INKSPILL 2018 Guest Writer Kevin Brooke Interview

Kevin Brooke talks to us about writing, research and relaxation. Links have been included, you can also find Kevin’s books in our INKSPILL BOOKSHOP.

1. What are your ambitions for your writing career?

My main focus as a writer for young people is to publish as many books of the right standard as I can. In doing so, it will allow me to contact local schools and speak to young people with the aim of encouraging reading and writing. As someone who didn’t start reading for pleasure until I was about 25, this is particularly important to me and tend to write stories that are accessible for all. I also concentrate on stories of the type I would have liked to have read when I was younger and base my characters on two demographics i.e. 7-11 and 11-15. For me, these are such crucial ages of development for young people and I therefore focus on themes that are suitable for these age groups.

 

2. So, what have you written?

My first book, The Roman Citizens from Class 6B was utilised as a resource in a primary school in Malvern in 2016.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roman-Citizens-Class-6B/dp/1291271511

I regularly use my second book, a Young Adult novel, Jimmy Cricket, as a resource to encourage reading in schools (I am currently Patron of Reading at Blessed Edward Oldcorne Catholic College in Worcester).

https://blackpear.net/authors-and-books/kevin-brooke/jimmy-cricket/

I have added this in, as Kevin is too humble… In 2015 Jimmy Cricket was studied in school in Austria. International Success

I am hoping that my third book, Max & Luchia: The Game Makers (aimed at 7-11 years), will be just as successful.

https://blackpear.net/2018/08/14/max-luchia-the-game-makers/

I’ve had approximately 35 short stories published in various publications that include Short Stories From Black Pear, in Graffiti Magazine, as a member of Worcester Writers’ Circle, in WorcesterLitfest Flash Fiction collections, University of Worcester magazines and WWI remembrance publications.

A full list of publications can be found at www.kevinbrooke.com

I often enter short story competition and was awarded first prize in the Erewash National Short Story Competition in 2014 and the Kishboo Magazine Spring Competition in 2016. Several runners up prizes, a number of commended and highly commended awards have also led to publication in competition anthologies.

Although I don’t consider myself as a poet as such, I do write poetry and publications include Contour Magazine (as organised by former Worcestershire Poet Laureate, Nina Lewis), on the Goodhadhood website, WorcesterLitfest publications and several collections aimed at Young People.

3. How much research do you do?

I’ve just finished a degree in Creative & Professional Writing and English Literature at the University of Worcester and one of the main things I’ve learnt is the need for proper research. Although I’d always researched in the past, I tended not to delve as much as I do now. This includes the need for visiting the place I am writing about as experiential research, to fully utilise the five senses. For example, I recently wrote a short story about a protagonist who headed into a dark forest and replicated their situation by going to a nearby wood and turning off the torch. The results of taking shorter steps as I walked, holding my arms out in front of me and a general sense of disorientation were then utilised in the story. In my opinion, people observation in cafes, bars, train stations etc. is also crucial to pick up on individual mannerisms and to create genuine dialogue. As a writer for Young People, I also try and read as many modern stories as I can to enable me to gain a general sense of what is popular at the time of writing a story.

4. What was the hardest thing about writing your latest book?

Max & Luchia: The Game Makers, is based on a young person’s imagination. The two main characters create a world in their minds and then, after doing something special to help other people, they are given the chance to play the game they’ve created for real. The hardest aspect, therefore, was creating something a 7-11 year old would be inspired by. Fortunately, I carry out a number of creative writing workshops with young people and this gave me a sense of the fairy-tale, mythical world they created in their stories. After that, it was about creating the imagery that a child would relate to. For example, instead of an adult description based on feelings to describe “a beautiful night’s sky” I tried to use clearer, descriptive phrases such as the one I heard an 8 year old use about the sky being “filled with a thousand stars”.

5. Do you let the book stew – leave it for a month and then come back to it to edit?

In giving advice to a writer, J K Rowling has been quoted as saying “Write the story as well as you can, revise it, refine it, and if it still seems alive to you, you’re done” and I tend to offer this advice creative workshops for young people. For me, if this means leaving gaps between revisions to ensure the story has had chance to grow then so be it. I wouldn’t particularly use the time-span of one month, but enough time for a few ideas to develop or for external influences to enter the story.

6. Any tips on what to do and what not to do?

If you are going to write a children’s story, make it current. Winnie the Pooh was successful in 1926 because of the world in which it was set, but if you’re going to write a children’s story now, read a few that are fast-paced, modern and relevant to young people today. I made this mistake and spent an entire year writing a story that I wanted to read as an adult. The agents and publishers who rejected it (and these are the kind ones that replied) said, in a nutshell, “Go away and read some children’s stories that have been written in the last ten years.” They were right.

7. How can readers discover more about you and you work?

Although I use Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, the aim is always to direct people back to my website www.kevinbrooke.com

8. What do you do to relax?

I am a member of a local contemporary choir called Voices Unlimited. The photograph I have used for this (taken by nature, landscape an event photographer, Jodie Stilgoe) is from a show entitled ‘Welcome to the 60s’ in which I played Davy Jones at The Swan Theatre in September 2018. I also use this photo (and similar) for marketing purposes and send it to schools to introduce myself as someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously. As for singing itself, as well as being therapeutic, I find there is something in its very act of self-expression that helps with my writing.

FLASH NANO – 1 week in

FLASH NANO has been going well, it makes a change for me to write prose and Nancy’s prompts have been inspiring, these tales would never exist without this challenge. I have started to think about how these prompts can be used, rather than just collecting stories that will just gather dust in my hard-drive.

 

So here’s what has been happening since Day 2.

Day 3 Monologue.

I created a character who was fighting the setting in of age (we had to write a monologue), this flash had feet and I think I can rework it and use it in the future. The central character not only bears witness to something but suspects she knows the culprit.

Day 4 Fire.

I read an Australian traditional tale about a crocodile and reshaped it into something a little different. The crocodile needed help with his drilling of sticks to make fire and the clever lizard invents fire sticks. It takes a while before the crocodile can make a fire that stays alight and the animal who helps him is one he has never eaten to this day.

It was fun writing this tale and may work well as a story for children.

Day 5 A childhood toy.

I knew instantly which toy I was going to write about and parts of this Flash were based on a real-life experience. The ending took me by surprise (I love it when writing does that) and it works well as a story for a variety of markets.

Day 6 A 100 word story.

This is still to be written (see my TOP TIPS) but I have researched where I may be able to place a short flash and have decided to make it 150 words so I can potentially submit it.

Day 7 Writing about the seventh day, the day of rest.

I still need to tackle this. I haven’t thought about it yet.

I do not panic about falling behind because these challenges are under 1000 words and the average recommended daily allowance is 1667 words a day for the 50K challenge, which is not something I am trying to achieve this year. I have extended some of the original flashes into short stories and so far have written 8242 words.

So how is Nanowrimo going for you? Do share your updates with us. Here are some tips to keep you in the write frame of mind now that you are a week in.

TOP TIPS

• Forgive yourself if you haven’t written daily, some days are busy. I haven’t managed to write daily, but I do check the prompts daily and scribble some rough outline notes. This means that when I get time to sit and catch up I am not trying to create the story from scratch.

• Check prompts daily (even if you don’t write)
• Make some notes of plot/ideas (for another time)
• Sit down and make up the word count as soon as you possibly can. Even if you haven’t time to finish the whole piece.

 

• Research – I use google to search keywords and generate ideas, or to make sure there is historical/ factual accuracy in my stories.

• Purpose – Rather than just writing try to give your NANO writing purpose, research possible markets for submission, mark the best ideas and don’t forget to make note of any ideas that come out of the writing.

Good luck and keep writing!

 

PS today is the day for Double donations and a double writing challenge. Double up your word count, a great idea if you are doing Nanowrimo because all extra words under your belt count.

It is also the first official Nano write in for my regional group, I attended back in 2013 when doing Nano for the first time. Check out your regional groups, a write in is fun and motivating, not to mention sociable.

 

RELATED LINKS

nanowrimo.org

http://nancystohlman.com/flashnano/

Submissions, Picnics (Poetry ones!), Missed Events and New Ventures

The Week Off

Mr G took last week off work so we could do some work on the house and garden together and spend some time enjoying ourselves, I don’t think we will be going away on a proper summer holiday, fortunately the weather has been amazing and I won’t moan when it turns overcast as I have a ton of things INSIDE to be getting on with over the summer break.

 

New Work

The good news this week is I have already secured 1 job for the new term, it doesn’t offer many hours but will cover my part of the mortgage payment at least, as far as bills, food shopping, car expenses and spending money go, I will have to pick up a few more days work every week. But having that 1st contract means I won’t end up with a month of no work. September is not a particularly busy month for us.

 

4 Day Run of Events – Picnics (Poetry ones)

At the tail end of the week before I went to Coventry for Antony Owen’s book launch, then Birmingham to promote Restless Bones Poetry Anthology (published and launching in 3 weeks!), then took a drive up to Shropshire to go to Poetry on The Farm – an event organised by Jean Atkin to celebrate the end of her 3 month residency at Acton Scott Farm. Then on the Sunday I had an EPIC day – I have not had time to blog post it yet and I cannot wait to do so. Jo Bell was poet in residence at Hall’s Croft for Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Literature Festival, she also started ’52’, you will remember me posting about it in the New Year, we all met up for a picnic – over 52 of us, she has over 500 members in 52 now. It was an amazing day that involved picnics, raffle prizes, poets, reading 52 poems at The Shakespeare Centre to a festival audience, flash mobbing outside Shakespeare’s Birthplace (a sonnet of course!) and then not getting drunk in The Dirty Duck pub, by the river.

 

Watch Out for the 52 Post

I WILL write about it in a separate post, the Acton Scott post has just taken a couple of hours to write and put together, it is now getting late (past midnight) and I have some ACTUAL writing to do. Look out for the 52 post.

During the next week mainly because I was exhausted from the adrenalin of a 4 day run and also because Mr G had booked time off to be together, I didn’t go to any poetry events.

 

Missed Events

On Monday I missed Shindig in Leicester, I was invited and originally began performance poetry in Leicester in the 90s. I will go another time when I haven’t already covered 100s of miles the previous few days.

Tuesday (and I am still gutted about this) I was very tired and had actually fallen asleep when I should have been hitting the road. I missed Poetry Bites in Birmingham, always a great night, organised and hosted by Jacqui Rowe. Anthony and Joseph were there headlining and promoting ‘The Year I Loved England’, (I had already seen them in Coventry), Matt Windle  was the other headliner, always a pleasure (I am seeing him in Kidderminster in a few weeks) and Sammy Joe, who I have seen before, but it would have been good to see her again, plus all the floor spots, it was a cracking night by all accounts and I missed it.

Friday there was a night write event hosted by Jo Bell as part of the Stratford festival that I would have loved to have parted money for, my concern was staying awake 10pm to 6 am – I have spent months attempting to regulate my sleep, to make sure I am awake during the day and the knock on situation after breaking this pattern would be equivalent to jet lag. The decision was made for me when we went up to the garden in the afternoon and enjoyed some cold, crisp wine. Another year maybe.

Saturday there was a performance in the Stratford that I wanted to see.

Sunday there was Sunday Xpress in Birmingham and Al Barz facilitated a one off Poetry in the Park in Walsall. There was also a showing of ‘Tales of the Tat Man’ David Calcutt’s latest venture in Birmingham at tea time.

Phew! A week of activities and I didn’t manage any of them.

A week of Work- Gardens – Sun – Gas Men, Shopping, Theatre, Reading & Writing

I was still working at the beginning of the week, we spent some time running errands and whilst I was at work Mr G bravely tackled the back garden, completely transformed by the time I came home. We had a fire that evening and the neighbour sat out with us in the garden, although he went in about 3 hours before we did.

On Tuesday after I had tutored we spent time sunbathing on our new sun loungers in the garden and then watched a box set that we haven’t seen for ages, we managed to get onto the next season.

Midweek, we had the excitement of a house full of Gas Men changing meters and discovering holes we shouldn’t have had! The oven works better and poor Mr G spent the whole time out in the baking sun tidying up the front garden – which now looks amazing! A warm welcome. Again once the house was empty we went to sit outside.

© National Theatre 2014

In the evening my mum and I went to the Arts Centre to see the National Theatre production of Skylight. I have never watched a theatrical performance on a screen before (wonders of the digital world) but with the cuts to Arts funding this allows people who don’t live in London to see the shows. It was more like watching it live on stage than a cinematic experience would be. I loved it. (And the Arts Centre has Air con.- most places, including our home, don’t – because it is rarely this hot or dry for this length of time in the UK. So that was a real treat!)

I also took a couple of shopping trips for summer clothes and caught up reading my writing magazine, I have been an issue behind pretty much the whole of 2014, one day I read the July issue and then over the weekend read the August issue, freeing my time up to write now for a couple of weeks before the next issue arrives!

I also had submissions to make – one for a project very close to me, I wrote three pieces for that in the end and the other was 3 poems, 1 written especially and the other 2 heavily rewritten to a publication I have previously been rejected from, fingers crossed – we will see.

We discovered a new garden centre and spent an afternoon choosing plants for the garden display. We will be going back there soon.

We have frogs in our pond and the plants are establishing themselves well around it.

We have eaten lovely home-grown salad potatoes and beans, we are waiting on the tomatoes – they won’t be long. We have had strawberries & pak choi already, the cucumbers are growing and we have decided we need to give the allotment up. We have done it for 5 years and it was good when we had no garden of our own, but now we have the house project and a garden that needs constant TLC and I am gallivanting off into the world of words all the time, we just cannot find regular time to go and tend the plot. We never had the right tools, as we were very ‘natural’ harvesters, this meant jobs done in no time with machinery were taking forever with tools not fit for purpose. It has been a big decision, but there is room to grow some stuff in the garden and at least this way there will be less waste.

I had a brilliant time with Mr G, lovely to have the company, much missed today when he went back to work… (although my mum popped in for a catch up), Mr G is off again soon, although the poetry schedule won’t be abandoned next time, we are hoping to make a start on the house.

 

Current Submissions

I am currently working on submissions that have a tight deadline (of a few days) – a one act play/ monologue and a short story. Fingers crossed I planned and mapped out plot/action and characters today. I am hoping to write them tomorrow, edit and redraft/ proof and submit on Wednesday! Not ideal, but having been so far behind on magazine issues, have only just discovered the opportunities.

This week I have a Poetry Party tomorrow, Drummonds 42 event on Wednesday (performing), a possible road-trip to Wales, hoping to finish the week off with a workshop.

If the road-trip works out – I will miss OXJAM Slam which is a charity fundraiser (OXFAM) and a night celebrating the life and words of Maya Angelou.

Hope you will understand now why my posts have been infrequent this month – will try harder to regularly post in August as my writing life will be getting very exciting!

 

Happy writing x

 

Mouth & Music Tuesday 10th: New Material – Great Night!

 

Another wonderful evening of spoken word and music. The theme this week was ‘adjectives’, I wrote my poems late on Monday night, using lists of adjectives for the initial stimuli.

They went down well, one serious one about mental health and a humorous one about form filling.

 I had seen Peter Wyton at Confab Cabaret earlier this year, a funny Gloucester poet, he has published a number of books and is a prize-winning poet who has appeared at Cheltenham Literature Festival, Glastonbury and Ledbury. He also reached the final of Radio 4’s first Poetry Slam.

Bethany Weimers was great, she is doing a tour of the area at the moment, Merlin her partner is a painter and Tim Scarborough and Suz Winspear are now the proud owners of personalised artwork, them performing. Sadly I was on before he picked up his paintbrush! I would have loved to buy one, that would have made my night.

This month we even had a write up on the Mouth and Music page, traditionally it has just been the headliners who feature in the review. Chuffed with this mention, so am pasting the review here;

Every M&M has its own character because each one is a unique combination of people. Last night had a really special quality to it. At least half of the 14 open mic-ers performed something brand new and there was some cracking humorous stuff from Nina Lewis, Mike Alma and Fergus McGonigal in particular. Billy Spakemon drew us into his dark Black Country tale and Tim Scarborough brought his own recorded backing for a very moving, personal piece. Thanks to all open mic performer…s for adding to the mix and apologies to Suz who hadn’t been warned about the Cinderella chimes ….

Featured poet Peter Wyton gave us a splendid set which was hilarious throughout. He had us hanging on every word. Bethany Weimers drew us into her delicate guitar playing and expressive singing. Her songs are intensely powerful and intimate. Both she and Peter stood near the audience, foregoing stage and mic and this enhanced a feeling of ‘sharing’ rather than ‘performing’.

Bethany’s partner Merlin was busy secretly sketching throughout the evening. Suz and Tim are now proud owners of brilliantly evocative drawings of themselves in action on stage. Merlin also gave us the drawing below. Thanks Merlin! (Merlin Porter Arts)

As an experiment, we put Bethany on midway through the second half. It seemed to work. This meant that Peter Williams’ beautiful song somehow echoed the mood created by Bethany. Peter will be our featured musician in October. Sarah finished with a poem heralding next month’s theme – Summer! Thanks to everyone who was there last night. See you in July!

© Mouth & Music (Wastie/Tamar) June 2014

 

RELATED LINKS

Peter

Bethany

© Peter Williams June 2014

 

Review of May – Tech fail!

I used the tech app for the 1st time. This was supposed to automatically post on 31st May!

Better late, than never!

Enjoy!

 

Another fantastic month in my writing world!

Biggest lesson – be gentle and forgiving on yourself, keep trying but don’t run yourself ragged, it diminishes creative energy and can affect long-term health!

 

Blog

I was delighted to find my creative writing HOW TO articles have been linked on a High School Website, the blog has experienced an increase of traffic and hopefully the students have picked up some new knowledge.

We now have 742 followers, that’s an extra 28 people who have found the fountain this month, happy splashing!

 

Projects

I am still participating in 52, although recently have not had the time to read a lot of the poems or comment, I have also left most of my own writing offline, I am not sure I can catch up with the posts but I am determined to see it through for the year, no matter how busy I get.

There is an exciting meeting taking place soon and we may get the chance to perform as part of a festival.

Naked Lungs asked Spoken Word artists to take part in a Pop Up Poetry event as part of a Literature Festival in the Autumn, I have applied. Fingers crossed.

 

Events

I had a mini tour of events at the beginning of the month (which completely wore me out and pushed me to my limits), it was a great experience with some fantastic events and I met new performers. 11 days, 10 gigs (1 day off from all writing and performing), 3 Counties!

The first day was a Stanza Extravaganza as my local stanza group took over PFL *Poetry For Lunch – in the amphitheatre at the Library of Birmingham. Read all about it here PFL 

I experienced my first every SLAM – it was the first slam organised by Fergus McGonigal for Kidderminster Creatives, held at the BHG. I was asked to take part, make up the numbers, I knew my material and performance wasn’t necessarily right for SLAM – Maggie Doyle who was the eventual winner proved that you don’t have to recite poetry from memory, although I did learn my set. Which makes me proud of myself and allowed me the freedom to PERFORM the poem rather than read it dramatically.

There was a prize for every participant, so I wasn’t upset being knocked out in the 1st round, all the semi- finalists were slam champions, laureates and published poets (I am only 1 of these 😉 )! It was great fun and I would not hesitate to take part in another – as long as it was small and local. Not yet ready to play with the big boys, nor might I ever be. Maggie told me that she has one slam poem – she won with it – it might be worth me writing just 1! (For next time…)

Read all about it here SLAM  

Tim Scarborough and I collaborated for the 2nd time to perform percussion and poetry at Photogiraffe’s final exhibition, Abstract Elements. Our set received a very positive reaction – including possible future bookings, people said it looked/ felt like we had performed together lots – think we may have found some creative synchronicity! We probably should think about a name for the act!

It was great fun and I enjoyed meeting new acts and listening to the diverse range of acts. The Warehouse Café (Vegan) hosted the event in Birmingham and we all paid for a buffet, which was lovely food! Abstract Elements

I returned to Ludlow to experience Deborah Alma/ Jean Atkin’s night, The Poetry Lounge in the Sitting Room. It is a long way to go for a 2 hour event but the writer’s are so talented and I got to listen to Andrew Frusk who I had met at Wenlock Poetry Festival. Read all about it HERE

The next night I went to Malvern and once again was introduced to some new faces as well as enjoying the sets of Adrian Mealing and Dizraeli, who has changed my opinion of beat poetry.  Confab Cabaret

 Following Confab Cabaret I went to SpeakEasy and enjoyed seeing new acts and Matt Windle. AF Harrold head lined. I was able to perform too. It was a great night. SpeakEasy

Friday saw Poetry and Pollination – Worcs LitFest and Ledbury Poetry Festival- I performed some newly written poems about bees. My set when down well. Poetry & Pollination 

This was the last event in my epic 10 days, 11 gigs (and working pretty much full time) run! There are some events I have missed this month as I needed to conserve energy for real world things too – let completing flat sale, securing work, celebrating birthdays etc.

Tim Scarborough and I collaborated on our 3rd set *with the theme of Body Hair – for Mouth and Music. We had a 4 hour rehearsal which resulted in lots of co-written and co-edited poetry being created around the theme – including a moustache tribute for Jonny Fluffypunk, we had great fun with a theme which originally made our hairs stand on end in fear!

 M&M 

We then took a medley of all our sets to Birmingham to perform at Spoken Word at The Ort, our set was thoroughly enjoyed by a room full of appreciative audience members! Spoken Word 

 

Sadly this month a bunch of Birmingham poets are saying goodbye to someone who spends a lot of time on the scene. Someone who threatened to give up poetry and then got accepted to take her one woman show to the Free Fringe Festival at Edinburgh this Summer, someone who can never escape poetry because it will find her. Someone who has decided to continue her travels across Asia and wanted to leave with one last massive party. Carys Jones – known on the circuit as Carysmatic (Jones) organised bands and acts to perform and enjoy each other’s work at a goodbye bash. I accepted the invite and worked on two new poems written about Carys. It was my Dad’s birthday on the same day, it is not a tradition to see him on his actual birthday, typically this year we were contacted over the possibility of a birthday meal.

Southway (an electro duo who Carys knows had travelled up from London to be there) – they were amazing.

Read all about it and Andrew Owen’s Book Launch – Portraits of Prose here

On Thursday Andrew Owens launched his short story collection, published by Black Pear Press, he invited performers to take part in this event. It was great celebrating with him and he even had a cake! I as flattered to open the event with my set.

After the book launch I took the Bank Holiday weekend off and went down to Dorset with friends, the main reason was to go to River Cottage and a food festival there – Mr G and I met Hugh and got our book signed, you can read about this adventure in the same post as the goodbyes and book launch (link above).

I was inspired by River Cottage and plan to use a programme to scrap journal a weekend collection – something has to be said about the cricket pate & caterpillar pate that was bought!

It was a great weekend and so good to get away – because we bought the house last year, we had no holiday.

The rest of my week off was supposed to be spent in my poetry skin but there was so much to do getting the house straight, sorting car insurance, MOTs, Dr appointments etc. not to mention a squeeze of poetry performances, workshops and events.

It is definitely not downhill for the rest of the month!

I originally planned to go to four gigs in the last week of May, I thought I could manage as I wasn’t working, but sometimes you have to listen to your body and soul and I was too exhausted to manage. Poetry For Lunch was taken over by the cast of Summer and it is a long way to go on the off chance you can perform. The photos look amazing, but my car wasn’t back from MOT in time to get across to the city, instead I caught up with old friends and had a few hours off relaxing! My car passed the MOT! The mirror that someone kindly knocked off as they drove up my street has been replaced. (At my expense!) York’s Bakery hosted Ddotti Bluebell’s Spoken Word night at the end of the month (30th) and I had originally hoped to perform my Bee poems there. Unfortunately, I thought I had booked a spot and I hadn’t – in the end I decided I was too tired for the city journey and spent the time writing new material – something I REALLY need to do.

I managed to make Poetry Bites at the beginning of the week and had a fabulous night, a lot of the open floor spots were filled with brilliant poems and a few stories, it was great to hear James Sheard read at length and I loved meeting Roy Marshall and talking to him about my old haunt of Leicester, where all this spoken word began. Jacqui Rowe hosted a great evening and I shared a couple of poems which had positive and encouraging reactions.

Read all about it Poetry Bites

© 2014 KGC

I also managed to get to 42 in Worcester on Wednesday evening, it was another amazing night of talented wordsmiths taking to the stage, many of the poets branched out to prose and the standard was extremely high.

  Drummonds 42 read all about the night for yourselves!

 

_____________

Poetry For Lunch – Stanza Group – Library of Birmingham Amphitheatre

Poetry Slam Kidderminster Creatives – BHG

Abstract Elements – Photogiraffe Exhibition Launch  – The Warehouse Café

Poetry in the Lounge – Met Andrew Fusek  Peters

Confab Cabaret – Olivers: Disraeli

SpeakEasy – Old Recifying House: A. F Harrold

Poetry & Pollination – The Hive – Ledbury Poetry Festival & Worcester LitFest: Sarah James

Writing West Midlands/ Assistant Writer  – Creative Writing Group: Ian MacLeod

Mouth & Music – BHG: Jonny Fluffypunk & Four Tart Harmony

Spoken Word at The Ort

Writing West Midlands/ Assistant Writer  – Creative Writing Group: Jean Atkin (cover)

Carysmatic Farewell Bash – Vertu Bar

Andrew Owens Book Launch – Black Pear Press

Poetry Bites – Kitchen Garden Café: Roy Marshall, James Sheard.

Drummonds 42

__________

I have spent most of May filling in my writing diary for June – with the Worcester LITFEST there is plenty going on, I am also scheduled to work full time during the LITFEST and am missing out on some great events during the day. It looks to be a busy month, I may take a bit of a backseat with performing, go and enjoy others perform. There are several clashes which I am gutted about between the cities (a foot in each camp) and some big decisions need to be made. SLAM or Poetry Garden Party – Worcester Laureate at the Guildhall (of which 3 poetry friends are finalists) or performing with Tim Scarborough in Birmingham, this decision has been made already, I am off to the announcement of the new poet laureate!

 

Submissions:

Raving Beauties – Bloodaxe books celebrating women’s bodies in a compassionate way.

WLF – Flash Fiction Competition for the Festival (made the deadline with 4 minutes to go)!

I managed to obtain a review copy of Sarah Hymas’s latest pamphlet – LOOK OUT FOR THE REVIEW ON A WRITERS FOUNTAIN NEXT MONTH! 

 

Events:

Grayson Perry Exhibition

Rehearsals with Tim Scarborough for Abstract Elements – Photogiraffe exhibition

Stanza meeting

I continued working for WWM – Writing West Midlands – as Assistant Writer (which I am doing next academic year also) in Worcester with Ian MacLeod, I also had the opportunity to work with Jean Atkin and her group this month, I have another date for June. It is a good experience to spend some time in other writing groups.

© 2014 Jean Atkin

WWM

 

In other news …. My Flat finally SOLD, we visited Dorset and Devon with friends, went to a Food Festival at River Cottage, met and chatted to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, my car passed its MOT, I recovered from a chest infection and found myself a new hairdresser.

Drummonds 42 – Elves, Pixies, Witches and Warlocks

I wrote a piece especially for 42 this month, it was a bit of a rush because I spent the morning dealing with car insurance and the afternoon washing my car (caked in mud from River Cottage) before its MOT.

I tried to stick to the theme, wrote a very short fairy poem and then after researching got side-tracked by folklore. I became engrossed in discovering new knowledge of stories, traditions and superstition.

I started by trying to write a poem, it turned into prose and ended up a narrative poem. I was unsure about performing it as it is the first draft, but feedback was positive and it was an enjoyable experience.

I had a great night – quite a few poets turned their hands to prose and there were people who haven’t been for a while – it was good to see a mixed crowd and a bigger audience.

Then at the end of the night I was told that Sue Thompson (who was at Andrew Owens’s book launch) had posted her final artwork online, I couldn’t wait to check it out, I was sitting at her table so was lucky enough to see some preliminary sketches. They are great – look out for them on a new post.

The next 42 is a Worcester LitFest special and I am happy to have one of the eight floor spots.

Booming Stats!

Whoahoo! Stats are booming!

Your blog, awritersfountain, appears to be getting more traffic than usual!

42 hourly views

2 hourly views on average

 

I discovered the reason is one of my articles on HOW TO WRITE…. has been linked on a High School website – here’s hoping we can make short story writers of you all! 

Spoken Word at The Ort – Friday 16th May

 

Last week I was trying to limit the open mic events I attended – besides being exhausted after my 10 gigs in 11 days mini run, I have also had a chest infection and a hacking cough for a few weeks – I had practically lost my voice by Monday. On Friday is was a husky luscious sort of voice and worked well with ‘Hairy little secrets’ in our Moustache poem.

I missed Hit the Ode for the first time since February and also another Spoken word night in Birmingham. I would have really struggled to stay awake at any events before Friday night.

Friday I had a (now very rare) day off work – needed to get to the solicitors and sign paperwork for my flat. Hoping to exchange this Friday. After running a few errands I had the afternoon to compose myself (mentally) and rehearse the set poems. I was excited to have enough material for Tim and I to perform a medley of our work.

Collaboration #4 – with Tim Scarborough

We arrived early enough to get a comfortable seat and enjoyed the acts unwinding on the stage, we had no idea of the set list – I think Tim liked not knowing, he sure knows how to pump adrenaline. Debbie told me we were opening the 2nd half – a great position to be in, especially as one of my friends had to leave early, I convinced her to stay for our set.

Our performance was good and I enjoyed it, we had fun and some great feedback.

We performed Rainwatch *the original poem that got us together, the first time I heard Tim perform on his mood drum, this was the poem I had in my mind, it was already written and I thought it would be the perfect accompaniment for the words. We performed our 2 co-written pub poems, Pull the Other One andSocial SATNAV along with the best of our Body Hair Set – The Hair that Wouldn’t Stop and Moustache Poem with Fact Bombs, which resulted in David Rees Jones (MC for the 2nd half), heckling most of the men with facial hair stylizers afterward.

Feedback – people liked Rainwatch with the Mood Drum, Social SATNAV and Moustache Poem with Fact Bombs the best, people were entertained and said we should have done a longer set (I think my voice just about managed to hold out)!

We then sat back to enjoy the rest of the acts.

It was a great night, thank you and well done Debbie Aldous, who organises and MC’s the Spoken Word event.

© 2014 Andrea Smith

© 2014 Zuzana Klementova  – Supercilious Ms T

 

 © 2014 Zuzana Klementova

Swingerella

 

There were many more acts and photographs than I have posted here,  just a little flavour of the event.

Tim and I were prepared to work on a new set, with percussion for next month’s open mic but sadly it clashes with the opening of The Worcs LitFest – which is also the announcing of Poet Laureate, friends of mine are in the running and I had already chosen to support them. I also miss another festival evening due to a friend’s birthday party – but it’s Woodstock themed so it’s going to be great! We will still collaborate again, we just don’t know when.

Writing Historical Fiction: Research

Last October I hosted INKSPILL – a virtual writing retreat, as part of the programme we looked at Historical Fiction.

INKSPILL HISTORICAL FICTION Part1

Part 2

Today I am attempting to write a short story which is Historical Fiction.

Here is some of the advice I researched;

1. Fiction. Regardless of your time period, regardless of all the in-depth research you’ve done, you must remember that you’re writing fiction first, and historical fiction second. In other words, don’t forget that it’s action and conflict that moves the book forward.

2. Avoid history lessons …You know your period of history so well, but you must assume that your reader does not. So, it’s temping to fall into the habit of giving history lectures for a few paragraphs. Educating your reader may be necessary, but it works best when the history comes across as part of the action.

3. Using your research. Make sure the historical fact is of interest to your reader.

Don’t paint historical pictures without making them a part of the drama of your book.

4. Building a Setting. I’ve always found that an effective way to build a setting is not simply to describe the landscape, but also to make the setting part of your character’s journey.

5. Using languages or accents. I was always careful not to use words that took too much space to translate. The basic rule of thumb, I think is, if you want to use a foreign word for effect, then look for those words that are close enough to the language of your book that the meaning is obvious.

© 2014 Writer’s Digest

Pick your time period – it should be an area of history you either know about or have an interest in learning.

Then choose your character(s), setting and work on the plot – remembering this is a story first, you can edit, amend and add historical detail and facts at a later stage.

Immerse yourself in that time period.

 

 

Saints, Sinners & Fools – Pigeon Park Press

Last Wednesday night I skipped my usual performance/ Spoken Word night at 42 for a one off event in Birmingham – I say one off – Pigeon Park Press organise about 4 of these evenings a year. Open Mic to share stories, poetry, music and even an extract from a play.

 The event took place downstairs at 6/8 Kafe, I took a few shots (which I still need to upload) so I am using other people’s photos – with credit to give you a flavour of the event.

What was nice about this event was that there were some new to me writers to sit and listen too.

I missed the Winter Stories event so I was flattered when Heidi Goody invited me to this event.

 I had a great night and some fabulous feedback!

Thanks everyone.