Here is a sample of interesting things I’ve been doing or
seeing since my last post in September:
Iain M Banks book signing and talk. 70% of the evening was
spent on a train or train platform, 5% walking from the train station to
Toppings and back again, 25% in Toppings listening to Iain M Banks talk about
the Culture, which is something I know little about because I’ve never read any
Iain M Banks sci fi, other than State of the Art. The portion of the talk I
caught was interesting more for learning his writing processes than anything
else. He’s a wing-er. He belongs to the “because it’s cool” category of popular
writers.
Shaftesbury Arts Week, map making competition, hanging out,
putting on prose and poetry evenings in small places. http://storyslingers.blogspot.co.uk/
Bridport Story Slam – I co-organised this with Dorset
Writers’ Network. http://dorsetwritersnetwork.co.uk/eventsshow.htm
for the details. James Broomfield won again. Damn, he’s good.
Me and Sue at the Bridport Slam.
Wimborne Literary Festival, a talk from fantasy author
Suzanne McLeod and Sci Fi writer Jaine Fenn. It was pretty poorly attended, but
pretty rich in how interesting and entertaining it was. People missed out on a
high calibre event there.
I’m getting some informal and occasional mentoring help from
Winchester Uni lecturer Amanda Boulter. She’s been helping me hone my skills on
my current novel.
I’ve been writing said novel, a fantasy set in Arthurian
Britain in 508AD.
And reading a lot of history books and doing countless
character profile worksheets and exercises.
DWN’s Nell Leyshon workshop: Finding Your Character’s Voice.
This was a well-pitched workshop with plenty of practical exercises that not
only got the creative juices going there in-session, but can be re-used out of
the workshop. For the first time in a long time I came away from a workshop with
new ideas, new techniques and newly inspired.
Listening to Alt J, Marbert Rocel (and remixes), The Dead
Weather.
