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This month we have Expert Advice from Simon Whaley on success with a series, Ten Top Tips covers how to create interesting characters, our Student Story should inspire those who don’t speak English as a first language and Useful Websites and Inspiration are, imho, as fascinating as usual!
Hello Dear Readers,
November is the month where I really start to feel like Christmas is coming. Television and radio are escalating their yuletide campaigns and soon we’ll be bombarded with festive cheer! Believe it or not, one local shopping centre has already had its big ‘switch on’ of the Christmas lights with a suitably well known celeb’ in attendance. And, now the clocks have changed – back one hour – it’s dark when I leave the office to walk home. I find something fascinating about being able to see into the twinkling shop windows I pass; seeing people going about their business is always good fun. People watching is a great way to invent and build characters for your fiction writing. Look for little idiosyncrasies that you could add to your characters to make them more interesting and believable. Read Ten Top Tips and Useful Websites for some further advice and help.
Moving on, Expert Advice this month is from Simon Whaley. He shows you how to give yourself the edge when it comes to writing for a series – books, not TV – and he should know having had success with four series so far.
Our Student Story will make you realise that you don’t have to be a native speaker of English to benefit from our course. Iwona is Polish and doing very well indeed!
If you are out and about this month you could visit the Manchester Cathedral Visitors Centre, Manchester on the 27th November and spend the day with poet Anne Samson. This is the first of two days you can attend. They state “combining stimulating writing exercises with insightful, supportive feedback, these sessions will make a genuine difference to your poetry. Enjoyable writing and reading tasks at home (shared with your fellow students between sessions) will further the group experience.” The fee is £92, with a further two days available in the New Year.
Or you could go along to the Expatriate Archive Centre in Den Haag, Netherlands on the 22nd November where you can attend “Out of the boxes – start writing your life stories” In this workshop you’ll “Learn how to pull those wonderful memories out of the box and turn them into a compelling read. This is the course if you want to write journals, memoir, life stories, blogs, newsletters or columns based on real life and designed to inspire, inform or entertain the reader.” As far as I can see you only need to register to put your name down for this workshop.
And, for those of you on our copywriting course Online Copywriting – Advanced Training might be something you’d find useful. It’s on the 24th November at MWB Manchester, Deansgate, Manchester. It is a bit pricey at £645 and there’s only one place left. But, don’t worry, they are holding another workshop in May 2011 if you miss out this time.
How many of you knew what the ‘imho’ meant in the introduction? It’s one of those internet-speak things and it is related to the newest topic of discussion on our Facebook group – we’d love to know what you think. Some of our students are blogging so I’ve put their links here.
http://natalieroberts1.blogspot.com
http://gailbriggs.blogspot.com
http://bevmorley.blogspot.com/
http://www.kellyhowe27.blogspot.com
http://whenwritingismurder.blogspot.com
http://ninalittleangel.blogspot.com/
http://littlewillowthinking.blogspot.com/
http://www.delicate-earlobes.com
http://pint-sized-rants.blogspot.com/
http://samimagines.blogspot.com/
Please give them your support and feedback. And, if anyone fancies guest blogging for us please get in touch with Diana Nadin on dianan@writersbureau.com
And finally, we’ve decided to honour National Short Story Week with a flash fiction competition. You can win yourself a copy of Cracking the Short Story Market, by Iain Pattison – worth £12.99 – by writing us 50 words on the theme of Christmas. Send your entry to susanm@writersbureau.com by 30th November 2010. Good luck!
Happy writing!
Shelley
P.S Remember our Writer of The Year Competition is now accepting entries!
