsch.com.
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Welcome to the eleventh in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month while I write a story a day for Story A Day May 2013.
Today’s prompt was to write a story for submission to a particular market. Micro fiction is incredibly popular and whilst I won’t submit this one, especially because anything published online is deemed published, my very first published (by Woman’s Weekly) piece was a 60-worder. So below is my 60-worder for today…
*
Dating paradise
The Brington Chronicle’s lonely hearts advert read ‘gentle giant 40s sought for romantic picnics and cinema visits by petite blonde late 30s, reply to Box 147’.
Eve waited for over a week for replies to trickle in but by the second week she’d had fifty.
She sifted through them and found her ideal man, Adam… a match made in heaven!
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-ninth, is of novelist Panos Nomikos.
Panos Nomikos was born in 1961 in Athens, Greece. During his carefree, youthful years, he roamed the idyllic islands of his home country having fun on the golden beaches under the sun with his friends and lovers. Later, he studied for a Ph.D. in the UK and started a career in Information Technology in the maritime sector, roaming again across the world on intercontinental business trips in faraway places in Asia, Europe and America. In the course of his career he has authored numerous essays and articles in professional publications.
He maintains a blog at http://panosnomikos.wordpress.com writing about his favorite themes related to his beautiful home country, Greece, its position within the world-wide socioeconomic transformations, and its current upheaval in the midst of the worst financial crisis that we are experiencing here. He writes especially about ordinary Greeks, those living within the country, but also those who live and distinguish themselves around the world, trying to understand their vivid pulse and their feelings of belonging to the worldwide Greek diaspora.
Similarly, he has always aspired to share all those views and experiences and his quests to discover his own ‘true meaning of life’ by writing books. His first novel, ‘Fateful Eyes’, narrates the story of Peter, a busy professional who travels constantly around the world trying to solve a perplexing puzzle that has upset his life, whereas his affectionate lover tries to fend-off the threat posed by a mysterious antagonist in his heart.
*
And now from the author himself:
People around me have always been telling me that I am a “good writer” and that I should use my talent one way or another, someday… Since childhood (since I was ten years old) I have kept a diary, a habit that I have maintained continuously for the past forty years. Although, of course, nobody else has read my secret diaries, whenever I am revisiting my past pages, I am glad to notice that I am amused and entertained, not by my uneventful and ordinary past life per se, but by the way that I had been expressing my inner feelings and emotions.
Later on, during my professional career, I have written dozens of essays and articles in professional publications and magazines in my industry sector. The readers of those articles, and the editors of those publications, gave me a very heartening feedback, truly enjoying my pieces and my style, and encouraging me to write something “bigger”.
Thus, I decided to follow their advice. Witnessing first-hand and participating in the rapid socioeconomic developments that characterize the final decade of the previous century and the first years of the new millennium, from my professional standpoint, I wished to share all my observations and my opinions about the world-wide developments, one way or another. Moreover, the acute crisis that occurred recently in my home country, Greece, that again I am witnessing first-hand as it evolves around me on a daily basis, gave me an additional insight on how things can go terribly wrong, for a whole nation. I do maintain the position that, what has happened so far in Greece, is not unique to this country and, if the appropriate lessons are not learned by the educated world-wide elites, the intellectuals, the professionals, and the masses themselves, and if risk mitigation actions are not taken now rather than later, then I will not be surprised to see the same phenomena repeated again and again all over the world, including today’s richest, industrialized countries.
But how to “spread the word” about what has happened in my own country, and about what can go terribly wrong elsewhere? I wrote a novel, “Fateful Eyes”, where the protagonist, Peter, is a cosmopolitan Greek who grew up in Athens but who migrated to the UK. As he wanders around the globe trying to solve a mysterious puzzle that is tantalizing his life, he is unwittingly entangled in the rolling thunder of the world’s upheavals that characterize the beginning of the new millennium. His adventures give him a lot of stimuli to ponder on what has gone wrong in the global affairs, and what lies ahead for all of us.
A sequel of “Fateful Eyes”, the second volume, is already in the works, plus one more, shorter novel that will complete a trilogy. I hope that you will join me in this fascinating trip and that you will enjoy it.
**
I certainly do. Thank you, Panos. You can find more about Panos and his writing via…
Fateful Eyes is a story about a life spent searching for love, accomplishments, and true fulfillment, within the world upheavals that, unfortunately, characterize the beginning of the new millennium. In his own life, Panos Nomikos (the author) has traveled in many continents, has been acquainted with many different people from different cultures, and he has also humbly attempted to comprehend the dizzying pace of events that are unfolding in such a frenetic tempo around us.
Panos aspires to share those experiences by narrating the story of “Peter”, a cosmopolitan who is traveling around the world at several exotic places, trying to solve a great puzzle, trying to locate a mysterious lady who came from his distant, youthful, and lustful past, and upset his life and his relationship with his affectionate lover. All the while, she is trying to fend-off by the threat posed by that mysterious rival in his heart.
Yet, the puzzle itself is not the essence of this novel. The puzzle is only a “pretext” to justify the exposure of Peter’s tortuous and twisted path in life, as well as to narrate the lives of everyone around him, as they all become unwittingly entangled into the rolling thunder of the world’s current upheavals, terrorism, wars, and economic crises. Like a modern Odyssey, the real essence of this novel is Peter’s long and tormenting journey towards his destination, towards the completion of his mission. Notwithstanding the mystery, the problems, and the upheavals, this story also celebrates love, affection, optimism, and the enthralling beauty of marvelous life.
Fateful Eyes can be found on Amazon www.amazon.com/author/panosnomikos in paperback or e-book formats.
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the eighty-sixth piece in this series. This week’s is a 483-worder by Caron Allan. This story will be podcasted in episode 30 (with two other stories) on Sunday 28th July.
The Blue Dress
“They’ve found something, sir.” A young policeman spoke through the car window. Inspector Smith heaved himself forward on the seat and got out of the car. Seemed like these days he was always tired. Time to quit, go fishing, get away from all this. He’d given them thirty-five years, they’d had enough.
“Is he still alive?” He asked the constable. He looked too young to be a copper. Looked like he should still be in the Scouts. They all did, with their degrees in Criminology and their fresh faces, still with acne, some of them. The constable shrugged.
“The paramedics are still working on him. It doesn’t look too good, sir.”
Inside the funeral parlour, the assistant who had raised the alarm watched as a couple of paramedics laboured over the undertaker. The scrawny white chest was bared for the use of the defibrillator. Smith turned away, the image frozen, a moment in time, imprinted on his mind – a few greying hairs in the middle of the chest, the prominent ribs supporting the pale skin.
“How did you know this wasn’t just a routine call?” The constable was at his side, and the question was a welcome distraction. As Smith responded, they turned about and headed for the rear door. “I mean, we were called out to a robbery gone wrong, and straight away, you knew. It was like magic, sir.”
Smith halted in the doorway and looked at the youngster.
“There’s no magic in this game, son. As soon as we went into the flat upstairs, I saw the dress.”
“I saw it too, sir, but it didn’t ring any warning bells with me.”
Smith looked at him. “You didn’t find it a bit odd that an elderly bachelor should have a blue dress hanging on a mannequin in his bedroom? A blue dress that clearly dated from the 1950s, and was the size of a girl of about 12 to 14 years of age? It didn’t make you wonder if the undertaker had a secret? You didn’t find any of that at all unusual, constable?”
The constable flushed, and looked down at his feet. “Well, I suppose …”
They headed into the back garden. There was a concrete area set aside for client parking, beyond that a tall hedge enclosed a private garden. Some men in plastic all-in-ones had dug up a small patio area surrounded by climbing roses. In any other time or place, a beautiful bower of contemplation. One of the men got to his feet and beckoned the police officers over. He pointed into the shallow pit.
Smith looked. A cold hand clutched momentarily at his heart. He nodded and turned away. The constable was at his elbow like an eager puppy. “Sir? Do you know who it is, sir?”
Smith nodded again.
“Jessie Flynn. 13 years of age. Missing since 1958. The owner of that blue dress.”
*
I asked Caron what prompted this piece and she said…
The inspiration behind this short story came mainly from your (Morgen’s) online novel-writing group daily exercises featuring a photo of a blue dress on a mannequin. In the end I changed the kind of dress it was to suit the story, but the visual clue set off my imagination. I wondered who the dress might belong to and why it was on a mannequin. I could visualise it standing in the corner of an old dark room, a room no one visits apart from an elderly man. I could imagine him stretching out greedy arthritic fingers towards the soft stuff of the dress. It was a symbol, a reminder of a terrible act he had committed in his past. This was a secret that wouldn’t be discovered until he was dead. The prompts also indicated a character who was always tired and this led me to my jaded detective who has seen too much over his years as an investigating officer. Thank you Morgen for the brilliant exercises!
You’re so welcome, Caron. Thank you for doing something (and great somethings) with them!
**
Caron Allan was born in Kent and has lived all over the south east of England, and also spent five years in Brisbane, Australia, which has provided plenty of material for writing novels and short stories, mainly in the mystery / crime genre but Caron also writes fantasy fiction.
Married with two grown up children and now living in Derbyshire, Caron has previously worked as a railway ticket clerk, a classroom assistant, a secondhand bookshop assistant, an archivist, and a University administrator.
When not plotting how to kill people, Caron can be found trawling the aisles of her local grocery store in pursuit of everyday items with lethal potential. Other interests include history and family tree research and chatting on Facebook. Caron self-published her first eBook, Criss Cross, on 1 January 2013, and is currently writing a sequel, which at the moment has the working title Cross Check.
Caron’s novel is available via http://www.amazon.co.uk/Criss-Cross-Posh-Hits-ebook/dp/B00BM9AJ3Q and http://www.amazon.com/Criss-Cross-Posh-Hits-ebook/dp/B00BM9AJ3Q.
***
If you’d like to submit your 1,000-word max. stories for consideration for Flash Fiction Friday take a look here, or up to 5,000 words for critique on my Online Short Story Writing Group (links below).
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the tenth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a third-person omniscient story. I was going to continue on from the previous three days but fancied doing something different and although the first section is only third-person limited (one character’s point of view) I’ve taken the literal ‘God’s view’ of omniscience. The second section is connected and is omniscient. Below is my 1,048-worder.
*
Death & Life
Death
Wonder how long would it take me to reach the ground if I jumped? Ted thinks as he swings his legs in the light breeze. How many bones would I break? Which part of me would hit the sidewalk first? He won’t of course, would have thought about it a year or so ago but he’s turning his life around, working hard, getting off the booze. This is his last bottle of old JD. Mr Daniels and Ted go way back. JD was there when he needed him or thought he needed him but instead of going to the liquor store, he’s started going to the café next door. Hadn’t even noticed it before, in a world of his own, but it’s real cute, a real homely atmosphere with damn fine cups of coffee.
He sits looking at his colleagues, eating their lunch next to him on the girder, chatting away, not a care in the world and thinks, They’re lucky – probably have swell homes, loving wives… gals who make their lunch pails and kiss them off to work. Someone to meet them, hold them, have their supper ready on the table when they get home, someone to care for them… think about them when they’re not there. The ‘old’ him would have felt all bitter and twisted, but he takes a good hard look at them then at himself, and sees they’re no different; just men trying to be happy, getting through life as best they can.
Things on the outside are improving too; the Depression’s easing and the mayor’s got big plans for the grand city of New York. “Do something about the smog,” he says – breathe it in and it chokes you – gonna be a thing of the past. “Look to the future” he says. More high-rise buildings as far as the eye can see, right up to the clear blue water of Rhode Island and out to Martha’s Vineyard. So the city is on the up, literally, and that’s gonna keep Ted in a job, so he’s all for it. Maybe he’ll even get out of the Bronx and move to Queens… and one day Manhattan!
So they’re constructing the great Empire State Building. Making a new piece of history – John Raskob’s vision – he reckons there’ll be a million bricks by the time they’ve finished. Had to be higher than Walt Chrysler’s Building. That Raskob fella must be mad, Ted thinks, doing all this just to outdo his rival. Hey, maybe one day I’ll even be able to buy one of their cars.
This girder is boiling – Ted feels like his arse is burning. Fred’s got the right idea, bare chest and all.
Ted looks down, at all the people, the worker ants, crawling about their business, never talking to their neighbours. Up here, they’re a world away. Ted then spots his apartment block. Could do with a lick of paint.
His mind wanders to the girl in the coffee shop yesterday, thinks maybe he’ll speak to her tomorrow. “What? Yeah, Joe, it’s a fantastic view. Thanks, I’d love a cheese sandwich.”
*
Life
The hospital doors fly open and a woman is screaming out “where’s my husband? Where’s Matthew?”
Twenty blocks away a man kneels down and takes a picture. Little does he know that this innocent snap will be famous worldwide for many years to come. Right now he’s thinking about getting the job done before he rushes home to his expectant wife. Their first child is due any day and he can’t concentrate. So he continues staring through the viewfinder, hoping for clear shots before getting his equipment together and going home. He looks at the people that compile his picture. Eleven ordinary men but with nerves of steel. He marvels at how they could sit on a tiny, narrow ledge hundreds of feet up in the air. He expects them to look fragile – as if a gust of wind could carry them over at any point – but they’re as strong as the girder they sit on. His eye, then lens, focus on a solitary figure at the end. Although he’s sitting next to his colleagues, he seems detached – a bit of a loner – and a liquid lunch it would appear. Looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. The photographer wonders what the man is thinking. He puts down his camera and sighs.
The heat of the day hits him. He had thought that it would be cold so high up but it’s baking. The white vested guy manages to look cool, clearly used to the heat. Apart from the outsider, the rest of the group seem very relaxed. One lights up a cigarette for a colleague, two others shut their lunchboxes and get to their feet and all but four head back to their site office, casually strolling back along the solid iron tightrope as if they were part of a trained circus. The four remaining men chat for a while, then to the photographer’s amazement, swing round to face each other and lay length ways along the girder and go to sleep! He carefully takes more pictures – the shutter sounds deafening as it closes. Today has been one of the best of his life.How many people have the opportunity to see life so raw. Up, natural above the clouds? He feels privileged. Here he is…over a thousand feet off the ground, witnessing the building of the eightieth floor of a planned one hundred and two. As he watches the men nap, he realises that he’ll have little sleep from now on but he can’t wait.
As his thoughts drift, his wife is going through the early stages of labour.
Senior nurse, Bertha Albright, applies a damp compress to her patient’s forehead and holds her hand while a colleague tries, again, to get hold of the father-to-be, willing for the day when people will be able to carry telephones with them. Bertha has assisted in numerous births but the moment a baby arrives still amazes her. She is sure that tonight would be no different.
A visitor in the next ward talks to her friend about a customer in her coffee shop the previous night and hopes that she sees him again before too long.
*
Footnote: The Empire State Building – highest building in world until 1972 – was built by John Raskob, Creator of General Motors who wanted to build a building taller than a recent building created by his rival Walter Chrysler.
***
Picture above courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunch_atop_a_Skyscraper.
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For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 090: Friday 10th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: feel, consume, sand, easy, smile
- Random: treating an instrument as if it were a girlfriend
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: remote
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 094: Friday 10th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: monster, find, better, babe, snack
- Random: She’s found underwear in the family car
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: break
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
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You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which have now dropped to weekend mornings only, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (670+) interviews from this blog are there as well so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with children’s author Jaquelyn Muller and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/author-interview-with-childrens-author-jaquelyn-muller.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Jaquelyn Muller, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-eighth, is of short story author and novelist Randy Attwood.
Randy Attwood grew up on the grounds of a Kansas insane asylum where his father was a dentist and the State provided housing on the grounds. He attended The University of Kansas during the troubled 1960s, getting a degree in art history.
After stints writing and teaching in Italy and Japan, he had a 16-year career in newspapers as reporter, editor, and column writer, winning major awards in all categories. He turned to health care public relations and served as director of University Relations at The University of Kansas Medical Center.
Attwood finished his career as media relations officer of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
Now retired, he lives in Kansas City and pursues publishing his works of fiction and creating new ones.
*
And now from the author himself:
I started trying to create fiction in college in the 1960s. Reynolds Price was guest lecturer during one of my creative writing classes. I didn’t have much to show him, but he called the few paragraphs I gave him, “lovely.” But then he was a lovely Southern gentleman.
I did that young man in Europe thing. Florence. Short stories. Very short. Some not bad.
Best thing for me was I went to work for a newspaper whose publisher / editor wrote a wonderful column. I got into doing columns and editorials along with reporting and editing. Doing the column helped me find my writing voice.
Ideas came. Longer pieces were tried. Nothing really worked. Everything seemed forced. In my 40s things finally started to click. I was up by 5 a.m. and my eight-year-old son was up, too, practicing the piano (Koji Attwood, Google him). I’d write for two hours and go to work at the paper. Then you start to try and get published and query letters to agents, some interest, no cigar. I had an address for Walker Percy. I sent him a letter and the first two chapters of “The 41st Sermon.” “Reads fine. Send rest” he responded. I thought I might finally get a break. I waited and waited. Three months later I read his obit in the paper.
Keep writing. New idea worth pursuing. Opening scene worth getting on paper. See where it might go. Characters get born and you wonder what will happen to them. Keep exploring.
Writing conferences, small literary magazines, writers groups. None of it turned our right or helpful for me.
Internet arrives. Easier to email queries. Web based magazines appear. Some accept my work. Got paid $150 for one story. Found a couple of agents, amateurs it turned out. And work and life and all that brought a long period in my life where I shoved the fiction aside with an “I tried. I couldn’t have written any better than I have.”
Got laid off near 60. Freelance writing helped, not financially, but the ego. Interesting consulting work developed. Re-approached the whole effort of finding an agent. Nada.
Could be self-delusional. Maybe my stuff is junk. Time to test myself with comedy. If you could make a reader laugh, you’ve succeeded. Had an opening scene idea and the damn thing almost wrote itself in three months. Never had anything come that fast. I have a novella that took me 30 years.
Finally snared an agent. “Reminds me of Hiaasen.” Nice. Work got before editors at good houses. Close, but no cigar. Recession hits, Kindle happens, publishing business turned upside down.
Never wanted to self-publish. Seemed like admitting defeat. Then the agent says a couple of editors urged self-publishing. Now they can use author-paid test marketing.
So here I am. And now semi-retired so I have more time to pursue all this and plenty of completed works beside the agented one to promote. It actually feels pretty good that my stuff can find a home outside my file cabinet. Now it’s up to me to go out and find an audience for them. What a brave new world that is.
I wonder how young writers do it now. I spent a lot of time with my writing and my ideas. Rereading, rethinking, rewriting. The internet is a huge distraction. Especially when you’re involved in self-promotion. To create, I need a lot of stare-off-into-space time. But now I bounce around websites and follow tweets and Facebook messages and blogs. Overload.
**
You can find more about Randy and his writing via…
http://randyattwood.blogspot.com/2013/03/current-listing-of-my-titles-now.html
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, Randy Attwood, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post is brought to you by novelist, short story author, poet and spotlightee DJ Swykert.
Crime writing – Familial DNA
The underlying theme in my latest book, The Death of Anyone, poses the Machiavellian question: Does the end justify the means? I developed this story around an impulsive homicide detective, Bonnie Benham, who wants to use Familial DNA, a search technique not in common use in the United States. Only two states even have a written policy regarding its use, Colorado and California.
Many legal analysts believe it violates Fourth Amendment rights which guard against unreasonable searches and seizures. The courts may ultimately rule that searching among Familial DNA databases for partial matches would constitutionally be the same as the use of a generalized warrant to search someone’s house when there is no prior reason to suspect the person of wrongdoing, which citizens are constitutionally protected from.
Even Thomas Callaghan, the former head of the F.B.I.’s national DNA database, feared that Familial Searches might be legally vulnerable, since courts might view the searches as an attempt to use samples collected for one purpose for a very different purpose.
Just as we would consider it unreasonable to cast a wide net of suspicion without probable cause in general due to concerns of privacy, personal dignity, and unwanted intrusion in the lives of innocent citizens, we should be similarly concerned the identification of a suspect through partial DNA searches will contribute to further loss of freedoms as DNA databases grow and lead to ever more invasive investigative techniques. These are all constitutional issues that will come into play as the use of DNA science continues to progress towards solving criminal investigations and determining the guilt of suspects. Decisions will be made by the courts that will regulate just how invasive of civil rights law enforcement can proceed in the investigation of serious crimes.
Lonnie David Franklin, The Grim Sleeper, was caught because his son’s DNA was the closest match to DNA collected at the crime scenes in the database. Investigating Franklin’s son led them to investigate Lonnie Franklin. But there was no direct DNA evidence that linked Lonnie to the crime scene until they obtained a sample from him after his arrest. Lonnie Franklin will be the first person in the U.S. to ever stand trial based on Familial DNA evidence, and its admissibility issues will be thoroughly tested by defense attorneys. These are the very same issues that face Detroit Homicide Detective Bonnie Benham and form the plot of my story.
I first heard about the use of Familial DNA working as a 911 operator in 2006. It came up in a conversation with officers working a case. I thought at the time it would make an interesting premise for a book. I began writing the mystery some three years later after leaving the department. I had just finished editing a first draft of The Death of Anyone in the summer 2010 when news of The Grim Sleeper’s capture in Los Angeles was released. I read with interest all the information pouring out of L.A. regarding the investigation and the problems confronting prosecutors. All of which are explored in The Death of Anyone.
Detroit Detective Bonnie Benham has been transferred from narcotics to homicide for using more than arresting and is working the case of a killer of adolescent girls. CSI collects DNA evidence from the scene of the latest victim, which had not been detected on the other victims. But no suspect turns up in the FBI database. Due to the notoriety of the crimes a task force is put together with Bonnie as the lead detective, and she implores the D.A. to use an as yet unapproved type of a DNA Search in an effort to identify the killer. Homicide Detective Neil Jensen, with his own history of drug and alcohol problems understands Bonnie’s frailty and the two detectives become inseparable as they track this killer of children.
Bonnie is a no nonsense cop who describes herself as a blond with a badge and a gun. She has her own answer to the ethical use of Familial DNA, but the actual legality of its use will be yet another story to read as it plays out in a real life courtroom in the California trial of The Grim Sleeper.
*
Thank you, DJ. That was fascinating, especially to us crime writers.
**
DJ Swykert is a blue-collar writer from Detroit. He’s worked as a truck driver, dispatcher, logistics analyst, operations manager, and ten years as a 911 operator. His work has appeared in The Tampa Review, Detroit News, Monarch Review, Zodiac Review, Scissors& Spackle, Spittoon, Barbaric Yawp and Bull.
His books include Children of the Enemy, a novel from Cambridge Books; Alpha Wolves, a novel from Noble Publishing, and The Death of Anyone is his third novel, just released by Melange Books.
You can find out more about him and how to buy his books on the blogspot: http://www.magicmasterminds.com, they are also available at Melange Books, Amazon and at select mystery bookstores. He is a wolf expert.
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. There are other options listed on http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, DJ Swykert, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, Familial DNA, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the ninth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story in third-person limited (one character’s point of view). Julie said we could write the same piece as yesterday’s (The Last Thing You Think About) and Tuesday’s (Quiet and Noisy) from a different pov so I’ve connected it, and again chosen a different character – and we can for tomorrow’s third-person omniscient so I’ll probably do that too. Below is today’s 226-worder (it’s been a busy day today).
*
What cost a human life?
Jack didn’t care that it hurt his shoulder. All he cared about was getting the people out. He’d been to derailments before but this was the first train of the day – he didn’t expect there to be many passengers – but on home territory there was a chance he’d be rescuing people he knew.
They’d arrived in the dark, someone heard or witnessed the crash, he didn’t know but they’d called 999, and now it was just getting light, making the job easier but not easier. He’d see clearer but then he’d really see what devastation the Jeep had caused.
He knew the driver would be dead. No one would escape a head-on like that; head-on car to side-on train. Only one victor in this entanglement. Not that anyone would call this a victory, with all but two of the eleven or so carriages concertinad in various directions down the embankment, the remaining at right-angles to the track.
Jack blamed the council. The locals had been campaigning for better barriers on that bridge for years but it all came down to money. What cost a human life? he thought as he thumped his right shoulder again at the twisted metal.
A shout went up, “I’ve found someone!” so Jack stopped pushing, ran over to join his colleague, just as the man behind the caved-in panel stopped breathing.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 089: Thursday 9th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: sweet, home, lady, tonight, thrill
- Random: in normal clothing
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: Thursday’s girl
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 093: Thursday 9th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: sketch, ill, new, hang, care
- Random: S/he collects something unusual
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Mixed bag: traffic warden (character 1), fruit picker (ch.2), cough sweets (object), bookshop (location), forgetful (trait), lost wallet (dilemma)
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-seventh, is of fantasy / new age / spiritual / romance novelist DM Yates.
Author DM Yates spent years studying languages. She holds both an Associates Degree and a Bachelors Degree in languages. She studied in a Masters program majoring in Classical Chinese Lit and Linguistics. All degrees were obtained from BYU campuses.
She entered the U.S. Army, retiring after 14 years.
She spent another 14 years as an Ind. Avon Sales Rep where she learned her marketing skills.
DM Yates’ motto is ‘Believe in Yourself and Dream Above the Clouds. I do and I Believe in You.’ She has proven this belief in her life. When her 8th grade teacher advised her that a woman’s role was a wife and a mother, she proved him wrong by entering pre-college courses in which she excelled. She was one of the first 44 women in the U.S. to hold the rank of Warrant Officer. She graduated with her Bachelors Degree as Magna Cum Laude and gained membership in Alpha Chi. As an Avon Rep she was ranked 7th in sales out of 550 women.
Now at age 63, she is starting her third career as an Independent author and poet.
*
And now from the author herself:
Stories play through my mind like movies and always have.
I write in the Fantasy / New Age / Spiritual / Romance Genre. My first novel, Always took me over entirely, compelling me to write until it was finished.
Always is about a middle aged man Simon who lives a quiet life alone, his best friend Dixon who enjoys finding ways to complicate Simon’s life, and Dixon’s 16-year-old niece who is sure she and Simon should marry.
I’ve just finished my 2nd novel, The Lone Hero which is about humans fighting in dragon wars. My poetry will be published this spring, and this summer a book of short stories about an older Midwestern woman named Gerri. I describe her as a woman who loves the Lard (hallelujah) and prunes.
This is a great time to publish. It’s exciting to read works by my friends and to know that I’m a part of this amazing group of Indie Authors.
Within each story lies a treasure for the reader. It’s time to scatter my treasures to the wind, that they may be found by the right people.
**
You can find more about Donna and her writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, DM Yates, Donna DM Yates, Donna Yates, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the eighth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story in second-person point of view. Now that I can do. Julie said we could write the same piece as yesterday (Quiet and Noisy) from a different pov so I’ve connected it, just chosen a different character – and we can for tomorrow’s third-person so I’ll probably do that too. Below is today’s 330-worder.
*
The last thing you think about
Four hours’ sleep isn’t enough for anyone but you’re used to it. You pretend you’re Margaret Thatcher. RIP.
You’d wanted a Jeep ever since you were a boy, since Uncle Frank had given you the white one on the huge wheels and now you were driving one, your pride and joy. Not white, but red – ‘Fireman Red’, your mother had called it, amongst other names.
Sylvia loves it as much as you do, or that’s your impression from her emails, your webcam late nights, your chatroom banter. You could both talk for England, or Scotland in her case.
And now you’re going to see her, for the very first time. You’d offered to meet her halfway, drive all the way, but she’d told you how much she’d loved going by train so you’d offered to collect her from the station, in the Jeep. You’d got up early to wash it, in the dark you may have missed a bit. You still smelled the shampoo as you’d started the engine, switched on the radio, too short a journey for a CD.
As you drive, about to cross the bridge just a mile or two away, you imagine her chatting to the person next to her, boring him or her rigid about anything and nothing, probably about you, possibly the Jeep.
You wonder what she’ll be wearing, something pretty for sure. She liked to dress up even just for a webcam. Sometimes she’d like to undress too.
You picture her getting on the train at Edinburgh, her floral skirt blowing in the early spring morning breeze, you know it’s too early for the sun on her face, too early for warmth. You’re with her as she settles into the journey, passing through the beautiful Lakes District, the not so beautiful West Midlands then gathering her belongings at Rugby… embarking on the last part of her journey at Milton Keynes.
She’s the last thing you think about as you drift off to sleep…
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 088: Wednesday 8th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: judge, fish, baker, derby, drum
- Random: a party at a village hall
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Cross over…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 092: Wednesday 8th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: office, drab, flow, feed, silent
- Random: S/he has no-one who cares about her/him
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Second-person sentence start: She won’t look you in the eye until…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which have now dropped to weekend mornings only, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (670+) interviews from this blog are there as well so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with children’s author Judy Pierce and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/author-interview-with-childrens-author-judy-pierce.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Judy Pierce, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-sixth, is of Orwellian-style dystopian novelist John G Nelson.
In 2006, John Nelson began his writing journey to pen a modern dystopia. His inspiration came from the news headlines that reported on secret prisons, torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic spying and wars based on falsified intelligence. It was all the material he needed to begin to imagine an Orwellian-style dystopia. No one had written about the post-9/11 American political landscape as a dystopia and John set out to fill that literary void.
He chose a global pandemic as the catalyst for his storyline. Now a global pandemic certainly isn’t a new vehicle for a storyline. There are plenty of works of fiction on the bookshelves about pandemics, but they all seem to end with the good guys coming up with a cure and the world is saved. At this point, John took some inspiration from Ray Bradbury and Michael Crichton and made the disease-causing organism an extraterrestrial dust mite introduced to earth in the wound of a returning astronaut.
John wondered what pandemic America would look like if the disease was not a known bacteria or virus that could be easily defeated or how scientists would react if the microbe’s properties went against our understanding of nature. How long would our society remain cohesive if the disease was highly contagious and one-hundred percent fatal? How would the government and society react if the bodies were stacking up and the economy was in free-fall? Would the misdeeds seen in the headlines following 9/11 wash up on our shores? Would a government paid for and controlled by corporations and a handful of elite billionaires be responsive to the masses? How would we distribute an experimental vaccine? Would we really distribute it in an egalitarian manner? Would the venture capitalist get vaccine before the bricklayer and the banker before the inner-city pre-school teacher if the amount of vaccine was limited?
John wanted the reader to see themselves in the landscape of the pandemic. Like a parable of the Titanic, his novel Against Nature allows the reader to see where they fit in. If our society was listing and taking on water, would you end up in a lifeboat or would you be left to perish in the icy waters?
It was John’s background in healthcare that motivated him to make the catalyst for a modern dystopia a pandemic. John is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and former Special Ops Medic—Air Commando who now lives a quieter life as a quality and risk management director and infection control practitioner for a hospital in the Rocky Mountain West. He was also inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement of young progressives trying to raise the alarm of inequity in our society and wake the electorate up from our political slumber.
The end result of his writing journey is Against Nature, an e-novel published by Wild Child Publishing. The reviews, thus far, have validated what he set out to do. He wanted to write a smart, fast-paced modern dystopia that took the reader on a wild ride across pandemic America. He hopes his readers are thoroughly entertained with Against Nature, but also begin to see our society through a slightly different lens.
*
And now from the author himself:
George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are among some of my favorite novels. So, it’s no accident that my first published novel would be in the classic dystopia genre. I’m also pleased to see the rebirth of dystopia albeit in YA fiction. I hope the success of YA fiction will motivate publishers to consider adult-centered modern political dystopia as a viable commercial offering. I think our society is fractured enough to stimulate some really compelling modern dystopian fiction
As a fiction writer in the dystopia genre you really should ask some tough questions about your own contemporary society and look for road signs in our everyday lives that may one day take us to a dystopian landscape. For writers a generation or two ago, it was totalitarianism and the threat of nuclear annihilation. I think that offered us a post-apocalyptic landscape as a backdrop, but does such a fear ring as true today as it did a few decades ago? Today, I think we have to look at new social warning signs for inspiration.
I think in order to write a truly unique dystopia, you have to move beyond the well-travelled path of the post-apocalyptic landscape. In order to do that I think you have to be more than just a good storyteller; you also have to be a social critic. You have to look at your own society from outside the fishbowl and be willing to move away from your own comfort zone. You have to examine faith, gender, race and class from many perspectives and peel back the layers to expose the roots of our social structures. When you do that, you create a blended narrative that is quite complex. Fiction, like life, should be many shades of gray.
With Against Nature, I tried to avoid a predictable ending where everything is wrapped up in a tidy package and we feel hopeful that good has trumped evil and the poor all end up wealthy and self-actualized. A good narrative in any fiction genre should be more complicated than that. In the dystopia genre, it’s imperative that we see the reflection of our own society (warts and all) in the pages of the fantasy society. I think that’s the most important ingredient and that’s what I look for in dystopian literature. Sometimes we need that social self-reflection to shake us from our moorings. We need to be transported out of our fishbowl and look back in from a different perspective. It’s what makes the journey to the dystopian fantasy world worth the trip.
**
John loves feedback from his readers. A 300-page novel should spur comments, questions and conversation, he says. You can find him at: http://johngnelson.blogspot.com
Against Nature is available at:
Read some reviews:
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, dystopia, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, George Orwell, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, John Nelson, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, Orwell, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post is brought to you by writer / editor Sandra Miller.
Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing
As a writer, if you want to get your words out to a wider audience and, ideally, earn some money along the way, you have two main options: to hire a traditional publishing agency, or to keep all the control over the process, and try yourself as a self-publisher. Both of the options have their own advantages and disadvantages, and here are the pros and cons of self-publishing over the traditional way that you should consider before you decide which road to take:
Self-Publishing Advantages
Autonomy. When self-publishing, as a writer, you also have complete control over the process of publishing, while the traditional publishing agency keeps the rights to have the final say over how the book is edited, or what cover design and copy to choose, and how to handle the marketing efforts.
Marketing. Largest part of the marketing attention and activities of the traditional publishers is focused on well-known authors who, for the luckiest, represent most of the writers they work with. But the Internet and the Social Media had made it possible for writers who have an established audience, like bloggers, or experts, speakers, to also successfully market their self-published work by themselves.
Timeliness. A traditionally published book can be found on the market, usually, after more than a year since it was first accepted for publishing, while you can distribute a self-published book in only few weeks, or months, at most.
Compensation. The compensation you’ll get from a traditional publisher is about ten percent or less, while if you self-publish your book, you’ll roughly get half of its sale price. In both situations, you can decrease some of your expenses by figuring your taxes.
Trial. If you’ve already tried to get to some literary agent or traditional publisher, but haven’t succeeded, you can try getting their attention by self-publishing a book. This opulent experience will also help you determine whether you can work through the traditional way of publishing.
Self-Publishing Disadvantages
Isolation. Yes, it’s great that you get to determine everything and have control over all aspects of the publishing process, but the catch is you don’t have all the needed skills and experience to do all that alone, so you’ll either have to acquire that knowledge, or find others to help you complete the tasks.
Selling. Selling a self-published book certainly isn’t easy. There are lots of activities you need to organize – identify your target readers, get the needed publicity materials, appear to certain events, or even host your own. This alone takes enough time and effort, without even considering the actual sale of the book.
Workload. You can choose to delegate some or all of your responsibilities around producing, marketing and selling your self-published book, or you can carry them all out by yourself. Either way, it will take you some time and effort, at least to manage and control them.
Expenses. If you decide to self-publish your book, you’ll have to be prepared to invest up-front in its production, marketing, distribution, while a contract with a traditional publisher would cover all the risk and the expenses, in some cases even providing an advance or pay out royalties. Also, when self-publishing, you need to hire a distributor for your book, because in most cases booksellers don’t buy books directly from their authors.
Prejudice. There are some self-publishing success stories, but we all have to admit that most of these books are poorly written and/or designed and the readers and agents can rightly assume there’s a valid reason the traditional publishers rejected their manuscripts. It also isn’t certain that if you have succeeded as a self-publisher once, you’ll get better chances to be accepted by a traditional publisher for a new edition of that book, or for a completely different piece of literature.
*
That was really interesting. Of all the 800+ authors I’ve interviewed only two have said that their publishers do all their marketing, yet the same authors are active on Twitter and Facebook so it’s a necessity for raising the profile – a necessary evil, some have said. Thank you, Sandra.
Sandra Millers works as a writer at editing services Help.Plagtracker. She has a PhD in English literature.
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. There are other options listed on http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, Sandra Miller, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the seventh in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story in the first person viewpoint. Below is my 812-worder.
*
Quiet and noisy
The candle flickered while the man crouched over my ankle. It looked like a candle but I think it was probably a lighter.
Someone had put their briefcase under my head and I could feel the catch digging in. I didn’t like to complain because it meant I had a better view of the man. Compared to the pain in my right leg, my head was OK. Uncomfortable, not painful really.
Pain’s good though isn’t it because it means I can feel it, that it’s going to be OK. I know there’s something on it, my leg, pressing down, so once they get it off they can move me, take me to hospital.
I remember shouting when I first came to, but no one took any notice apart from that one guy but I think he was close to me and it seemed like I was the only one making any noise, so I stopped. The woman next to me had take the full force of the metal caving in and I think died instantly because she didn’t answer me and she hadn’t stopped talking since she’d got on at Milton Keynes so I know she would have said something if she could have done.
The lights going out was the worst thing. I hate the dark.
Noise. I had expected to be more noise but I remember the impact then the quiet. Too quiet. I thought everyone was dead but then I sensed people moving around, shadows, then the pain of my leg took over.
I think the man went to tend to someone else, there are bound to be people worse off than me, but the briefcase is still there.
My head’s beginning to hurt a bit now and if I concentrate on that, my ankle isn’t so painful. I know I should think of something else, good things like meeting Josie for lunch.
Oh shit, I must phone her, tell her what’s happened, that I’m OK. She’ll hear it on the news and worry. She’s a worrier when everything’s going well, so…
A light! There’s a light! Hello? Over here! No, this way…
It’s OK. I’ll wait. I’m not going anywhere and the train certainly isn’t. Not for a while at least. They’ll have to clear it out the way, bring in cranes. The poor sods on the later commutes are going to be pretty pissed off. They’ll either have to divert… not sure if they can do that. Buses. They put on extra buses, don’t they?
Something doesn’t smell very nice. Not like petrol or diesel so that’s good. At least we’re not going to blow up.
And it’s cold. Whatever ran into us… it definitely ran into us because it came into the side, we didn’t run into it, must have made a hole… of course it did you stupid sod. Even if it caved the side in there’ll be a hole.
Poor train company. I don’t usually feel sorry for them… costs me over a grand a year just to get to work and back, but trains are expensive aren’t they. I suppose they’ll have insurance.
It’s still quiet. Can’t understand why there aren’t people panicking, you know, pulling at things, trying to get out or get other people out. I know someone will come for me… back for me soon. They know I’m alive so they’ll come.
Just need to get to my bag. I should have left it on, across my chest like I always do but I wanted to read my book, the latest Kate Atkinson, only just started it so can’t even tell you what it’s about. It’s another Jackson Brodie so it’ll be good for sure. Can’t help picturing Jason Isaacs now with his lovely blue eyes.
Need to find my bag. Get my mobile then I can ring Josie and she can ring for help. It’s fully-charged with plenty of credit. She’s my ICE. In Case of Emergency. I was going to ask her to move in with me. Think she’d say “yes”. They say something like this tests a relationship. You know, when one person’s injured and will need rehabilitation but I’m lucky in that respect too. Josie’s a nurse. Senior. Not long had a promotion. That’s where we met. At the hospital. I’m a bit accident prone, you see, although this is the worst one yet. Usually just come off my bike… bicycle not motorbike. No, not going fast enough to cause any real damage.
It’ll get light soon. That’ll help. They’ll be able to see where everyone is, not rely on torches.
You’d think there would be mobiles ringing. Everyone uses mobiles, don’t they? Shout too loudly because of the noise, even quiet electric trains are noisy. That doesn’t make sense. Quiet and noisy.
Hello? I’m here! Anyone? Can someone see my bag? I need to ring, Josie. Hello?
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, milton keynes, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, viewpoint, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 087: Tuesday 7th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: risk, worship, hall, transmission, table
- Random: learning something new
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Twisted
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
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Story Writing Exercises 091: Tuesday 7th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: best, 2012, speak, customer, saying
- Random: S/he’s too shy to meet someone new
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Secret admirer
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
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Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-fifth, is of thriller novelist Barry Johnson.
Barry is now seventy-four so I’ll just skip across his life. I’m sure if you ask him he won’t say he has done anything of note but let me just explore that. He was born the fifth of November 1938. He was a couple of weeks premature due to some kids throwing fireworks. A banger frightened a bulldog that bit his mother and he was on his way, his mother having been taken to Honeypot Lane Maternity Hospital.
He was christened Barry Edgar Johnson. Shortly after that war was declared. This, he claims had absolutely nothing to do with him but it did have a massive influence on his life.
Barry’s mother was a tailoress and took up with a guy working the black market and her skills were vital. His Gran called her a gangster’s moll. Powder puffs were an excluded item during rationing so some of the housebreakers and burglars used to steal furs and sheepskins etc. and his mother made fancy powder puffs for wealthy ladies. How did this affect him? At regular intervals the black marketeer was arrested, and Barry was put into homes. His gran used to get him out and a few months later it would happen again so when he should be learning in school he wasn’t. The only thing that did happen to him when he was with his mum was the Germans decided to bomb the mews they lived in. His skull was badly fractured and he says if he goes bald people will think he is from Star Trek. At seven he contracted TB so was put into an open-air convalescent home. This was a pre-antibiotics time so fresh air and nourishing food was the cure. He says he just got better to get warm.
The criminal went to prison but bought his mother a shop (Newsagents). His mother met Bert Smith, got pregnant and married him and Barry came home. His Mother had some money now so sent him to Lower Latimer School and they tried to educate him but before they made much progress the family moved to Sussex and he went to the village school in Rottingdean in a class, he says, that must have had fifty kids in it. Still he could swim and captained the school swimming team and they won the Brighton championship that year. He also was the captain of the football team.
With a fragmented early education he stood no hope of passing the eleven plus so he spent a year at Whitehawk secondary modern school. The only thing the school did was sharpen his fighting skills. He swam for the school (the only boy that won anything) and he played football for the school. He also came top of the class, One A despite playing hooky on Mondays and Fridays. After a year they moved to Newhaven and he went to Newhaven Secondary modern school into 2A. At Christmas they jumped him into 3A and the following summer he went to Lewes County Grammar School for Boys into the third year that was called the forth year because of the crazy numbering system they had.
The Grammar School was a different world; he loved it. It was all about tough intellectual challenge and sport. He joined the Army Cadets and became a corporal. Played Rugby for the school, was the school swimming champion, winner of the Sinfield Cup, and taught other boys to swim on sports afternoons in the summer. Then they had to wear swimming trunks because the girls from the secondary modern school went onto the roof of their school to watch the boys swim in the nude. Barry thought the binoculars were over the top.
The school leaving age was fifteen then, so his stepfather, Bert, expected him to leave school. ‘Thrasher’ Thompson invited his stepfather to come to the school on an open day. His parents had never visited the school. Bert was blown away. Barry had his name on an honours board. He appeared on photos next to trophies and photos of the cadets winning things so he agreed Barry could stay another year and take ‘O’ levels. He did and got eight subjects. He says it was a cheat really as some of them overlapped like physics and applied maths.
In his final year at school Barry had to think about what he was going to do. The only thing he knew was he wanted to leave home.
Barry joined the Royal Navy as an Artificer Apprentice. It was renowned then as the best apprenticeship in the country. He not only gained entry but also managed to get selected into the Fleet Air Arm for which the selection was tougher. He did a five-year apprenticeship four of those in a RN training establishment. The top quarter of the class would be selected as engineering officers. Barry passed out in the top four but by then he was married and didn’t see the Navy as the life he wanted but he had to serve until he was thirty.
Barry had a great Naval career and was a Chief Petty Officer at twenty-three. Of the fourteen years he served the Navy trained him for seven so he ended up with a whole bunch of qualifications.
Barry’s thirtieth birthday was approaching. The Navy once again offered him a commission and BOAC (now British Airways) offered him a job as a technical training officer training pilots, flight engineers and licenced aircraft engineers to the required CAA licence standards. BOAC created a learning environment and he achieved a degree in psychology, a teaching qualification and some other qualifications.
To gain broader industry experience Barry joined the Food, Drink and Tobacco Industry Training Board (A Government QUANGO) that the Government closed – he claims it wasn’t his fault.
Barry job-hunted, had some offers and joined STC as the Training Manager of their largest site (5000+ people). While at STC he became a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Member of the Chartered Management Institute. STC was taken over by Nortel and Barry was moved to the European HQ to become the Senior Manager of the European Learning Institute. Nortel was the most progressive telecommunications company in the world and then the Canadian Board sacked the CEO (he got his PA pregnant). The company made the classic mistake and appointed an accountant, and Nortel started to go down the tubes. The Learning Institute was closed in every geographical zone so Barry was redundant.
With three people that Barry describes as wonderful they set up Learning Partners in 1994. Their aim was to design and apply assessment centres and run people development programmes. They thrived by staying small and focused around three clear values – make a difference, have fun and earn some money. Barry says they didn’t get paid a lot of money but they built a solid reputation and worked for some very good companies. Learning Partners is still a thriving consultancy primarily working internationally. Barry retired and now he writes, using the varied experiences he has had.
*
And now from the author himself:
Writing and my goals as a writer
I don’t think I even considered writing anything until I went to the grammar school. I don’t suppose I would have had any interest then if it hadn’t been for my English teacher, Colin Silk. Not that I did anything about it for many years. I can remember him sitting cross-legged on a desk in the front of the class as selected members of the class took parts in a Shakespeare play. He knew the plays by heart and if you read anything incorrectly he would correct you. The other thing he would do is insist I spoke correctly. “Johnson, ring your ‘ings’,” or “Johnson, explode your ‘bees’.” I learned to speak two languages from Colin Silk, the one I spoke in school and the one I spoke at home. What a foundation for now. In writing dialogue I think back and adapt to the character I have speaking. Colin Silk was my hero, the man I admired most. He had survived the Burma-Siam railway and the evil treatment by the Japanese and had no hatred or even resentment of them. He was my role model for life that I’ve never been able to live up to but I have tried. I suppose Jake Robinson, the protagonist of my thrillers, owes much to my view of Colin Silk.
Colin Silk got me through ‘O’ level English language. He knew I had mild dyslexia but nobody spoke about those things back in the early 1950s but his encouragement guided me in writing essays though he did chide me for writing short stories instead of essays. So I had an inbuilt recognition of what a story was.
When I look back I suppose I’ve always enjoyed writing, I just got a kick out of writing home when I was at sea describing what I had seen and where I had been and I knew the readers of my letters enjoyed them and had a laugh, well I did exaggerate just a bit.
I can remember when I worked for STC having to write my monthly report. I would do a different style each month, a sermon one month, the format of the report of a football match the next month and most of my bosses enjoyed this. Mind you some didn’t. It was interesting that I was asked to write papers and brochures for the departments and when thing got really tough a report of what had gone wrong and for that I had to interview miscreants and I suppose I learned a lot there that I can use now.
In Learning Partners I just loved writing, the challenge of putting together the ideas, the very process of writing, together with the research needed. I have written training and guidance material, courses, assessment centre scenarios and assessment guides. Over the years I have written over fifty published professional articles always supported by another director of Learning Partners and the feedback and advice has always caused me to think and rewrite so what I wanted to achieve could be achieved with both learners and fully experienced professionals.
I wrote a newsletter for the retirement village I live in that included short stories both fiction and non-fiction, audience was key to that.
I started writing full-length novels in 2009. This was about interest rather than with publication in mind. I wrote four historical fiction novels with a single central character and the theme was the Trojan wars. These I may revisit and rewrite. I’d always done research in my former professional life so, I suppose I was used to that. I even had the third one published and gave it to friends just to see if I could write.
The Jake Robinson series I started in 2010. I had no idea how to write a thriller. I just started with an idea. Supposing bird flue was modified so it could be transmitted between people and a terrorist group decided to use it. Simple idea. So I sat down one afternoon and started writing a novel, not planned had no idea about who was going to do what or when, I just did it. That was the fun, The JBDI approach (Just Bloody Do It). The shear excitement of wondering where it was going next and the sheer surprize when it happened. The first thriller that I wrote and the one that will be the last in the series, Venom 27, I had published privately and I have given it to friends and relations with very positive feedback but that might be expected from friends and relations. Why the last in the series – the nature of the story dictated that.
The first one spawned the next three. I thought others may arise and they have. These had the goal of eventual publication. So I chanced my arm and Wherein Lies Justice has been published by Book Guild; with the sort of support and advice that a publishing company gives you.
I love the feeling that here is something complete and achieved that then triggers another idea for a novel.
I get a kick from the idea that others may enjoy reading what I have written and perhaps, in my arrogance, that they may discover something, for or of themselves, from the novels.
The hope I will get pleasure from seeing a book I have written in a bookshop and those who have read my attempts have encouraged me to go down that route.
Lastly the chance that I might earn some money to enable me to get for my wife the things she wants more than anything else.
I have no interest, no skills and no motivation to venture into the field of marketing and selling of my books. I have a need for an agent who has the skills, interest and motivation to market and sell that which I can produce. So lets try another one.
**
I then invited Barry to include an extract from his book…
I came to a dead stop in the doorway, looking at a lady’s handgun pointing at me. It was rock steady. Her body was square to me with her feet wide apart and knees bent.
She had her arms extended and was using a firm, double-handed grip. The weapon was pointing at my head and was brought down slowly to my chest. Now this was worrying. I felt my stomach contract and my heart beating fast. Less worrying was the expression on her face, which indicated that she was at least as scared as me. The difference was that I’d been here before.
‘Wherein Lies Justice’ is available from…
and you can find out more about Barry and his writing from…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Welcome to Post-weekend Poetry and the seventy-fifth poem in this series, this week by Ute Carson.
Today’s Slippers Become Tomorrow’s Army Boots
Warm bodies, heated anticipation
fuse our solidarity.
Snug in knitted booties
we stretch out on our magic carpet,
the children young, content as kittens.
I orchestrate flights of fancy
and promise the little ones
that the swords and crowns missing by morning
will reappear come dreamtime.
Years later,
a grandson soldier walks down his chosen path,
boots shining with confidence,
but the back of his grey army coat
bars me from seeing through to his heart.
My hands fling forward wanting to hold on
but I pull back,
my fears clinging to my upturned palms.
We lose our children to the world
which shapes them beyond our wishes and control.
Proudly we teach them
to be self-sufficient
but never learn ourselves
not to worry.
*
I asked Ute what prompted this piece and she said…
Parents hope to provide safe and happy childhoods for their children, perhaps even filled with magical moments. In this poem that magic takes the form of a flying carpet which propels the child into the land of dreams and the imagination.
When children grow up and go their own way parents stay behind with their worries, evoked in this poem by a grandson’s eagerness to be a soldier and his choice of a military profession.
Parents try to instill confidence in their children and encourage them to spread their wings. But they themselves must live with apprehension which is as eternal as their love.
**
Thank you, Ute. It was very touching.
A writer from youth, German-born Ute Carson’s first story was published in 1977. Her story “The Fall” won the Grand Prize for Prose and was published in the short story and poetry anthology, A Walk Through My Garden, Outrider Press, Chicago 2007. Her novel “Colt Tailing,” was published in September 2004 and was a finalist for the Peter Taylor Book Award Prize for the Novel. Her second novel “In Transit” was published in 2008. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines here and abroad. Carson’s poetry was featured on the televised Spoken Word Showcase 2009 and 2010, 2011 ChannelAustin, Texas, USA. Her poetry collection “Just a Few Feathers” was published in 2011.
An Advanced Certified Clinical Hypnotist, Ute Carson resides in Austin, Texas with her husband. They have three daughters, five grandchildren, two horses and a number of cats.
Ute Carson’s website is www.utecarson.com.
***
If you’d like to submit your poem (40 lines max) for consideration for Post-weekend Poetry take a look here or a poem for critique on the Online Poetry Writing Group (link below).
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, Ute Carson, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood. It looks like any ordinary cottage but it’s the stuff of legends, the owner, the hero of legends.
