Activity

I sympathise with you, Richard, over reading more politics than normal. I was the same then got cross with myself not least because it stole time from other things.

I think some involvement, however, can make one feel better. There are many causes still to fight for – environmental and social – if one is that way inclined. Though preservation of…[Read more]

Oh yeah, oh Lord, I got them ol’ Brexit blues…

My writing has been dead in the water for a while now, and while the main cause of that is the totally negative results of my last submissions Brexit hasn’t helped. Like Alan, I’ve found the whole business, from first to last, intensely dispiriting, for more reasons than I can, or would even want…[Read more]

I take a positive view and think that we will be fine. Like you I don’t want to discuss the pros and cons here. There’s been enough elsewhere.

I have had the Brexit blues while the whole thing has rumbled on, though. The uncertainty has been most unsettling and my writing has also suffered.The deep splits in the country are very unpleasant…[Read more]

I think the premise might have been plausible, Jane and Amanda. If I’ve got this right, the telephone lines between the front line and HQ had been cut and therefore the regiment (?) on the front line didn’t have up to date intelligence. The idea was to get the despatch drivers to update the officers on the front line so that they wouldn’t make an…[Read more]

Yeah, that doesn’t sound so plausible! Libby, I agree with Jane – that sounds much more interesting.

That sounds wonderful Libby. Can you remember what it was called?

The basic premise is that two very young low ranking soldiers get sent off through miles of no mans land to prevent another section (sorry but I can never remember the correct names for sections of the army but it is around 1600 men) falling into a trap by attacking what they think are a few Germans. I struggled to believe that they would only…[Read more]

Hello Amanda, it doesn’t sound my kind of thing either. One thing the reviewers said in its favour was how balletic and choreographed it was. Coincidentally I saw a short silent film – 5 minutes or so – a while ago which depicted the Western Front by using only two male dancers in uniform, dancing in slow motion and getting tangled up with each…[Read more]

Hello, Libby 🙂 It sounding less and less like my sort of film.

Hello, Sandra! That all sounds brilliant! I think I must have missed that last year in amidst the chaos. What are they called? I’ll look them up x

That’s a shame, Jane. What was the basic premise? I’m not that big a fan of war films with a few notable exceptions.

Waving back at you, Janette. It’s lovely to familiar faces here. It’s a shame it’s been quiet but these things sometimes go in phases. It was always going to be hard to build something up from scratch after the Cloud.

I empathise with where you are writing-wise. I got like that in 2012 when my children’s novel just wasn’t getting any interest and…[Read more]

I haven’t seen 1917, Jane, but the review on either Front Row or Saturday Review concluded that it was a rather unengaging film. I think they ascribed this partly to the camera technique.

Still here also (and elsewhere!) and glad to say one 2019 resolution was fulfilled by my self-pubbing the first three of my ‘Love triangles with murder’ series, so now I’ve got book 4 to a near-beta read stage and begun book 6.

Hmmm Not sure about 1917. It was certainly visually stunning and showed a lot of the awfulness of life in the trenches but it was curiously unengaging – not sure why – Maybe it was just not my sort of film. Plus I thought the basic premise was unlikely which didn’t help.

*waves frantically* Hello Mandy! Great to see you here. Yes, it’s much quieter here now, and though I guess some ex-cloudies peep in from time to time, there aren’t a lot of partakers atm. Only 4 entries for last month’s comp for instance, and so far the same for the winter short story comp. Such a shame, but hopefully things will improve.

As for…[Read more]

Haha, a dead body will certainly shake things up. I’m sorting out all the obvious problems and then I need to pass it on to fresh eyes so that they can tell me all the problems I can’t see. And hopefully they will tell me the story is strong enough…

You’re tempting me with Little Women… Should I go and see 1917 too?

I thought that about Little Women too. Yet another remake. But the structure is very clever, dotting between the past and present, and it is full of life and magic. It made me want to go back and reread the books for the millionth time. I’d strongly recommend it but take tissues!

I always worry if the story is strong enough but I don’t know how…[Read more]