Fingers whizzing across the keyboard...

Lots of questions all wrapped up in one subject this month, so, in keeping with the subject, I'll try to answer as fast as I can.


Speed Writing
How fast do your first drafts go? Do they take you a year? A month?

Honestly it depends on what I'm writing. I've got a whole pile of drafts that haven't ever been finished properly. Mostly these are NaNoWriMo novels where the missing chunks are outlined but I just haven't had the motivation to finish.

When I'm enjoying writing a story then I'd say on average about a month to get the first draft nailed down. The number of stories that progress past that stage is actually very small though, but that's another story!


Is your speed more of a NaNoWriMo style writing or trying to nail down each word perfectly the first time? What suffers because of your speed? 

I don't really change the way I do drafts for NaNoWriMo - I write to try to get down the picture in my head as fast as possible, and if it comes out sounding just right then that's fantastic. Usually it comes out in the form of an outline first, then gets fleshed out into a first draft. I do the same when I'm writing NaNo - the only difference is that I don't delete anything when I'm doing NaNo!

Bonus: What was your shortest novel? Your longest? And what was the main problem in each?

I think my shortest was a children's story that started out as five separate short /stories and then turned into one long one. The main problem with that was that I found I was repeating description a lot. I don't know if that's because I was trying to build wordcount for NaNo, or because I was just seeing the characters with the description first, or if it was because I was thinking I hadn't described them enough, but I really really overdid the description.

The longest is probably one that I'm working on at the moment which is already at 50k and only about half done. I haven't re-read it properly yet to know what problems it has, but I expect I'm find plenty...

Who likes short shorts? We like short shorts!

Short Stories
Do you write them? Do you hate them? Do you think they're lovely but there's no market for them? For those who wish to be published, many people will tell you that short story publications get your foot in the door. And while that is definitely true, I'm not sure how many people really focus on the short stories. So tell me about your own views on them. Have any been published? Are you looking to publish some?

I love reading and writing short stories - I would say 75% of the stories I write are shorts or flash. I like the challenge of creating a well fleshed out character and making a fully fledged story in a limited amount of words, and there's so much that you learn from short stories that you can then transfer into novels to make them better.

I haven't had any shorts published yet but I'm looking to do so. I've got a little pile of shorts at various stages of editing that are waiting for me to get back to them ready to submit somewhere.


Bonus: What is your favorite magazine/anthology of short stories? Send us a picture of the cover! (Especially if you have a favorite issue.)

I suppose my favourite magazine would have to be the People's Friend. My grandma used to get it regularly and I would look at the children's pages, and now my mum gets them occasionally and leaves them in the bathroom for reading when you're, ahem, 'sitting down'... I like that the stories are inoffensive and generally feel-good, and that you get all sorts of stories in one issue.

I like anthology story books as well, and the best one I read recently was Other Worlds, a collection of 10 YA sci-fi/fantasy stories by Rick Riordan, Shaun Tan, Tom Angleberger, Ray Bradbury and others.

Don't step over that line!

With horror writing abounding over in Zombie July, let's talk about our own writing limits.

What will you absolutely not write no matter what? Even if the story tends to lead toward it. And where do you put your foot down in your genre? Do you write fantasy but not darker than a medium shade of grey? Do you write erotica and rape is not acceptable to you? Let us know your reasons why!

I will write violence to a certain extent but not go into graphic detail about anything. Unless it's essential to the story I'd rather leave it before the violence starts with the hint that it's going to happen. I think that's pretty much my limit in any genre with any type of violence.

The reason is just that I don't really like writing extreme violence and I don't think I could do it justice anyway, so I'd rather go with the Blair Witch effect and hint at things rather than showing them. I think the reader's imagination is likely to come up with much more interesting things than anything I could put on paper in that respect.

Bonus: For fun, what genre will you never ever ever write?

Easy question - I will never write horror or erotica. I don't like reading them and I can't imagine ever wanting to write them either.

But what does he look like? - WriYe

Description
How much is too much for you? How little is too little? How do you find your happy medium? What must you describe about every character when you write?

I don't think I've mastered description yet. If anything I tend to do too much description, tossing it in all over the place - 'she shook her head, her brown curls falling into her face' or 'her blue eyes took in the forest scene with its lush green leaves and red and yellow wildflowers' type of thing. Possibly not quite to that extant though...

I always at some point include hair colour and general body type/size/height because I like to know what characters I read about are like, so I want to include information I look for in stories. That wouldn't be 'he's 6ft tall with short spiky black hair and a toned body' though, it's more likely to be dropping his hair colour in at one point and later mentioning his height compared to, say, a shelf he's reaching something off, or a small child who's talking to him.

Body type can be slotted in at any point - a woman not being able to make her hands meet while giving a friend a hug, or someone calling an insult to someone (stick insect or fatty, maybe) or describing the type of thing that person does for fun. Someone who spends all his time in fast food restaurants is likely to have a very different body type to someone who's a member of a running club.

What's the worst way to use and/or reveal character descriptions?

The worse way is when you get paragraphs of description with nothing to move the story forward at all. I try to avoid that! The second worse way is the 'looking in a mirror' technique, or the variation 'another character looking at him/her'.

How much of the scenery do you put into your novel and why?

I like to include scenery if it's relevant, but it not I just like to set the scene. If someone is in a train station you can have the noise of a train pulling interrupting a phone call and that's all you need to include, but if someone is meeting underneath a clock at the railway station you might want to add detail as the person searches for the clock - because in that instance, it might add to the tension as the person tries to find the clock in time.


Bonus: A picture is worth a thousand words... Draw us your main character!

I can't draw people very well, and I especially can't get people to turn out the way I imagine them in my head. I usually do internet searched to find a picture of someone who looks like how I imagine my main characters. This is the picture I found for Dawn Bell, the main character in my July Camp NaNoWriMo novel.

Software decisions - WriYe

What do you use to write? Do you shift between software for different parts of writing: planning, writing, editing, etc?

This one's easy - I use Microsoft Word most of the time because I tend to colour code my writing - red for ideas, green for outlines, blue for bits of text I've taken from somewhere else that have given me an idea, etc. I use Notepad as well sometimes when I just want to write without distractions, like when I'm word warring, have an idea I want to get out or am using a prompt to do some freewriting. I have tried Liquid Story Binder and I quite liked it, but not enough to pay for the full version.

I do most of my editing in Word as well, although I do print out everything before every big edit so I can mark up bits to change, highlight, scribble out and generally scrawl all over the draft before I make any changes on the computer.

What do you use to supplement your writing? Music? TV in the background? YouTube channels?

I like to write to music and give my story a soundtrack. I can't write with TV in the background because I get distracted, but I will put on CDs or, more usually, make a GrooveShark or YouTube playlist especially for the story. I use choosing a soundtrack as part of my character profiles too, deciding what sort of music they would like and what they'd be listening to in their everyday lives before I set dragons and/or aliens loose on them!




Bonus: Give us a screenshot of you mid-writing. Seriously. Pause, snap, post.

This is the planning stages of my Camp NaNo novel. I'm using a 100 words prompt for chapter titles and under each one I'm outlining what's going to happen in that chapter. I doubt I'm going to use all 100 prompts, but I find them useful to give me ideas when I'm not sure what to throw in next.

Genre - Wriye Circle

April - And we've made it through editing! So let's shift to something more fun... Genre

• What is your main genre?

Childrens/young adult fantasy. Usually that fantasy is grounded in the real world somehow, like a normal boy finding a troll in his locker one day, or a girl suddenly finding she can fly, or what if that man rode a dragon instead of driving a car? I do like to go completely fantastic sometimes though, and create a whole new world where faeries live alongside pixies, and gnomes build the best damn dams in the country.

• How has it evolved for you in the past few years and how do you think it will evolve further - both in your own writing style and in the publishing field overall?

To start with I would just write a story that I enjoyed writing, and while the content would be suitable for younger readers, the characters might be too old or the language I used might be too complicated. I think I've got better at creating characters that do what I want them to do but aren't too old for the audience I'm trying to write to.

Digressing for a moment, I read somewhere that children always want to be older, so they'll happily read about a main character a few years older than themselves, but they've still got to be someone they can relate to. A 13-year-old might like to read about a 17-year-old but he's going to find it more difficult to a 21-year-old because that character's life will be outside the 13-year-old's easy frame of reference, eg, he's left school, he goes to pubs, he might have a full-time job or be at uni. The 17-year-old will have more in common - probably still at school dealing with teachers and parents but wanting more freedom, might have a part-time job but mostly likes hanging out with his friends when he's not in school.

I don't know how my writing style will change, but I'm not going to try to push it in any particular direction. As to the publishing field, I think characters will continue to evolve but will in most ways stay the same as they've ever been - heroic, extraordinary, good beating bad, etc.

• Is there any genre you think blends easily with your niche? Or maybe you write in one that hasn't really emerged yet.

Childrens/YA blends with pretty much any genre as long as it's not too violent or sexual I think. (I would have issues describing The Hunger Games as a children's book for this reason.) The fantasy touches my stories generally seem to have would blend well with sci-fi, and I have dabbled in that and quite often try to explain some of the fantasy elements through science.

• Bonus: Doodle us something that describes your main genre to a T. (Like hearts for romance. But you can't take that now. Haha.)

G is for Genre (Also WriYe blog post)

What is your main genre?

Usually YA/fantasy/adventure. I don't do horror, I'm not very good at romance, I can't think of interesting mainstream plots and I get far too bogged down in researching if I try to do historical fiction.

How has it evolved for you in the past few years and how do you think it will evolve further - both in your own writing style and in the publishing field overall?

I think YA is more accepted as a genre in its own right now than it used to be, and I think the boundaries of what YA is have been pushed back. Think how gory some of The Hunger Games is and compare it to stories like What Katy Did or Peter Pan. My writing style hasn't really changed aside from (hopefully) getting better, because I've never really tried to fit into a genre, I've just written what I like.

Is there any genre you think blends easily with your niche?

I think any genre blends with YA. Personally I like writing it because I can tell a story without having to swear, go into graphic detail, or get too involved with gore/sex/violence. It makes me sound a bit like a cop out, but I like telling stories that I could tell to my Brownies or my niece and that wouldn't make my Mum blush ;-)





Bonus: Doodle us something that describes your main genre to a T.

Doodle to follow later...

• Challenge for the day is for you to doodle your genre as well!

WriYe - The frustration of editing

Back to one of my least favourite subjects for this month's WriYe blog prompt. It's not that I can't edit - I like to think I'm pretty good at picking up on things like grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes and continuity problems. My problem is that once I find a problem and start to fix it, I find it creates even more problems and starts turning into an ongoing saga of fixing things.

Now that we've had some planning and some character development under way, let's look at the other end of the spectrum. Editing! Sorry about the repeating but it is something we writers have to think about all the time.

What is your favorite method of editing? Do you print it all out and paint it red? Do you use a computer program like Scrivener or Liquid Story Binder to arrange things? Or maybe you just trash the first draft and try it all over again?

Depending on what the story is, usually I print it out an scribble all over it, then go back to the computer and fix the bits I picked up on, then repeat the process until I'm happy with it. I find that's a good way of dealing with particularly short stories, but with novels I have to deal with it in smaller chunks, usually a couple of chapters at a time. The
problem with that is that then I have to be really careful that my continuity is still alright, and that something I've rewritten towards the end of the process still has the same 'voice' as the bits I started with.

I know it's always better after editing, but I do find the process very tedious and frustrating!


What do you find the most in your editing? Are you a repeated-word-abuser? A comma-phile? Or maybe your grammar just ain't no good?

Because a lot of my longer stories seem to come from things like NaNoWriMo I find that they tend to have a lot of word padding going on. I gave a draft to my brother to read of one story, and one of his first comments was "so she's got curly red hair then". Apparently almost every time I'd mentioned that particular character I'd mentioned her hair...

On the subject of editing, this post by WestBow Press gives really good advice.

WriYe - Character Relationships

How hard is it for you to create character relationships? Do you pre-plan them or do you end up letting them develop as the novel goes on? Have your characters betrayed you and paired up with someone you didn't expect?
My relationships in stories tend to be pre-planned in the first plotting stage. For example, in Thief I knew that Dawn would have a boyfriend that she'd leave behind when she ran away and he'd come after her. I knew Lois's parents were married happily and that she didn't have a boyfriend. I knew that both Callahan sisters were flirts but that there were no serious relationships going on (and it would take a very dedicated man to have a relationship with Morgan when she turns into a man herself every so often...)

I've never had a character do something completely unexpected with regards to relationships, although occasionally they will say something which then makes me think they could do with a pairing somewhere.

Give us the story of how your favorite written characters got together and what makes their relationships strongest.
I honestly can't think of any! I don't really write romance, and the relationships that are in my stories tend to be pre-existing without any back story to them. I suppose if I had to choose, I'd say Lois's parents in Witness. I have no idea how they got together, but they complement each other very well - she's soft and comforting and he's practical and full of useful (useless?!) advice. They also foster kids and still manage to raise Lois as a fairly normal teenager. I think I really should flesh out their characters and back story more in a short story some time...

Bonus: Give us a picture of your planning process when it comes to characters!

This is a kitten randomly booping a dog on the nose. My character relationship planning is often rather like this - it just suddenly happens. I'll suddenly think of a character and then realise they need a significant other, or evil ex, or a crush, or someone else to make them more of a fully rounded character.

WriYe - Planning part 2

The bonus challenge: Show us a screenshot, picture, or draw us something that represents you planning! So for you pantsers, I expect some funny stuff.

Okay, so here's a screenshot of my latest work in progress. (I don't usually write with this many pages on view, but I wanted to show all the different things I do.)

The different parts are colour coded; black is the story I've written so far, red is bits that are ideas that need fleshing out, blue is background research and purple is a list of characters with very short descriptions. I keep my longer character profiles in a different file.

I often have pictures in my documents while I'm writing as well to give me ideas and help me keep an ideas of who my character is in my head. In this case I'd been writing about Martha Pemberton, the heroine of a story set in the Regency period.

WriYe planning part 1

WriYe - Planning part 1

What's your favorite planning method? Do you prefer to plot by hand or use the computer? What part of planning do you hate the absolute most? Or do you hate all of planning and you'd rather pants your novels? Why?

Sometimes I will go off without a master plan... Actually quite often I go off without a master plan... But usually I'll have some sort of plan even if it's just a very basic outline of a character and a challenge for them to overcome.

I actually really enjoy the planning stage and find that because of the way I go about it, it usually merges very easily into the writing of the story. I don't usually use paper notes and I haven't really got my head around the specialist story-writing software, so most of my planning is done in Word, which is where I write the vast majority of my stories. I start with an idea, then flesh that out a bit, then take each bit of that and flesh that out, and usually while I'm doing that I'll write one or two scenes that jump out at me. When I'm developing characters I usually find myself writing a scene as well so that I get their voice fixed in my head. The scene might not make it into the finished story, but quite often at least some bits of it do.

So the short answer is I love planning, there's nothing about it I hate, and although sometimes I do pants it, I'm much more of a planner.

WriYe - Planning part 2

WriYe - Seasonal stories

Everyone has their favorite: the heat of summer, the beauty of spring, the cool winds of autumn or the quiet frozen landscapes of winter. And because we have our favorite, we most likely have a set of favorite things we do during those seasons. But how does that affect your writing? Do you write more during your favorite season, or do you prefer to do things that are not related to writing?


I love autumn - swishing leaves, the gorgeous colours,seeing the sunrise without having to get up at silly o'clock, the crispness in the air without it being too cold, and the excuse to wear boots with skirts! I love winter, too, especially when it has been or is snowing. There's something about frosty mornings that's very exciting, and noticing that the light coming through the curtains is just that bit brighter than usual, hinting that just maybe it's snowed overnight. But I think, just about, that my favourite season is autumn.

I like writing about autumn as well, and I find that most of my favourite scenes that I write are set in autumn, although that's only something I realised when I was thinking about seasons to write this blog post.

I don't know if I write more in the autumn - I think I tend to write most in the winter, but that may be because of NaNoWriMo acting as an incentive. The rest of the year my writing seems to plod along quite steadily with increased spurts of activity if I start something that really catches my imagination.

WriYe - Distractio... ooh, squirrel!

Those Pesky Flies - Distractions
We all have them, whether they are living, mandatory, optional or fun. How do you work around your distractions? Do you separate time out or do you let the distractions come as they may? Are you one of the lucky ones that can shut it all out and write for as long as you'd like?

I'm quite good at procrastinating, but that's different from genuine distractions. When I'm writing at home the distractions usually come in the form of the postman wanting to deliver a parcel, the cat wanting attention in the form of cuddles, food, or to be let out, or phone calls.

Fortunately, my method of writing can cope quite well with distractions. I tend to write in 20 minute bursts unless I'm really caught up in a story, and so if a distraction comes I just stop where I've got to and start another 20 minute session when the distraction's passed and I've taken the opportunity to refill my mug or pop to the loo. I suppose that means I fall into the category of letting the distractions come what may.

I'm not someone who can shut out all distractions, but even if I could I don't think my writing would be any more productive than my 20-minute-at-a-time method. I know it works (and I managed to write 10k in a day on November 30, 2011 using that method!) and if I try to write for longer I find myself getting distracted by researching things that I really don't need to research, or looking at pictures for inspiration, or playing games.

WriYe - Keep it tight

Using the Wrench on Your Writing - Tightening Prose
Every word in a short story counts. If it's not moving the plot forward, it's not worth it. Many magazines and short story markets have very rigorous word count limits. So how do you go from writing novels of 50,000 words or more to a short story that has to be under 5,000? What techniques for brevity have you found helpful? How do you tighten your prose to make it still shine, but also carry the point quickly and succinctly? How do these techniques also help your novel writing?

I've never tried to turn a 50,000 word novel into a 5,000 word short story, and I can't imagine where I would start if I wanted to, but on a smaller scale I do a lot of editing for brevity.

Some sorts of story call for long, drawn out, flowery descriptions, but others need to be sharp and quick. Action scenes are the ones I tend to edit most for this, because I often find myself writing too much description so that it loses its impact.

So my top four tips and methods for brevity:

1. Read it aloud. If you stumble over a word, chances are your reader will too, so take it out or replace it with something else.
2. If your sentence is longer than two lines (in font size 11 on an A4 page) then it may need revising.
3. Double check your descriptions to make sure that they're necessary and that they're not repetitive. I asked my brother to proof read something for me once, and his first comment was 'well I gathered she's got curly hair, then'. When I went back to it, I found I'd mentioned the character's hair at least three times in 10 pages.
4. If in doubt or you don't know where to begin, a second pair of eyes could help. Get someone you trust and who has a good grasp of the language to have a quick look over what you've written and flag up any bits that seem to drag or feel 'clunky'.

Trying something different - WriYe

Breaking Outta Your Box - A Challenge and a Topic
Every year, WriYe has the Breaking Outta Your Box challenge. It's intentions are to get every writer to try something new and see what they can learn from writing in a genre they're not used to at all. I know some of you bloggers have done it so give me some feedback this month. Did you manage to break the box? Did it help you in any way? What did you learn?
 
I've given the BOYB challenge a go a couple of times,but I have to admit it hasn't been a great success. But even though I haven't been able to produce fiction I've been happy with, I have learned from the experience:

• I learned the genres that I don't enjoy writing in.
• I learned more about scene setting when I was writing about situations other than the 'real world'.
• I learned that it's fun to try something different once in a while, and because it was something different it meant that when I went back to my other bits of writing, I was going back with a new perspective and more ideas.
• I learned that I can't write about zombies! ;-)
• I learned that change is good and can be fun.

Those dreaded deadlines - WriYe

The Looming Doom - Deadlines
We've all had deadlines to face - whether it be yearly like WriYe, monthly like NaNo, or weekly like LWS. How do you face your deadlines? Any advice to help meet them? Any advice on what to do when you miss them?

I find that deadlines come in two varieties - ones that are very soon and ones that are a while away. Once I know when something is due I can handle it appropriately.

• I make a list of what I need to do - the overall target and any smaller parts of that task. For example, if I have a story to write then completing the story is my overall goal and to do that I have to complete so many chapters or words. If it's for submission somewhere then it will also need proofreading for spelling and typos, then editing, then proofreading again.
• Make the targets realistic. I am not going to be able to produce a 10k story in a week if I have meetings every night and I'm working a full time job. However, I could probably produce a 250 word piece of flash which would only require me to find 30 minutes of writing time each day instead of three-plus hours. If you consistantly set targets that you don't hit then it's easy to get demoralised.
• Finally, once all the lists and targets are set out, prioritise what needs doing first and be prepared to move things around if necessary. If you're writing to meet a deadline for a competition you really want to enter, it's going to be more important than the poem you've had kicking around for the past month that's just for fun. And the school project that has to be in at the end of the week has to take precidence over the competition entry, because sometimes life gets in the way of writing.

Purple Prose - WriYe

The Most Flowery of Language - Purple Prose
Okay, so what do you consider to be purple prose? What is it? Give us an example. Do you love it? Hate it? Find it tolerable or small doses? Or do you think all shades of violet wording should be destroyed?

Again, lots of questions to answer this month!

Okay, so what do you consider to be purple prose? What is it? Give us an example.

The word that springs to mind is 'flowery' - lots of descriptive words or decoration of plain text. It's what turns a woman sitting on a bench on a lawn into a seat with rustic wooden slats worn smooth by years of use as the woman with long, blonde hair, highlighted by the sun, sits there reading well-worn pages of letters, her bare feet in the bright green mown grass, the blades tickling her toes. That's actually not flowery enough really. It should also have smells, colours, and the way the sunlight falls through the nearby trees on to the grass.

Having said that, another description I've seen for purple prose is that it 'consists of words and phrases that sound stilted, overly descriptive, or cliché and is derived from a reference by the Roman poet Horace.'

Do you love it? Hate it? Find it tolerable or small doses? Or do you think all shades of violet wording should be destroyed?

Lots of people will say you should always avoid purple prose, but I like it when it's in the right place. If it's just description for description's sake then it annoys me, but when it's used to set a scene, or when a whole story is about the descriptions, then I do really enjoy reading it. I'm reading Affaire Royale by Nora Roberts at the moment, and her descriptions I think really do go as far as purple prose. She paints a wonderful picture of her settings which can often stretch to a page at a time, but they're always tied in with the story and not just there for the sake of it. She can really make you feel as though you're there in the story with the characters, and I think the main reason for that is the way she describes things - she uses colours, feelings, weather, what things are made of and how they interact to paint wonderful scenes.

I've started, so I'll finish...

Pre-Editing (aka Finishing)
We all know that March is NaNoEdMo, but there's an important step that must be done before reaching for your editing goals: finishing that novel. How hard is it for you to finish a novel? Does it leave you with a sense of closure or a yearning for more? Do you finish as many novels as you start?
 
So many questions in this month's WriYe topic!

How hard is it for you to finish a novel?

If I'm enjoying the story or I've got a time limit, like NaNo or April Fools, then I can usually finish a novel. The problem for me comes when for whatever reason I don't finish the story in the target time. When that happens I'll take a break from it for a couple of weeks and then find it very difficult to get back into it again because other things will have taken over.

Does it leave you with a sense of closure or a yearning for more? 

It depends on what the story was. If it's one where I love the characters then I'll usually want to take them on another adventure once I've finished the novel. Thief was a good example of that. I started with a Camp NaNoWriMo story that had an ensemble cast and once I'd finished I decided the more minor characters had so much more potential that I started Witness. That's currently on the back burner, but I want to get that finished before the summer, and then there are still more characters from that world that I'd like to explore.

However, if I've found the story more of a struggle to finish then I'm less likely to have a sense of yearning and more likely to just feel satisfaction at having finished the project - and dread at the thought of editing! ;)

Do you finish as many novels as you start?

No - I've always got at least one novel on the go, so therefore I've never finished them. I do try to finish ones that I start but some just don't get finished for various reasons - lack of inspiration, losing interest in the story, finding that I don't like the characters or the plot as much as I thought I did when I started, etc.

Finding a Rhythm - WriYe

Poetry has an obvious rhythm, but so does prose. Writing can be as musical as, well, music writing. What type of cadence do you find in your own writing? Are you short and choppy? Long and lyrical? And why is your way better than anyone else?

I love music and I'm a pretty good musician, but honestly I don't think about rhythm much when I write. I find that the mood my characters are in will influence how short or long their sentences are when they speak, and I try not to let my descriptive sentences run on too long, but it's not usually at the forefront of my mind.

When I'm doing a freewrite then my sentences do tend to run on, but then when I'm writing a more cohesive story then I find I write according to the mood - and genre - of the piece.

Another things, although it's not entirely related to the question, is that I often listen to music when I'm writing, and I try to listen to music that I think is appropriate for that character. When I'm writing Lois McBride I listen to tracks by Stabilo and One Direction; Dawn Bell is Trading Yesterday and J'Lostein; and so on.

I don't think I have a particular style, and I certainly don't think my way of writing is better than anyone elses, but it works for me!

Finding Inspiration - WriYe

The WriYe blogging circle has started up again for 2013 and the first post of the year is a good topic to get started with, because it's what gets my writing started - inspiration. (Yes, I'm in a stupidly corny mood today. My fingers have detached themselves from the part of my brain which usually censors out such ridiculous-sounding sentences...)

So the question is 'Where do you get your initial spark of inspiration? Is it from anything important? What else about inspiration intrigues you? What is your advice to other people to kick start their inspiration?'

I get by inspiration from all over the place, but these are the most common places I go to or things I do when I'm stuck for an idea:

• Find an interesting picture via Google and write about it. People can be interesting, because once I've created a character I usually think of a setting for them to be in. Places can be useful if I'm stuck for a location, or if I just want to practice my descriptions.
• An item of clothing, eg. a scarf. Describe the item of clothing in detail and then go on to what the person wearing it might look like. If there's no person, then where has the item of clothing been left? Why has it been left there? Etc, etc, etc.
• Word lists. Do an internet search for 10 word prompts and go from there, or just open a newspaper to a random page and take the first word from each line (excluding things like a, the, and, and so on) then write a few paragraphs using those words somewhere. As an example, the newspaper in front of me offers volunteers, heritage, market, learning, thank, before, running, eight and cakes.
• Wanted adverts or for sale ads. Why is that person looking for a tonne of horse manure? Why is the double memory foam mattress for sale having never been used? What could you do with that free brick rubble on offer? These are real adverts I've seen, but it can be just as fun to make some up.
• Obituaries can be just as interesting. I've seen death notices requesting that all people coming to the funeral wear fancy dress. Why? What kind of person would have a fancy dress funeral?
• Go for a walk. Watch the people you pass and the places. There's a house with a boarded up window? Why? What could have happened? You pass an old lady who walks with a limp and wears a very expensive looking coat but a cheap haircut. What's her story? A bollard is dented in the middle of the road. Who dented it, how and why?

There are other things I get inspiration from as well, but this is the main list of places.