Blog Archives
R is for… (#AtoZChallenge 2012)
R is for Rebecca Trainer
(Post 18 on my WIP)
Mums are great, aren’t they? And Jane’s is no different. After her father passed away it was just Jane and her Mum for a couple of years until Rebecca met and married Benjamin Trainer. Jamie’s Mum had died when he was very little and he is very grateful for Rebecca’s influence, and cooking!
Rebecca doesn’t play a huge role in this book but she will be more prominent in subsequent books. Mums know just when they are needed!
I’d love to see Emma Chambers in a more ‘straight role’ – no Teletubby bridesmaids at Rebecca’s wedding.
Just spent the afternoon/evening with my Mum (which is why my blog post released empty earlier – sorry about that). We visited my Dad in hospital (he’s fine), buying a new iPad case, tidying my spare room and then I cooked her tea and we watched ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’ with a great mother/daughter pairing in Kathy Bates/Kate Hudson. It’s a beautiful film but have tissues handy. Ended the night with a hug.
Who’s is your favourite fictional (Book, Film or TV) Mum and why?
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Q is for… (#AtoZChallenge 2012)
Q is for Questions Answered
(Post 17 on my WIP)
On my Facebook Page I asked for Questions to answer about my WIP or my attitude to writing, life, the universe or anything. Thanks to those that responded.
Nicola King asked
‘What attracts you to the YA genre?’
I actually made an attempt to answer that for my Y post last year – here – but I’m going to try and expand on that here.
Firstly, because it’s the genre I mainly remember reading and enjoying and I suppose I’m still a teenager at heart.
Secondly, because I think generally it is really well written and lacks the ‘pretension’ of some adult fiction. The books are not just about the writing or the message but are about the story. I think story and creating characters that you care about are vital.
Thirdly, because I think reading literature is a fantastic way to learn about the world and to test out your opinions. Teens are forming their identities and their worldview and are potentially more open to possibility – this brings with it a certain amount of responsibility in writing for that audience though. There was a really interesting blog post about this, and specifically the topic of incest within YA, on Serendipity Reviews yesterday.. Nicola Morgan says though (in the comments on this post here) ‘NOTHING is too dark for YA! (Though it does have to be handled properly.)’
Stacey Woods asked
‘How many books to you envisage in this series? Would you limit yourself and set it as a trilogy, or would you like it to be seven books for example?’
It was interesting that Stacey asked this the day after I had spoken to another A-Z blogger KC – here – about investment in a series and wanting to know how many books it was likely to be up front. I have to be aware that I do like to know up front and do get a little bit irritated when just one, or two or three extras are added so I need to be careful what I say here because I may be tying myself to it. I am starting to come to the realisation that I am a bit of a control freak and I like some certainty in my life.
So I would want to set some sort of limit and I’m going to say 4 (I have some kooky reasons why) – I think any more and I may run out of fresh ideas for the series but any less and I’m not sure I can say everything I want to about particular events. It seems like a nice balanced number too.
Jay Sawdy asked
‘As a reader I get very attached to characters and can feel annoyed if unpleasant things happen to them. Is that also a problem as a writer? Do you find yourself wanting to give everyone a happy ending even if that’s perhaps less realistic?’
Hopefully you can see from my Names post that I am already attached. Already some pretty unpleasant things have happened to Jane. Of course I feel bad for her and want her to have the happy ending but, if she gets it, it won’t be an easy ride. When learning about writing you learn that characters grow through the challenges they face. There are certain things I won’t put her through but I do have a tendency to find darker ideas easier to write. I think for me it is a way of working through certain issues that I do or would find challenging.
Who doesn’t love a happy ending? But bittersweet ones can work well too. I’m not sure I can do the whole wrap everything up in a neat bow and have everyone walking into the sunset together thing but on balance I hope the good outweighs the bad, who knows I might be feeling all sappy when it gets to the end.
And
‘How do you go about doing research for writing ideas?’
The way I’m reading this question (sorry if it’s not the right interpretation) is that Jay is asking that once I have come up with a general idea how do I use research to develop that idea. I guess as this is my first attempt at a novel this is tricky to answer. I do mostly try to do the whole ‘write what you know thing’ but there have been times when I have researched elements of a story. I mostly use the internet or buy books or watch films maybe that will give me the information I need. Like I said I took the forensics course to find out some things but may well once the first draft is in the can ask to work with some of the students on the forensic science course at the uni I work at. I’d also like to do a ‘Castle’ and spend some time with the police – I think that would be really interesting but not sure how feasible that would be.
This is going to sound odd and isn’t really relevant to the WIP but I kind of have always wanted to go to a huge library and sit sifting through some microfiche. Maybe I should add that to my Bucket List. Actually maybe I could look up something from the 1960s for this book (an era I did look at on one of my OU courses) – anyone fancy a trip?
Finally, Catherine Donald asked
‘I’m interested in the way you write the characters. Do you already have their personalities pre-formed in your mind before you start writing, or do they develop as you write the story?’
I don’t know if you saw the Ideas post and the comments https://kirstyes.co.uk/2012/04/10/i-is-for-atozchallenge-2012/ but Teresa, I believe correctly, identified that I am more of a ‘pantser’ when it comes to writing. This means that, although I have some rough snippets of plot and some ideas of general personality traits, that I make it up as I go. I’ve only got very basic character profiles which at some point I’m going to have to fill in to ensure consistency. Like I said in answer to Jay’s question it is through the challenges that the characters face that we learn about them – I learn about them when I put them in those situations too. For instance I originally had one character doing something that they told me they wouldn’t do thank you very much and so I gave someone else that function. I’m really not sure where they come from but they seem to arrive fairly formed or at least I hope it seems that way. I think I’m going to have to start making notes to myself about why I make certain decisions so that I can answer questions like this easier.
Any more questions?
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P is for… (#AtoZChallenge 2012)
P is for Pinterest
(Post 16 on my WIP)
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Being a social media geek I like to try new social media sites on for size, have a bit of a play and see if they suit me, and Pinterest certainly did. I first heard about it on Twitter and nipped over to request an invite. Currently Pinterest is an invite only network (much as Google+ was to start with but it seems that people are much more active here – though Pinterest does have an entirely different function). In the end the lovely Rebecca Brown (@rebeccaebrown on Twitter) sent me an invite because the waiting for an invite request supposedly takes a long time to come through. But boy is Pinterest also a procrastination tool – I had two or three late nights in a row because I was playing on there.
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So what is it?
It is marketed as a virtual pinboard for you to collate images from within Pinterest, from the web (there has to be a suitable image or video on the page to allow this though) or by uploading your own images. When you join Pinterest offers you some sample boards that you can accept or delete, things like ‘Products I Love’ and ‘My Style’ – I think I was a rebel and deleted most if not all and just set up my own.
Now Pinterest is not the only site to do this but I think it is the easiest I have found to use so far. A couple of other ‘curation’ type sites that I have tried that have a slightly different function are:
Bo.lt – curates a complete back up copy of a webpage and if there is no image allows you to use a screenshot. So it is still image based when you are finding things later. It has a lovely technical support team – Jamie Roche (one of the co-founders) personally sorted out a dodgy link for me (thanks Jamie) that kept re-routing to a site selling Viagra!! (On a side note Pinterest ignored my e-mail about their T&Cs). I’m using Bo.lt more for saving blog posts or web pages that I think I will need to refer back to. Now if you link up to Pinterest properly you can click through to the original website but as far as I know if the page is deleted you won’t be able to access that material (I’m not even sure about the image though I think it may save that on their servers). Bo.lt however does save the whole page as ‘read only’ type access. Also invite only currently – thanks to Him up North (from Twitter) for the invite to this one. I’m collating a lot of useful writing advice pages as well as backing up these posts. It’s also helping me clear my e-mail because (even though I’m still e-mailing myself links once I’ve Bo.lted them I can delete them).
Scoop.it – Allows you to create pages on particular topics to post as a webpage. More text based but doesn’t require someone to have an account to view your collations. Other members can make suggestions for you to add to the board too though I think there is the potential to add collaborators to the boards in Pinterest and Bo.lt.
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Bookmarklet and app, search and notifications
As with most social media sites Pinterest has a mobile app (I am using the iOS one) and also you can create a bookmarklet in Safari on iOS. I personally, at the moment, find the web version easier to use (wow an actual web version that I like – take heed Twitter that’s directed at you). I use Firefox and I dragged the bookmarklet to my bookmark toolbar and now when I’m browsing the web and see an image I like all I have to do is click add pin and I can select the image or video I want, add a caption and even create a new board from the toolbar. Don’t forget to click Pin it. You can even opt to be taken straight to your Pin to view it in all its glory.
One thing I’m not so keen on in Bo.lt is that as soon as you use the Bo.lt bookmarklet it automatically saves the page whether you complete a save or not. This can be a positive I guess but at the moment I seem to be having to select and delete unwanted Bo.lts (I’d also love for suggested tags, based on ones you’ve already used, to come up in the bookmarklet – that would be fab).
The search in both is by topic – you’ll see which is my favourite Pinterest topic below.
Check your notifications – if you want an e-mail to know when someone has commented on a pin, re-pinned it, liked it or followed you then set it to daily digest – believe me I did not want 160 e-mails of re-pins for one image.
Etiquette as I see it
- Try to allocate your board to a topic – if it hasn’t been it gives other users the opportunity to suggest a classification to you.
- When pinning pictures from the internet try and pin from a ‘proper’ source page – I’ve been caught out with this before but it is about correctly acknowledging your sources and providing a useful track back to other pinners to see the original content. This means things like – if using Google Images don’t pin from the search page – either click on the image and pin from the preview or probably even better click from the preview to the full site and pin from there.
If pinning from a blog, such as Tumblr, WordPress or Blogger try and click on the actual post before you pin – otherwise what it does is make a link to the page number you are on and as the blog owner adds more posts the pin slips down to a different page number (sometimes way down) and then people struggle to locate the original source.
- One of the things I still need to get to grips with is the commenting feature – when you ‘re-pin’ something it automatically brings up what the person you are pinning it from wrote. You can leave this as is, add to it or delete and write something else. You have to write something and for some reason lots of people sometimes just put a full stop in. I’m not entirely sure how well it tracks who started which edit of the commentary.
- Not all images are created equal. Pinterest recently added an option to edit the cover picture for each of your boards – up until this point it just made your last pin to that board the cover (some pins are useful but not so pretty – this way you get to put your best wares on show).
- Every now and again I like to nip along to the Facebook invite section and Pinterest kindly lets me see which of my friends have signed up so I can follow them.
- I personally chose to disable automatic twitter sharing as when I have one of my Pinning frenzies I can imagine my twitter follows getting extremely peeved at the clogging up of their timeline. I have the link to Facebook because I think/hope the new timeline feature seems to lump the activity – my friend did comment on my Kirsty has pinned x and 106 (or similar no) pins status!!!!!
Controversy
There was a lot of hoo ha about the terms and conditions (which have since been revised) in terms of breach of copyright and ownership of images etc. This does seem to have been sorted out but do read the T&Cs for yourself so that you are happy with what you are signing up to. My only wish would be with all these sorts of sites/software downloads that there would be a really really plain english summary at the beginning saying – Basically guys this is what you are agreeing to – think South Park Humancentipad episode – see here for a review.
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Ways in which I use Pinterest:
As a Writer
To document my inspiration for this WIP – images I’ve found that help me picture the characters. Links to books and films that may have had an influence, links to research also.
To document inspirations for future works.
To pin images of interesting people and potential future characters.
To collect images of Found Poetry as these are often beautiful and inspiring.
(As I said above I’m using Bo.lt more to link to the hints and tips type of post that often aren’t image based anyway).
As a Novice Crafter
The first big excitement of Pinterest for me was all of the arts and crafts (DIY & Crafts is my top topic) projects that people were sharing. You may have seen the button tree and crayon picture I made inspired by others on Pinterest. I like trying to be arty but I do find it difficult to imagine visually, I imagine better in words (hence the writing). Pinterest helps give me that visual cue. I do have some concerns about this but as I am creating the crafts for my own personal enjoyment and not for sale I hope this is OK. There are lots of inspirational pins on my Crafts board waiting for me to have a play.
As an OT/Lecturer
Now this is the area that I haven’t yet used it much for because I was having too much fun being arty and engaging in occupations myself.
Here is a useful pin on how it could be used within education.
I have an OT Geekdom board with funny OT related pins and one for reflection based links etc. I’ve also started one on Positive Older Age. I do however follow a number of OTs who are collating useful links so I know I can nip along to their boards for a browse.
I plan to introduce Pinterest to some students attending an ‘Artistic/Diagrammatic CPD/Reflection session’ and get them to consider potential uses for it. I think the Comments feature could be useful for reflective dialogue with resources for example.
I plan to consider how Pinterest or Bo.lt or Scoop.it might be used as a potential social bookmarking tool.
I am sure there would be the potential to use it creatively with clients too.
As a Vegetarian and Pudding Lover
Collecting links to Veggie recipes and images of Puddings to drool over – so much chocolaty based goodness.
As a Geek/Fangirl
I have a Harry Potter Geekdom board and have started ones for The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones etc. I also have one that bemoans the loss of TV Series before they should have gone.
As a Collector/Reminiscer/Haver of Poor Memory
I am pinning lists of Muscials I’ve seen, books I’ve read, childhood memories and videos of Dances I’ve loved on programmes like Got to Dance. I plan to post pics of crystals I own so that when I go shopping for more I can check if I have one of that type already.
As an Appreciator
My RDG board (Random Delectable Gentleman) is sure to cheer me up on a low day. But I also like looking at pictures of amazing skies, trees, snow, water, bookshelves. One board that I’ve called Arty is just filled with beautiful images such as:
As someone in need of Motivation
I love my Words to Live by board and return to it for a motivational boost. Also just looking at funny or cute images boosts the mood and increases motivation.
(*Whispers* I really would love to start a wedding inspirations board too but as a singleton I fear that may come across a bit scary to a potential suitor).
See, this post turned out rather longer than anticipated – the Pinterest Procrastinating Time Suck occurs again (It’s one of the nicer forms of Time Suck though).
You can see links to my Pinterest/Bo.lt and Scoop.It accounts above if you’d like to follow my many curations.
So have you jumped on the Pinterest wagon yet – how do you use yours?
kirstyes 