Authors Electric

Image Credit:  Images taken by me, Allison Symes, from the 2025 Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. By the time this post goes out, I will have just returned from my big writing treat of the year - The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.    I get to spend a few days immersed in the writing world. I also love catching up with friends I only see online for the rest of the year. I learn so much from the workshops and courses and the after dinner speakers.  The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire - home to The Writers' Summer School for over 70 years. I also find this break away reaffirms my belief in myself as a writer by helping me fight Imposter Syndrome. Real writers go to conferences, don’t they, whether said events are online or in person, day events, or longer. Also last month, I was involved with a friend’s online book launch. That went well, I’m glad to say, but what is lovely here is with this and Swanwick, there was plenty of writer engagement. For the online launch, that...

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 images. When this post appears, I should have just returned from a fabulous break in stunning Northumberland. It led me to think about how getting out and about can inspire ideas. Grab your phone, take pictures. They can be random or specific images. I’ve used photos to give me ideas for how, for example, a landscape would look for my characters. I can also use that background to visualise who might live there. You could also use your images to write non-fiction pieces (were there historical events associated with that landscape?). Photos can be great for triggering ideas. I take far more than I normally do when away so try to make use of these for writing purposes later.   I love postcards and send some home. But why not use a typically sized card to create a story? It will be flash fiction because you won’t get more than a couple of hundred words on there at most. Indeed flash has been known as postcard fiction. Writ...

  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...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos When I started writing seriously many years ago, I read as many author interviews as possible. I still find them engaging and informative.   I love being on both sides of the questioning too as I sometimes appear on other writers’ blogs and regularly interview authors for an online magazine.   Inventing interesting questions to draw the author into conversation is a joy and challenge but this is where being a writer helps. I know what I would want to know and start my questioning from there.   I found it helpful years ago to work out how I would answer questions put to writers should the happy day come around when I became a published author. I found that paid because it helped me get used to the idea of talking about what I write. It does seem an odd thing to do when you start. How are you coming across? When you talk about your characters and stories, does it make sense to those listening? Certain que...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. No kidding, Sherlock, I know but I suspect there have been a few love stories doing the rounds this month. Wonder why…  That said the thought of Valentine’s Day and associated tales led me to wonder about popular themes and whether anything new can be said to still make the best of them. Naturally some themes will turn up time and again for competitions and markets because they will always appeal to us. The world isn’t going to run out of love stories. It doesn’t mean authors should stop writing them, far from it. Themes reflect the human condition, which is why we always identify with popular themes.   The ideal then is to bring something new to the mix. My way into that is via the character(s). There has to be something about them which would make them stand out to me first, then potential readers. If the character doesn’t grab my attention, I can hardly expect them to grab the attention of anyone else....

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...