Cuckfield Book Festival 2018
The second Cuckfield Book Festival is coming on October 6th & 7th 2018. (But don’t forget the literary events of the Lindfield Arts Festival in September!) The full Cuckfield programme is due to be announced in early August, but their programme for children and young adult events (expanded from last year) is already released and the events are open for …
250 Word Competiton
There is 250-word writing competition, run by Sussex author Joshua Raven in association with Cuckfield Bookfest 2018 (coming in October.) It’s free to enter and open to ages 10 years old to 100, and the closing date is Monday 1st October 2018.
Some Six Word Stories
These were written as an exercise based on the Six Word Story that is commonly attributed to Ernest Hemmingway – “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.“ Missing Girl‘s Body Found, Stepfather Arrested He left; she cried, but survived. I gave my life for England. “It’s not fair!”, said the widow. “My knee hurts.”, sobbed the child. “Beat Hemingway? Six words?” …
Yet more quotes on writing
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ― Ernest Hemingway “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything good.” ― William Faulkner “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be …
More Quotes
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” ― Philip Pullman “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” ― Ray Bradbury “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” ― Sidney Sheldon “I love writing. I love the …
Some Competitions…
These may or may not be currently open or still working links, pease email the post author if you have a correction Writing competitions at WritersAndArtists.co.uk Online creative fiction competition – at writingcompetition.org.uk JBWB Writing Competitions
Lindfield Arts Festival 2018
21st/22nd/23rd September 2018 This includes a set of literary events, inclduing author readings and writing workshops in the big pink Literary Tent, For a full and latest list click here Highlights include Ready Steady Write (Sessions One and Two ) Writers on the Heath are running two of these workshops on the Saturday. One at 11:30 for children, then at 17:00 …
Quotes about Writing…
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” ― Douglas Adams “Never trust a man who can only spell a word one way” – Oscar Wilde “To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make.” ― Truman Capote “The best way to become acquainted with …
Peas
By Giles Darling “I’m going to speak to the union.” a pea turns to its neighbour. “We didn’t sign up for this.” “Yeah.” the neighbour joins in. “One minute we were photosynthesizing in our pods. Next without warning we were plucked from our bush, stripped from our homes, and tipped into boiling water.” “Bobbing to the surface,” the first pea …
Sahara Ice
by David Chubb The Great Pharaoh’s Pyramidal Treat Rameses II was in a reflective mood. The most powerful, the most venerated man-god in the known world, and possessor of all that could be possessed, was bored. He summoned his high priest Atatep. “We desire something cool, get us something cool.” “Sire”, said Atatep, “you will be the god of cool, …
Re-writes
Old stories are the best, as Shakespeare knew. You cannot copy them directly, of course, but you can re-work, re-version and re-invigorate them. Exercise • re-create a scene from a TV drama • choose any mass-market novel at random, read the opening, decide what the writer was trying to achieve and improve it • write your own version of a …
Points of view
• Authors once acted as story overseers, choosing to withhold or reveal any character’s thoughts, as well as telling readers the truth as they saw it. In modern fiction, this is usually avoided, because it denies the readers the opportunity to decide for themselves. So you might two characters who will have different points of view and cannot reveal anything …