Sandra

So pleased with the news! Simply brilliant.

This is such fab news, proving that publishing life doesn’t begin or end with trad agents. Can’t wait to see this in print. Enjoy and celebrate your announcement to the hilt – so well deserved.

I didnt spot the Twitter post so shall go on a hunt now…
I love the name Jesmond, is that a family name? Bet it feels very real now they’ve announced it! Hope you celebrated with some sort of unhealthy substance. xxx

A New Opening

Lockdown. Away from a contageous world full of contageous people. Away from touch. Away from hold. Away from gossipy nudges and ear-whispers in the office, shrinking my world to room size; specifically the area where work-table met window. I unfasten the latch and swing it wide open in a desperate bid for expanse.
Between remote…[Read more]

You’re quite right Richard. Although the lack of hoovering and the pile of christmas cards still waiting to be written might point to a different conclusion!

When I need to be productive, I set myself time slots for internetage. i.e. 15mins when I first sit at the laptop, during a lunch half hour, and then that’s it apart from evening phone-evil-blackhole-of-distraction. Tbh, I like being able to quickly check something as I’m writing – find a photo of a place, or look at a map or whatever, so I…[Read more]

They do have that sort of instant hit of relateable truth don’t they? Ironic, or perhaps not, that Roche’s career might apply to the principle of ‘Connections’, even though it’s clearly about something much more personal. A missed connection here or there is the difference between national treasure status and obscurity.

Also interesting for me to…[Read more]

I’ve just wasted an hour, thanks to you Richard, trawling through the internet searching for Brian Patten who was my particular favourite and ordered a copy of Little Johnny’s Confession which I am sure is the book of his I used to have. Fingers crossed.

Weirdly enough it helps my way of working which is to do intensive bursts of writing and then let myself be distracted for a brief while before I attack again!

@sandradavies thanks, I will look that up. I’m a fan of keeping speech tags/descriptions to a minimum and I often write scenes with dialogue first and then build the other stuff around it, so this is very much up my street

Oh YAY – congrats @athelstone. Very well deserved. And thank-you @sandradavies for such an ace prompt. It was a valuable lesson to me that i really can strip out a lot of my speech tags, actions etc and the world may not crumble!

Great competition Sandra, am really intrigued to read the story that inspired it now. Well done Ath, and everyone else, good set of stories

Good job Athelstone! Love the comp and all the entries! Great challenge to not be allowed any prose.

Smashing comp, Sandra and a similarly smashing selection of entries. So I’m really pleased to be picked!

Well done, and well deserved, Ath!
And thanks, Sandra for such an interesting challenge.

Woohoo! Well done Ath! 😊 And thanks, Sandra, for stimulating dormant brain cells .

Another Session

“I dreamt about you last night.”
“Hmm.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say? ‘Tell me more?’ This isn’t the first time you’ve started a session this way.”
“Does it bug you that I dream about you?”
“Should it? We see each other twice a week now, it’s not surprising that I have a place in your subconscious.”
“So?”
“Yes, go ahe…[Read more]