Creative Wiritng Club: Week Two

Today in CWC, as well as writing up our poems neatly (in felt tip on coloured paper), we also wrote Haikus.

Normal poetry is one thing, but Haikus? This was a challenge. We had three themes - Nature, Summer, and School. They all had to be positive, so no 'School sucks' Haikus. Here are mine:

Nature

Feathery fingers

Quiet whispers in your ear

Invisible friend

 

Summer

A golden flower

honeyed drops of bright pollen

scatter to the earth

 

 

School

Avid learners

wise teachers, sharing knowledge

A place of worship

Although Haikus really aren't my thing, I was pretty chuffed with how these turned out. Though maybe most people wouldn't consider school as a place of worship!

Creative Writing Club: Week One

I recently started going to the Creative Writing Club at the school I work at. I have started writing again but I thought I needed more inspiration if I was going to keep it up. Not to mention, I want to make myself known in the English department. My aspiration is to work my way up from TA to library assistant or similar, hence why I also did Year 9 Books and Beyond, a reading challenge. I also don't want to let my Creative Writing degree go to waste.

I'm not the only TA at CWC but most of the other attendees are Year 9 or below, a big change from University where I felt like a toddler doodling with crayons while everyone wrote masterpieces. This week, as it was so sunny, we went outside to the grass bank to write about summer.

Our task was to split our page into boxes and write about the five senses in an imaginative way.

Here are some of my lines:

Sight
The sun winks off car windscreens, like light off ocean waves.
Students are scattered across the field amongst sprinklings of daises and clovers.

Touch

The warm breeze brushes through my hair like a lovers caress.

Despite the warmth of the afternoon sun, the damp of the waterlogged earth creeps through the fabric of my dress.

Sound
Children's playful cheers are carried across the valley on the wind, so carefree after the captivity of school.

Smell
The air is warm and thick, bristling with ozone, bringing with it the threat of an early storm.
Fresh cut grass infuses the air as hundreds of people decide, as if connected, to mow their scraggly lawns.

Taste
My mouth is parched and the sheer azure of the sky makes me crave the cool splash of water.

After we wrote our lines we went around and shared them, 'magpie-ing' from each other, which meant nabbing the best lines other people wrote. Lots of the students had some really unique lines; I could never have written like that at their age, so I was thoroughly impressed.

We returned to the classroom and used our lines to write a poem. I baulked at the idea as poetry really isn't my thing, but I gave it a go anyway.

From the sea
over the hills
across the moors
it ruffles the emerald leaves of trees
ripples the delicate glass of ponds
helps the young birds take their first flight
With it follows
cut grass
fresh fields
greasy burgers,
the scents of summer come early.
Warm and demanding
it forces them out of
coats
jumpers
and scarves.
It pulls at skirts
tugs at shirts.
Runs its fingers through hair,
gentle as a lover,
as constant as a mother.
The wind brings the change
yet, he himself, is constant.
Never ending,
never leaving.

I didn't think it was too bad. Next time we'll be writing them up neat to put them on display in the corridor. In conclusion, CWC was enjoyable and I'm looking forward to going again!

The Best New Audiobook App

So after months and months of hard work the app I've helped to develop is now finally available top download for free on Google Play!

Litphonix is a new audiobook app that not only allows users to listen to audiobooks but to narrate them as well! Bonus: every time someone listens to your narrations you get paid. You could be the new Stephen Fry.

Anyway, part of my job is social media and promoting this app everywhere and anywhere. So please, please, if you have a spare minute download the app, it's free, and give it a go. There are some audiobooks ready to be listened to (some by yours truly) but it would be great if you could narrate some too!

Spread the word and tell all your friends, if we get loads of interest, my boss will think I'm a real social media wizz, which I am, of course.

So go, go, go! Download Litphonix Now!

Writing Deadline

I've come up with a plan. Sort of.

The first rough draft of my novel, The Stone Men of Raksaka, is complete, and has been for a while. I come back to it from time to time, really getting into it for a couple of hours and then ignoring it again for days, or more accurately weeks. I get distracted easily. Things get in the way. Sure, I want to be on my laptop day in, day out, tapping away at the keyboard. Unfortunately, like so many other people, I have a job. Then, when I get home from said job, I have social obligations. I know, as a truly dedicated writer these things shouldn't be a problem. I could stay up late into the night writing, slurping down coffees and pro-plus, but I don't want to that. Well, I do, but my body could not handle that, I can barely get up in time for work when I go to bed at ten.

Doodles I do at work, that sort of counts right?

Before I nod off to sleep I do think of Emin and his adventures in Minadril and Adruhal. I imagine exciting, and sometimes deadly, scenarios he'll end up in, plan out conversations he'll have with Princess Cailyn, or Prince Percy. I plot out back story, and the lore of Kardenia. I think about which actor would play Emin in the big Hollywood blockbuster that is sure to happen. If only I could just finish the damn thing!

Right, The Plan. It is my intention to have this novel complete in its entirety by July 2015 and ready to sent of to agents and publishers. Why July? That's when my boyfriend's job at the school ends, and when we (hopefully) will be moving in together, away from home, for him to study his PGCE. It's a big moment of change, and growing up, and if he gets to do something worth while in becoming a teacher, I want my dreams to start happening too. So July, that's when everything changes and that's why I need to up my game and start being serious about writing.

This time last year I was serious. I was sitting in my kitchen writing thousands of words a day, utterly focused (apart from carving out the Halloween pumpkins). Now, I look at my laptop and feel that knot in my stomach tighten. Nothing is stopping me really. Work isn't too tiring. Social obligations aren't set in stone; people would understand that I need to write. I'm just being completely lazy. Self-discipline is so hard! It's so much easier when your told by lectures what to do and when, and face failure if you don't do things on time. But, I suppose, this past year I have reached my many other goals. I lost over a stone of weight since February, I passed my driving test a month earlier than I had planned, so finishing my novel shouldn't be too hard right? What's writing a novel compared to a driving test?

So here I am saying, promising, that I will have finished The Stone Men of Raksaka by July 31st 2015, or I'm a total plonker, let-down, failure, terrible excuse for a writer. Any of the above. So, July, I'm ready for you!