Tag archives for Write Club - Page 2

The Mother’s Dream [Write Club] [Fantasy]

The Mother's Dream is my story for the January 2021 meeting of Write Club Surrey, which had dreams as its theme. I chose to write a creation myth for Skyss, the world that I've my fantasy novel is set in. One inspiration for The Mother's Dream is my love as a child of a book of Australian aborigine myths called Dreamtime Heritage. The stories are how the world was formed and shaped in the dreams of the early people. The idea has stuck with me, even if I can no longer find the book on my shelves. Troll head and fist in the woods atop Mount Floyen, Bergen, Norway. An inspiration for The Mother's Dream. (Photo: James Kemp) Another source of inspiration for The Mother's Dream was me thinking about how to describe the trolls in Fierce. I read quite…
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Sonny’s Gift [Write Club]

Sonny's Gift was written for the September meeting of Write Club Surrey. The theme was mysteries, and I drew on some African folklore and religion, and also riffed off Neil Gaiman's American Gods. There was also a little bit of inspiration from the Black Lives Matter protests too. Shipping container being unloaded (Image by Hessel Visser from Pixabay) The mystery in the story revolves around a shipping container, which has been delivered to the front door of the local police station. There's a couple of competing points of view in Sonny's Gift, and perhaps the real mystery of Sonny's Gift is not who sent it, but how they knew what was needed months before Sonny even had his epiphany! The title character of Sonny's Gift is a black ex-cop. He rescued a woman from drowning when on patrol, and as…
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On Resolutions, 2020 and 2021

For a number of years I've posted new year's resolutions on the Themself, along with reflections on how I've got on with them. I didn't do that last year, even though I was sure that I had.  Making Resolutions There's been a theme to previous resolutions, they've covered reading, writing and being healthier. The theme is about being a better person, although there's a level of subjectivity about what constitutes 'better'. On the whole being happier with who I am is probably the thing I should have 'm not going to make retrospective resolutions for 2020, the whole point of making new year resolutions is setting yourself some aspirations for the future. As I write 2020 is a few days from being history. Thankfully. Reflections on 2020 Global pandemic and massive recession aside, things haven't been all bad about 2020.…
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Going to Sea [Write Club]

Going to Sea is a fairy tale set as background for my fantasy novel. It is written for the Write Club Surrey challenge for the July meeting on Saturday. It was quite hard writing a decent fairy tale, and I'm not claiming that Going to Sea is a decent fairy tale. My first two attempts ended up more like Icelandic sagas than fairy tales. I ended up reading a book about what the Icelanders call the hidden people for inspiration. That was really interesting, but turned out not to be that useful. In the end I abandoned my earlier attempts and just wrote this instead. I'll probably finish the other ones though, I think having this sort of detail helps add depth to a fantasy world. Going to Sea, or how people started worshipping Kari Replica Viking Longship (Photo: archiwum…
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Into Darkness [WW2 SOE] – June Write Club Story

Into Darkness is the story I wrote for June's Write Club, which is a local group to encourage us to write and share feedback with each other. There were eight stories this month, which is the third time the group has met, but the first time I've managed to join. I did submit a story for the first time, and wrote one for the second time but it got way over the word count and I didn't send it in. I found it a very friendly and supportive group, and it was a pleasure to read the stories that the others had written. The theme was to write something involving a letter. Write Club meets on the second Saturday of the month, with the stories due in a week before that. Right now it's meeting via zoom, although that wasn't…
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