More than Writers

  My kids can’t wait till tomorrow as they can start their chocolate advent calendars. They have been staring at the boxes for a few weeks, as I bought them early so we could have different ones. I have been writing a regular Advent/Christmas blog for the last week or so, reviewing different Christmas and Advent books. There are so many out there! I never knew about Advent devotionals, until a few years ago. It seemed such a wonderful thing to do with the children, making Christmas extra special, building up to Christmas Day. We usually gave up reading the Advent book by the end of February. It turns out, December is utter chaos. Not even because of the extra meetings or demands. That in itself is enough for me to think hibernation might be a healthy option. If only NaNoWriMo could be in December. What a great excuse that would be! Usually, by the time December arrives, I’m a little Elabi weary and have a lot of other activities besides writing that I would like to do. Not su...

 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos Given we are now in the season of Advent, it is appropriate to think about seasonal stories as we consider what is, for us, the Ultimate Story. Do you write any seasonal stories, whether it is for Christmas, Easter, Harvest etc? I write festive flash fiction and those are fun but most of what I write is suitable for all year round. That gives me flexibility to decide when to submit my pieces. Having said that, I’ve enjoyed writing tales about Santa’s elves going on strike on Christmas Eve and Santa himself being pulled over for speeding. Festive flash should be fun.       For most seasonal markets, you must submit several months ahead of the event. It is why Christmas story writers for the women’s magazine market will be submitting their work in June or earlier, depending on the individual magazine’s requirements. The positive thing is you can plan ahead. After all the themes of Christmas do not c...

    By this time, last year, I had decorated my home for Christmas! WHAT CHANGED? It is not the excuse that my ‘babies’ have flown from the nest, save 2   still trying to stretch their wings for that final flight   or are they too cosy in the nest to make the flight? I leave that to Papa God, our Creator.   Christmas, aside our celebrating our Lord’s birth, is     personal to every one of us. For me, it is also the rebirth of another mile stone to achieve in my life.   Because it comes towards the end of a year and marks the beginning of a new era, I set life goals and writing goals.   I hope to finish a new poetry collection by Christmas,which was set from December 2021. Hopefully.   For my life goals, I had planned house decluttering,  being more active in my Christian life and to lose weight.   All will be a carry-over! So all those years you decorated the house for Xmas, was it for the season, family or for Lord J...

Hello everyone!  It’s me again after a 3 months gap.  I had to take time out because of being very behind with the MS of my new book a Devotional/Prophetic/Teaching book which thankfully has now been submitted!  A huge thanks to the lovely writers who stood in for me since August, your blogs have been a joy to read.  I’m also enjoying some of the amazing new novels recently released in our group and decided to start my blog up again by interviewing the wonderful Ruth Leigh about the release of her 3 rd book in the Isabella M Smugge series.  This interview is both to celebrate the book itself and to look more deeply into what inspires and enables Ruth in her writing, in the certainty that we too will be inspired in our own writing.  So here goes: Ruth its been wonderful to celebrate with you the release of your 3 rd book in the Isabella M Smugge series.  The Continuing Times of Isabella M Smugge.  Having thoroughly enjoyed the first 2 books, Th...

  I have a level 5 Diploma in Digital Marketing and the techniques are great, when you do it right, it will generate sales.   Yet, in this digital world, there is a tool that is often forgotten, the traditional press release.   People often ask me how I manage to appear in the press and on radio and TV so much and the answer is always, “A well-written press release.”   I have used press releases for over 30 years and have an extensive list of media sources.   You can create your own with a little research but what makes a good press release?   What bait do you use to catch the fish? A well-written PR will be harvestable.  Nowadays media sources like a “ready-to-use” article.  So, what is a well-written PR?   A.     Find your Angle – Every good news story has an angle.  An angle is the perspective your story will take.  Some common angles are: i)     Local Impact – Good to attract local media. ii...

  I had great plans for November. I decided that for the first time I was going to do NaNoWriMo. I had never heard of it before joining the ACW, but knew many people raved about it. For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and is basically an invitation for writers to challenge themselves to write 50k words of a novel in a single month. You can find our more here nanowrimo.org. I desperately wanted to get my third novel written, and having made a good start of 27k words I thought that another 50k words would get me to the end. I needed the motivation, as the story has been in my head for months, and I had other things I wanted to do in December, and potential new projects for the New Year. And I made a really good start. I was writing every day and clocking up the words, even when away for the weekend at Book Blest. The thing I found most challenging was that I had to CHANGE the way I write. I usually write a scene and then go back and edit i...

  A scrappy blog this month, as I’m recovering from some medical attention. For the past two terms, we’ve been in a group studying the life and work of Dorothy Day, the American Christian activist and journalist. She started out as a journalist around the end of the First World war, working for newspapers that championed the poor. Even then, she was a bold activist, and got sent to jail more than once for her part in demonstrations against injustice. Being on a low wage herself, she took rooms in slums among poor people. But along with this, she lived a pretty ‘bohemian’ life, with a series of partners and hard drinking. After her daughter was born, everything changed — or rather, all was transformed. She became a Christian and then got to know an eccentric visionary called Peter Maurin. With him, and many helpers, Dorothy began to offer hospitality to the poorest of the poor. They set up premises where people could come for food and a bed, no questions asked. Millions of people we...

  Accountability by Rebecca Seaton Many of us have lots of projects on the go. I find I’m often thinking about the current novel but don’t always actually sit down to write on it as often as I’d like. My magazine contributions, however, are up again. I’ve contributed an extract to the next issue, been to a meeting and have an interview planned for the new year. Considering I’ve been away from it for a while, this is pretty good going. Why has my magazine input been more successful? Accountability. I have deadlines and meeting them (or not) affects others. No-one is waiting for my next novel and it’s purely up to me to get it out there. Why does accountability work? Although writers are often thought of as solitary, and can be so, we usually write for an audience. We are also often great observers of others. It therefore makes sense that we care about what others think and can accept the input of others. We need the feedback from others. Essentially, if someone is checking in, w...

(ALT: Part of a computer keyboard with the 'delete' key circled) “I don’t know where she is,” said a nurse to a surgeon. They were talking about me.  I was at the hospital for a check-up and the nurse had no record that I was there. The surgeon pointed to me across the waiting room: “She’s sitting over there. I know my patients. I can see her. That’s Emily.” I knew I was there. The nurse didn’t know I was there. The surgeon knew I was there, because he knows me. I think sometimes the writing life can feel a bit like a waiting room.  We wait for contracts, we wait for sales, we wait for events, we wait for likes on a blog, we wait for feedback, we wait for inspiration…. We know where our writing is/what we’ve done, but it seems to get lost in a sea of other books and blogs and articles. Or maybe we don’t know. We push on, not really knowing what or why or where. I love the story of Hagar (Genesis 16). Running away, rejected, stuck in a desert...and in that ...

"Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses"                                  Hebrew 11:1 Many good fiction books have been written, but why, for example do certain books have many editions and film remakes, when there are thousands of other novels written in that genre?   The most recent is the film of Jane Austin’s ‘Persuasion’. Also finding her unpublished and unfinished book ‘Bridgerton’ a script writer completed it as a TV drama. Due to its popularity a second series was written and filmed, along with the possibility of a third.   It is sixty years ago Ian Fleming’s first book, Casino Royale was published, and James Bond's popularity continues. Batman and Superman who evolve...