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    Tag Archives for: "lockdown writing"
     Writing Secrets: What did lockdown teach us about creativity?
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted June 17, 2020

    Writing Secrets: What did lockdown teach us about creativity?

    I don’t know about you, but I heard a great many lockdown resolutions which included the words “book” and “finish” or “get on with”. And I’ve heard an equal number of retractions since. I don’t [...]

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    📚🎉 Community books to celebrate 🎉📚 We 📚🎉 Community books to celebrate 🎉📚 We could burst with pride. We have a swathe of books coming out from members of our community right now. These are all authors who either attended our Creative Writing Course, were part of our mentoring programme, joined our Venice retreat or received assessments and advice from AAW (or a combination). They’re part of the AAW family, and we are thrilled to celebrate this monumental achievement along with them. 📚Gail Gilbride: An Unsuitable Woman (Karavan Press)​ Gail Gilbride's much-awaited second novel follows Deborah Morsey, a journalist shaped by the traumatic realities of apartheid South Africa, who finds unexpected love with a widowed sheep farmer and attempts to reinvent herself as a farmer's wife and stepmother. But secrets surrounding the death of his first wife, and the reappearance of a human rights lawyer, make her question everything, and ensure that the quiet life she hoped for remains elusive. A bold, warm-hearted exploration of love in all its confusing forms. 📚Mona McAlpine: A Shetland Girl: Memoirs from the Shetland Isles (Lomond Books)​ The third volume in Mona McAlpine's Shetland trilogy takes her from a childhood in Shetland through nursing training in Elgin, Stirling, London's Chiswick and Glasgow's Gorbals, and back to a career as a nurse and midwife in Shetland, Fair Isle, Edinburgh - and South Africa. Told with the warmth and charm that have made her previous memoirs so beloved, this is a life fully and generously lived. 📚Vincent Pienaar: Crimes of Indifference Veteran journalist Vincent Pienaar brings his sharp eye for South African social reality to this compelling crime novel. When journalist Gerrie Carelse is killed during a house robbery - a man meant to be forgotten - Detective Sergeant Piet Masipa refuses to let the case die. In a city shaped by quiet compromise and moral fatigue, Masipa must ultimately choose between the law and justice. Gripping and morally serious. CONTINUED IN COMMENTS.
    Richard asks, who do you write for? In his newslet Richard asks, who do you write for? In his newsletter this week, he delves into the various audiences, plus shares some advice from Mr King himself on why you should write with the door closed (don't worry, you can open it later.) Let us know in the comments who you're writing for when you sit down to craft your stories. Uncover more in this week’s newsletter and if you don’t yet subscribe - visit our link in bio. #iamwriting #allaboutwriting #writingcommunity #writingmotivation
    We pick up on our conversation about observation, We pick up on our conversation about observation, this time with @joannerichardsauthor . She takes us beneath the water for some writing advice in her blog: "Snorkelling in a new environment is like writing a new setting – it affects what you focus on. It has its advantages, but it has dangers too, to watch out for... if you’re writing about a new place, be aware that you’re not seeing it as a local would. Use that naïve eye to notice all the concrete details that locals take for granted. Don’t discount the beauty of the damsel fish, merely because they’re everywhere. But that shouldn’t be where your focus begins and ends. That way lies stereotype. Dive deeper, look further, stick your head inside that wreck and find out what lies below. That’s where good writing hides." Read more on our blog at www.allaboutwritingcourses.com
    ‘This is a story of love rather than a love stor ‘This is a story of love rather than a love story,’ Gail Gilbride said at the packed launch of her new novel, An Unsuitable Woman, at Exclusive Books in Cape Town last night. ‘It’s an exploration of love, and different kinds of love.’ We’re immensely proud of Gail, a long-time member of the All About Writing family, alumnus of our Creative Writing Course, our mentoring programme and our Venice Writing Retreat. In fact, Gail began this novel in Venice, nearly 10 years ago. In the intervening years, she turned to memoir to tell the story of her treatment and recovery from breast cancer, in Cat Therapy, before returning to the story that wouldn’t let her go. The story is set in Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, now Makhanda, which holds a ‘very special place in my heart’. The time is 1990, a period of turmoil and transition in South Africa, and which forms the backdrop to Gail’s character-driven second novel. On the night of her launch, her book was already at number 3 on the Cavendish Best Sellers shelf. We wish Gail every success. 💡📚 All About Writing will be hosting Gail, in conversation with author Penny Haw, on our free monthly webinar on 7 December. Don’t miss it. #allaboutwriting #writingalumni #writingcommunit #gailgilbride
    What goes on off stage when cozy mystery writers a What goes on off stage when cozy mystery writers are at work? Join us for a fun online conversation about what goes on behind the scenes. On Monday 26 October Richard (wearing his RJ Beynon hat) will be in conversation with Jassy Mackenzie, who now writes cozy mysteries as Emma Park, about what goes on behind the scenes when they're at work. They'll talk about where their ideas come from, how they build the small worlds their characters live in, and how they devise the puzzles that keep readers guessing. Jassy made her name with crime thrillers before trading them for vampire hairdressers and rogue donkeys, so they’ll be asking her what that change of genre has taught her. You’ll be invited to ask your most burning questions too. Monday 26 October 10:00 US Pacific | 13:00 US Eastern | 17:00 UK | 19:00 South Africa **Free on Zoom** Sign up via LINK IN BIO Can't make it? No problem; we'll send the recording to everyone who registers.
    🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍 This week's writi 🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍 This week's writing motivation newsletter involves a challenge. We invite you to join in, and then send us your creative piece. Maybe we should put together a blog of some of the submissions? What do you think? So here is your challenge: Take a break from your writing and go on a walk you do often: to the shops, round the park, the same route with the dog. This time, go looking for what has changed since you last did it. A new crack in the pavement. A tree that's started to turn. A shop sign that's faded. Write a paragraph about them and post it in the comments. We'd love to read what you found. #creativewriting #writingcommunity #writingchallenge
    It’s the final step on our conversation on James It’s the final step on our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ Step 5: Very cunningly, I’ve foreshadowed this final step. Fix it, dear Henry, fix it. Or, as James Clear, (author of Atomic Habits) in a blog on creativity had it: 'Put your idea out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.' It's worth saying plainly: none of this is mystical. Young wasn't describing inspiration, he was describing digestion – you feed the mind raw material, let it marinate, and it comes back rearranged. The gap most writers get wrong is Step 3. We treat the walk, the weeding, the washing-up as time stolen from the work, when it's actually where the work is quietly getting done without the apparent involvement of our conscious minds. So if you're stuck on a plot that won't cohere or a character who refuses to breathe, try trusting the method rather than the muse: load up on facts, worry them for a while, then go and do something that has nothing to do with writing at all. The idea that turns up afterwards won't arrive polished. That's fine. Fixing it was always Step 5, not Step 4. #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number four. Step 4: Now allow your mind to reconsider the problem – the story that needs a great inciting incident; the character that simply isn’t gelling; the ending that is unsatisfactory – and you’ll find, nine times out of ten, that you do now have an idea. It might not be perfect, in fact it might feel quite rickety – but what you’ll do in Step 5, is fix it. Stay tuned for the last step! #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number three. Step 3: Go and work in the garden, or spend an hour or two pottering about in your workshop, or go for a long walk in an area you’ve not visited before. In short, put the problem you’re trying to solve completely out of your mind and do something entirely different that fascinates and energises you. #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
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