Blogging from A-Z Challenge April 2011
Blogging from A-Z Challenge April 2011
Another challenge to get me writing – seem to be accepting a lot of them recently (ScriptFrenzy also in April and May – You Write Your Novel and The Whittaker at The Write Idea too)!
The Blogging from A-Z Challenge is self-explanatory really – 26 blog posts (avoiding Sundays) each on one letter of the alphabet.
(This challenge is being hosted by: Arlee Bird’s Tossing It Out, Jeffrey Beesler’s World of the Scribe, Alex J. Cavanaugh Alex J. Cavanaugh, Jen Daiker’s Unedited, Candace Ganger’s The Misadventures in Candyland, Karen J Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain, Talli Roland, Stephen Tremp’s Breakthrough Blogs)
If you are interested in joining me on any of these challenges, click on the links and sign up.
(P.S. If you have a 140 word (or less) story in you why not enter the Slingink Shorts competition which closes 30th April over at the Writing Community I administrate)
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MWIPCD – Writers Beware this terrifying affliction!
MWIPCD – Writers Beware this terrifying affliction!
As I posted on Twitter I think I have multiple writer identity personality confusion disorder after this weekend. Novels, poems, short stories, screenplays or all of the above? And what about abstracts, journal articles, powerpoint and poster presentations, essays, PhD theses?
I had an amazing weekend at the inaugural Southern Script Writing Festival at Bournemouth University. As a staff member and graduate of BU (PG Cert Health and Social Care Education) I was able to claim the early bird student rate of £15 a day. This included all of the conference sessions, a buffet lunch and drinks in the break. What the weekend more importantly gave me was a massive confidence boost but also a case of MWIPCD.
On the Saturday they held an informal pitching session where you had 2 1/2 minutes to pitch an idea in front of an audience of delegates. I decided, against my better judgement and shaking hands, to pitch my NaNoWriMo Novel Idea. I didn’t get any boos (yay) and got some claps so I was pretty happy, though my hands were still shaking and my jaw was very uncomfortable for about four hours after (from the nervous tension I suppose).
So when on Sunday they actually had spaces left to pitch to some of the conference presenters I initially said no way, but it played on my mind throughout the first presentation (Be brave and go for it, what have you got to lose, dumbass) and I went back and there were still spaces. I booked myself into the last one of the day so I had time to mentally rehearse and try and remember some of the plot of a novel idea I’d started a few years back. I left the last session early to prepare and stood outside the door feeling an anxious wreck, having to resort to using positive self talk to calm myself “You are an intelligent, articulate woman and your ideas are as good as other people’s”.
The time came to enter. I had my notebook with me full of scribbles that I probably wouldn’t be able to read (and we were told in an earlier session not to read, but to try and recall it more naturally). I wasn’t sure whether to shake hands, I didn’t in the end. In the room was three people, not just the two I was expecting. I mentioned this obvious fact (!) and asked who everyone was; I like to know who I am speaking too (and this gave me time to calm down). The panel consisted of Tim Clague, Mike Garley and Dan Pringle. I was asked if I wanted to stand or sit (ummm sit please, if I stand I will most definitely faint!). Dan asked me not to read from the book and I said this was fine (they so got that it was a comfort blanket).
So I pitched my idea and then came the feedback. Tim put his head in his hands saying he needed to think about it before launching into feedback. The others tried to reassure me this was normal (I wasn’t too concerned, blocking out sensory stimulation like light can help me concentrate too!). I have to say they were very nice, I got some great constructive criticism about what I shouldn’t have said and what I could have said and they started arguing over a couple of aspects and coming up with visuals, which they told me was good. A couple of comments Tim made I’m sure were overgenerous but I’d really like to thank him for them as it was a massive confidence boost at a time when I was having huge writing doubts. Hearing things like, if you pulled this off you could have one of the greatest modern screen villains and in response to my suggestion that I just need to find time to write this alongside the day job and PhD he quipped leave them, write this. I wish…
So why have I got MWIPCD? Most of my experience with creative writing so far has been with writing fiction and poetry, although I did write a couple of scripts on my OU courses. I am halfway through a novel and have started two others but this weekend got me so excited about script writing that I now don’t know what to focus on (I like all of them). Then there’s the day job…if only there were more hours in the day and I had more energy to make the best of using them.
But despite the MWIPCD this weekend I got to feel like a writer and that was fantastic.
I will be writing more about the festival and some of the hints and tips I learnt next week.
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Shlurpping Shloer
Shlurpping Shloer
I’ve actually done a good bit of socialising, catching up and eating Chinese with my girlie friends recently. Now none of us are big drinkers (unless we are hiding a secret midnight vodka habit) and on some occasions we have been known to drink tea on a night in together which makes us feel and verbalise our concerns about growing old.
I was recently offered the opportunity to trial some Shloer for free. A bargainous price I’m sure you’ll agree. Now, my first memories of Shloer are of the White grape variety with Sunday roast dinners as a child (this must also be before I was 12 and gave up meat because of a Pig’s eyeball incident in Science – thankfully Shloer is suitable for vegetarians like me). I think sometimes my parents drank it with us but am pretty sure that at other times they were on the harder sparkly stuff.
For me then, Shloer has lovely family memories attached. Before I was offered my samples I had rediscovered Shloer in the Supermarket and bought a couple of bottles as well as shared some on the aforementioned nights in.
The flavours I was supplied with were red grape and rosé, I was familiar with the white grape and have since bought the white grape & elderflower (not yet tried white grape, raspberry and cranberry or apple & white grape).
My friend over at ittakesawoman, who is not the biggest drinker of alcohol, identified red grape as the one she liked, finding the rosé too sweet. I’m not sure of her wine colour preferences but I like medium whites and rosé but pretty much detest reds. In Shloer that pattern seems to correspond, very much like the rosé and white varieties I’ve tried. The red grape though is perfectly drinkable (unlike vinegar red wine, I still have an immature palate, can’t stand olives either) if a little bitter for my tastes. I really enjoyed the elderflower one but I do like elderflower cordial. I wonder if that is more a summer afternoon Pimms substitute and think it would be nice poured over ice.
I’m someone who is not generally a big fizzy drink drinker so you may think the fact that Shloer is fizzy would put me off. However, it’s different, comes in six flavours and poured in a wine glass can make one feel ever so sophisticated whilst remaining sober for the drive home.
The only real negatives are that it isn’t a free drink when dieting, a la slimming world, and the bottles aren’t big enough (750ml) so three wine glasses and a bottle is gone. Admittedly my wine glasses are huge but I’d love to see a litre bottle. It is a little more expensive than your plastic bottle fizzies but supermarkets do often have it on promotional prices.
If you nip onto the Shloer website and facebook page they have some cocktail suggestions so that you can mix it up even more. So girlies when is our next night in?
Now I think I may have already mentioned getting a couple of free (very well packed) bottles but what I’ve written above is my honest opinion (seriously do you think that rambling came from a PR person ;0))
kirstyes 