WriteWords Blogs

Hero Soldiers and Silly Letters

No doubt this will get me into trouble yet again but I have to say that I am a little saddened by the actions of Jacqui Janes. For those of you that live in a cave and have not heard this story, Jacqui Janes is the poor mother of Jamie, her 20 year old soldier son who bravely lost his life in Afghanistan on 5th October. She was appalled to later receive a hand written letter of condolence from Mr. Gordon Brown which she states is nothing more that a rushed, scrawled and misspelled letter littered with half finished words. After her initial offence was made public, the Prime Minister telephoned assuring that no offence was intended but today I hear the only thing Mrs Janes has taken from that conversation was the 16 times Mr. Brown said sorry, yet still insists there was no apology. It is such shame that this 5th generation soldier who was on his second tour of Afghanistan and very proud to be serving his country, as well as making life better for the people of Afghanistan, is going to have his memory of being a hero overshadowed by a hand written letter.

Maybe a typewritten letter signed by a PM who did not even know its content would have brought more comfort.

You can see a copy of the letter at http://donnasdailydeliberation.blogspot.com/

Strikes

So far we have the Royal Mail postal strike, then the bin men went on strike and now I hear that some coach companies have gone on strike. Where will it all end? Let's just hope that MacDonald's does not follow suit or the UK may just wither and die

The 2010 London Marathon

So after the initial disappointment of not securing a place in the 2010 London Marathon Ballot I decided to apply to The Little Miss and Mr Men Children with Leukaemia Charity and guess what, today I heard that the fairy godmother herself has waved her wand and I have a place. Well actually I have two places as an american friend of mine, Jamie, will be running with me. We do not have a theme yet but I have thrown the idea of Jamie pushing me in a wheel barrow into the pot. Let's see if he goes for it.

SW: In the spotlight

I�m a very recent convert to the X factor. We only started watching it as a family because our ten-year-old convinced us he would be a social pariah at school if he wasn�t able to confidently discuss who is in and who left (weeping) over the weekend. I liked to think I was a bit take-it-or-leave-it. But that all changed when Lucie Jones got voted off on Sunday. I finally understood Simon Cowell�s Machiavellian reputation and very much wanted to throw shoes at the telly.
Now there isn�t a huge amount in common between standing on a stage, singing overwrought pop songs, and being a sensitive, shy flower who likes to write stories, but it certainly isn�t without parallels.

Michael Czyzniejewski Interview

Elephants in Our Bedroom is, quite simply, one of the best books I've read. It is a very strong contender for my book of the year (watch out Kimball, Smailes and Tillyer!). You can read what I had to say about it here.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I am to have its author, Michael Czyzniejewski, here on the blog for an interview. And what an interview it turned out to be...

Welcome to the blog, Michael. It is one heck of a pleasure and an honour to have someone whose writing I admire so much here.

Thanks, Nik. I�m glad and honored myself�especially to talk to someone who spells �honored� with a �u.�

First of all, could you tell us a little about your short story collection, Elephants in Our Bedroom?

It�s a book I�d worked on for a long time. Those stories mean a lot to me, as they�re me finding my voice, finding myself as an artist. To see someone grab onto that, acknowledge it, and most of all, read it, verifies what I�ve been doing.

But in more simple terms, it�s a book of 24 short stories, most of them about how people can�t seem to figure out how to relate to each other anymore, with a lot of absurd concepts and images thrown in.

The stories in Elephants in Our Bedroom put me in mind, in themes and quality, of the work of Aimee Bender and Etgar Keret � who are probably my two favourite writers � and that�s got a lot to do with the unlikely and fantastic situations your characters find themselves in. Where do these situations come from? Is there a process or do they just happen?

I purposely try to come up with something that I think is clever, funny, challenging, impossible, uncomfortable, and bizarre all at the same time. I spend a lot of time thinking about things. Once I have something, though, I can run with it. It�s like moving the furniture around in your living room. Only certain things work, and once you find it, you just sit back and appreciate the news angles that you can look at things.

Mother of the Year?

I somehow doubt that this woman was in the top 100 when it came to short listing for the 'Mother of the Year Awards'?

http://donnasdailydeliberation.blogspot.com/2009/11/mother-of-year.html

London Marathon 2010

I am tapping my fingers and waiting to hear if I have been sucessful is securing a place in the 2010 London Marathon. If I have then I will be running for Children with Leukemia....fingers crossed.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Were Floating In Shropshire

SPARKS and Shropshire

Branchage - Part Three

Branchage - Sub Section iii

Branchage - Sub Section ii

Branchage - Sub Section i

THE KISS OF LIFE

Oooh, winter is coming and the world, as I knew it, is gone; hundreds of pounds of already-used heat sailed from my kingdom - time to face the mountain and its weather. The best tool I have is this bed, this ship, these quilts and blankets, this laptop and super-furry slippers. I can feel the chill lying on my shoulders, sliding down my arms but I've yet to feel the kiss of ice on my nose - when it reaches the cheekbones I'll turn that dial, hear the explosion of the lovely gas jets - BOOOF!

REALITY

I have to confess to a small case of Lazyitus � well I hope it�s a small case. I lay in bed last night (early hours of the morning) planning to get up and write for most of the day today, Oh I was going to do all sorts but I was delayed. The bed held me back. I automatically took my first cup of decaffeinated tea into the bedroom and slipped between the covers again, then, as the laptop warmed up, my hand reached out for the lovely shiny thing that is my iPod Touch � and that was me snookered. I�ve been here all day.

School Dinners

Here in Corrales the children are full of beans �literally. Today's treat is a Paella starter, with fish to follow, but I bet we'll see some beans tomorrow.

Fantasy Dragons And...

I often spend idle moments imagining that I�ve invented something really useful that�s got potential to change people�s lives. What I�d give to be the guy who came up with the idea for the vacuum cleaner or even 'post it' notes or the universal phone charger that�s on its way soon. (Really � it�s coming�You can soon dump that drawer load of useless phone chargers). This thought process led me to think about what I�d do -what I�d say - if I had to give a �Dragons Den� type pitch of my novel, rather than submit to agents in the normal manner. Immediately I put together a fantasy five top agents. Can't say who they were, but two men and three women prevailed and the following fantasy will now feature in my top ten. (Easily pleased on the fantasy front, I am)

Fantasy Dragons And...

Good Ideas Vs Good Stories

I notice it's been a little while since I last posted here. Sorry. I've been a bit under the weather and I've been busy, mostly with writing. Some of what I've written I'm pleased with, other stories, erm, not so much. It's reminded me, and I think this is a really, really important lesson for anyone beginning to write, that a good idea does not guarantee a good story. But not being able to turn a good idea into a good story does not make you a bad writer.

There are often other ways to tell it (two of the best things, in my opinion, that I've written, have been tackled from half a dozen different angles) and, probably more often, it just doesn't work. And that's fine. Knowing when to give up and move on's a really healthy thing to learn - that's probably as important as learning that writing something good takes a lot of time and hard work.

And let's not forget, of course, that there are other good ideas that do make good stories.

So, um, that's what I think about that.

OUT AND ABOUT -Well not much

Well, I did get up on my legs and go out of the house, but only for an hour and there wasn't actually much walking because I took the car (500 yds) to my favourite spot. I had to walk from the car to my bench (10 yds) to glory in this view.