Tag archives for Writing - Page 5
Read Around the World
A few months ago I responded to a Google+ post by Andrew Buckley, he had an idea for people around the world reading a story on camera and was looking for volunteers. The story in question is his novel 'Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish' by Andrew Buckley. You can read more on Andrew's website. The experiment started yesterday and will carry on until Christmas. So here is the link to my entry in the Read Around the World experiment! If you'd like to sign up and join in the fun just head to for more information. This is part 2, and you might want to watch Part 1 of Read Around the World first for continuity reasons. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the story as it happens. ;feature= Not my best video because I needed to read…
Crisis Point on Wattpad
I'm editing Crisis Point for the third time to make it better by using the things I learned on A215 Creative Writing. One of the most valuable things I got from that was that you need feedback from real people to help you get better as a writer. Hence the use of wattpad (although I've also sent the story to a few of the other A215 veterans for their comments too). Here is the beginning of Crisis Point on wattpad. For obvious reasons I'll not be posting the whole story there, but I'll post a few more sections than the three that are there already. If you would like to be a beta reader for me then please drop me a line, either in the comments section, on the facebook page linked on the right or by email. Related…
A215 Creative Writing is done
Handwritten notebook entry Last week I got the results for A215 Creative Writing. I got a Grade 2 pass, which I'm pleased with. So far I'm half way through the degree and the level 2/3 courses that count towards Honours classification. If I maintain my consistent Grade 2 passes I'll get a 2:1, and if I manage to get a distinction for 60 points of the rest then I'll get a first. Unless I get Grade 4 passes for all of my remaining 120 points at Level 2 & 3 then I'm pretty safe on a 2:1, not bad given that I'm working full-time, being a school governor, scout leader and a parent at the same time as studying for the degree! A215 has been the most interesting OU course that I have done so far. Part of me wishes that…
Poetry Pointers
This is a post I wrote for Castlegreen Publishing and was first published on Poetry Pointers Given that we're looking for poetry at the moment we thought that folk might find it useful to give you some insight into what we're expecting and perhaps also some pointers on writing poetry that works for us. This is especially intended to help anyone struggling with their inner editor over whether or not their work is good enough to submit. Guidelines for the wise Poetry is a process, just like prose poems don't spring onto the page fully formed expect to polish poetry through several drafts to get it just right first drafts are always unpublishable, don't be discouraged by this, it gives you material that you can craft Poetry works best when read aloud From the second or third draft record yourself reading aloud and…
Hunting Nazis – Commentary on writing the story
I've written a short story titled Hunting Nazis for the End of Module Assessment (EMA) for A215 Creative Writing. The target word count was 2,500 with an upper limit of +10%. The first draft weighed in at 5k words, double the target length. However some of this was because although I plotted it I needed to tell myself the story in the first draft. Once I got to the end it was much easier to re-edit and take out some of it. Hunting Nazis The central premise is that Reggie and Dot (from the earlier story Planting the Past) have been hunting down nazis guilty of war crimes against the members of the French resistance and SOE agents supporting the network that they were both part of during World War Two. The story takes place in Berlin in 1953 when they are tying…