Amanda Berriman (Skylark)

Hello @skylark my lovely. Great to see you venturing back in. I’m not a big presence here, but I do love being able to come in and know I’ll find friends. Hope the second draft continuity glitch is resolving itself. Who needs continuity anyway? I think most things temporal should be banned from novels. Really, why do days of the week need to…[Read more]

The Brexit Blues. Ugh. Yes. And the Climate Change existential fear. And the daughter-entering-teen-sexual-harrassment-age dread. I tell you, grown men eyeing up a twelve year old girl makes me very VERY stabby.
But, yes, Brexit and the fundamental damage to our society that seems to have come about have had (are having) an effect on my general…[Read more]

It must have been an awful time @skylark. We have been through a similar experience with our youngest grandson and it has changed everything particularly for his mum. But how wonderful that both you and @daedalus found writing helped.

Hi @Libby – I can recommend trying to channel the emotions from current affairs into writing, although I think you have to be in a reasonably strong state to do it. It can be hard to write anything much when life has you beaten down.

Ah, oil in biplanes! I don’t know about linseed oil, but castor oil was a very common lubricant for early…[Read more]

I agree that the political situation over the last few years has been difficult and distracting. I suspect it has affected both my writing and my mental health.

I can name one effect Brexit has had directly on my writing. On the night of the referendum, I had run out of time to finish the William the Conqueror novel I was co-writing with…[Read more]

You have got the premise right @Libby although I don’t think the two soldiers are despatch drivers. To me it just came across as unlikely that only two low ranking soldiers would be sent to cross miles of dangerous territory with no particular plan and little chance of success but maybe it was supposed to show how useless, confused and uncaring…[Read more]

@bellam Happy new year to you, too.
Those rifts are very deep and go way beyond mere viewpoints. Because of various issues that I won’t mention here, I don’t expect to see any healing in our society for the foreseeable future.
I wish I could share your optimism, but I can’t.
Good luck with your writing.

@Richardb Regarding politics, I did…[Read more]

What a wholly satisfying tale Libby. Thank you.

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]

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]

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]

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]

I am currently trying to turn a sprawling first draft into something with a bit of shape and trying not to notice all the other things that need doing to it!

We actually had some sun yesterday – I’d forgotten what it looked like – but woke up this morning to wind and rain. It feels like this has been the gloomiest winter for a long time.

I went…[Read more]

Oh, and yes, there is a comp / challenge (set by Athelstone again), but I’m afraid you’ve missed the boat. There’s still a regular monthly comp running though.

Yes indeed. Don’t anybody take this amiss, as those who do post are lovely people and I value you all, but the Den has remained a rather small place, things do get a bit quiet and dull sometimes, and I still miss the liveliness of the Cloud. So yes, it’s great to see you back, Skylark.