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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

From Daft to Daffy



(A) The Daft Bit:

I was in a 'why the hell do I want to write mood' yesterday.  I thought about all the things I could be doing instead of writing, like living a normal life, you know the kind, orderly house, helping the community, shopping, reading, having coffee with the girls.  Well that argument kind of landed on its face, because although I try to be a good person, I am not your professional do-gooder, nor do I have the money for turning shopping into a hobby, and much as I love meeting my friends for coffee, I could never do it in a 'Sex and the City, or Friends' kind of way.  An orderly house would be good, but it wouldn't last long, and then I would have to do it again, and well, it's not exactly life shattering!  But, I told myself, I could do nice intelligent things, like read (mentioned that already), take up a new hobby, talk to my family etc.etc.  In the end, I settled on a creative choice.  You see, I had these Anemone (de chan) flowering bulbs/seed in my kitchen for ages, all twelve packs of them, 50 in a packet, which had been on special offer in Woodies a couple of months back.  So I thought, sod the writing, be creative another way and deal with the sods of earth.

The instructions were easy enough, plant bulbs 2" apart and 2" down in the soil.  So off I went yesterday, the rebel that I was, and started to plant.  My son had helped out earlier by bringing some top soil up, the sort of stuff which was nice and easy to work with once you did a bit of racking etc.  So, here comes the daft bit, or rather, the really daft bit, I never did the maths.  By that I mean, I never multiplied 50 by 12, giving 600 bulbs, and I never multiplied 600 by 2", which incidentally is 1200" or 100ft.  But I wasn't going to stop mid-way through the job, no slacking off on my new creative path, absolutely not, the writing was the enemy, this was creative fun, requiring nothing more than a little work, well 100ft of it, which I belatedly worked out last night when my thumb felt like someone had hit it with a hammer.  Yes, I know, I could have used one of those little gardening things, like the smiley lady in the picture has, the ones for digging small holes, but I didn't!  I thought what's 2", why get hung up on tools, so I pushed my little thumb 100 ft into the earth, all in the effort,just in case you have forgotten, to avoid writing.

One sore thumb later, and one failed plan, I went back to the keyboard early this morning, luckily, the thumb on the space bar does not take too much force, and gave in to the joy of writing all over again.

(B)  The Daffy Bit:

Discovered this new web site called Dog House Diaries - Thought you might like some retail therapy advice! Just as well, I didn't choose shopping!

Publishing Poetry & Short Stories - Day Not To Be Missed!



The Irish Writers' Centre is hosting an information day on Publishing Short Stories & Poetry on
Saturday 2nd July 2011

The day will start at 10.00am with registration and run until 4.30
Tickets are €60 (€50 for members) and can be booked via the Centre
@ 01 8721302 or email info@writerscentre.ie

See Link HERE

Speakers taking part are Ciaran Carthy, Declan Meade, Kevin Higgins, Kevin Barry, Rebecca O'Connor & Jessie Lendennie.

(If any of you are thinking about going, let me know as I hope to go along)

Monday, May 30, 2011

10 Writing Mistakes



As you all know by now, I have just started on Twitter.  I guess like most social networking, it has good and bad parts.  The trick is to work these out early, so you get lots of interesting/worthwhile pieces of information, (emphasis on the worthwhile here) and not get so distracted, that your unwashed dishes are a result of Twitter and not because of hours of writing.

Here's something that came over Twitter this morning, and I think it is a good one, well worth the read.  I am planning on testing my writing out against it, next time around!

Happy reading!

http://www.broca.org/style.html


FINALLY, ONLY 16 DAYS TO GO TO DONATE TO POETRY BUS 2
IF YOU HAVEN'T DONATED ALREADY, DO SO NOW
http://tinyurl.com/3e8usle

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Following on! Another Problem



Okay, so now I have another problem with my blog!

Googled the issue and it seems, although I might think at times that I'm special, in this case, the problem does not just exist in my blog world, other bloggers have suffered too.

None of them however, had an answer.  Now I know anyone who follows little old 120socks is hugely intelligent based on their choice of blogs to follow, but this now is the real test of your intelligence.

Problem:  My followers (all 76 of them) do not appear on my blog anymore.  I have tried under DESIGN, moving them on my sidebar etc, as that worked for me last time, but this time no success.

Any ideas wonderful followers.  I do so miss seeing all your lovely pictures!

RTE Guide/Penguin Competition 2011




Rules for RTE Guide/Penguin Short Story Competition:


Work for the RTEGuide/Penguin Ireland Short Story competition should be original, unpublished and previously not broadcast.

Short stories in English of 2,000 words or less.

Manuscripts must be typed and cannot be returned.

Entrants name and contact details (address, phone and/or email) should be on a separate page.

The closing date is 6pm,  15th July 2011.


Send your entries  to:


RTE Guide/Penguin Ireland Short Story Competition
PO Box 1480,
RTE,
Domnybrook,
Dublin 4.

Friday, May 27, 2011

12 Tips for eliminating unnecessary words!



Almost always in writing, we use too many words. (9)

So I thought this link HERE would be useful.

Shortened intro:

Eliminate unnecessary words. (3)

(9 down to 3- not bad)


Of course, who needed an intro with a title?

(9 down to Zero - Perfect)

Common Comment Cure!

Thanks to one very intelligent lady, the Common Comment Curse has turned into the Common Comment Cure!

I am indebted Helen to you always!




Helen said...
Try this little trick ... sign out of blogger. Sign back in. "untick" the keep me signed in box.

The Common Comment


Okay, I just need to share this!

Why in the heck can I comment on some blogs and not on others?  Why is it that I cannot comment on MY own blog, and I am getting very, very tired of being treated as ANONYMOUS, no matter how many times I log it!

Just started on Twitter this week, and it is growing on me nearly as quickly as google blogging is not! Follow me HERE if you wish to join the revolution!




Please, please Google just fix the blasted thing, while part of me, still wants to be your friend!!!

Writer's Perspective - Characters


Maneul Puig - Characters
"I can only tell a story about a character who reflects my most burning problems. I believe in characters as vehicles of exposition. Their voices are full of hidden clues, and I like to listen to them. That's why I work so much with dialogue. What they don't say sometimes expresses more than what they do say. Mine is not the classic third-person voice."



Extract from Paris Review - Interview with Manuel Puig

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Thought for the Weekend





"The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake."

- Haruki Murakami -
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