Authors Electric

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. It is the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of my favourite authors, Jane Austen, later this year (16th December to be precise). I’m fortunate enough to be able to easily get to Winchester Cathedral where she is buried and they have had exhibitions celebrating her life and work.   Indeed there is an exhibition running there from 23rd May until 19th October 2025 called the Jane Austen Poetry Exhibition which looks at the friendship between her and Anne Lefoy, who was a mentor to Jane. (I find it encouraging mentors are nothing new for writers). Jane wrote a poem regarding the death of her friend and that poem is one of the objects on display here. I discovered the joy of Austen’s work, especially Pride and Prejudice, thanks to it being one of the books I had to read at secondary school. I would say its impact was to show me irony was a thing in fiction.  I’ve had good cause to appreciate that since...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Do you have favourite themes in writing, whether this is in your work or someone else’s? I’ve always wanted to see justice done in stories. This is one reason I still love the classic fairytales, as well as the more obvious home for this topic, crime fiction. Even as a child, in the fairytale world I knew the rotters wouldn’t get away with it. Pity that’s not more true in life! I will often use themes as my way into creating characters and stories. If I know my theme is going to be honesty, say, I will create a dishonest character and show them not getting away with it, or I will show a truthful creation being rewarded for their honesty (not necessarily in money).   I lead an online flash fiction group for a Christian writing organisation I’ve been a member of for years. It’s fun to do and this has led me to rediscover the joys (and otherwise) of PowerPoint after a break of many years from it.  But I’ve fou...

  Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I didn’t start out writing in the short fiction forms. I began by seeing if I could write a novel. I did. It went through numerous rewrites, had professional editing twice, and was longlisted in a Debut Novel competition. It remains unpublished. I became tired of the rejections  so I turned my attention to the shorter fiction forms.  It took a long time for my stories to become publishable but I wasn’t surprised. I’d been reading plenty of sensible writing advice and still do. You are warned learning to get your work up to publication standard does take time. I saw this as fair game (and again still do). I did find quickly one advantage to writing short stories was I could get far more written in the time it took me to write my novel, edited, reworked, edited again etc. I was also able to get feedback on the short stories which I used to help me improve.  That eventually led to my first story in...

I enjoy reading Brian Bilston’s poems on Facebook. One of my favourites is his Mnemonic , where the last line implies January goes on for ever and ever, amen. He has a point! January does drag. How is the New Year going so far ?   It took me a while to resume my usual writing routine after a lovely Christmas break but equally that gave me a “soft start”. January is when I book my place at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick , which is a major highlight of my year. It is held in August at The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire. I enjoy a wide range of workshops and courses (with full board accommodation). Naturally I meet old friends, make new ones, and hear wonderful evening speakers. I’ve led courses here too. Booking Swanwick cheers me during the dark days of January. It matters to have something to look forward to writing wise, whether it is booking a conference, or knowing you will finish the first draft of a project by X date. (Seeing the finishing line is always a good enco...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. I don’t write many seasonal stories. One exception is now when I write festive flash fiction. Sometimes I get ideas for festive tales during the summer so will write them up ready to send later. Festive flash is lighthearted and I’ve had some broadcast on an internet radio station. I usually finish my weekly column for an online magazine with a festive flash roundup and share a story. All fun to do (and I hope for others to read).  On the reading side, I ensure I watch and/or read Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, Discworld’s equivalent to Christmas.   Naturally Dickens’ fabulous work, A Christmas Carol , is on the agenda though usually in the form of the best film version ever made - The Muppet Christmas Carol . Yes!   Michael Caine plays it straight as Scrooge and genuinely comes across as sinister. The Muppets are true to the book - they’ve just added some songs (good ones too, I’m fond of the...

Image Credit:  Images from the ACW Autumn Gathering Day were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Janet Williams, my lovely editor at Chandler’s Ford Today, for taking the shot of me signing books at the book fair. I’m glad to say October was busy. I went to an Association of Christian Writers (ACW) in person event in Rugby, where it was lovely to catch up with friends. A week later I was taking part in a book fair which was in a hall a short walk from my home. Good to be back in business on the book stand at the ACW Autumn Gathering The writing day had Paul Kerensa (co-writer on Miranda, Not Going Out , broadcaster and podcaster on the history of radio) as the guest speaker (he was hilarious) plus there was a choice of workshops after lunch. There is a buzz when getting together with other writers which I find inspiring. I had a lovely time  coming home enthused. (That’s always a sign of a good writing event I find).  Paul Kerensa gave a wonderful and funny two pa...

  Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. One image of The Hayes, Swanwick was taken by me, Allison Symes. I read short and long form fiction and non-fiction. I mix up reading in print books or on Kindle. I often try works by authors new to me on the latter. If I like the ebooks, I often buy said authors’ paperbacks later. The Kindle is especially useful for non-fiction. I also write in short and longer format, fiction and non-fiction. It keeps my reading and writing life interesting. My writing life has been an upside down one. I started by writing novels.Talk about running before I could walk. I then went into short stories. From there I went into flash fiction. During the short form time, I branched out into non-fiction by blogging, writing articles etc. It is all fun. Almost certainly I’ve done everything the wrong way around! Having said that, this means when I go to a writing event, I have a wide range of topics to interest me. It is a rare day...

Image Credits:-  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Photo of The Hayes, Swanwick and screenshot were taken by me, Allison Symes. I’ve just returned from a major highlight of my writing year, having spent six days at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in lovely Derbyshire, immersed in the wonderful world of writing. I’ve learned so much from the courses, caught up with many friends whom I only see online for the rest of the year, and I was glad to be running a two part course.    My course was on Editing as an Author, Editing as a Competition Judge . I wear both hats and will be judging again soon. Seeing how something is done and why is invaluable, which was my approach for this course.  The great joy of writing events is being with like-minded people who understand your drive to write, who know what it is to have to handle rejections as well as acceptances, and to not have to explain why you write. You just do. So do they.    I’ve been g...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos Opening lines must hook a reader so they read the rest of your story or article. I aim to write  something which intrigues me, draft the rest, and as I do that, ideas occur to strength that first line. So I go back and do so. The act of writing something down in and of itself seems to trigger creativity to come up with more and better ideas. It’s a pity you can’t bottle that effect and bring it out when you need it! As I write a lot of flash fiction, where my maximum word count is 1000 words, the opening line carries even more weight. I see it as doing a lot of heavy lifting. Sometimes I will write circle stories where the closing line is a repetition of the opening one or is similar to it with, say, one minor change. That change has come about due to what happened in the story itself. I find, whatever I write, as long as I have something down to start me off, away I go happily. It can be finding the way into a p...