Why I Write Blogfest

Hosted by Kayleens's Creative Corner

Writing is very much in my blood. My mother was a Librarian, my Dad a Clergyman and Teacher who wrote great sermons. I have always been drawn to this medium ever since I could put pen to paper. I used to write letters and stories, poems and make my own books from the age of 5 yrs old.

I write because I love composing delicious pieces of prose.

I like the reaction I get when I move someone to cry or laugh or feel angry on a character's behalf.

I like how the writing appears on the page hence my websites, my blog and the magazine and book I produced.

 







I write because it is cathartic and helps me see things in a different perspective. I can play around with our rich language.

Why do I write?  Because I love it!

Most recently I enjoy writing haiku 

and Limericks for Madeleine Kane's Blog prompt.

A woman was playing with fire
When her foot was then caught in a tyre
She screamed for some help
Though none heard her yelp
As her body became flame and then pyre


Why do you write?

Living Haiku

Follow the link to see the other entries: http://youknowthatblog.com/

This Week's theme: LIVING

A drop of water ~
Something living emerges

~Through nurturing soil.

Country Living Mag~

Selling us an old lifestyle~

All quaint and rustic.

A newborn baby~

Struggling into the world~

Clinging onto life.

Living, make it count ~

Taking measured risks each day~

Live life to the full.

Burning Questions Answered

You posed these BURNING questions for Alistair Reynolds and these are his replies.

My Thanks to Al for a fabulous Q&A and for so generously giving his time and expertise.

Meet Sci-Fi Author Al Reynolds

I was introduced to the International Best Selling Sci-Fi author
Al Reynolds in April 2011. He happily chatted about writing with me and I was delighted when he agreed to a blog interview. I've cut out the questions and left his answers for you to read. 

 In a future post, he'll answer those questions posed by 8 bloggers 
in the Burning Questions post  & ANSWERS HERE. 

For now a HUGE THANK YOU to him for giving his time and expertise so generously.

Fabulously Stylish Blogger

HUGE THANKS to Maeve at Lollipop's Cottage
for awarding me a Stylish Blogger Award
and Jenny at Castles in the Sky

Having been delighted and honoured to receive this award on a number of occasions
I hope they won't mind that I decided to morph this award into
a Fabulous Blog Award,
so I could pass that on to my fellow fabulous bloggers, instead.

The Rules:

• Thank the person from whom you received the award & Leave a comment on their blog
• Pass the award on to up to 4 other bloggers,
  Remember to check that it’s not an award they’ve already received.
• Answer the following questions:

1. Do you collect anything, if so what?

I used to collect cloth figures and rag dolls, but realised I was running out of space. However, I do love books and would always collect and keep them regardless of space.

2. Name an author you'd absolutely recommend and why

 I would recommend Small Island by Andrea Levy. I enjoyed the TV dramatisation and the book. I love how she interweaves the lives of the Jamaican and British characters and her characterisation and storytelling is excellent. Indeed, I have enjoyed every one of her novels that I've read so far. The Long Song is on my TBR list.

 

3. Tell us how you chose your blog name

I tried for ages choosing a blog name with the combination of words to do with writing, but it kept coming up that the name had already been assigned. I was quite frustrated. Then I brain-stormed other writing words and finally came up with scribbleandedit.

4. Are you a member of any hobby groups?

 I am a member of a knitting group that meets every Thursday and I have a subscription to a Writers' Magazine.

5. Are there any genres you read but don’t care to see as films or TV or prefer to watch but rarely read as novels?

Yes I tend watch much more TV Historical, Crime and Sci-Fi than I ever read. Though I have been known to read the Classics Costume Drama/novels and Children’s Sci-Fi.
I went through a phase of reading Autobiographies, but don’t like reading Biographies (it’s the psychologist in me), while I don’t mind watching biographies on the screen.

I'm passing this Fabulous Blog Award to:

Liz at 8bit words

Jabblog

Josh Hoyt

Ellie Garratt

Love Hurts ~ Romantic Friday Writers

Every week a group of us, brought together by the awesome talents of Denise at L'Aussie Writing and Francine at Romancing The Blog provide a story, poem or an excerpt up to 400 words on a chosen theme.

This week's theme for Romantic Friday Writers: Love Hurts

which fits in with Tessa's Blurb Blogfest

Serial Seducer by Madeleine Maddocks

Sadie stood looking at Ben across the office space.  The unanswered text messages had been her first clue.  Before then Ben had only been interested in what she enjoyed; the long walks, the costume dramas. It was always her voice he'd focused on and her face he found in the crowd.


She had blossomed from a shy, closed bud into a full, confident, blooming flower, but while she allowed others to admire her nectar, she would only allow Ben, alone, to drink it. Their love making had made her so hungry, trembling with desire like an addict desperate for her next fix. She felt special, cherished, adored. Her heart had swelled with love for him.


“Oh sorry, I was driving. I couldn’t answer.” Ben had smiled before returning to something more important on his computer screen.
Sadie knew he couldn’t have been driving all day. Lately he'd started making a lot of excuses. There was a time when he would pull into a parking bay and text her immediately. He'd certainly had time to reply when he got to his destination.


Elaine’s laugh ripped through her thoughts as if her very heart had been torn out. Now Ben's glorious waterfall-blue eyes were focused on Elaine’s in the same way they had once been on her own. His beaming smile now shone down on Elaine's face, illuminating her from within like its own sun; no doubt making her feel like the centre of the universe, as he had once done for her. 


She watched him return to his desk.

 “I’ve got to go to the computing department for a meeting. No coffee today, sorry” he grimaced, as he grabbed his coat and slunk off, following Elaine.

 

Moments later Angela Bennett, Head of Department, passed by her desk. “Sadie, can you tell Ben I’ll see him in my office this afternoon? I’m just off to computing for a meeting”.

Sadie nodded dumbly. Ben's clothes had begun to smell strongly of cigarettes. His interests had changed. Elaine, who watched horror films and liked to go speed-car racing (Ben's latest passions) was a smoker. 


When Ben returned to the office later that morning, Sadie looked up from her work, smiling thinly. “I didn’t know Angela Bennett was a smoker” she said, hatred dripping from her lips. “Isn’t that what 'going to computing for a meeting' is code-word for these days?”


His blush flooded from his cheeks into his neck in reply.   (407 words)


Post Script: I'm delighted to say that I've been awarded the Romantic Friday Writers
Featured Writer badge this week! YAY! Thank you.

Coming SOON ~ Burning Questions Answered

DID you ask a BURNING QUESTION about writing craft and publishing?



SCI FI Author Alistair Reynolds has answered them and I will be posting the Q & A up in the next few days... 
 

Joy Haiku

Check out http://www.youknowthatblog.com/ weekly's challenge.

This week's theme: JOY


Sometimes I search for images and then write the haiku, othertimes, like today, I write the haiku and then find the images to fit them. Poems should be able to stand alone without illustration, but I love to illustrate my posts. These haiku should also stand alone without the images.

 

Thrilling sensations

The colour of happiness
To lift up the soul

Joy, peace, harmony
A season of such goodwill
Love and hope preside.

Soaring through the sky
Lifting our spirits cloudwards
As light as the air

The wonder of Joy
A current of excitement
Blossoming within.

Cute kitty meows
Please come play with me, he says
My heart melts with joy.

I prefer to write haiku where each line is a separate stand alone sentence rather than an enjambent into the next line. What do you think?

Sorry I've been neglected blogland these past 2 days. I've had migraines like someone attaching electrodes to my scalp and then pulling them upwards or like walking under an electricity pylon. I ended up having to lie quietly in a darkened room for agess or else they'd come back!

Doomed! Tag

When you receive the BLOG AWARD of DOOM (created by Sarah McCabe) your task is to post a short selection of your writing, 100-300 words, in which your favourite character suffers a horrible fate. It can be your favorite character from your own writing or from something you've read, it can be from a finished manuscript, a WIP or something you just made up on the spot. Your choice, but it has to be full of DOOM.

Whenever you use the word DOOM in your post, you must capitalize the whole thing.
 Pass it on to one other blogger and let them know their DOOM has come.
Remember that the person who passed the award on to you also received it as well. Go back to their post to read and comment on their writing sample. Make sure to thank them for sending the DOOM your way.


The lovely Ellie Garratt passed on this award-with-a-difference to me.

Was I filled with Trepidation? Yes!

Was I filled with an ominous sense of DOOM that I wouldn't know what on earth to write?
See for yourself below:



After the whoosh and the almighty boom. Silence. A dreadful sense of DOOM fell on me like a heavy layer of grey ash, while my heart strings plucked their own ominous mocking beat, a version of Beethoven’s 5th

‘DOOM,

                DOOM,

                              DOOM,

                                              DOOM!’

Living up until now had not equipped me for such a post apocalyptic existence. My knowledge rolled down to almost zero. What did I know about survival? All my learning simply spelled one word, even the maths added up to it. The water was most likely contaminated. The air outside dirty, impure, unbreathable. I had little left to live on and I was all alone in the world. I had survived the worst catastrophe humankind could inflict on itself and I was still DOOMED. The end for me was nigh and all I could do was look on helplessly.    (141 words)



Blame my current read for the inspiration for this piece of flash fiction (McCarthy's The Road)

So now I must pass this award to someone else I choose Tony Benson of Fireside Park




I was also Tagged by Lisa Potts.
Many thanks Lisa.

Having been tagged by Carla  and Francine you can check out my answers by clicking the links. 

That's Just Telling!

Okay, so you know how we are always being told Show not Tell ?

Well I'm reading two examples of successful novels that both seem to rely heavily on telling.

TELLING involves narrative summary. Being told what is happening rather than the reader feeling it for themselves. The author spells everything out, populating the narrative with statements, rather than letting the reader experience it. While it is possible to include some description in the telling, it is fairly stark and factual.

A friend recently leant me her copy (that she'd owned since she was 13yrs old) of Du Maurier's 'Frenchman's Creek'  She adored it. I was surprised to find how much it read like a teen romance. I was also surprised how my initial impression of the book (apart from the first chapter) suggests that it is more heavy on the telling and that it appeared  to rely a great deal on exposition through dialogue, which can make the piece punchy and action packed and consequently, me, the reader more of an onlooker than a participant.

'Their backs are not yet broken that's one blessing" he called softly; "perhaps they are worth all the guineas Sir Harry paid for them after all" The driver shrugged his shoulders. He was too tired and too stiff to argue.The roads were damnation and if the wheels were broken and the horses destroyed he would be to blame, not his companion. If they could have travelled quietly, taking a week over the journey, but this devilish break neck speed, sparing neither man nor beast, all because of my lady's damned ill-humour.'

Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' was also recommened by the same friend. The novel has been made into a film with Viggo Mortensen. Again my initial, overall impressions have been surprise at how much like a YA it seems, populated mostly with with telling sentences.  Nevertheless on reading the opening page again, I am astonished how much more showing there is than I remembered. While the telling style makes the piece move faster, I feel like someone looking in on the action rather than being part of it. Of course this could be a plot devise to reflect how the MC is distancing himself from emotion after the harrowing experiences he has suffered.

'With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road and squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless. He thought the month was October but he wasn't sure. He hadn't kept a calendar for years. They were moving south. There'd be no surviving another winter here'.


SHOWING involves the use of details and descriptions in order to create a sensory experience for the reader, with metaphor that construct an analogy between two things or ideas and simile, which indirectly compares two different things by employing the words "like", "as", "than", "as though.

While these are written in a style to which I'm not usually drawn, as I much prefer descriptive styles of writing, I am keen to read to the end and have been known to enjoy similar action packed writing, like Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking Trilogy.

Have you read either of these books?   What do you think of their styles?

Garden Room ~ Thursday Tale

http://talesthursday.blogspot.com/

Source

This picture was presented last Thursday for the challenge.
Here's my Flash Fiction piece

The Garden Room by Madeleine Maddocks

The garden room had always been Theodora’s favourite place. It was where she could always find Grandpa George when she wanted solace and advice. Today she needed him more than ever. Dressed in her pure white wedding dress and veil, she felt ready to crumple like the falling petals of a crushed rose; knowing she was about to embark on the biggest journey of her life without the support and advice of her beloved mentor.

“Grandpa George” she whispered, the words catching in her throat like tattered tissues, as her shoulders trembled.

A unexpected breeze in the enclosed room filled her nostrils with the scent of tobacco and orange blossom, as though Grandpa George himself were comforting her from the shadows, while the leaves from the Swiss Cheese Plant clustered and nudged her shoulders. Theodora swallowed and stood tall.

“Thank you” she whispered. “I love you, too”

(147 words)

Haiku Definition

www.youknowthatblog.com

This week's theme: Definition sorry it should have been FORTITUDE, but I misread it in my tired stoopor!

Each definition
Depends on one's continent
What does it all mean?


Clear definitions
Reduce ambiguity
Clarity prevails

A series of lines
Defines us from each other
Making us unique


Line definition
A precise stroke of nature
Running through our flesh

Four of us met up for lunch yesterday
Can you guess which 4 bloggers are in the picture?

Okay so it's Tony Benson of Fireside Park, Margo Benson , Me and Ellie Garratt

BTW check out this competition

Lost In Translation

I wonder if anyone can explain something to me:

Over here in the UK the original title for Harry Potter Vol 1 is Philosopher's Stone, rather than Sorcerer's Stone and it seems that for some reason all our novels have to be translated for the US market by US publishers. Indeed, in my Collier's American International Dictionary (Funk and Wagnalls 1966) A Philosopher's Stone is described as exactly what J.K.Rowling understood it to mean:


'An imaginary stone or substance having the property of transmuting the baser metals into gold: sought by the alchemists'. 

Indeed, 'Sorcerer' translates as magician or wizard in the UK and is not applicable to the meaning of Philosopher's Stone which relates to something else entirely (as above), so the change of title is actually a misnoma.

Changing words can therefore end up with some absurdities, like the frightly posh Upper Class English character who calls her fringe, bangs. She just wouldn't!
(sorry can't remember the book at the mo' I think I leant it out to a friend)

When we receive US novels over here they are not translated in the same way, nor do they contain a glossary, so I'm wondering why the US reading public isn't allowed to be educated in British English, while we over here in the UK must learn US vocabulary like bangs, sidewalk etc.? 
Any ideas why this should be?

Forgotten or is she?

This week's theme for Romantic Friday Writers : hero or heroine struggles with forgetting a significant person or event or...?  400 word limit!







This is another excerpt from my WIP at 397 words.

Don't forget, this is an excerpt, with a word limit, taken out of context of the rest of the novel.

Health Haiku

This week's theme: HEALTH

http://www.youknowthatblog.com/

Taken for granted
We all appreciate health
When taken away

Natural balance
Elements to healthy life
Mind, body, spirit

If you prefer Limericks, then why not hop over to Madeleine Begun Kane's Blog

Here's mine for her challenge:

A fellow who loved fine cuisine
Thought barbecues rather obsence
When approached by an Aussie
In a polka-dot cozzie
He quickly escaped from the scene