Guest Etiquette: bring flowers

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RosesI’ve done a bit of guest blogging over the past few weeks.  I’ve been thrilled to appear on the blogs of far more experienced writers than me and I didn’t want to behave badly or hang around too long hogging the limelight, so I heeded Benjamin Franklin’s advice: Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days, and kept my remarks short and sweet. I tried to be honest and I hope they revealed something about the real me, and that my natural reticence didn’t get in the way.

Our conversations have covered everything from what I read as a child to which book I would read if the world was coming to an imminent end. (I couldn’t answer that one). In between we tackled my writing inspiration, how much time I spend on social media (far too much and not nearly enough) and what I’m most proud of. Some of the questions really made me think, like what would I be doing if I wasn’t a writer? I have absolutely no idea.

I’ve been asked if there’s a special place that works best for me, what’s the best time of day and which writing instruments I prefer, but one other necessity didn’t get a mention, so I’ll address that now. The humble cup of tea. This is an absolute must-have. Preferably constantly refilled by an unseen hand that knows better than to interrupt, and accompanied by the occasional biscuit. A bag of liquorice is a nice bonus (well, I do come from Pontefract, its spiritual home).

My sincere thanks to these fellow bloggers who have hosted me over the past few weeks:

http://jennykane.co.uk/blog/my-first-time-maggie-cammis/

https://pamlecky.com/2016/04/08/a-conversation-with-maggie-cammiss/

http://www.thatreadingwritingthing.com/home/2016/3/19/this-writing-life-maggie-cammiss.html

http://jennyharperauthor.co.uk/maggie-cammiss-draws-on-experience/

Reading Responses

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Stained GlassLast week we attended a concert of classical music performed by the South East London Orchestra. We heard some stirring Mendelssohn, a very interesting piece by Fung Lam and Dvorak’s crowd pleaser, the New World Symphony. I get quite teary when listening to dramatic music like this and my husband squeezed my hand sympathetically as I dabbed my eyes. Afterwards he commented that the Dvorak had obviously gotten to me.  No, I said, the tears sprang into my eyes while the orchestra was tuning up. Sadly it seems mine is a purely Pavlovian response to the ‘A’ note the musicians tune their instruments to, and little to do with the music itself, beautiful though it was. Continue reading →

Swimspiration – how exercise can help your creativity

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swimmingpool

Conscious that this writing lark is not very conducive to maintaining a decent level of fitness, I recently started swimming again. Now I don’t have a pool of my own, so when I was invited to join some friends in their time-share slot at a local private establishment, I jumped at the chance to use a pool that I didn’t have to share with the world and his wife (and their children). Even better, the next week none of my friends could go, so I went on my own.

Brilliant, I thought. I’ll have the pool to myself; I’ll get that all-important exercise, and I’ll be able to devote some serious thinking time to the development of my new novel, unhindered. That’s the good thing about swimming: the very mindlessness of ploughing up and down frees your brain to wander.  You can concentrate on nothing but the number of lengths you’ve covered, but if you’re a true daydreamer, you can use the time much more effectively.

Or that’s what I thought. Swimming alone turned out to be a very spooky experience indeed. Continue reading →

Verbification, or how to tighten up your writing

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DaisyThere’s no doubt about it, the current trend for verbification – using nouns as verbs – can have a profound effect on our writing. We have social media to thank for some of this – the requirement to express complex ideas in 140 characters was bound to have a minimising effect – though verbification has been around a lot longer than Facebook and Twitter. The knock-on effect is that our use of language has changed subtly to accommodate this phenomenon. We parent, we text, we friend. We used to set a trend, now we are trending. Our writing group used to offer criticism, now we critique. Once, I wrote pieces for this blog. Now I simply blog. The noun has become the verb.

Worryingly, hunting for antiques has become antiquing, in the USA at least. I’m happy to report that we haven’t succumbed to this practice yet in the UK. Continue reading →

Character Reference

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passports1

I’ve just had my passport photograph updated – who is that woman? She looks like she’s had an interesting life – it’s certainly left its mark. Which ties in nicely with this week’s theme – creating characters.

People-watching can be very fertile ground and there are plenty of opportunities for observing personality traits and characteristics in colleagues, friends and total strangers in the course of your working life and leisure activities.

I’ve been lucky to work in some colourful and exciting environments, full of large than life personalities, who transfer easily onto the page, albeit with a little tweaking. Here are some possibilities for you to consider: Continue reading →

Old Fashioned or Old Favourite?

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Floppy discs

My beta reader recently reported that she didn’t know what a Rolodex was. I make a reference to this outmoded item in the first chapter of my new novel and it didn’t bode well that potential readers might not understand what it was. For those of you still unsure, check it out here: Rolodex

Ignoring for the moment the bigger problem of how many more of my carefully considered cultural references would fall on deaf ears, or worse, irritate or alienate readers, (the Rolodex reference stays, with a small clarification, because it suits the character it belongs to) I was diverted (not difficult) into considering advances in technology and how they have assisted me on my writing journey. Looking at the everyday accoutrements that clutter up my writing space – all superseded by more modern inventions, but some still pressed into service daily – I wonder if I’ve made any progress at all.
Continue reading →

Kick-starting the Imagination

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Sourdough

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know where I’ve gone wrong – the starter wasn’t active enough (I know just how it feels). Bear with me, though; this does have a correlation of sorts with the writing process. I’m attempting to make sourdough bread and this mini disaster has got me thinking about the similarities between baking and writing. I’m not an experienced or intuitive bread maker and I’ve never made sourdough before.The first thing I need is some ‘starter’. And this is where the comparison with writing comes in. As with sourdough, writing can also benefit from the addition of a starter that we’ve already got on the shelf – in the form of ready-made plot ideas. As I kneaded the dough I mentally listed a selection of plot devices and strategies to kick-start my imagination and help my creative writing. Some are quite specific, others more general, but all these scenarios can be played out in various ways – how you do it is up to you. Continue reading →

10 Time Management Tips for Writers

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Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re all under time constraints these days – work, partners, kids, parents, exercise, social media; the list goes on – so it pays to be flexible in our approach to how we allocate the precious minutes we do have and grab writing opportunities whenever and wherever they arise. Here’s a short list of time consuming activities that I’ve had a rethink about and turned to my advantage. Continue reading →

New Year, New Growth

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Gerbera

As I coaxed the Gerbera on my windowsill into bloom for a second time, I thought I should apply some of the same magic to my writing, and the New Year seemed a good time to think about setting some objectives for 2016. I don’t make resolutions that require any sort of denial – they’d be doomed to failure from the start, so Yes, I will still be eating the chocolate and drinking the wine – I’d much rather give myself goals that will enrich my writing life. Early in 2013 I wrote about using the SMART acronym for personal development. It fits well with this aspirational time of year, so I’ll roll it out again. Continue reading →

Nine-dollar bills and other irregularities

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We had quite a heated debate at the writing group this week. The discussion was about a patently unreal scene in a piece of fiction. This wasn’t a story about another dimension or some magical kingdom where the usual rules don’t apply; the scene was set in the real world, but so unrealistic as to be absurd. The writer maintained that it’s fiction, so it doesn’t need to be realistic.

But does it?

Continue reading →