Ideas Are Everywhere!

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Ileandra Young

bright idea yellow light bulb, OpenClipArtWhich is really, really lucky for me.

I walk out on the street (far more now than I did in previous weeks) and there is so much life around me. It begs me to have my notebook out and scribble things down to use later. These are just some of the fantastic things just while being out and about:

1) I was in Neros a few weeks back and heard a cluster of men talking about religion. I had my laptop with me, so I just sat there quietly earwigging and writing down little snippets of their words. So heated and passionate, but all quietly over sipping a cup of coffee, like civilised folk.

2) Walking back from town last week, a woman and a man (who I assume was her boyfriend) were having a mega slanging match across the street. Dave observes that they use the middle of town like their living rooms, and it really was like that. Shouting, cussing, spitting and eventually snogging all in the middle of the street. A bit like watching an episode of Eastenders.

3) While people watching – again in Neros – I saw a tandem pushchair (like the one we’re intending to buy), filled up with shopping. I mean totally rammed with shopping bags while a child, probably no more than three, was clinging to the side and trotting to keep up with Mummy’s huge strides while she talked on the phone with one hand.

4) Best of all, when we went to get the cots for the twins a week or so ago, we left the house and saw that next door’s front door was hanging open. We assumed it was just to get some air through the house; something we do quite often. However, when we got back (probably two hours later), the door was still wide open. We rang the bell, knocked and called, but it was very plain that there was nobody inside. We talked about it for a few minutes, tried to decide what to do and in the end closed the door with a promise to leave a note and possibly try to track down the landlord to ask about it. Then we realised that the stray cat that often runs up and down the street may have been trapped inside!

All of these scenarios are great ideas for stories or little things that can be used to flesh out a scene. There is so much to write about wherever you look I’m fascinated by those who say they’ve run out of things to make stories about. Anyway… don’t we just make stuff up?

🙂 That is all.

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Interactive Three Word Game!!! ^_^

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Ileandra Young

I’ve played this game on several forums before and its always a great hit. For some reason, even on roleplay sites – where the aim is to write long, descriptive prose to take the story forward from your character’s POV – this is a great way to let off steam and tell a quick story with a bunch of other people.

The idea really is simple; each person writes three words at a time, careful to include punctuation (if its needed) and making sure that sentences and paragraphs make sense. The game is open to any and all who want to take part and usually keeps going until the story is written into a corner or people lose interest. It kinda looks a bit like this:

Person One
Once upon a time

Person Two
there was a

Person Three
little boy who

Person Two
loved to ride

Person Four
his big purple

Person One
Dragon. Its name

Person Two
was Mercival and

Person Three
it loved to

Person Five
eat pies with

Person Four
cheese and ham.

You get the idea, yeah?

It can be as silly or serious as you like, but its always interesting to see what folk can come up with in just three words.

Well… I’d like to see how well the idea works on a blog and since you fine folk are not shy about leaving me comments (yey, love you all; massive squeezes! I LOVE reading comments from you all ^_^), then there’s no reason why we can’t play together.

So… here are the rules:

  1. Write only three words at a time
  2. Include punctuation where its needed
  3. Try to leave at least one comment between your last and your next three words
  4. Occasionally read the ‘recap’ so you know where we are
  5. Ensure that your three words make sense when put with the previous ones

The block of text below will contain the whole story, and I’ll update it every couple of days, for easy reference. And of course, it contains the start four words. In the name of tradition; the start sentences are going to be the old staple:

Once upon a time, a mysterious, old forest grew around a stone circle. It was filled with tiny fairies and smelly trolls. The fairies were green-toothed and vengeant, making sport of…

Yes, I realise that’s four words, but sue me; you have to start these things in the proper manner!

^_^ So… let’s see what you guys have got. 🙂

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Bonus Blog: Alt Fiction 2012

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Ileandra Young

alt fiction logoI couldn’t not write about this event…! What sort of crazy fan-girl would I be if I didn’t share my thoughts on my second literary con (in just a bit of a call back to the first one).

This year, Alt Fiction was right on my doorstep. As a matter of fact, it took place in the very same venue I visit for the Phoenix Writers Group, so it was nice to be on familiar ground (and nice not to have to travel to Derby when I currently weigh about as much as a beached whale -_-).

There were familiar faces in the form of members of the writing group, faces from last year and of course guest speakers that I recall from their name or from chatting with them last year as well. The experience, however, has been very different; probably because I have one of these events already tucked under my belt.

Let me take you through it (in brief, I promise!).

Oh and apologies in advance for the hefty splattering of links. Its not my usual style, but I couldn’t help it; where I could find them, I just had to link web presence to the names, because these people are fab and I want to share hem with you. 🙂

Saturday
Alex Davis ran a fabulous workshop on Short Story Writing that gave me a few ideas and ways to try submitting some of the short stories and flash I seem to be collecting. I have to do something with them, right?!

Next was Mark Chadbourn who ran The Business of Writing. His workshop was so fantastically positive that a blog post I actually have scheduled for late May (y’know, when I’m buried under nappies and puke stained muslin) probably needs a vast rewrite! I came away from that workshop (even better because I totally gatecrashed it – I hadn’t signed up for it) with a buzz and desperate need to start making plans now, now, NOW!

How Not To Pitch (Dragon’s Pen) featured Ramsey Campbell, John Jarrold, Steve Tribe and… I’ve missed someone. Damn… who was it? Grr. *sigh* As well as the brave authors who verbally ‘pitched’ their work in true Dragon’s Den style. That was vastly entertaining. It was filled with lots of things you know inwardly, but should admit that its good to be reminded of. They were great examples of things you most certainly should not do, later reinforced with what you should do when making a pitch. Regardless, I know that, if I was pushed into a face to face pitch right now, I’d probably fluff it. I’m not ready for that yet.

Writing As A Day Job gave things a different slant compared to Mark’s workshop, but Adam Nevill, Niki Valentine, Conrad Williams and Kim Lakin-Smith certainly woke me up enough to keep me eager to fulfil my plans.

I wrapped up the day with the Comics Panel, (which was hilarious – I will put my hand up and say that I had no idea there were quite so many comics out there) and a reading, plus Q&A with Ken MacLeod. He’s ace! I seem to have two of his books upstairs (I don’t remember buying them, but who cares, I have them!) so I’m going to enjoy reading those.

Oh and I almost forgot (how the hell did I manage that?)! I did a reading in the Flash Fiction open mic section over lunch! ^_^ I don’t have a list of all the readers, unfortunately, though I’m sure I can ask the lovely Alasdair Stuart who has a recording of all the readings! Wheeeeeeeeeee! If you’re wondering why I’m so excited about that, its because he says I can have mine, which means I’ll be able to post it here so you can hear it. ^_^ I’ll put the excerpt up anyway, but I think it would be nice to have a live reading on the site. So look forward to that in a few days.

 
Sunday
I managed to spend the whole day in one room; three panels of talks that made me bounce.

The Extremely Dangerous Fairy Folk, was searching and energetic and made me wish I’d recorded it in some way. Mainly because they made so many references to things I want to check up on regarding true fae. None of this tiny, child faced, cute creatures; more of the dark, evil evil creatures that steal your children. ^_^ Thank you to Graham Joyce and Kate Laity for that one. Oh and thanks for signing my book Graham (!).

Return Of The Short Story continued a recurring theme of talks/panels/workshops I was interested in this weekend. Short stories haven’t gone anyway and again its a great time to be writing fiction below 10,000 words. Again I came out of that one ready to leap over buildings (or at least ready to sit back at the PC and start tapping keys).

However… Diversity in Fantasy was my absolute favourite this year. Last year I remember feeling intimidated and frightened by the apparent lack of diversity at the con and in the speakers. However after the comments that sprang up in the comment-stream of that last post and in my research since then, there are definite improvements. And to hear Anne Lyle (I totally wanted to steal her t-shirt!), Adrian Tchaikovsky (even cooler because he’s a LARPer :p) and Mark Charan Newton talk about sexuality, race, religion and gender, both in fantasy and in the authors was just so interesting. I sat at the front bouncing up and down like a crazed fan-girl with a reeeeeeeeeally stupid grin on my face. But I don’t care; I enjoyed myself immensely. And I’ve missed someone again; I’m so sorry (-_-) I’m so useless with names unless they’re right in my face!

 
All in all, even with the waddling up and down stairs, fighting with the weather (I hate April showers!), and constant trips to loo (I want my bladder back!!!) I had a fantastic time. The whispers are that next year’s event is provisionally booked for the first week of May 2013, again in Leicester. Well that just makes me want to burst into song. Bring it on folks, bring it on.

Well done and huge thanks to Writing East Midlands, Adele Wearing, Phoenix Square and all supporters/partners for putting on a great con! See you next year, if not sooner! x

 
PS… I got another six books to read! What with yesterday’s Kindle downloads I have no idea where I’m going to find the time!!! :-/

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Six Sentence Sunday 15/04 #10

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Happy Sunday everyone!

Time for another six sentences and I think its time that I did this with some sort of theme or pace or order, or something. o.O

Yes, I know I’m not normally great at that, but I feel that its time.

My own A-Z Flash Fiction Challenge is nearing its end. I’ve not talked much about it yet, because I plan to post those pieces of flash in later days. However, I think, the next few Six Sentence Sunday posts of mine (you know, the next 26 of them) will do well to be snippets from each of these pieces of flash.

Eh? Eh? Not a bad idea, right?

Anyway, to start off then, this is from the letter ‘A’ (you’d hope so too!), the trigger word for which was Anger. Let’s do this.

~Sandra and Joseph have been searching for clues to the past; reading through boxes of old journals….

TEMPORARILY REMOVED FOR THE PURPOSES OF SUBMITTING THE FULL STORY

That’s it for this week; take care to check out other authors taking part this week (by hitting the banner below). Laterz!

Six Sentence Sunday

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eBook Review: The Book of Deacon

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Author: Joseph Lallo
Title: The Book Of Deacon
Genre: Fantasy Series (epic)
ASIN: B0036FTF4S
‘Myranda is a young woman more interested in staying alive than being a hero. Orphaned by a continent-spanning war that has gone on for decades too long and shunned for failing to support it, she has been on the move since she was only a child. One can hardly blame her when she thinks that the chance discovery of a fallen soldier’s priceless cargo is the moment that will change her life. No one could predict just how great that change would be.’

Well I can honestly say this is one of those occasions in which I know that without my Kindle I would never have found this gem of a book. Never! Just because I’m so slowly expanding my library of authors I don’t know that I would have taken me ages to find Joseph Lallo.

But…! But this book was going for £0 over Christmas (I believe it may still be, actually) and it was part of my buy-a-shit-load-until-the-novelty-wears-off drive. So I picked it up. One of those ones that took me ages to read, but then when I did, I couldn’t put the damn kindle down. It was glued to my hand for about three days, much to the amusement of the folk at work.

Myranda’s tale is one that starts gently with her on the run. You’re not sure why, but when she meets a kindly soul who helps her out in a tough spot we slowly begin to learn a bit about her and the world that she lives in. The world in perpetual war and the fact that she has no place in it because she has no time or love for war. The war has taken too much from her and there is no getting it back.

But finding the left over belongings of a fallen soldier, not only saves her from a night alone in the blistering cold, it also sets on a journey to find deeply hidden secrets about herself and the world she lives in.

Unlike many female leads in fantasy books I warmed to Myranda straight away. She did a couple of silly things, but nothing that immediately got my back up and made me peg for her a silly bimbo who should not have been left alone. She’s resourceful and intelligent and the backup cast of characters that eventually come into play compliment her fabulously.

The book is brilliantly written, neatly paced, forcing you to keep turning pages just to see what is coming up next, for the simple fact that you won’t enjoy a pleasant night’s sleep until you do – or that might just be me.

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