Illicit Ink | Writing Fiction

1December2011

December challenge: Fiction Friday and Spoken Sunday

December 1, 20113 Comments

I need to practice reading out loud. It became very clear when I read at Illicit Ink: although I had practiced and knew all the words, my voice sounded shaky and strange as soon as I pointed my mouth at the microphone. Reading in public is different from a simple recording at home, but practice at the latter can only improve the former. Surely.

To help myself become a better reader, and to get some flash fiction practice and feedback too, I’m doing Fiction Friday and Spoken Sunday this month. They are both run by Write Anything and seem a great way of sharing and getting feedback on your writing from a wide and dispersed audience.

For the next five weeks, I’ll post my very short stories and recordings here as well as on Write Anything.

30September2011

The (spoken) word is monster

September 30, 20111 Comment

I’m doing my first spoken word event on Sunday. You’ll find me reading a special cut of Liz & Bob to an audience at Cabaret Voltaire’s Speakeasy, some time between 20:00 and 22:30. I’m not the only person performing: you’ll also hear stories by Helen Jackson, Alison Summers and others.

The event is organized by Illicit Ink and is themed on Monsters. Rumour has it there will be cookies.

The event is free, the stories are great and you have nothing to lose. Come and listen!

20September2011

Attending a writer’s club

September 20, 2011Leave a comment

The Edinburgh Creative Writer’s Club meets every Monday at Spoon Cafe on Nicholson’s Street. It’s a loose association of people organised through Meetup. Attendees have different ages, genres, interests. Each week, some five or six people read something to the grop and get feedback on the piece.

I went yesterday.

I read the piece I’m reading at Illicit Ink, got some interesting feedback, listened to other people read, gave some bland feedback, and went home.

It will take me a while to break in or get comfortable with this group, but comfort will come. My plan is to go every second week (except when it clashes with Book Quiz) and bring something to read most times. But not every time. That appears to be bad form.

It was interesting – and useful – to get feedback from people who do not read or write in your genre: they have a very different perspective and are sometimes unaware of genre conventions. The group is very kind so a level of self-criticism is needed to get to the root of the criticism. Still, I got two great compliments. One chap found a sentence scary, another said the story reminded him of Shirley Jackson. There are all kinds of way I could take that, but I’m going to take it straight-up.