03. September 2019
Endings are tough to land; every story writer knows that. Beginnings? Most lines are a beginning of sorts. Many workshops or competitions might give out a starting line and soon you’ll have as many stories as there are imaginations. Quite often for me, a beginning is an intersection, a juncture, a convergence of ideas or places that might be experienced years apart. The point of intersection is where the story blooms, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a heartbeat.
11. August 2018
Sometimes, on courses or at workshops, as an ice-breaker you’re asked to say something interesting about yourself. It’s a cruel torture for introverts like myself. My line, which is really about someone else, is that my grandfather was born one-hundred and one years before me, in 1864, around the time of the burning of Atlanta. In genealogy terms it’s a big head-start, two generations and I’m all the way back in the mid-Victorian era. An off-shoot of all this, an important one to me, is...
25. June 2018
We were in Cardiganshire, Ceredigion, over the end of May. ‘We’ being my wife, Sally, my youngest daughter, my dog and myself. We go to Wales most years. I grew up there and have a brother and sister who wisely never fought their way out. Why would you, with nook beaches backed by green hills and purple mountains, a sunset-sea to the west, fish and chips on the beach and a mandatory ice-cream every day.
25. March 2018
People have been sending me stories lately; lots and lots of them. I'm a story magnet. This isn't some random cosmic aberration, it's because I'm helping to run a short story competition on behalf of the Steyning Festival and the West Sussex Writers. As the final day for entries approached, I received more and more stories every day; a gush of stories, a torrent of stories. They arrived faster than I could process them.
18. February 2018
It’s been a while since my last post. This is entirely due to re-entering the world of full-time work. It’s been a tough adjustment. No sympathy cards, please.
31. January 2017
While I love writing in my study, it’s easy to get stale looking out over the same garden every day, so this Saturday I attended a short story masterclass run by the wonderful Melanie Whipman at her home in the Surrey Hills. What always amazes me about attending masterclasses, book readings or workshops is how easy it is to quickly find something that resonates with your own work in progress.