Writing West Midlands

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I’ve been very lucky to have been involved with Writing West Midlands over recent years. They are a fine bunch of human beings who live to promote literature in the West Midlands region.

I was approached by them to see if I’d mind being included in their new brochure, this would include being photographed by a professional photographer. Of course I didn’t mind.

I’ve been involved with a number of projects through Writing West Midlands and run one of their many Write On! Young Writers groups. If you are a writer based in the West Midlands you should get in touch with them. Anyway, the brochure is now out. Here’s the cover:

You can just spot me on the left amongst the grime of the old library.

You can just spot me on the left amongst the grime of the old library.

Inside the brochure there a wonderful overview of all the incredible work that the Writing West Midlands team does across the region and across all the possible formats that writing can take. There’s a great map of the region, beautifully put together by Kerry Leslie, that pinpoints some of the outstanding talent that has come from the area. This includes J.R.R. Tolkien, who used to live just down the road from me, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jonathan Coe, Carol Ann Duffy, John Osborne and of course William Shakespeare. Information on the Birmingham Literature Festival, Write On! Young Writers, The New Library of Birmingham and tons more.

The brochure is beautifully put together with great photography, a cool layout and printed on pleasingly thick paper.

Inside there is a section on local writers that WWM work with and there are brief interviews with: William Gallagher, Deborah Alma, Cindy George, Fiona Joseph, Rochi Rampal, Helen Cross and me.

My page can be read below. Just click on the picture and it’ll open at a readable size.

Cheers.

Scary man in cool coat.

Scary man in cool coat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Writer’s Blog?

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I’m in the middle of updating this blog.

I want it to be informative and entertaining, I want it to be somewhere people feel welcome and want to come back to.

So, with this in mind, I’m asking you, the good people of the Blogosphere for some advice.

What would you expect to see on a writer’s blog? News of their latest work, information on how to get hold of that work, workshops that they run, ideas about writing, tips about writing, a small sketch they once did on the edge of a napkin, or maybe a highly processed photo of a stick in the shape of a fist?

Leave me a comment below and you never know I might use your idea.

Cheers.

 

The Script Angel Journey So Far…

Script Angel: sounds like a great service for script writers.

scriptangel's avatarScriptangel's Blog

kindness It’s been a little while since I announced that Script Angel was expanding. After years as a solo business I took the step of inviting the brilliant Xandria Horton to join me. So I thought it was time to share with you how I got here and what might be next for Script Angel.

How Script Angel came about. Being really honest with you, the sole reason I established Script Angel in 2009 was to enable me to carry on script editing (as I had been for nearly ten years by then) without having to work away from home. It really was that simple. I love script editing; I love working with writers, helping them make their script the very best it can be. I also love variety; I love working on a thriller one day, a crime series the next and a comedy the day after that. As a result I would take jobs because they interested…

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Book Launch.

Mick Scully is a great writer and this’ll be well worth getting your teeth into. I should know, we’re in the same writing group: the marvellous Tindal Street Fiction Group.

takingsky's avatarTindal Street Fiction Group

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Following his short story collection ‘Little Moscow’ TSFG member Mick Scully’s first novel ‘The Norway Room’ will be launched on March 13th 2014 at Waterstones in Birmingham at 7:00pm. Flyer above. See you there!

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Tweeted Objects

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A huge thanks to all the staff and kids who were at the Tweeted Objects workshop on Tuesday. I was made to feel really welcome and was allowed to wander through the stored items in the warehouse, which has to be seen to be believed. Extra thanks to Lynsey for organising it all and for introducing me to Story Cubes. Here are some pics of the day.

Kipper ties!

Kipper ties!

Happy scribbler.

Happy scribbler.

The cabbage hat.

The cabbage hat.

Inside the vaults.

Inside the vaults.

The kids produced some great tweeted fiction and managed to tell some marvellous stories in 140 characters or less. Tales of cabbage hats, of cats trapped in boxes and the bejewelled wonder of a jealous prince…

Check out the exhibition in May to see their work and to tweet your own. I’ll post full details nearer the time.

Tweeters of the Lost Ark

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On Tuesday, the 18th of February, 2014, I shall be working with young writers at  Birmingham Museum’s Dollman Street Collection.

This is a warehouse full of items that the museum is unable to exhibit permanently; picture the huge warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones’ Raiders of the Lost Ark, now bring the scale down a tad and instead of sealed crates imagine engine parts, huge, ornate clock brackets, antique computers and old prototype cars that never saw production.

Giddy up

Giddy up

Dollman street triangleYou get a very rough idea from these pictures of the type of thing you can elect to discover there.

This workshop is open to children aged 13-16 and will allow the children to explore this great space and then to handle objects from the collection.

I’ve been sent some pictures of the objects and they’re rather marvellous: kipper ties, weird hats, strange cats and other stuff I can’t identify. I’ll be putting the kids through a series of warm up exercises and focused tasks that lead up to them writing about the objects in no more than 140 characters (that includes spaces, punctuation etc.) just like a tweet, hence the title.

I’m really looking forward to this. I think it’s a great idea and will help them to think about editing and getting to the heart of writing: make every word count.

Here’s a rough outline for the session:

12.00 Arrive at MCC
12.15-12.30- Tour of the stores
12.30- 1.00- Lunch
1.00- 1.30- Introduction to the objects by a curator
1.30- 3.30- Facilitated session to create the interpretive material 4.00- Collection by parents

Here’s the brief:

Outline

  • This project will utilise the interpretation device of creating ‘Twitter Labels’. This means producing a piece of creative writing about an object using a max- imum of 140 characters, i.e. the method of delivery on the microblogging, so- cial media site ‘Twitter’. This challenging method of interpretation is inspired by modern tends in twitter story writing where authors are using a single tweet or series of tweets to tell a story. We would like the participants to create a story or piece of creative writing using an object as inspiration, in the format of a tweet. We are not looking for historical information about the object, i.e. its date, name etc. that information will also be displayed alongside.

Participants will be working with objects from the ‘Patterns and Textures’ sec- tion of the exhibition including examples of textile, glass, carved wood and more.

dollman_street_racks2-300x225I’m not sure who you contact if you have a young one who’d be interested in this project but you could try Dollman Street, just click on this link for details Dollman Street.

Cheers

Back in the saddle

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After a very excessive and tiring festive season it’s now time to get back to the serious business of writing. To help me, and any of you, that find yourselves in this situation, I thought I’d post Neil Gaiman’s, all important, writing tips. Read, digest and then write.

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Write

Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

Laugh at your own jokes.

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.