Reading and Writing Seasons by Allison Symes

By -

 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

I can guess what you’re thinking. There is no such thing as a reading/writing season. We read and/or write all year around, right? True but do you find there are certain times of year when you read certain types of book? Or you write certain types of story in the winter as opposed to the summer?

 

I love reading humorous works throughout the year but I read more during the autumn and winter months. If you don’t need cheery reading then, when would you? I usually find I write more humorous flash fiction during this period too. 

I write festive flash fiction, which is cheery by its nature, so have often written some during the autumn and submitted it somewhere in the run up to that word beginning with C we won’t mention yet because it is far too early to do so. (Supermarkets, please note).


My TBR pile has a good old mix in it, which is how I like it, and this is consistent all year but the funny books get pushed to the top as the evenings draw in. Wodehouse and Pratchett are my comfort reads here. 

Talking of which it is time to re-read the latter’s Reaper Man. I always re-read that around harvest festival time. I will be turning to Hogfather once more in the run up to the C word. Incidentally there was a film adaptation of that which I like a lot. Highly recommend if you haven’t seen it. 

Also love a certain seasonal Muppet film (the one with Michael Caine, yes that one) and Gonzo’s recommendation at the end to read the book (Dickens, I can’t give any more clues here). He’s not wrong!

I also find I have periods where I just want to read non-fiction, then fiction, then mix them up. It means I get plenty of reading done.

Writing wise, I have slots where I focus on my flash fiction. Other slots I reserve for my blogging so I get to have mini seasons of fictional and non-fiction writing every week for most of the year. 


The writing season has its dips, naturally around holidays and life events. That used to worry me. It doesn’t now. I’ve come to realise consistency matters more. Also you can come out of dips! It is just a question of how long it takes. 

This is also where it is lovely writing the short form as I know I can draft something fairly quickly I can polish later. I always feel better in myself knowing I’ve written something. I guess it’s because I am getting my “fix” of being creative with words. 

Maybe creative writing should come with a warning. Beware, this is addictive. You may  never be able to walk past a stationery shop ever again without feeling the urge to go and get a new notebook and pen!

There are worse vices…

What matters most though is enjoying my reading and writing seasons. I hope you love yours too.


Comments

Griselda Heppel said…
Lots of entertaining suggestions here. I must be the only person who can't come to grips with Terry Pratchett. I've started a couple of his books, been briefly amused and them somehow lost interest. Pratchett fans, please don't slaughter me.

But I'm absolutely with you re the Muppet Christmas Carol. I maintain it's actually the closest to the original Dickens - in both narrative and spirit - of any adaptations/re imaginings (ghastly concept)/stage productions I've seen in the last decade and longer. I include the RSC and NT in this. For some reason, no director can leave this wonderful story alone but has to rewrite it with modern ideas of character development and social justice.
18 September 2023 at 11:09
Allison Symes said…
Many thanks, Griselda. I agree with you over the Muppet film. It is superbly done and their best. When you've got great material to work with in the first place, why tinker with it? Terry Pratchett - loved his work immediately though to me the Discworld series gets better as it goes on especially for the Vimes novel. Have another try!
18 September 2023 at 11:42
Cecilia Peartree said…
I completely agree with you about the Muppet film - I think it's one of the best versions of the story.
Also The Hogfather adaptation - very good casting. I really enjoyed it too.
I failed to read Terry Pratchett for quite a while as I kept trying to start at the beginning of the Discworld series - once my son advised me to start with the 'Guards' books, I got on very much better. I've never really taken to the first few.
29 September 2023 at 13:29
Allison Symes said…
Many thanks, Cecilia. I started with Jingo, then worked backwards for the Vimes novels re Discworld and then came forward again! Odd but it worked. I then checked out the witches novels etc. The only one I didn't get on with was Eric, which is a Faust spoof. I thought the book would have worked better as a comic novel.
29 September 2023 at 16:42
Post a Comment

Popular posts

A Few Discreet Words About Caesar's Penis--Reb MacRath

By -
Image
Veni, vidi...Wiki! Not long ago I had the all-time greatest Great Idea: one, born of total ignorance, that nearly tanked a novel. As you may have guessed from my opening line, my subject is Julius Caesar. But you might not have guessed from the title that my Great Idea entailed his being reborn as a penis. Don't laugh, please, I beg you. I saw no way around this, even though showing JC as a 'dick' might lead some to think that I've written a spoof. In fact, it's a serious thriller. Without giving the plot away, I can say this: I needed JC's ghost, today, remembering his nights with Cleopatra on her fabled golden barge. There  was the heart of my book--a ghost trying for 2000 years to relive that lost boogie with Liz. And I'd begun to run with this when my memory corrected me: Mark Anthony, not JC, was on the barge with Cleo. And this was after JC's death. What the hell was I to do, lacking the good sense to check memory's 'facts
Read more

Margery Allingham and ... knitting? Casting on a summer’s mystery -- by Julia Jones

By -
Image
The Watchtower from the Saltings  (Photo Tom Barr)  How to connect a 1940s naval watchtower on the Tollesbury marshes, a brilliant Scottish knitwear designer and my all-time favourite novelist?   The investigation led me along the single-track lanes south-east from Tollesbury, heading towards the end of the old railway line to Tollesbury Pier. I began to get goosebumps as I remembered coming here before. Once on a long walk with my dog, when I was never quite sure where we were trespassing but was determined to explore anyway.  That was when I first saw the six-sided building, stark and guarded against the weather. Then I saw it again in my imagination: ‘It’s a t-tower,’ said David. Xanthe loved the way he said it with a shiver of excitement in his voice. ‘It’s in the m-middle of a f-field and it looks right down the r-river.’ ‘And when it was wartime the Navy built it so they could keep a lookout against invaders,’ added Kieran. ‘Then p-zow they’d press a button and the whole
Read more

As Time Goes By

By -
Image
 Dooley Wilson, Ingrid Bergman, "Play it, Sam." 1942 I turn 87 on the 16th of this month. That means I was five years old when Ilsa Lund asked Sam to play As Time Goes By . No wonder I've been a lifelong romantic (who writes about time travel a lot.) I vaguely remember first seeing Casablanca at a theatre with my mother. She elbowed me from a Hershey-bar stupor to see one of her Hollywood bit-actor friends, Frank Puglia, as a Moroccan vendor selling Ingrid Bergman a scarf. I posted about Puglia here in 2020. (See " The Phantom of Dream Streets .") It was 1943. I was a precocious kid who could read the funnies and the headlines of newspapers delivered to our front steps every day. I hid under a marble-topped coffee table during air raid drills, laughing at the game of sirens, closed drapes and wardens waving hooded flashlights.  My mother, wth my Nonna Rosa, c. 1960 My Rome-born Nonna Rosa, still kept milk in an "ice-a-box." She didn't own an elec
Read more

Dress to Impress your readers! by Elizabeth Kay

By -
Image
 Every so often you come across a book where what people are wearing is described in great detail. After a while it becomes annoying as you want to get on with the story, not the author’s attempt at visually fixing a character in your head with irrelevant detail. Their mannerisms, disabilities and speech patterns may be far more effective. So if you’re going to describe someone’s clothing, it must be important. My first example is from my children’s book The Divide , set in alternative world, where the different sorts of human-like mythical beings are distinguished by the colour of their clothing. "Tansy had never been to Tiratattle before, and Ramson was pretending to be more familiar with it than one school visit could possibly have made him. He refused point-blank to ask directions, and denied outright that they’d been past the chalice stall three times. The shops were full of candles and incense burners, their designs quite unlike anything Tansy had ever seen in Geddon. There
Read more

What's Your Angle--by Reb MacRath

By -
Image
You may be in either camp or be a hybrid, as I am. In the course, though, of writing a novel we may all come to the same block: we know where to go  and exactly what to do there...but we can't seem to figure out how to get there smoothly and efficiently. I found myself on a roll with my WIP when the ending of the seventh chapter threw me for a loop. Consider: Chapter 7 ends with two of the three main characters--let's call them A and B--engaged in risky business in a small Arizona town. They've arranged for C to follow them days later on a different pretext, apparently looking for work. But, unknown to them, something has happened in Tucson. Chapter 8. Change of POV. Cut to character C, left behind in Tucson. Because of what's happened, he chooses to leave a day early though he can't reach A and B by phone. The challenge: getting him on the road and to his destination, while filling readers in on the Tucson tragedy. Road trip? Flashbacks? I tried a dozen different t
Read more