Authors Electric

 Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I love writing workshops. I’ve learned so much from them and now I’m running my own (flash fiction, the ups and downs of being a writer etc). I like workshops which give me plenty to think about and  exercises I can polish up at home. I want to be “doing” as well as listening. Knowing what I like has helped me tailor my workshops. I think good old-fashioned pen and paper still has a valuable role to play. This shows up best at a writing workshop. No worries about whether your PC battery will die halfway through the workshop. No worries about whether there will be enough charging points for said PC to avoid that. You just pick up a pen and jot down points of interest. Okay, there is a dilemma to be faced with pen and paper. Just which notebook will I use? Which pen to go with it? Is there any writer who doesn’t have a surfeit of notebooks and pens? When I worked in Winchester many moons ago, I avoided going...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Those of you of a certain age will recognize the “will go” element of my title as part of the way we were taught Maths (division) in the 1970s. Without a love of stories, which comes from a love of reading, a love to write will be hard to develop. It will be even harder to maintain. I should have realised the writing life was beckoning me sooner than I did. I loved “composition” lessons during English where we had to invent stories. It was even better when the teacher didn’t set a theme. To this day I prefer open-ended writing competitions! My colleagues all groaned when told to do this. I couldn’t wait to get started.  There were also SRA cards which were colour-coded depending on how well you could read. On one side was the story. On the other were questions about the story. Loved those. Story analysis right there at junior school level! I just didn’t realise it. Breaking down what makes a story work has help...