Barry Walsh

Well. I’ve read the Le Guin and Burroway chapters and have had a strong emotional reaction. Not to the gorgeous passages. But to the prospect of this whole MA, to notebooks and journals and free-writing, and sharing with you lot and telling the stories that matter to me. I’m sixty years old and I’m sitting here crying! Don’t worry – I won’t use…[Read more]

Right! Write! Read! I have 2.5 hours this morning, so I’m diving in. Splash!

Love the authenticity of the dialogue. And I really, really want to know what Jonny has 68 of!

Noice. I like how the I remember sequence in this case tells the story – I’ve only ever used it as disjointed memories previously, all loosely connected to a theme. This puts a totally different spin on the exercise. I had a similar experience, but in my case it was tapioca… 😉

I read the gorgeousness passages out whilst in the bath. One of my dogs came and listened, but I can’t say he looked overly impressed…

I think I see what she is saying about them, in terms of them having the sounds and so on as part of the prose, but I didn’t really like two of them on a personal level. The third one was the one that struck me…[Read more]

Finally read all of Chapter 1 in the Burroway book. It made lots of sense and I can already feel the details slipping away from me… To that end, I am going to try writing myself some summaries of the readings and see if they help it go into my memory better.

Blimey – you did well to get all that dialogue down, Raine! Loving the accent in it. And I remember is so poignant – some of what you’ve written seems so matter-of-fact, yet it is still so full of emotion. Like it.

Gorgeousness is clearly in the eye of the beholder 🙂 I’m not fussy for the Kipling or Gloss examples but rate the other two.

Good idea to beautify something already written…it might be easier than trying to do it from scratch if it’s not the way you naturally write.

Started on an impromptu dialogue capture while Billy-no-mates in the pub prior to NIBS on Weds. Worst bit is trying to capture the dialogue (background noise, speed of dialogue) and not getting annoyed at people who like the sound of their own voice. 😉 But I now know a lot about CBD oil… and eating peas.

Oh, and does anyone understand what…[Read more]

Oh, the Hadron Collider! Now there’s something else I know nothing about!
For me, the fun is in the not knowing and the annoyance is trying to list the things that wouldn’t automatically come to mind because I know nothing about them anyway. If that makes sense?

Favourite thing on the list of ‘Things I know nothing about’ (and there are six so far) – the Mariana Trench.

Feel like I’m going to fall at the first hurdle, as my diary over the next few weeks is chokka, and I’ve never been a very disciplined writer.

But – am going to try to get one definite session of at least a couple of hours under my belt every week, day to be flexible.

@janeshuff try going on Youtube and looking for News items. Pick somewhere English speakinh and aim for a local news report. I’ve found there’s lots of excerpts of dialogue in local interest stories that way.