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JaneShuff replied to the topic Class 2 Writing Exercise Jane in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months ago@katemachon. The questions come from Andrew Wille’s questionnaire but there are lots of others about. Personally, I don’t find the What is their favourite colour sort of question very helpful. I think the best ones work a bit like writing prompts, sparking ideas off or pulling ideas together. Anyway I’m glad it was interesting!
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Class 2 Writing Exercise Jane in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoHi @katemachon. Here’s the character questionnaire I did for Dipsy. You’ll see that I ignored some of the questions – basically if nothing comes to mind, I don’t beat myself up about it. I also don’t worry about the answers being particaulrly interesting, so some of it is pretty dull. But I do find them helpful for clarifying and focussing…[Read more]
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Class 2 Writing Exercise Jane in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoThanks Sea! Maybe the bony restless fingers aren’t right… And she is named after a Teletubbies character!
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Class 2 Writing Exercise Jane in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoThanks @katemachon and @sandradavies. I realise that I should have given some context to this as it’s actually an excerpt from my WIP and, although this is the first time Dipsy actually appears, the reader would know her age and her relationship to the narrator. So sorry.
I will tidy up Dipsy’s character questionnaire and post it if you’d like,…[Read more]
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Athelstone posted an update 6 years, 8 months ago
Amazing but true: participants in Songs of Innocence and Experience have just under two months left to complete their short story.
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Craft Seminar Class 3: Character 2 – Inner Lives in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoThanks WB!
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Feedback on the Course in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoSending hugs xxxx
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Craft Seminar Class 2: Character 1 – Outer Worlds in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 8 months agoThank you @raine. I”ll look forward to reading it!
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Barny replied to the topic Monthly Comp – November 2019 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 8 months ago
“… confounded me with his disturbing narrative…”
To explain a little in case this wasn’t clear: Four Ling leaves 🙂
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Athelstone replied to the topic Monthly Comp – November 2019 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 9 months ago
Well done, Jeanette – super piece. Great comp, John!
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Barny replied to the topic Monthly Comp – November 2019 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 9 months ago
Congratulations, Janette – nice work! And thanks John for the prompt.
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Monthly Comp – November 2019 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 9 months ago
Congratulations Jeanette. It is a stunning piece of writing. And thanks John for provoking such a great collection of stories!
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Hilary replied to the topic Feedback on the Course in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 9 months agoJust dropping in quickly to say hello, and to apologise for my absence for the last few weeks. Will try and catch up soon. (Nanowrimo kind of took over).
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Craft Seminar Class 2: Character 1 – Outer Worlds in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 9 months agoIt would be great if you could try and post some notes from the Stephanie Hutton workshop @raine. I’m at the stage where I find all the exercises very useful – end of first draft and starting the second which is when I try to do serious planning – but I agree timing is everything!
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Monthly Comp – November 2019 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 9 months ago
Untitled
I sit on the park bench under the pines whose needles clog the spaces between its wooden rungs and whose scent mingles with the faint smell of urine and of the sweet green mould that covers the wood.Children race around me, chasing after the leaves that whirl on the wind. I look for you in their faces. I look for me too. But we are not…[Read more]
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Athelstone posted an update 6 years, 9 months ago
“The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered”
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy’s much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering…[Read more]-
RIP
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Now I know why.
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I met Clive James once. I had long been a fan of the least known – but which he once said was ‘the closest to my heart’ – of his many endeavours, the songs he wrote with Pete Atkin and which Atkin performed. When I first got internet access I discovered and started participating in a mailing list of like-minded souls called Midnight Voices, and…[Read more]
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JaneShuff started the topic Class 2 Writing Exercise Jane in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 9 months agoI loved this section of the course and I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the charatcer questionnaires. I find them a good way of forcing my brain to think. However I don’t think they’re very interesting for anyone else to read. Instead I’m posting something loosely based on the Distinguishing Features exercise. Would love some feedback. I know…[Read more]
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JaneShuff replied to the topic Feedback on the Course in the forum
Andrew Wille's DIY MA course 6 years, 9 months agoWow. That went fast!
I’m happy with the timetable you suggest @woolleybeans and equally happy if anyone with a busier Christmas than mine wants to take it even slower. I’m getting a lot out of this and don’t see any need to rush!
Thanks for staying on top of it WB
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Barny replied to the topic Monthly Comp – November 2019 in the forum Monthly Competition 6 years, 9 months ago
Captive No More
Immovable behind a wide table, the five children sat strangely motionless. From tallest on the right to smallest on the left, they patiently faced an audience seated on ten rows of scarlet-topped hotel ballroom chairs.
The tallest child spoke first. “My name is One,” he said quietly, but loud enough. “I am the oldest. I am…[Read more]
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If I didn’t still hold out some hope for Scotland, I’d be seriously planning that. My parents might get kicked out anyway, so what’s to lose?
I’m glad you’ve got some hope left. After long years of clinging on with my fingernails to some vestiges of hope that the slide away from the essentially decent, civilised nation I grew up in might be halted, I have now lost every last trace of it. Merry Christmas.
Commiserations, UK. It seems we’re all stuck with hideous right wing governments that our compatriots have chosen for us. In the case of the UK it really beggars belief that after 9 years of austerity – food banks, slashes to services, skyrocketing poverty – that the people who suffer the most under Tory rule have gone and done it again. I really…[Read more]
I came across this view from an ex-pat living in New Zealand. Some strong language for Denizens who prefer to steer clear. But I couldn’t find anything to disagree with.
Britain dutifully bows down to the ruling elite.
I was going to post this anyway, Ath, but after following your link it has even more resonance: one of Sir Winston Churchill’s less popular pronouncements was that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
I have read the article. This kind of sneering attitude is exactly why the Brexit leave vote came as a surprise to the great and the good. And it is also why the GE vote has come as a surprise. An 82 year old woman from Co Durham was reported in The Times today as saying (I can’t remember verbatim) “I can’t believe they’ve voted this way in an…[Read more]
We are a nation of bootlickers, aren’t we?
“There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people…religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin” – Linus, Peanuts cartoon, 1966.
Very wise words