I was honoured to receive an unexpected DM from the
decidedly talented Jacki Donnellan requesting permission to co-opt me for the current Writing Process Blog Tour as
one of her three writers whose work she enjoys recently – especially given how
much I enjoyed her recent Angry Hourglass winner "I Serve" and the incredibly powerful and
moving "Cynthia". Add to that her impressive record over
at Flash! Friday and fact that her micro poetry has recently been distributed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (other publications aside) and I can only say thank you, given I’m well aware of the number of talented
writers she could have chosen to feature – especially given I’m a relative
newcomer to the flash fiction scene in real terms.
In appreciation of the opportunity afforded to me, on with
the questions, before giving a nod to several great writers I’ve had the
fortune to happen across during my time online…
What Am I Working On?
At the time of writing this entry I guess I’m currently
juggling a number of projects and/or have more than one potential project
bubbling away at the back of my subconscious, waiting to steal the forefront
away from other current writing.
In an
average week there tends to be a steady mix of Twitter based micro poetry and
flash fiction based prompts – or so I’ve found to date, this being only a ten
odd month work in progress in terms of consistent writing for
prompt/website/Twitter/whatever.
Presently pending is my story “Dealbreaker”, a
horror/mythology/urban legend mash up, which will feature in "In Creeps The Night" as of 30th September 2014 – just in time for Halloween! Alongside my own tale, a couple of other
writers whose names will be/may be familiar are featuring. I’m very much looking
forward to reading the stories from them in due course!
I’m particularly looking forward to the opportunity to write
for my writing group The Poised Pen's first Halloween based (and international) flash fiction competition (fellow “flash dogs”, do you have your ideas
at the ready yet? ;)). I also have four
or so short chapters of a novelette length YA story in first draft format and
the beginnings of something holding out for a darker steampunk premise –
probably also likely to end up at novelette length unless it gets carried away
with itself!
Ideally I’m also aiming to
head back into the world of music prompts via Mid-Week-Blues-Buster, now the competition’s recently returned from what was previously specified
as an indefinite hiatus. Given the
opportunity, I quite enjoy the chance to write something slightly longer than
two hundred or so words, as a bit of a change of pace. Also – there can never be too many fictional words
(or indeed worlds!) shared between writers, surely…
How Does My Work
Differ From Others Of Its Genre?
As a couple of the writers who’ve posted on this topic
before me have mentioned, I’m another writer (albeit fledgling seeking to
spread my wings compared to a number of others I might care to mention!) who
tends to play out ideas off the back of my reading matter and viewing
experiences. I suppose this explains why
I’m prone to jump from a Milford style crossroads
demon story to poetry prose on Atlantis, resulting in a mix of stories and poetry, as
opposed to sticking completely to one particular medium/genre/sub-genre, given
I’ll read anything ranging from Shakespeare to Stephen King and Neil Gaiman,
depending on my mood. Experience to date
suggests that’s a habit which reproduces itself in my writing, to an extent.
Having thought about it a little for the purposes of the
blog post and with @TheShakes72's
previous comment on Twitter about “imaginative takes” on prompts in mind, I
guess it would be fair to say occasionally I consciously “subvert” prompts by
writing for them at a tangent. That’s
probably me deliberately trying to stretch myself as a writer and make
progress, given I always know there’s plenty for me to make as a relative
newcomer to writing!
The very kind @DonnellanJacki tells me my writing is poetic, which might result from the musical “aspect” of
my head. Aside from a love of music in
general terms, I used to be involved in an orchestra, meaning I tend to “hear”
my story’s/poem's cadences in my head, dialogue included. Occasionally, this means I can also “hear”
the right fit for the patterns and the rhythm clicks into place. Obviously, that’s on a good day!
Why Do I Write What I
Write?
Partially because my fellow “Poised Penner” @zevonesque made reference to a number of flash fiction competitions at meetings a while
back (alongside reading his own work), beginning with Flash! Friday and I followed up on the website links and have carried on writing flash
fiction ever since…
I liked the concept of writing “small scale” with a
designated number of words and – to an extent – the immediacy that would demand
with deadlines in mind as a way of getting back into writing, given I’d been
scribbling bits of things down since a relatively early age but never really written
regularly on an ongoing basis. Given I’ve
also been known historically to muse on how and why fiction works, I suspect my love for reading translates directly
into seeking to work with words myself and – hopefully - establishing my own
connections with fellow readers somewhere along the way.
Opportunity to practice writing aside (and hopefully improve too!), it’s given me the chance to frequent a number of
great websites and become part of active, continuously supportive writing
communities - Flash! Friday and Angry Hourglass being some of the first ones I came across. (The
corner of the internet frequented by my fellow “Flash Dogs”, particularly – you
know who you are, all of you - seems to
be going from strength to strength over the recent weeks!) I’ve also posted reasonably regularly at
Mid-Week-Blues-Buster and Office Mango's "Horror Bites" challenges, as well as for @Angela_Goff's VisDare photo prompt and previously at Trifecta and Race The Date.
I guess I like trying to maintain an eclectic mix in terms
of the types of prompts I’m writing for at any given time and the type of story
they are likely to inspire, because it forces me to write beyond the boundaries
of my “default”, which tends to be spec fic – something I read (and thus
reproduce in writing terms) regularly.
How Does My Writing
Process Work?
I actually wrote a “How I Write” drabble about this fairly
recently for the The Poised Pen's third
anthology "Half Baked". In essence, it depends on the prompt
and how it “speaks” to me. For online
poetry prompts I tend to scribble the word prompts down by hand and pick one or
two on any given date that I think I can work with. Mostly, I work them through on paper before
they make it into type and onto Twitter.
Occasionally, this means I end up having to cut them down to fit the
requisite number of characters!
With photo prompts, I like to make sure I’ve taken a look at
them at an early stage to allow an idea to develop itself. If I’m really lucky, I’ll have an idea
straight away – sometimes accompanied by a line of dialogue belonging to the
story, which I end up writing down on paper.
Occasionally, if I’m pushed for time but have a story idea I want to see
through to completion I can end up typing straight away onto the computer
screen with a deadline looming! There’ve
also been a couple of occasions I’ve found myself writing towards a specific
ending without necessarily knowing how I’ll get there but my favourite stories
are definitely those that somehow seem to write themselves along the way and
where I get to surprise myself with where I end up…
Introduction To 3 Other Writers
It goes without saying that there are any number of extremely
talented writers who could feature here – and, indeed, a number have already been
tagged previously – justifiably - as part of the tour.
L E Jamez
Twitter: @LEJamez
Laura is a fellow flash fiction writer and author of the
collection of flash fiction stories "Kitchen Antics", as well as running the "Horror Bites" horror flash fiction challenge over at Office Mango.com. She is also involved in the soon to be
published flash fiction anthology "In Creeps The Night".
Laura already has her writing process blog tour post up here.
Casey Rose Frank
Twitter: @CaseyCaseRose
Casey is a fellow “Angry Hourglass” contributor (and back to
back winner!) Read her wonderful
winning story "Communing With Nature" here and “Farmer’s Market” here. She writes everything from quirky
humour to stories involving powerful, human emotion and I always enjoy seeing
what she creates in response to any given prompt.
Ruth Long
Twitter: @bullishink
What a great insight. I admire that you can flit from theme to theme, and hats off for writing poetry - the one thing I have only done once. Loving the sound of a dark steampunk novel, I've only dabbled in steampunk myself and find it hard going. X
ReplyDeleteThanks very much! Some things work better than others, to be fair but I like to try! Quite like writing my micro poetry to switch things up - some great poets on Twitter too, generally. Really admire their work. Yes, steampunk will be a challenge but I have a scene that wants me to write what happens surrounding it... ;)
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