Incessant typing

A residency at Compton Verney this week, a video recap of #NaNoWriMo2016 and a train journey full of typing.

As I write this, I’m on a train heading for a residency at Compton Verney with Sarah Salway as part of our Spreadsheets & Moxie R&D. We’ll be hanging out in their rather unusual and special Victorian Women’s Library while Compton Verney is closed to the public, exploring and responding to the space ahead of sharing some of our work at the end of June as part of their Unsilencing the Library.

The cover image for this post is of the painted book spines decorating part of the library, so you can see why i’m so excited about the rest of this week. I’ll be blogging and broadcasting about the experience over the next few days; keep an eye out on my usual social media channels if you’re interested in seeing behind the scenes of a unique space, as well as some of the bones of a fledgling writing project.

Most of this train journey i’ve been typing up the seemingly never-ending supply of cramped, handwritten pages from my #NaNoWriMo writing challenge 2016: writing a new short story every day for the month of November. Still only a small way towards getting the (terrifyingly full) notebook transferred onto Scrivener; it’s been interesting for me to see how the stories match up to what I remember writing. I’ve compiled a nostalgic journey through the month in the form of a video, now available to enjoy on my Facebook Page.

Finally, the survey on professionalism for creatives (writers, dancers, painters, actors, etc.) is open until the 31st January 2017 – it takes 15 mins and is anonymous – please fill it in if you haven’t already, or send the link on to an interested acquaintance. Thanks for helping me out!

Inspire me for #NaNoWriMo

Send me a word or a line of text to use as a writing prompt for NaNoWriMo

Along with fireworks, bonfires, piles of soggy leaves and pumpkins, November for me means NaNoWriMo. For those of you not familiar with the insider acronym, it’s National Novel Writing Month. The premise is simple: write about 1,500 words every day, without fail, to complete a first messy draft of something new or to finish a messy draft of something that’s been lagging behind.

I’ve dipped in and out of #NaNoWriMo in the past, but I love the idea behind it, the community it engenders, and the discount codes on writing software that can be your if you hit your target. This year I’m not planning on writing a novel (I’m already editing one…) : I want to spend a bit of time having fun with short fiction.

Specifically, I want to use NaNoWriMo to write a draft of a short story (or, lets be honest, a sketch of a short story) every day for the month. I have a handful of prompts ready to go and that’s where i’m turning to you (hello) to suggest a few more.

What i’m looking for are text-based prompts (no pictures- I need to be able to write it on a slip of paper and put it in my prompts jar). It could be a single word, it could be a couple of lines from a poem. A headline from the newspaper. The name of a dish on a menu. A snippet of overheard conversation. I don’t need to know where your suggestions came from- just add it as comment on Facebook, Tweet it to me or put it as a comment on this blog post. If you want to retain privacy then send it in using the contact form.

ASAP is preferred, last suggestions accepted on 31 October.

As an example, a friend recently sent me ‘Place of splinters’ as a prompt: she found it on a map of Scotland on the wall. 

NaNoWriMo and beyond

Having been cheerfully defeated by NanoWriMo for the second year running, I’m now dusting off my pom-poms to cheerlead for the lovely Gina Hepburn‘s novel instead. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo and beyond”

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