Tag: learning

Notes From A Lockdown Author

We have been in lockdown for nine days already and people are becoming restless. As a writer, I have relished the opportunity to have some time for reflection, keeping fit and generally catching up on reading, TV series and healthy eating. It is beyond me how I have managed to avoid snacking and increased the amount of fruit and veg that I have eaten. There is, of course, one thing that I haven’t managed to get round to doing… and that is writing. I haven’t written a single thing, despite spending most of my time wishing for a chance to write and indulge my imagination.

Remembering my Swiss holiday is therapeutic and inspiring.

I now feel relaxed and used to my new situation as somebody who works from home and today is the first day that I am attempting to get back my writing Mojo. After today, I hope to continue reinvigorating my blog and engaging with readers and writers out there who must also be in the same predicament. From this day onwards, I am going to write a minimum of three hundred words a day. It doesn’t matter if that is simply blogging, being anecdotal on Twitter or creating new stories. Hopefully I can exceed this target and start to build on my writing, working towards a variety of projects.

So please, engage with me, share ideas with me and by all means invite me to co-write with you. I want to explore different genres, scriptwriting and children’s fiction. Today I am going to begin by returning to a kids’ book that I first conceived last summer and one which has been sitting in my documents ever since. It is Christmas based which will definitely make me cheery as I absolutely love Winter, snow and all things festive.

Let me know what you are up to. I look forward to seeing how the writing community thrive during this period of challenge.

Environmental Truth

Let’s go back to basics.

When I was a geography student at university twenty years ago, the issue of environmental decline was a subject that we were well aware of but hardly ever seemed to make headlines.

I studied environmental transport management as well as environmental change in the biosphere. I was made aware of projections which included sea level rises, mass extinctions of animals and dramatic weather systems. It has been known about but so many people held back and waited for the evidence.

Let’s be honest. We waited. The evidence is now smacking us in the cheeks. We cannot let people undermine this issue. I read some influencers who say that Greta Thunberg is trying to guide policymakers. That is fine with me. She is not inflating the truth. It is unavoidable. The future she describes is visible on the horizon.

Do I need to justify the level of concern? No. We don’t have time to deliberate. We need to start to act and ignore the ridiculous naysayers who seem to think money-making is far more important than saving animals from extinction and protecting coastal towns etc.

Yesterday reports confirmed that the UN is warning people not to buy low-lying homes on the coasts. So many islands have suffered from unusual floods and many have already become partly submerged due to sea level rises. Nuatambu Island is part of the Solomon Islands and has already suffered partial submersion, losing half of its inhabitable lands since 2011. It is just one example and the impact of more floods is already highlighting how this process is increasing in pace.

Ice sheets are melting at a faster rate than before. A well known glacier, Sermilik, in Greenland has depleted by 9m this summer alone. This is upsetting and we know that the thinner the ice gets, the more warming affects the lower layers, especially those covering up land. Less ice also means less reflection of solar energy, contributing further to a general warming of the local climate. This spiral of events now presents with habitat threats for polar bears, seals and penguins as well as other creatures which exist within their food chains.

I intend to continue highlighting and analysing the information which is forthcoming and hope that you will engage with me as I endeavour to find out how we can move forward, support Greta with her cause and spread the word about the facts which surround the utmost significant event of our times. Forget Brexit and Trump. Climate change is dangerous, REAL and undoable. Help us to undo it by joining the debate, emphasising ways we can make a difference and encouraging governments to make environmental policy changes that will stave off climate change.

My Writing Journey: tips for writers.

As I came into publication week for my very first published novella, I thought to myself about how my writing journey has gone so far. It started oddly, spurred on by my fortieth birthday and the realisation that I had not yet written a book, despite it being my only real ambition. I recall my English teacher telling me that I would make a great writer when I was sixteen. I studied English at A-Level and loved playing around with words and language in general. It took me a while to actually get around to putting pen to paper (or fingers to ipad) and get down to that first draft. I know now, no matter how successful I am (or not), I am going to be a writer from now on. I love it!

Process

I began by attending a writing group in my home town. It was lovely to meet other people who wanted to write, either for fun or professionally and I learned a lot every time they shared their work and together we unpicked and celebrated each piece with the tutor. I read out a chapter that I had written, dallying with the idea of growing it into a story one day. They liked it and it seemed to flow, so I carried on writing chapters for a bit. At the same time, I toyed with short stories. The first one was called ‘The Oddest of Dates’ so I kept with this theme and wrote a whole collection of stories about dating, love and loss. This was then published on Amazon as my self-pub debut. I enjoyed the feedback and used no marketing. It was wonderful to see about fifty people buy it and explore my little stories and this made me want to present another chapter from my story to the writing class. Again this was well received and so I carried on writing. I knew it would be a novella as the story was clear and crisp and I had no need to stretch it out for hundreds of pages. The story told itself. Writing that novella was the best experience for me. I was surprised by how the story just flowed and how easy it was to convey.

Editing

Then came the editing. By this time, due to timetabling issues, I had not been able to keep going to the writing group but I was very grateful for my time there. I spent a while going over my story and making tweaks and checking that everything fitted together without timelines clashing. One of my biggest issues was I sometimes forgot who was related to whom and I had to double check I had used the right character names throughout. I remember accidentally writing a letter from a character and not noticing that I had put the same name at the top and bottom of it. Essentially, she had written to herself.

When I was happy, I approached a small publishing firm and they agreed to publish it, if on a relatively small scale. It would be mainly available online as an ebook and paperback (print on demand). After having them format it and edit it before proposing what I wanted the cover art to be like, they came up with a lovely design which brought tears to my eyes.

Now, my book is published and out there awaiting book bloggers to examine it and reviewers to sample it. Fingers crossed you like it.

My top tips for writing are:

1) Get someone to read your chapters one at a time and check for fluidity as well as consistency of characters, times and viewpoint.

2) Leave the manuscript alone for a few weeks after you finish it, before beginning the editing process.

3) While you are writing, build up a good rapport with people from the reading community on social media and ensure you develop your network.