Wild dreams and savage dogs

A lovely item in the post this morning - the Arvon Foundation courses brochure for 2008. An object of beauty in itself and full of wonderful inspiring possibilities for the year ahead - such as a week in Inverness-shire with Ali Smith exploring short-stories, or in the hills of West Yorkshire with Kate Pullinger "collaborating on scripting a piece of new media literature." -I'm unlikely to be able to attend any of the courses this year but a writer can dream can't she?

If this wets you appetite at all, then the full brochure is available at the Arvon Foundation website.

OK back to Ywriter, I left my heroine alone in a field facing a savage dog. We need to do some quick thinking.

A good writing day

Preceded by a good writing night. I wrote a short story last night for the first time in ages, inspired by the National Galleries of Scotland Creative Writing comp. It felt great to be working on something not connected with my novel for a change, and that's perhaps why I returned to the novel with fresh enthusiasm this morning. I really feel like I'm making headway with it especially since I started using Ywriter, which Cally Taylor recommended recently. This free software is basically a way of organising all of your novel related documents into a coherent scene by scene format. I've found this particularly useful as otherwise I get myself lost in one huge Word document or lose track of my scenes when they are saved separately. I've found it simple to use and very flexible.

I went for a run this afternoon and tried to combine it with picking up some books that had been offed on Freecycle. I've never tried running with a full rucksack before and its wasn't a total success but I did have one of those lovely 'breakthrough moments' as I was bumbling along bent half double. I was mulling over a crucial scene in my novel and suddenly realised what it was that was bothering me about it and how I could turn it around. Just need to fire up YWriter now and get it all down before I forget.

Chicken out campaign

Three non-writing posts on the trot isn't ideal on a writing blog but I think this is really important so I want to highlight it here, just in case anyone has managed to miss all the publicity on Channel 4 and in the press.

The Chicken Out campaign led by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall addresses the fact that conditions in which most chickens in the UK are reared are unacceptable. It aims to see the industry 'de-intensify' by lowering stocking densities and including environmental enrichment programmes in all its chicken sheds and set a new minimum welfare standard for indoor-reared broiler chickens.It is also wants to see more birds reared outdoors, on assured free range and organic systems. Part of the campaign also deals with the role of supermarkets.

Consumer pressure has already had a huge impact on battery-chicken farming for eggs. The EC are set to ban it in 2011. This campaign could lead directly to better welfare conditions for chickens reared for meat. If you want to add your name to the campaign or just want more information follow this link. If you have't seen any of the Chicken Out programmes the last one is on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight.

Normal writing-relating service will be resumed tomorrow.

A win!

Sadly not for my writing but for my kissing! Yes My Man and I won a snogging competition. The owner of one of our local shops, which specialises in beautiful handcrafted lampshades, took photos of her customers kissing under the mistletoe, then picked a winner. Not sure how the winners were chosen (probably pulled out of a hat, but we prefer to think we were judged on our romantic style and breathtaking technique)

Here is the winning photo so you can judge for yourselves.



The prize is a meal for two at a local restaurant - Hurrah just the thing for a cold January night.

Lost

In a previous post I mentioned the fab Man in Seat 61 website and my dreams of travelling the world by train. Well, I think I need a navigator. I've just discovered I have a Travel IQ of 80, which isn't very good and means that if I set foot out of the UK on my own I will most likely never find my way back.

To find out your own Travel IQ visit the Traveler IQ Challenge - best viewed on Full Screen (makes the map bigger and so increases your chances I reckon)

Good news is My Man has a Travel IQ of 120 so as long as I stick with him I should be fine (maybe this is why he proposed on top of a mountain - he knew I needed him to find the way back down!)

An 'oh what the hell here are my stats anyway' post

In between writing my last post and this I have made a spaghetti bolognese and had a think. While reflecting on my writing year I suddenly realised that it was the first time that I could ever say I'd had a writing year. Last year was amazing for me writing-wise. For the first time since school I not only started but finished a story, and then another, and then another. I won my first writing competition and had my first pieces accepted for publication. I discovered the joys of micro-fiction and started this blog. So for what they are worth - which to me is a hell of a lot - here are my stats:

Stories written: 7
Microfiction (300-500 words) written: 16
Competitions entered: 8
Competitions won: 2
Competitions placed but not won: 2
Pieces accepted for anthology publication: 3
Stories submitted to magazines (inc online): 2
Rejections from magazines(so far): 1
Novels started: 2
Residential writing weeks: 1

I want to concentrate on my novel this year, but thinking back over last year's writing made me realise how much I enjoy short story writing, so I'm hoping to keep that up too. With that in my mind I would like to heartily recommend Sally Quilford's Writing Competition's Calendar. I am going to remove my own 'competitions' section from below and replace it with a 'Blogs-I-Like' which will include Sally.

A no stats stats post

Happy New Year everyone. Still eking out the festive season here, at least until all the After Eight mints have gone. The snow and an ice skating session helped to prolong the warm glowing feeling today.

I have been very impressed with the writing stats on other people's blogs - stories written, submitted, accepted, rejected etc. I was tempted to do the same here but then was dishearted by my relatively paltry output. The only solution I decided was just to write more, so that's my New Year's Resolution - I will write more and have some stats to be proud of this time next year.

I have also rashly pledged not to drink (alcohol) in January. December was particularly boozy this year, so much so that I now don't even fancy a nice glass of wine. So it seemed a good opportunity to have 31 days off (only 28 to go!). Anyone got any good soft drinks ideas?

Also intending to make great headway with my novel this month. I've been scribbling away all over the holidays, taking my chances while the rest of the family snoozed after feasting. And I've now got lots more words. Just hope they are the right ones.