Going Too Far - Exaggerate in your Writing

You want your writing to be memorable, so how are you going to make it so? Are you going to stick really closely to real life or are you going to make your writing larger than life? What sort of a character do you think your readers will be intrigued by, one who is mousy, quiet, careful, or one who is over the top, melodramatic, wild?

To illustrate this point, I'd like you to think of five characters from literature that stand out in your mind. List them and jot down why you think you remember each of them. Then take a piece of your own work that isn't quite working. Think of a character that you could exaggerate in some way and make them much bigger and more exciting. Go really over the top - think of what would be reasonable then multiply it by five. Be bold and brave!

If you have someone sympathetic who reads your stories, you could let them read the before and after versions and see which one they prefer.

Using Music and Memories in Your Writing

Last week I went to see the film, Mamma Mia! which is based around the music of Abba. I really enjoyed it and was very impressed at the way they managed to weave a story round the music, or weave the music into a story.

It reminded me of another way in which music is woven into the fabric of our lives. The music of Abba played a significant part in a momentous day in my life, the day I got my final degree results at Durham University. It was a strange sort of day, one full of normal routine, yet in another sense not at all normal, because we knew that the results would be posted on a board in County Hall that evening.

The countdown began earlier. We'd been told to check a board outside our department at lunchtime to see if we were going to be given a Viva Voce - an exam in which you are questioned in person about your subject and the answers you gave in the exam. No one wanted a viva - by that stage, we'd relaxed and forgotten most of what we'd written in our finals papers.

There were two reasons students might sit a viva. There were those who were on the borderline between failing and passing their degree. If they did well in their viva, they could tip the scales in their favour and secure a pass.

The other group consisted of those who were on the borderline between two classifications, for example, they might have a high 2:1, but their viva could push them up into a first class degree.
I didn't think I was in danger of failing, but I did think I might be on the borderline between classifications.

Eventually our lecturers filed out and the list was pinned on the board. My name wasn't on it. But I was amazed to see my philosophy lecturer give me a big smile and a thumbs up as she passed me by. What did that mean?

I reckoned she must be letting me know I'd done well, but exactly how well? Did she mean I'd got a first? Or was it just a good 2:1? The agonising thing was that I had a few more hours to wait to find out which it was.

I went home to wait for results time, but I was full of nervous energy, even more so now after that enigmatic thumbs up! I was starting to hope I might have got a first, but I didn't want to count on it and end up disappointed.

To burn up some of my nervous energy, I put on my favourite Abba LP and danced along to it, all the while wondering what the next few hours would bring. I knew that if I got a first I'd be able to study for a Ph.D. so there was a lot riding on that result.

Eventually we headed for County Hall to check the results boards. At first there was nothing up for my subject, so that meant more hanging around. When the long-awaited sheet of paper was finally pinned to the board, I could finally breathe. There was just one first class honours degree awarded in my subject and there at the top of the list was my name. I'd done it! I'd got my first and come top of my year as well!

Whenever I think about that day, that wonderful day, the music of Abba always comes to mind. The two are inextricably linked in my memory.

How about you? Is there a particular song or singer that is linked to a memorable moment in your life? Your first kiss, perhaps? Or a marriage proposal? Moving away from home?

If there is, dig out the music now and have a listen to it. Then write down your own story using the music to anchor your memories.

Contrasting Emotions in Your Writing

I was thinking today about a couple of real life experiences which gave me a jolt because of the way in which strong emotions were contrasted.

One was my memory of Princess Diana's funeral. Like many other people, I was deeply affected by her sudden death and was really upset in the run-up to her funeral. I found the day of her funeral very emotional, heart-breaking, something I knew I would remember for the rest of my life.

On that day, there was a huge outpouring of grief in London. It seemed as if the whole country had gone into mourning for her.

So it came as a shock to me to see wedding cars arriving at the house of one of my neighbours up the road. I realised that for many people this was a desperately sad day, a day of mourning, but my neighbours were celebrating the wedding of their only daughter.

I found it very hard to reconcile the two. How could they possibly go and enjoy themselves at a wedding when The People's Princess was being buried?

When the bride set off in her wedding finery in a posh limousine, I knew that the family must have been planning this special occasion for months, years even. It was due to a quirk of fate that it coincided with the funeral of The Princess of Wales. No one could have possibly foreseen her untimely death.

Another occasion which was also full of mixed emotions was the day my best friend gave birth to her first child. As promised, her husband rang to tell me the news and give me details of the baby, her name, birth weight and so on.

I was surprised to hear he didn't sound at all happy considering he'd just become a father, so I asked him if he'd been up all night at the hospital. It was then that he told me his mother had just died. She had been seriously ill in hospital for quite some time, but had held on just long enough to see her new grandchild come into the world.

So my friend and her husband found themselves preparing to bring home their newborn baby and arrange a family funeral at the same time.

This is the way things turn out sometimes. It is very difficult to reconcile mixed emotions like these at the time, but can you see how for a writer they could add depth and complexity to a plot?

Life isn't all ha, ha, hee, hee. Let our writing reflect that.

Using Contrasts in Your Writing

Today has been a day of contrasts, weatherwise. This evening it was very warm, dry and close, uncomfortably so. I've been flinging windows open all over the house, but even that didn't really help to cool the place down.

Then about half an hour ago, the heavens opened. We had a torrential rain-storm, so loud you could hear the rain battering on the ground. It was a complete contrast, but obviously what we needed to cool down. We suddenly went from warm and humid to torrential rain in a heartbeat.

You can use striking contrasts like this in your writing too. You can lull the reader into a false sense of security or a state of torpor, then BANG! Everything changes! Suddenly there is a threat or a crisis or danger.

You can use this contrast technique in lots of different ways. You can have a sudden change in the weather; an unexpected incident; even someone suddenly falling in love.

In the Latin work by Virgil, The Aeneid, you get these combined. There is a thunderstorm during which Aeneas and Queen Dido take shelter in a cave and suddenly become a whole lot closer!

The main thing is that all of a sudden, everything has changed, everything is different.

Your characters will be thrown into turmoil by the sudden change and it will also unsettle your readers and make them curious to find out what it going to happen next.

Spend a few minutes thinking about a piece you're in the process of writing, about to write, or one that you've been working on. Think about how you could introduce a startling contrast to really things up. Then write or rewrite your piece using this contrast.

Keep your original idea or draft so that you can compare your versions and see what a difference it has made introducing a contrast.

A Summer Story or Poem

Let's stick with the holiday theme and think about a story or a poem you could write on the theme of summer.

Begin by thinking of some words you associate with summer and make a list of them. Here are a few to start you off: sand, sunshine, sunglasses, aeroplanes, holidays.

Think of a setting - it could be by the sea, in the country, in a city, abroad, travelling.

Think of what the weather is like - is it hot and sunny? Rainy?

Think of the characters that you can see? What age are they? Are they adults? Children? Are there any adults in the scene?

Think of a sound you hear.

Think of a movement.

You should now have enough ideas to start you off writing a poem or a story. Happy writing!

What Your Character's Suitcase Reveals about Him?

It's the time of year when many of us are packing our suitcases and heading off on holiday. So I thought it would be fun to think about what our characters will be putting in their suitcases.

The contents of a character's suitcase can reveal a lot about their personality, both to your readers and to you yourself. An interesting exercise you can do if you've got a character that hasn't quite come to life is to describe their suitcase or handbag and its contents.

The first thing that will tell us something about them is what sort of bag they have in the first place. Is it an expensive Louis Vuitton piece of luggage? A backpack? A poacher's bag? A battered leather briefcase? A shocking pink vanity case?

Then the actual contents will give you even more clues as to their personality, their situation, their likes and dislikes, their preoccupations. If you list them, you'll be surprised at what you discover about them.

I did an exercise like this about a character from a play I was writing, after I realised the character didn't quite work. It yielded all sorts of information about her background - as a result of that exercise, she even acquired a new nationality, a perilous situation, and an entire family!

So if you have a character that isn't quite fully-formed, try the suitcase exercise and let your character surprise you.

Six Things to Think About When You're Revising Your Writing

So far, we've been concentrating on first drafts, getting the words and the ideas out of your head and onto paper. But the time will come when you have distanced yourself enough from your writing to be able to look at it with fresh eyes, and that's when it will be time for revising.

So what do you need to do when you're revising a piece of your own work?

1. Read it out loud so you can hear if it uses rhythm well or whether there are any sentences which need to be rejigged to make them flow better.
2. Make sure that the piece has a good structure, a proper beginning, middle and end.
3. Check that it all makes sense.
4. Look to see if there are any sections that could be strengthened, for example, by using more colourful vocabulary, by adding details, by introducing the senses of smell, taste, and touch.
5. Ask yourself if your characters are compelling and convincing. If not, what could you do to make them stronger?
6. Make sure your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are accurate.

Lists! Lists! Lists!

People are always interested in lists. In fact, you can buy books which consist entirely of lists, such as The Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information by Amy And Wallechinsky and David Wallace, The Top Ten of Everything: The Ultimate Book of Lists by Russell Ash; Ultimate Book of Lists by Michael Cader.

I used to have letters printed in magazines which were based on lists, and there is a website called listverse which contains lots of lists of odd things. One of my favourites in RJ Evans' article Top Ten Bizarre Coffins. They really live up to their name. The pictures are incredible.

When I'm searching for some books to buy on Amazon, I enjoy the lists of books that readers have compiled on Listmania! I often come across books I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

Making lists is a fun thing to do as a warm-up or to fill in spare moments while you're waiting for a bus or for the kettle to boil. We played this game in my writing class recently and really enjoyed it.

It was particularly interesting when people wrote about 'Ten things I would rescue if my house were on fire'. Most people chose things that were irreplaceable like their insurance policies, their wedding photographs and items of sentimental value.

But one of the students was intent on saving the contents of his kitchen, including the washing machine, the fridge, the freezer, and even the bacon and eggs he had in his fridge!

Have fun! Read a few lists. Then maybe write some of your own.

Explore the BBC Writers Room

There are many resources for writers on the internet these days, but one of the most useful is the BBC Writers Room.

It provided tons of invaluable information: what the BBC is looking for from its writers; how to submit work to the BBC; interviews with famous television writers; scripts from BBC dramas, comedies, children's drama, radio drama, and radio comedy; you can even download special software for writing television drama called Script Smart.

You can read about various competitions and initiatives which are about to take place and keep up to date with the latest opportunities for new writers.

It's well worth a look and you may find it so absorbing that you linger there a lot longer than you thought you would.

Writing with Rhythm

You'll be aware that rhythm is important in music, but did you know it's important in writing too? Poetry, whether or not it rhymes, is dependent on rhythm. The words need to flow freely, not trip each other up, unless you want to create that effect for a special reason.

But in prose, short stories, novels, even articles, rhythm is important too. If someone were to read the piece out loud the sounds must move in an attractive way. Of course, it's even more important for a piece of drama to have rhythm too as it's designed to be spoken. Actors will find it very difficult to perform if the words trip them up instead of tripping off their tongues.

So how can you make sure your writing has rhythm? The easiest way is to read your piece out loud, putting a mark against any words or phrases that don't work. Often all you will need to do is rejig a sentence very slightly to improve the rhythm.

If you aren't musical and you don't feel you have an ear for rhythm, you can acquire one by reading poetry out loud to yourself. Even reading one poem a day will help you to hone your sense of rhythm.

So go with the flow - add rhythm to your writing and hear it swing!

Writing from Whose Point of View?

One of the things you will need to decide before you write a short story or a novel is whose point of view it will be told from? Who is the narrator?

Some stories are told as if the narrator is speaking. 'I woke up and found I'd turned into a frog.' This is a first person narrative. The difficulty with this is that you can only write what the narrator would actually know or see.

An omniscient third person narrator is more common. This is it is told from the point of view of someone looking on at what is happening, but (like God) this narrator knows everything so can explain what various characters are thinking and feeling.

A third person narrator with a limited point of view is quite useful, even with a more restricted knowledge and understanding compared with that of an omniscient narrator.

It's also possible to have a second person narrator, where the narrator speaks directly to someone all the time. 'You were standing at the market stall sniffing the mangos when I first saw you. You looked so exotic in your red and gold robes...' This is very unusual though and would be extremely difficult to carry off unless you were quite an experienced writer.

The next time you look at a short story or a novel, spend a few minutes figuring out whose point of view the story is told from, and whether it uses a first person, second person, third person omniscient or third person limited point of view narrator.

Writing to Music

Sitting here writing, I can hear my exceptionally talented son practising the Mozart clarinet concerto in his bedroom, which is very relaxing - a bonus I don't normally get when, as he's usually away at school.

I must admit I don't normally listen to music while I'm writing, although it would be an easy enough thing to do as my computer has a CD player built in.

There's also a radio gathering dust on the window sill. I can't remember whether I put it there or whether it's a left-over from when my husband used to share the study with me in the days before we became a two PC family. All I know is that although I love listening to the radio, I never use do it while I'm writing.

Because I'm really interested in music and I play musical instruments, I'm always afraid that music might distract me from my writing because I'd have my attention on what was being played rather than on what I'm supposed to be writing.

Other writers find it essential to have music playing while they work as they feel it helps them relax and become more creative. I might cope with a soothing instrumental, but anything with words would really divide my attention too much - I couldn't juggle words in my head and words in my ear.

But my friend, David Darling, who is a science writer, will happily work with rock music on full blast, and there are many other writers who have their own favourite type of music to help them write - be it Baroque, jazz, classical.... I don't think anyone would choose to write to 20th century twelve-tone serialism, but you never know!

Some writers choose their music to suit the mood they want to evoke in their writing, a stirring Beethoven symphony for something grand and momentous, delicate Debussy for lattice-work poetry, jazz if they want to write about smoky bars.

Sometimes writers even experiment with music in writing workshops, to see what sort of an effect writing to music will have on the participants.

That's something you could try. If you always write to music, try one session where you write in complete silence or at least play a different type of music from usual. If you never write to music, put some on and see how it affects your writing.

At the very least, it will stop your writing sessions from getting into a rut, and you may even find that the change in your listening habits leads to some sort of creative breakthrough.

Why Do You Write?

Everyone writes for different reasons. Some write for the money; others because they have a burning message they want to share; others to get to know themselves and find out what they are really thinking.



Perhaps the same person writes for a whole lot of different reasons, depending on how they are feeling at the time. They might start off wanting to write for money, but become so fascinated by the whole process that they end up writing for the sheer joy of it.



There's no one correct reason for wanting to write. You write for your own reasons, and it doesn't matter what anyone else says. It's you who sets the agenda.



But the one person who really needs to know why you write is you yourself. You set your own agenda, make your own rules.



Why not spare a few minutes to write about why you write? You never know, you might learn something about yourself.

Where Do You Read?

I always used to read in bed, but I've changed my routine recently so that I listen to podcasts instead of reading. My favourite place to read is now in a cafe - I like to take along a library book or something I've bought recently. Today I was in a cafe at lunchtime having a baguette and reading a book about money by Alvin Hall called 'You and Your Money. Creating a Prosperous Relationship'.

I also like to read when I'm waiting for an appointment at the doctor's or the dentist's and if I'm not too busy I enjoy reading in the morning or before I go to bed. It's a good way of winding down instead of watching TV, which can make the brain too agitated instead of creating a feeling of restfulness.

I used to travel by train every week and that was a good place to read too as I could fit in about an hour of uninterrupted reading on the way there, though on the return journey the trains would be crowded so I couldn't always manage to read for the whole of that journey.

Mind you, it's a lot harder to enjoy reading on a train these days now that so many people have mobile phones and iPods. When I was a student and had very long train journeys from Scotland to Cambridge, I always knew I'd be able to get some serious reading done.

Sometimes I'd make notes for my course or even write an essay. It's not always so easy to concentrate when there are other people's phones ringing, loud telephone conversations and tinkly personal stereos playing all around.

But where ever you manage to read, the important thing is to do it, and, if possible, try to establish a habit of reading fairly regularly. That way it will become part of your everyday life and you'll miss it if you don't do it.

Regular reading will nourish you as a writer in a way that nothing else will.

'The Street' by Jimmy McGovern

Catching up on the TV Dramas

Now that it's the summer holidays and I've got a bit more spare time than usual, I've been enjoying catching up on some of the television dramas I recorded ages ago but hadn't got round to watching.

One of them is the drama series, 'The Street' which was the brainchild of Jimmy McGovern, the brilliant Liverpool writer who honed his craft on the Channel 4 soap, 'Brookside'.

I was fortunate enough to meet Jimmy many, many years ago when he came to run a workshop in Sheffield on writing for television. He was a very interesting man, very passionate about his writing and about the place he came from. He reminded me a lot of one of his characters, Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside as he had that same type of down-to-earth, ordinary working class bloke quality.

Dark, Thought-Provoking Stories

In creating 'The Street', Jimmy was able to put on the sort of serious dramas that used appear on Play for Today, but which no longer find a place in the television schedules among the glitz and froth of US imports. He managed to do this by creating a set of self-contained stories but having them linked into series format by virtue of the fact that all the characters live on the same street.

He deals with some very dark subject matter - a working class builder's labourer who unexpectedly begins a homosexual relationship with one of his colleagues while he's away on a job; a young man who beats up a taxi driver but leaves his innocent cousin to take the blame; a young man who is consumed by guilt because of something terrible that he did when he was twelve, something that he can't forgive himself for.

They aren't the sort of programmes you'd watch if you were interested in an escapist romp. They're not full of actors who were hired for their looks, and you won't find any posh frocks or swish sets. But they're brilliantly written and acted and they're the sort of dramas you will remember for years to come.

The series is available to buy on DVD, so if you're at all interested in serious drama, I'd urge you to buy it.

Build Your Writing Career from Small Beginnings

Would You Go Straight from a Moped to a Ferrari?

Sometimes writers get discouraged early on in their writing career because they expect to achieve too much too soon. They think that their very first short stories or articles will be snapped up by national magazines and they'll be raking in the money.

Some people might be very lucky and have their work accepted by the big boys very quickly, but most of us need to work our way up. Would you expect to go straight from riding a moped to driving a powerful Ferrari? Expecting to have sizeable pieces published or commissioned by one of the nationals is just as unrealistic.

A few people might be lucky and hit the big time straight off, but for most of us it's better to progress slowly and surely. Not so much moped to Ferrari, but moped to motor bike to mini to hatchback to family car to Ferrari.

Readers' Letters and Tips - a Good Place to Start

One of the easiest ways to start seeing your work and your name in print is to write letters to newspapers and magazines. It doesn't take long to write a piece and you may even be able to submit them by e-mail to some publications, so it wouldn't even cost you the price of a stamp.

Useful Market Study

Studying a publication and trying to figure out what sort of letters it usually chooses to publish is a very good way of learning to study your prospective markets. You can put the knowledge you acquire to good use later when you eventually start submitting fiction or articles. Your name will start to become familiar to the editors, which will be very useful when you want to stand out from the thousand other writers whose work is in the magazine's pile of unsolicited manuscripts.

Publication Means Prizes or Payment

It will really give you a boost to see your name and your words in print, and often there are quite good rewards for readers' letters, tips, and photos. Some magazines will pay £50 just for a tip which lasts one or two sentences, which means you'd be getting an excellent rate of pay per word! Others offer prizes for letters published or the letter of the week.

I remember getting all sorts of things when I was starting out, including a caddy of tea and a very handsome Schaeffer pen, which I still use today. I had all sorts of things published, anecdotes from my family or odd things that I overheard when I was out and about.

You don't even need to buy the publications regularly to check whether your letter is in. I used to spend a little while browsing in a big newsagent's and look at the letters pages of the magazines I'd sent things off to. Then I'd buy the magazine if my contribution had been published that week.

How to Work Out What Gets Published

The important thing is to study three or four recent copies of each publication you are targetting so that you can identify the readership of the magazine and the sort of things they like to publish. Some magazines love little anecdotes and pictures of children and grandchildren. Others like to publish letters in which the reader says how much she identified with an article in a previous issue because they'd had a similar experience.

One more thing to remember is that you mustn't send the same letter to more than one publication at a time as editors hate it if they publish something which ends up in another magazine around the same time.

But if several months have passed and your letter still hasn't been printed, you'll be safe to send it somewhere else, possibly adapting it slightly for your new target publication.

So get writing - and good luck!

Writing Your Life Story

So You Want to Write Your Life Story?

Have you had lots of interesting things happen in your life that you'd like to share? Do you want to hand on memories about your parents and your childhood to your own children and grandchildren? Do you want to share your life story with other people, even if it's only with your closest friends and relatives?

Wanting to tell one's life story is what motivates many people to begin writing. I've heard many hours of autobiographical writing over the last twenty or so years since I began to write and to go to writing classes and groups. It's been a fascinating experience.

The immediacy of the experience and the detail that the writer is able to include can really bring this sort of writing to life. If you're writing about your own life, then you obviously care about your subject and that shows. It makes it compelling.

Pitfalls of Writing Autobiographically

There are a few pitfalls that people can fall into though when writing about their own experiences. One of these is trying to stick rigidly to the truth. Things don't happen tidily in real life. In a story, what you want to hear are the main events that have a bearing on the plot in a way that grabs the reader and makes for good reading.

But in real life, there are often digressions, delays, complications. It's easy to become so hung up about sticking to the letter of the truth that the story gets lost in and amongst the morass of detail. Sometimes a writer will defend what they've written, by saying, 'But that's what happened!' That may be, but there's no point in telling it like that if you're going to lose your readers.

Another thing that happens in real life is that there are often more people involved than you would choose to include in a story. Too many characters, real or fictitious, can be confusing for the reader. This is a particular problem when a real life story is being dramatised for film or television. As one dramatist wrote, 'People always have too many sisters'.

A solution to this problem is to conflate a few characters into one - take some people who have minor roles in the story and combine their actions and functions in one character. Of course, how you square this with the cousins and aunties that you're leaving out is your problem!

But probably the biggest problem that affects the readability of autobiographical writing is that writers feel they need to start at the beginning and keep on going. But really, what you're trying to do is tell a story, so you need a hook for the start of your autobiography just as you would for the start of a novel.

Write to Make Your Readers Want to Read

That might mean you will have to start with one of the big moments in the story rather than with your birth - after all, everyone gets born. It's hardly a unique occurrence! In my biography of Cliff Richard, I began the story, not at his birth or even in his childhood but at the big Wembley concert to celebrate his thirty years in show business. It meant I could start the story at a high spot, then go back and trace how he came from his early life to his long and illustrious career in pop music.

So when you're writing about your life, tell it like it is. But don't forget that people have got to want to read it, so tell it like a story too.

Time or Money? Can Writers Have Both?

Two Stages in the Writing Life

It's a well known fact that there are two sorts of writers:

• those writers who are just starting out and don't have any big projects commissioned or anybody beating at their door demanding material for a deadline
• those writers who are earning money from having big projects commissioned and people banging on their door demanding material for a deadline

The one who don't have commissions and deadlines think that their life would be perfect if only they could have something commissioned and some deadlines to meet. Then they wouldn't have to mess around sending things off and trying to get them accepted.

The writers who are earning a decent living look back to the halcyon days when they were starting out when they could sit and write whatever they wanted, with no one to answer to, and no deadlines piling up. To them, being able to sit down and write what you feel like writing rather than what you have to write is a luxury they can no longer afford.

I suppose what would be perfect is to have plenty of money to live off - perhaps a large, guaranteed writing income but complete freedom to write whatever you feel like.

How to Be Happy as a Writer

So who's happiest? Who should we aspire to be like?

There's no easy answer to this one. All we can do is change our attitude so that whatever position we're in as a writer, no matter how far we have or haven't managed to travel along the road, we're grateful for where we are and what we've achieved.

Enjoy the Journey

The thing is, writing is about the journey, not the destination. Once the journey is complete, then another one comes along to take its place. Finish one book and you're desperate for a second book deal. Write one Oscar-winning screenplay and the following year you'll be eager for another commission so that you can prove that your success wasn't a fluke.

Think about your writing as an adventure, whatever stage you're at in your development. Be grateful for the time you have available to spend on it and for the sheer joy of writing. If you're trying to earn a living through your writing and you're getting stressed because you keep getting knock-backs, take the pressure off yourself by finding a part-time job.

Above all, if you do have the luxury of time, but not money, make the most of it. The day may come quite soon when you'll wish you could still sit down and say, 'I wonder what I shall write about today.'

Food for Your Writing Soul

Presumably you're interested in writing if you've chosen to read this writing blog, but are you interested in the other arts as well? I don't mean are you any good with a paint brush or can you dance a nifty battement tendu. I mean, do you take the time to look at artwork, go to exhibitions, study sculptures, listen to Liszt, watch ballet by Balanchine?

If you're producing work in one of the arts on a regular basis, it's important to feed your creativity by taking in inspiration from other art forms. This is the reason why Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way advocates having a weekly artist's date - a time you spend alone doing something that will feed your creativity, like going to an art gallery or an opera or even spending time in a flower shop just taking in the colours, shapes, textures, scents of the blooms.

If you give, give, give of your creativity all the time, but never top up your reserves, your creative reservoir will soon run dry. See what you can do this week to feed your writing soul.

Ideas for Writing - Unexpected Meetings

If you need some more writing inspiration, here are another couple of real-life anecdotes that could spark off some writing for you. Today's topic is 'unexpected meetings'.

The first unexpected meeting was my brother-in-law's encounter with a very famous person on a short flight from Gatwick to Manchester. My brother-in-law, Nigel, lives in California, but often spends time in Toulouse in France on business. This weekend he decided to fly up to Manchester to spend the day with us before jetting back home to the States.

He must have been fated to get involved with famous people and big events today because it all started at quarter to five in the morning in Toulouse when he tried to drive from his hotel to the airport. The Tour de France was due to pass right outside his hotel and, even at that ungodly hour, staff were already out in the streets putting up barriers and getting the course ready. It took him a bit of time to negotiate the side streets and the one-way system to avoid the race route, but he eventually made it to the airport.

One plane journey later, he was getting ready to board his shuttle flight at Gatwick when he spotted a passenger who looked very familiar. 'Is that who I think it is?' he asked his friend.
'Yes, I'm pretty sure it is,' his friend replied.

As more and more people approached the famous-looking lady with autograph books, cameras, and microphones, the pair of them began to realise that she was indeed the real deal. And they already knew she wasn't just famous - she was a superstar!

And so it came about that my brother-in-law found himself sitting on a plane only one seat away from the legendary singer, Diana Ross. It certainly wasn't a meeting he'd expected to have that day, but it will give him something to tell the folks when he gets back home!

I had several unexpected meetings on my birthday this year when my husband and I went to Sheffield for the weekend to watch the stage show of Strictly Come Dancing, the British television show which became Dancing with the Stars in the U.S.A.

We were in a little gift shop just round the corner from our hotel and were waiting for a very slow credit card machine to make its connection so we got chatting to the shop assistant about how we'd come to Sheffield for the show. 'The stars are all staying in that hotel there,' she said, pointing to the one where we had our room. 'And you're something to do with the show, aren't you?' she said to the tall lady who was standing beside me in the queue.

'Yes,' she replied.

'You're Zoe Ball, aren't you?' said the assistant.

So that's how I came to be chatting to Zoe Ball, the television presenter and one of the celebrity dancers from the show. She was extremely nice. She talked to us for a little while, shook my hand, and said she hoped we would enjoy the show.

It was only the first of many close encounters we had with the stars and the professional ballroom dancers that weekend. There was our journey in the lift up to our room after the show in the company of Olympic heptathlon gold medallist, Denise Lewis, who was clutching a drink in a plastic glass in one hand and a polystyrene fast food carton in the other. I was dying to ask her if it contained a healthy salad or a fat-filled burger, but I restrained myself!

The next day, I literally bumped into Len, the judge, on my way out of the health club the following morning.

'I'm terribly sorry, madam,' he said, very politely.

'That's quite all right, Len,' I replied, as you do.

We had another journey in the lift with two of the top dancers, this time. Then after breakfast we saw nearly everyone from the show checking out and preparing to leave for the next step of their tour - more famous people than I can mention!

In fact, we encountered so many celebrities that weekend, we were getting really quite used to it. It seemed very strange that evening when we got back to Huddersfield and found that there wasn't a single famous person hanging around our street!

How about using unexpected meetings as the focus for a story or an article? You could write about a meeting with someone famous, dead or alive. Bumping into someone who turned out to be extremely significant, like the narrator's future partner. An ill-fated meeting that leads to someone's ruin. An encounter with an old flame who jilted you or with someone you hated with a passion.

Think not only about the meeting itself, but the emotions it evoked in all the people concerned. Show us vividly how they reacted, how they felt, what their hopes and fears were. Make us feel as if we were there too.

Good luck - and may you meet with success in your writing!

Ideas for Writing from Real Life

As you know, whenever I'm out and about, I'm usually on the lookout for anything slightly out of the ordinary that might inspire some writing. Today I'd just pulled off the Ring Road and was heading to my usual car park in town, when I spotted something in a quiet side street that made me really curious.

Right in the middle of the road stood a pair of old-fashioned, gentlemen's carpet slippers. When I say, 'stood', that's exactly what I mean. They were standing there side by side in the middle of the road, almost as if the owner had vanished into thin air, leaving only his slippers.

How had the pair of slippers got there? Who did they belong to? Could there be a fantasy or sci-fi story behind the mysterious items?

Or had someone found them lying near a wheelie-bin and put arranged them like that? But if so, why put them in the middle of the road? Why had they not been knocked over or kicked about? Surely there must have been some traffic in that street? Did the cars drive around them?

See if the slippers in the road inspire you to write something.

What do I think? Why, it's magic, of course!

Being a 'Professional' Writer

Lots of people write but would hesitate to describe themselves as writers. They think that the term 'writer' can only be used by professional writers, those who write full-time and depend on it to earn their living. But is there such a clear-cut divide between those who write for a living and those who earn their keep from some other job and write for pleasure or pin money?

Perhaps we can find the answer to this if we reflect on what both types of writers are aiming to do. Both are aiming to be creative with words, whether it is by educating or informing through non-fiction writing or by creating new characters, new worlds and new settings as fiction writers.

Both categories of writer want their words to be read, whether it is by their family, friends and fellow class members or by thousands of strangers. I imagine both groups would be pleased to be paid or rewarded for their labours, though full-time writers would feel more pressure to make money from their writing so that they can support themselves and pay their bills.

Showing 'professionalism', the desire to be businesslike, efficient, and reliable in their work is another area where the full-time writer may appear to have the edge, but really, it's a good idea for all writers to demonstrate that they are serious about their writing and that they take the sort of care that editors and agents will be looking for.

Being accurate, editing one's work to eliminate errors and sloppy writing, thinking of how the needs of the target publication and its readers should be the concerns of everyone who aspires to write, at whatever level.

So whether you're a 'professional' writer or someone writing for the joy of it, do your best, show you mean business, and make sure that your writing shines. As you develop in your writing, you'll start to feel that you deserve the title 'professional writer', even if you do have a different day job.

Don't Write Alone- Get Yourself a Support Network

One of the hardest things about being a writer is that it can be a very solitary experience. Reporters get to meet colleagues in the office and go out and about where the news stories are. But if you're a freelancer working from home, as I do, you can quite easily feel as if the walls as closing in on you and the only sensible conversation you've had that day is with next door's cat.

It isn't just full-time professional writers who feel this way. If you're just starting out and writing in your spare time, you can feel as if you're working in a vacuum. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody to share your concerns with? Someone who can tell you if you're on the right road or getting hopelessly lost?

I think for most writers a good support network can be a lifesaver. But how are you going to get one? How can you meet other writers?

Fortunately, there are lots of ways of doing this. Creative writing classes, like the ones I teach, are a marvellous way of getting advice and encouragement from an experienced professional writer and stimulation and support from your fellow students.

The money you spend on them will be a good investment. If you have a good tutor, you'll be shown not just how to write, but how to market your writing, so you'll have a chance of earning back your fees in competition winnings or commissions.

But more important than the money is the chance to share your writing with fellow writers who will be sympathetic and offer constructive criticism. Writing is a means of communication and it really comes to life when it's shared, even if all you do is read it out loud to the other members of the class once a week.

Lots of towns have writers' groups or authors' circles where people who write regularly can meet up to discuss their work, have competitions and workshops, and run competitions. These can be a good way of meeting someone who's a bit further on than you in getting published.

Groups differ in their entry requirements - for example, one of the ones that I belong to, Huddersfield Authors' Circle, will ask you to come along for one or two meetings to see how you get on. Then if they think you might be suitable, we will ask to see some samples of your writing. It isn't because we're elitist - it's purely because we're not a group for complete beginners who would be able to find more help and support at a writing class.

There are groups for people who have specific writing interests too, like Script Yorkshire, which is for people who write drama. And, of course, there are professional organisations such as The Romantic Novelists' Association, The Society of Authors, The Crime Writers' Association, and The Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

For those writers who are unable to get to a class or a group regularly, writers' conferences or holidays, like the ones at Swanwick or Caerleon, can be very exciting and stimulating, a great place to meet experts and to make friends with other writers from all over the country.

The Arvon Foundation also runs courses on specific themes, like Writing for Children or Television Scriptwriting. These are more intensive and more intimate than the big writers' conventions.

Don't forget that your own friends and family can also be a source of support and encouragement. But be careful who you share your work with. There's not a lot of point in showing it to someone who says that everything you write is absolutely marvellous, even if it's a load of rubbish. There's even less point in sharing it with someone who's going to tell you that it's a load of twaddle and suggest that you grow parsnips instead.

Why not sit down now and make your own 'Support Audit'? Work out what support you are able to receive as a writer and what steps you could take to get more, if you feel that's what you need. Then write down what your first step is going to be and a date when you'll have taken it.

Writing in the Zone

One of the joys of writing is the ability to lose yourself in your work, so that you lose track of time because you're so immersed in what you're doing. Some people call this experience 'flow', others 'being in the zone'.

It's not an experience that is unique to writing. Other people have it too - sportsmen, performers, artists. The feeling that, just for the moment, nothing else exists but you and what you are doing.

It's one of the ways in which we manage to bend time in an almost mystical way, by making it appear to fly by at a much faster speed than usual. One minute it's three o'clock and you're just sitting down to write, the next it's six o'clock and you think, 'Good heavens! Is it that time already?'

This afternoon, for the first time in a week or so, I had a whole afternoon where I could just sit down and get on with my writing without having to go anywhere or do anything. I decided to write an article for Triond about how to save money. I enjoyed doing it as it's a topic I haven't written about before and so I found it a refreshing change.

Spending the afternoon creating an entire article from start to finish was a very pleasurable experience. It was very satisfying to get to teatime with my three-page article not only finished but submitted at the click of a button.

I also like the fact that I'll probably hear tomorrow whether my piece has been published and be able to see it on the internet. I'm confident that it will be published as the eight items that I've submitted since I started writing for Triond a couple of weeks ago have all been accepted.

So I look forward to being able to tell you the web address tomorrow. Watch this space!

Why not set yourself the challenge of completing a piece of work in a specific period of time - a morning, an afternoon or an evening? It doesn't have to be as long as my article. It could be a poem or a 60-word story.

Look on it as a challenge. That way you'll enjoy the sense of achievement you get when you manage to achieve it. And once you set your mind to it and focus on the task, you'll be amazed to find yourself in the zone too.

Ideas for Writing from Everyday Life

While I was out and about this weekend, keeping my eyes and ears open for things to write about, a couple of buses caught my eye.

The first was a modern bus which appeared to have no passengers. What particularly captured my attention was the LCD display on the front of the bus which usually shows the route number and destination.

It contained only one word followed by a comma:

Sorry,

I assume that there should have been another screen to follow which would explain why the bus company was sorry. Sorry, bus driver in training. Sorry out of service. Sorry, contract only.

But instead there was just that hiccupping apology and we could only use our imagination to fill in the reasons for it.

It struck me as a great hook for a story. You could do all sorts of things with that one word as part of an unfinished message.

What could it be from? A 'Dear John' farewell letter? A letter to an estranged friend? A suicide note? The possibilities are intriguing, but it's the very incompleteness of the message that makes it so tantalizing.

The other bus I saw was a very old one, a vintage one, possibly - I'm sure you know the sort I mean, with a separate cab for the driver and a platform open to the elements. How many of us used to jump on and off a platform like that when we were in a hurry to get to school?

This bus had something on it that you don't usually see on public transport - two white ribbons adorned the front, like the ones you get on wedding cars.

That opens up lots of possibilities for a story too. Could the story be about a couple who met on a bus or worked on buses? Was the bus taking the happy couple to the church? If so, then they must be quite unconventional characters? Or was it taking them off on their honeymoon? Perhaps it could have a 'Just married' sign and and a pair of old boots trailing from the back?

See what you can do with either of these buses. And don't forget to tell me if you manage to write something fantastic based on this exercise.

Another Day in the Life of a Writer

It's been a different sort of day today. There hasn't been a lot of writing going on because I've been tied up most of the day making music with my two wind bands.

It's been the last morning of rehearsals at music centre for this academic year. For me it brought some mixed emotions. I'm always a little bit sad at the end of the year because there won't be any music centre for over two months and I'll miss playing with everyone and seeing all my friends there.

However, there's a sense of completion and satisfaction because we've made it through the whole year, we've definitely improved as musicians, and we've mastered our pieces.

Everyone's excited because it's our big concert at Huddersfield Town Hall on Monday and we've been getting our programmes ready for that.

Lots of the youngsters are being promoted to the next level next term, from Junior Band into Intermediates, or from Intermediates into Seniors, so the lucky ones who got given slips of paper with their new rehearsal details were really on a high.

Junior Wind Band was excited because we were due to perform this afternoon at the summer fair of a nearby infants' school. Not only were we playing our tunes - for weeks we'd been practising marching as well. The aim was to process through the school grounds, playing as we marched.

Marching is not something that we usually do in our music centre, so it had involved the children buying lyres to fix their music onto their instruments, at £14 a time. We had numerous marching rehearsals over the past half a term. Marching while playing, marching without playing, playing and marching on the spot. One of the dads who is a military musician gave us advice on how to march together in our rows, keeping an eye on the central person of the row of five, the anchor person. This was meant to help us keep in step, stay in our rows, and keep reasonably well spaced out. It sounded easy when he said it!

We practised marching on the paths around the outside of the music centre and even on the tennis courts (minus the nets)! We'd done just about everything we could think of to get the marching off to a T.

Of course, the one thing you can't plan for is the British weather. When we arrived for our rehearsal this morning, it was absolutely bucketing with rain, so we didn't do any marching practice.

But when we got to the infants' school in the afternoon, there was a temporary lull in the rain so we made an attempt at marching. The music centre parents and infants' school parents had turned out in full force to watch this spectacle.

Our formation stayed in place for about thirty seconds, but by the time we got halfway through our march, one of the dads, who was the anchor man for the second row, had managed to get so far behind that he ended up in the middle of the third row next to me, dragging two of his row with him. The three children who should have been in my row had been pushed out of their positions and shunted back into a makeshift row, row three and a half.

All a bit of a shambles really! I wouldn't have minded only this dad who caused the mayhem is a strapping chap over six foot tall who really shouldn't have had any trouble keeping up with a load of ten year olds! I'm only five foot two and I was marching in four inch heels (don't ask!), but I managed to keep up better than he did!

The next bit of the proceedings, playing sitting down, should have been a doddle by comparison, but by the time we'd waited for the little kids to dance around the Maypole (OK, so it's July, but they were cute!), the looming clouds had started pelting down huge droplets of rain.

'It's only rain,' insisted our conductor, despite our pleas to be allowed to go inside. 'Just get on and play.' So we sat there performing our tunes in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm, getting absolutely drenched, with a few hardy parents standing watching us, huddled under umbrellas.

By the time we finished our four tunes, our sheet music was so wet you could have used it for papier mache and the cardboard folders that we usually keep the music in had all but disintegrated. In fact, I'll be very surprised if any of the music ever survives long enough to make it back to the music centre library.

When I got home, I thought I'd check how my Triond pieces were doing, and to my amazement I discovered that one of my articles is on the Most Popular Articles list in one of the Writerhood categories - Style.

That was a big boost. Hopefully it will get my name known a bit better on the site and attract more readers to my pieces.

I've also dashed off a haiku poem this evening and submitted that, so I'll have to wait and see how that does.

So there we are! Thrills, spills, drips, and a bit of a lift, all in one day. I hope you enjoyed your day. Have a good weekend!

The Creative Process - the Joy of Procrastination

How many of us have great pieces we are planning to write, but we just haven't got round to doing them yet? Procrastination, the 'thief of time', affects writers just as much as it affects the rest of the population. Perhaps more so for those of us who have to set our own agenda rather than following a schedule determined for us by an employer or an editor.

Procrastination is generally seen as a bad thing, as something which gets between us and our creativity and minimises our output. Would we not have a great body of published work behind us, a list of top ten books, or a world-wide reputation if only we didn't put off doing all the things we needed to do and intended to do?

Yes, it's a great excuse, isn't it? I'd be successful if only......

But is procrastination really such a bad thing? Let's look at it from another angle and ask what benefits it can bring us.

Another, more positive, name for procrastination might be thinking time. Time to mull over ideas and plans in our mind and come to a more informed decision about them. Time to let an idea seep into our bones or our bones seep into our idea. Would you prefer an end product that had been simmered for hours in the flesh and bones of real life or one that had been given the quick 'stock cube' fix of instant decisions?

Can you taste the difference, feel the higher quality or does a longer thinking time and more careful writing only make a minimal difference? Indeed, could it take away some of the freshness and immediacy of the writing?

On the other hand, does procrastination not sometimes save us from hasty, ill-considered actions, badly chosen words, unwise choices?

What's your opinion? Would you prefer to jump right in with both feet while you still have the impetus and the enthusiasm to complete a project? Or would you rather take your time and make sure everything about it is just right and your work is the very best it could be?

I'm sure a case can be made for both sides, but I'd love to know how what sort of impact procrastinating or not procrastinating has had on you?

Addictive Reading - 'The Other Boleyn Girl'

I said yesterday that I didn't know whether I would manage to read Philippa Gregory's historical novel, The Other Boleyn Girl, in time for our reading group meeting on Monday.

But I can now confidently predict that I will finish it in time. In fact, there's a chance that I might even get it finished tonight. I've been glued to it today, small print or no small print. I've found it absolutely fascinating in a horrible sort of way, and it certainly makes me feel glad to an ordinary British woman living in the 21st century rather than a courtier at the time of King Henry VIII.

My son is now home from school for the summer holidays - nine and a half weeks - so I've also been taking advantage of that by getting him to do all the little jobs that I usually get stuck on, like transferring podcasts to my MP3 player. He's a real technical whizz kid. I have a new MP3 player which makes it much easier for me to listen to my favourite podcasts from Hay House Radio.

It's been a day when lots of newsletters have started arriving in my mail box too. I've already recommended a great website for writers, http://www.writing-world.com/, but I'll mention it again. The latest edition of their free newsletter is now out and has some very interesting articles in it as well as information about publications and competitions. I particularly liked the feature on 'How to Read "How to Write" Books'.

I won't spend long talking to you tonight as I'm on tenterhooks to find out what happens to the two Boleyn girls. I've a vague inking of what happens to one. (Let's just put it this way - I don't think she lives happily ever after!) But I'm dying to know what happens to her sister. I think I'm a Philippa Gregory convert.

Reading for Writing - 'The Other Boleyn Girl'

I've been having a very busy time recently with lots of things happening at once. It was the Gang of Five meeting at my house yesterday - a whole evening devoted to discussing writing of mine that I'd sent them to read.

My fellow writers managed to read three of my short stories - four, if you take into account that I'd sent them two versions of one of them - and they came up with some very useful comments and observations about them.

I think that I'll be able to make the changes to two of the stories very soon and get them sent off. However, the third one (the one with two versions) will take a bit more time to finalise as they liked different aspects of each of the versions. My challenge will be to work out how to combine the best of both of them as one is from the viewpoint of the younger sister and the other is from the viewpoint of the older girl.

So today I took a look at my diary and my 'to do' list and realised that to my alarm that I have another deadline looming. I'll really have to get my skates on if I'm to meet this one.

We've got another 'Reading for Writing' book group meeting in Holmfirth Library on Monday afternoon, but I hadn't even started reading the novel we're meant to be discussing. I eventually made a start on it this morning. It's called The Other Boleyn Girl and it's by the best-selling historical novelist, Philippa Gregory.

I think I'd been putting off reading this book for a couple of reasons. One is because it's a historical novel set in a period I know very little about - the court of Henry VIII. Having been brought up in Scotland, I had studied Mary, Queen of Scots and not really learnt anything about Henry.

Unlike some of my contemporaries who were brought up in England, I didn't grow up able to list all the wives of Henry VIII in order. I know he had a lot of them, but I'm not even sure which ones were divorced, which ones died and which were executed.

The other reason I haven't been keen to read this book is that it's a very big book to read - 529 pages of extremely small print. (I do wish publishers wouldn't use small print. Even if it does save paper and cut costs, it's very tiring to read for any length of time, even for someone like me who doesn't usually have to wear glasses for reading.)

Having said that, I've been pleasantly surprised so far. I'm finding the novel very entertaining and there's plenty of emotion, suspense, and intrigue to carry me along. The main characters are pretty interesting too. I do find it very odd though to find Henry VIII being described as an object of desire. For most of my life, I've thought of him as than the chap on the pictures with jowels and a huge belly from feasting on too many stuffed pheasants and boars' heads.

So I've got off to a good start. Will I be able to finish reading the book by Monday, though? Will I have any eyesight left after reading all that small print? Will I need to resort to using reading glasses or a magnifyer?

Watch this space to see if I have enough staying power to reach the end of the novel. Reading it is certainly an experience.

My New Writing Tool - a Beautiful Thesaurus

I was just talking the other day in one of my blogs about using a Thesaurus to extend the range of words you use in your writing. I mentioned Roget's Thesaurus and I got my copy off the shelf to find an example to talk about.

I was looking at it and thinking, 'This smells of old libraries'. Then I thought I'd check and see when it was published - 1972! I've had it more than thirty years!

I decided it would be a good idea to get myself one that was a bit more up-to-date and a bit less smelly, and - lo and behold! - when I was in WH Smith's today I spotted a beautiful, big hardback book called Collins Thesaurus A-Z. And what's more, it was reduced from £25 to £6.25.

I had a look at the book there and then and instantly fell in love with it. It's so clear and easy to use with all the words being in alphabetical order - I felt with Roget you needed a Ph.D. just to figure out how to find the word you were after.

The Collins version also has loads of extra articles full of fascinating information. It's the sort of book I could quite happily sit down and read for a week. For example, the page I'm looking at now has a list which covers two-thirds of the page of different types of mania. You've probably heard of one or two: kleptomanai - a mania for stealing; nymphomania - a mania for sex.

But did you know that timbromania is a mania for stamps? Or that cremnomania is a mania for cliffs? Or that ichthyomania is a mania for fish?

It has lists of characters from literature and from mythology, swords and other weapons with blades, and fifty-seven words for different shades of brown. I'd have been hard-pressed to come up with more than half a dozen by myself.

You can also find many hints about correct ways of using English grammar, very neatly and clearly explained.

All in all, an extremely useful and comprehensive book which is bound to add richness to your writing.

If you don't want to stretch to £6.25, they are also selling smaller paperback versions of it for less than a pound and Collins dictionaries, also for under a quid. So this could be a timely moment to start building up a little collection of reference books for yourself.

I'd better go. I've just spotted a handy list of different types of gas.....