Merry Christmas

This week’s story turned much longer than I’d intended so I’ll just use this space to say a very Merry Christmas and thank you sincerely for checking this website.

You can read this week’s prompt (one, when I initially read, I really thought I’d struggle with) here.

Thanks for reading.

‘That’ Voice

_{Want to skip straight to this week’s short? Click here.}

Writing this week has been a mixed bag. On one hand, I think I’ve written every day. On the other, I feel like the quality isn’t there. This week’s Flash Fiction is a good example. I described where I’d gone with the prompt (‘I always hated writing stories’ – thanks Liam!) to a friend this evening and as I said it, I was just thinking “This is really really bad”.

So bad in fact that I’ve just rewritten it. While it’s an improvement, part of me still hears that voice loud and clear.

If you read it, don’t be worrying. It’s not exactly what I feel when I think of my writing. But there’s definitely an element of that voice in there. That self doubt and irrational anger at my own ineptitude. (Why can’t you just be a good writer?!)

It’s something everyone faces though. The best we can do is just try and try and try, and hopefully improve.

Thanks for reading.

Brandon

_{Want to skip straight to this week’s short short? Click here.}

I’ll be honest, Brandon Sanderson is something of a hero to me.

Years ago, maybe around 2004, I picked up a book in the Carlisle Book Shop in Omagh (may it rest in peace) called “Eye of the World” – Book 1 from the Wheel of Time series. I was astounded at the size of the series. The shop had maybe 5 or 6 of the books and they all were chonkers at a minimum of 600 pages, usually more like 800.

At that point I’d read a good bit of introductory fantasy (Harry Potter / His Dark Materials / Darren Shan etc.) and loved them, so I remember thinking maybe it would be worth reading one of these ‘grown up’ fantasy series’.

As it turns out, and as many of my friends will shake their heads in despair at how often I’ve tortured them with talking about it, The Wheel of Time turned out to be my favourite book series. (Incidentally one that is now being adopted by Amazon Prime to be a TV series, featuring Roseamund Pike as one of the main characters.)

It may surprise you to note that the guy I started this blog about(man, these things really do get away from me) didn’t write the Wheel of Time. A guy called Robert Jordan did that. But Brandon Sanderson finished them, when the original author sadly passed away before he’d completed the series.

Brandon, using the notes left behind by RJ, wrote books 12 -14 in the series and by all accounts – including my own – did an incredible job.

He has since gone on to write around 21 books (I’m not sure of the exact number as there are few novellas and some really big books of his that are counted as one despite usually being published in two parts). This is in the span of about 15 years, which is frankly, an unbelievable output.

In addition he has written audiobooks, created an amazing website (which I’m one day hoping to make my own a bit more like), uploaded for free his creative writing courses which he lectures in, got married, had 3 kids, travelled the world doing book signings, kept up his faith, done reviews of loads of video games and books which I’ve yet to get through and created a vibrant and responsive community of followers through his interactions on social media and reddit that resulted in one of the most successful Kickstarter campaign EVER.

So yeah, he’s a pretty cool guy. I didn’t even mention there, but his books are some of my favourites – so he’s an incredible writer too.

What I one day hope to master though is his approach to writing. He doesn’t make any secret of how he keeps his output so high – it’s consistency. The key to succeeding at almost everything. He’s just a shining example of how it works. So that’s what this website is to me at the minute. A challenge to be consistent and to continue to write.

Thanks for reading!

PS – Thanks to my dear chum Dee for his suggestion (a surprisingly tricky one I found) this week. The prompt / first line was “He’s trying to reconcile what he should have done with what he’s just done.“ Enjoy!

A New(ish) Short Story

I lied last week – this is in fact, the shortest of updates.

But! It comes with a story. It’s deliberately light hearted – there’s enough grim news out there to do us all for several lifetimes. I wrote this in 2014 and have updated it a bit for this. I hope it gives you a laugh.

It’s called The Particulars of Sauna Etiquette.

Thanks for reading!

The Shortest of Updates

I’ve spent all my time which I’d usually use to write updates here, trying to finish off ‘Nobody for Breakfast’. It’s almost finished and I actually considered putting it up but that would be pointless.

I want to do a pretty thorough proof of it myself, before passing it over to the well sharpened but incredibly polite writing crew to get their feedback. That should mean when I post it up here in a week or two’s time, it will be worthwhile reading.

On that note – we’ve two new people joining the Writing Club soon which is great!

Anyways, this update is more a box ticking exercise and a stubborn refusal to miss a week, even when I plainly could have spent more time on this.

Thanks as always for reading.

Written Unwillingly Into This Story

It’s been a pretty surreal week. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the encroach virus literally feels like a nightmare; one which we usually wake up from and say “Frig, that was an unpleasant one.”

This is a writing blog so I’m making a conscious effort not to make it a personal journal. It’s impossible to ignore though this thing that pervades every part of our lives. When we look back, there’ll be books, films, TV shows, documentaries, countless memories and discussions and what ifs and heartbreak and yeah, some beautiful bits in there too.

We are being written, involuntarily, into this story. When we look back and read this after it ends, there are going to be unpleasant bits. That’s inevitable – it’s not the story you or I would have written after all. But we have some control. We can force the story to bend around us.

Email your local community group or parish and ask how you can help. Force the story to involve this character – you as it happens – to be a bright light in it. A character that people look back, when they read their editions, and say “Oh yeah, that person? That person was great. That person made the rest of the story better.”

It doesn’t have to be anything big. Video call your grandparents more often. Check in with a vulnerable neighbour. Message your friends who might be worrying about someone close to them and be an ear for them. Be happy. Buy a nurse a coffee. Say ‘Fair play to ye’ to a doctor you come across. Think outside the box – spend 10 minutes thinking how you can make things better. Even if it’s something you think will make you look silly, you’ll look silly trying to make things better, and you know what? That’s a pretty wonderful thing to do.

Force the story to be better. Be the character you wish more books had.

Thanks for reading.

P.S Still not finished the crime story; left that to the end in the hope it might be missed! It will be done by next week though.

Talented people from Northern Ireland

A relatively brief update this week again. I started off last week, writing like a man possessed. Not that the writing was particularly great, but it was definitely coming. That ‘flow’, so often talked about by successful people gradually seemed to be coming quicker and quicker every time I sat down to write. Yay!

Unfortunately, then Wednesday hit. I teach Irish dancing on Wednesdays from 6pm until 9pm, and usually am not back home until 10pm, when I’ll need to make dinner if I haven’t had any. This isn’t a ‘poor me’ – I love teaching dancing. It’s one of the real joys I get in life. But this particular Wednesday left me particularly tired on Thursday (when I also teach dancing) and subsequently into Friday. Then the weekend came and with it a wedding and a feis to attend, I got virtually nothing done.

Still, I’m back on the wagon now and that’s all that matters! For full disclosure, because I want this to be honest, I didn’t get to submit the work I was working on last week. I’m okay with that. I didn’t start this all to enter short story competitions, and the piece itself has benefited from me having had more time.

As I’ve nothing myself to post this week (and the Writing Club are all plugging away at different projects) I thought I’d mention some of the incredibly talented people I’ve come across who are all doing various artistic projects. These are only a very small few – if I missed your project, please forgive me! I’ll mention more in another blog some day.

Brendan Conway – Musician

Brendan’s music is, honestly, incredible. He’s got a superbly unique voice, is annoyingly talented at writing his own music and has a great ear for what makes a good song. Incidentally, he’s also a good friend who gives huge support to other people pushing their own projects.

Recently he’s been working his ass off and it’s beginning to pay off. He was on BBC Radio Ulster’s John Toal Show, performing two of his new songs (which he wrote himself). You can listen to him here on BBC Sounds, with Brendan’s sections starting at 29:55 and then again at 51:55. Treat yourself and have a listen. His upcoming EP Launch has sold out and he’s had a host of gigs – all while working full time.

Michael Patrick – Screenwriter, Actor, Writer

I’ve met Mick only very briefly a few times, after he signed up to a previous project I attempted a few years ago. It says a lot about him that he was happy to travel to Omagh from Belfast, on the possibility that the admittedly hopeful punt was going to pay off. But come he did and blew the rest of the team’s socks off. I remember thinking, ‘That guy is the real deal’.

Since then, he has written TWO award winning plays alongside co-author Oisín Kearney, My Left Nut and The Alternative, is acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has had My Left Nut dramatised by the BBC . Please give it a watch – Mary Carmel and I sat down to the first episode tonight and loved it.

All of this to say, Mick (and Oisín for that matter) are another pair of incredibly talented guys who should – and do – inspire other people to follow their passion. (Mick, if you ever happen to read this – thank you for being such a champ around that podcast! I’ll get back to it someday)

Edel O’Kane – Artist

Artists are, I think, some of the bravest people you can come across. It’s something that is complex beyond words and yet is often glanced at only in passing by people in making their minds up on it. Edel has some stunning works on her Instagram account, Kaeno Art, that showcase a range of styles and highlight her incredible skill. It wasn’t even something I knew she was into until recently.

Seeing works like hers is again, inspiring.

So I hope that deluge helps. There are a lot of talented people out there and it’s certain that you’re one of them. Go do your thing.

(And thanks for reading!)

‘You Didn’t Make the Longlist’

I got my first rejection yesterday. The email came in when I was just coming out of the shop and I giddily opened it to flick through the long list of accepted stories.

Mines wasn’t there.

And that’s probably a good thing.

Obviously, if I’d made the cut that would have been incredible. I’d have been getting all up in everyone’s social media grill humble bragging about getting shortlisted for this competition. I’d have hopefully been self aware enough to know that there was a fair bit of luck went into choosing my piece; but there might have been a small voice that said ‘Wow, you are that good. Yeah, you DESERVED to be chosen.’ And did I really?

Probably not. I’m definitely writing a lot more nowadays thanks to this site; between 2,000 and 5,000 words per week I think. But I’m also conscious that I need to properly direct my writing. I’ve opened this floodgate of words which is great, wonderful even, but I need to improve my focus on what I’m writing; doing third and fourth and fifth drafts before moving on.

So I’m honestly not too disappointed. I’m working my ass off to finish a piece for this Friday and it mightn’t get accepted either.

But it might.

I’ve put up online the piece that didn’t get accepted so you can have a read of it yourself. It’s called ‘Point Two’. Some of you super keen beans may have read it before; it was temporarily on the site and then I switched it out for ‘Rules of Engagement‘.

You also have the joy this week of reading some work by another member of the writing club – Rebecca Douglas! Check out Rebecca’s profile on that link and her awesome, ass kicking short story snippet called ‘The Minn at Moon‘.

Thanks as always,

Ethan

The Writing Club Crew Saves the Day

This week’s writing went as follows:

Write a little bit. Stop. Write a little bit. Stop. Delete all. Repeat. Laptop breaks. Take a day or two to fix laptop. Repeat initial steps again. And so I missed our writing club’s semi-self imposed goal for the week.

Still, it was still a fairly productive week. I did a good bit of planning for another story for the Margery Allingham writing competition and am actually pretty happy with what I came up with, so that’s what I’ll be trying to bash out over the next few days. I also submitted a flash fiction story to a competition (earning this pretty hilarious badge below) and was able to give feedback on some of the writing group’s work.

Speaking of which, there are two exciting bits of news on the writing club front. Firstly, we have another new member! Rebecca Douglas is our latest addition and so the crew now stands at 5. Follow her on that Instagram link.

Secondly – this week, to ensure you’ve a little something to read, Hazel O’Rourke has kindly volunteered to upload some of her work. Please, please give both her stories a read. They’re short reads and I promise they’ll blow you away. You can find them on Hazel’s profile page above, or if you’re in a hurry – you can find NYC here, and Snow here.

That’s all for this week. Keeping it short as I want to get on to writing myself. Thanks, as always, for reading!