Authors Electric

The brain is an amazing organ - it literally works twenty-four hours a day, whether we are asleep or awake, making sure our bodies continue to work to their optimum capacity. As writers we use our brains continually, taking in stimulus from all our senses and storing them as ideas we can use in books. Even when we are asleep we often dream of plots that can be used in a book. I don't know about you but I find ideas zinging into my brain almost every second of the day and bouncing around in there like an acrobatic troop on steroids. Yet, I am sure you will agree, these ideas don't stay there for long as they are usually booted out by the next brilliant idea that claims squatter's rights. This constant stimulation can be draining and exhausting but we creative types struggle to switch it off. So, what can we do to organise things better? Quite a bit it turns out.  1. We all know this one but write things down. I'm putting it here as it is possibly the number one way we ca...

The diary I'd received as a gift For the last three years I’ve been working as a tutor for my local council. Part of my departments remit is to reach those who’ve had a negative experience of education or haven’t had access to education as an adult. We cover a vast range of subjects and I’m lucky enough to teach the creative courses including writing. I teach two writing courses, one of which is designed to encourage students to discover their muse and write what they want to, for whatever reason they may have. Be it for therapeutic reasons or to make some form of income.  My courses are just ten hours long, two hours per week, for five consecutive weeks. In January I started a new creative course. At the beginning of the first session I asked, “what’s stopping you from writing?” I received the normal replies, including:  “I don’t have an imagination.” “I have no idea where to start.” “I’d quickly run out of ideas.”   To convince my students...

Over the last few weeks I've been teaching a five-week creative writing course for adults. The main aim of the course is to wake up their muse and inspire my students to write anything creative. Whether it's a story, poem or even a song. During one of the sessions I encouraged the students to come up with things they could use to inspire their writing. The list they came up with included: Newspaper features Songs Poems An overheard snippet of conversation A photograph A found object Family history A joke When they started to  falter  I added a few more  including  gravestones and blue plaques (the ones you see on the side of buildings which contain a name, a short description of that person and dates).  Now, fast forward a week and I was walking through an old graveyard. I had plenty of time, so when a gravestone caught my eye I stopped to read it. I was  surprised  it not only gave the name and the dates of those who lay beneath ...

Last month I reviewed two writing related apps (Story Lines and Name Dice) and as the feedback was favourable I thought I'd repeat the process. However unlike the two previous apps these provide inspiration for the poet. So here goes... Poetry Creator Developer: Tiny Mobile Inc. Free to download with in app purchases I love this app. It's fun, easy to use and really does push the creative process. Think fridge magnet or rip it poetry. When you first open the app you are supplied with a number of words on a 'board' which gives you the starting point for your poem. These words you simply drag into place to create your poem. If you struggle there is a pull out 'drawer' (found on the right hand side of the screen) which contains additional words which you can pull into play. You can increase the number of words by going into the 'mix-tionary' and  just slide the selectors.  You can download additional dictionaries (shown as installed on the image o...

Man wielding his mighty plunger You know, we all get bunged up now and again. No, I’m not talking about constipation, I leave that to cringe-making TV ads. However I might be using plumbing metaphors, partly, ok, largely so I can write about men with enormous tools (yes I know there are female plumbers, and small tools, but those are for other blogs, other times). Man with enormous tool. Just because I like writing that.  There have been many discussions of Writers’ Block online, and responses are reminiscent of those about sea- or morning-sickness, or gluten or dairy intolerance, in that those who’ve never had it (YET), often seem to assume it’s imagined or just other writers being over-precious weedy wets chiz chiz. Just apply bum to chair, fingers to keyboard, and keep going, they bark like Sergeant Majors. Those of us with livings to earn can’t afford to have WB! Well those who lay bricks can’t afford to have bad backs, and yet they do. Others, at all levels of fame...