Re-reading is such a Pleasure

City of Discoveries

Gathering momentum towards the final resolutions, City of Discoveries has been a joy to follow on the Daily Serial slot from People’s Friend.

Full Blooms

Orchids are a rewarding flower to keep but sometimes the ‘keeping’ can be a while. Two and a half years in the case of the yellow one. The tall pink one, on the other hand, blooms almost year round. So these are for my editor, Alan Spink, who chose City of Discoveries for this second outing. Thanks, Alan.

What are you re-reading? Is it your own? The sublime Georgette’s? Or AN Other’s?

Anne

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A Second Life

City of Discoveries

Re-running on the People’s Friend website is my anniversary serial set in Dundee and Australia. Jennet Marshall is the subject of unwanted attention from the foreman, Fleming. However, an unsuspected champion is on her side.

City Of Discoveries — Episode 07

City of Discoveries

DC Thomson are running a strand of the City of Discoveries serial I wrote for them to mark their 150th anniversary of continuous publication of the People’s Friend Magazine. It began in January 2019 in the magazine and these excerpts are available on their website, link below at City of Discoveries. The illustration is by Mandy Dixon and remains as colourful and attractive now as it was then.

City Of Discoveries — Episode 01

City of Discoveries

Anne

Round Robin – January To Do List

 

What is on your writing to-do list for this year? Do you have
any long-range goals or just wrap-ups?

Rhobin’s questions are as always pertinent. I’m guilty of seeing what comes along and whether I’d like to get into/onto that. It doesn’t an organised life make.

However, this year there are two projects in hand.

Firstly, I’m deeply into writing an historical serial for the People’s Friend magazine. It isn’t collaborative exactly, but the team of fiction editors do opine instalment by instalment. so that’s ongoing.

City of Discoveries

It’s taken me back to 1869 but to Edinburgh and not Dundee. One project I might add to 2021 is bringing out City of Discoveries as an e-book and POD. I know several of my author friends do this. Check out Kate Blackadder’s Family Stories Boxset here.

Secondly, I’m signed up to offer my thoughts on writing drama for the Edinburgh Writers’ Club in April. This will be a totally new experience as I’ve not done any online talks or workshops as a leader so far. In person evenings discussing the nuts and bolts of drama always leave me thinking “Wouldn’t it be nice to write a play?”

Moving on, though, what’s in my mind?

Having published two pocket novels with My Weekly last year, I’m keen to a) write a short story for the magazine and b) write another PN.

Christmas at Maldington is available here

A Debt for Rosalie is available here.

So there you have it. Modest goals but the way time slides along in our semi-permanent Lockdown (Couldn’t you do one post without mentioning it? Ed) I think Modest is good.

I’m a bit nervous to check out the other contributors as they’ll probably be so much more organised and energised. Ho hum. They are also always entertaining…

Anne

Skye Taylor

Victoria Chatham

Beverley Bateman

Connie Vines

Dr. Bob Rich

Diane Bator

Fiona McGier

Judith Copek

Marci Baun

Rhobin L Courtright

Round Robin – June – Real Life Prompts

 

This month Robin asks whether we’ve used an event in our lives, in the life of someone we know or one reported in the press in our fiction.

This might be a politer and more academic way of asking where do you get your ideas from? That is an issue that puzzles many folk. On the other hand, it might be a question of morality. Have you taken a joy or a misery lived through by yourself or others and fictionalised it?

The bald answer is yes. My most recent longer piece was the serial I wrote last year for People’s Friend. City of Discoveries had a brief as it was a commission, but I had a great deal of artistic licence within that. Showcasing Dundee’s Jam, Jute and Journalism reputation, what was my theme?

City of Discoveries

Well, my Fife granny told me a bittersweet story about how she had to leave school and go to work in a factory/mill. One day, the foreman stood behind her and ran his hands through her beautiful red hair. She resisted vigorously and implied he left her well alone thereafter. Forward a few decades and that unknown man became the baddy in my heroine granny’s story. Drew Fleming doesn’t leave my heroine alone and we have a tale of nineteenth century stalking.

And there we have it. Yes, I have and I will continue to do so. Where do I find ideas? On the bus; in the shopping queue; actually listening to the conversation of friends; reading beyond the headlines; ruthlessly analysing the minutiae of my own life.

Are you wondering what the fine fellow whose picture illustrates this post has to do with anything? Good to leave a question unanswered till the end.

My house, in an urban area, has an enclosed back garden. The garden is surrounded by three 8 foot walls and the house. Looking out one day last week, I saw the hind quarters of a deer sticking out of the rhoddies. He made himself at home, as you can see, and only left in a series of specatacular jumps, when my husband walked down the garden in the late afternoon.

We’ve been decades in this house and that’s a first. Yes, it’ll be in a story sometime soon.

How about you? Do you fictionalise life as lived for your works? You may want to visit some of the other blogs in this RR. As I’m setting this up a bit early, I can only give you my best guess of whose that will be. I’ll correct it as soon as I can.

Anne

Skye Taylor

Diane Bator

Beverley Bateman

Connie Vines

A.J. Maguire

Dr. Bob Rich

Victoria Chatham

Judith Copek

Fiona McGier https://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fionamcgier.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C888b8523f4dd4023796f08d6f2a3825c%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636963181409130301&sdata=YTgTbHc8Om5NWhYQrLecwlXWOQK0CgArIpO0CBfWSfI%3D&reserved=0

Margaret Fieland https://eur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmargaretfieland.wordpress.com&data=02%7C01%7C%7C888b8523f4dd4023796f08d6f2a3825c%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636963181409120293&sdata=70H2%2FUq3SfLeYBHJd3Ra1bV7FN0MQDj2bQX4NGvWJ3Q%3D&reserved=0

Rhobin L Courtright

Diary of a Writer – March

City of Discoveries

 

 

 

 

 

 

With 2nd March on the cover, The People’s Friend serial I spent so much of last year researching and writing reaches its 8th and final instalment. When my subscription copy came in last Saturday, I greedily raced through the closing scenes and yet again shed a tear over one of my characters. But don’t panic, folks, nobody dies.

Don’t know whether any of you take The Weekly News, but I had my first short story for it, Trouble in Store, published in the 23rd February edition. A mere 1200 words, it was incredibly satisfying to write.

This month is devoted to an adjudication for the Scottish Association of Writers. I’ve made excellent progress partly due to being confined by an horrendous cold. Will be sending the results in this weekend and have done all the critiques. Next up is planning for the workshop I’m offering at the conference. The written word crafted to be spoken is my favourite type of writing.

Looking ahead, I’ve been asked to speak at an event marking the 150th anniversary of the Church of Scotland’s social care body. Now known as CrossReach, it provides many services for the ill and vulnerable.

1869 was some year!

Currently re-reading The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer and loving it all over again. what are you reading?

Capital Christmas Stories 99p

Capital Stories 99p

 

 

Honoured in the New Year – City of Discoveries

Warmest congratulations to the team at The People’s Friend as it reaches its 150th anniversary – a noteworthy moment.

The Ladies – Mandy Dixon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jennet, Hetty, Carrie, Elspeth, William, Thomas, John, Harold, Phemie, Mr Souter and Drew Fleming were people I spent a lot of time with last year. They are the central characters in the Anniversary Serial I wrote for The People’s Friend magazine to mark its 150th year of publication.

And also many thanks to the fiction team for inviting me in. My editor, Alan Spink sent a query e-mail in March. It was a total surprise filling me with excitement and dread in equal measure: what an honour to be asked: what a responsibility to carry. Of course, I need not have worried as the editorial support for which the magazine is known among its writers was there for me throughout. Alan in the forefront, but fiction ed, Shirley Blair adding her Dundonian voice and Magazine ed, Angela Gilchrist pointing things out when the three of us might have let our enthusiasm outstrip our writerly antennae. (Really? Ed)

1869 is a year rich in happenings if you want to write something for a woman’s magazine. My first synopsis was liked and commended, but rejected on fairly straightforward grounds. It wasn’t set in Dundee.

Cue a huge learning curve helped along by the work of Judith Flanders, Lynne Wilson and Norman Watson. The serial is not history or documentary, but it is informed by the histories written by these people about life in London, Edinburgh and Dundee for the poorer class of person.

The serial, CITY OF DISCOVERIES, is fiction and I hope you’ll join us over the eight weeks and read the stories of my lovely characters. I’m looking forward to having them arrive in my life again every week.

Anne