There is a moment of silence - brief and overshadowed - a hush that falls just before the rumble of noise begins. A feeling grows in the momentary quiet (which is not quite silence but rather anticipation). There is a noise to anticipation. A hum. A buzz that starts in your feet and builds to your chest, igniting in your soul. Lights go up, the sound check crackles and a voice cat calls. A single, solitary call. But not for long.
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Sometimes it only takes a small irritant to ignite a big explosion.
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Dear Reader, One of my favourite things at University was writing exercises that got you thinking either about sensory techniques, or about the craft of writing. One of the last exercises I remember doing is the one sentence exercise – in which you practice writing a paragraph that consists mostly of one sentence, using perfectly reasonable writing techniques. The following is a result of that exercise. It technically consists of two sentences, but it’s the second sentence that shows the mashing of different sentence techniques. Let me know what you think or feel free to post your own One Sentence Exercise – I’d be happy to read them! Sincerely, The Jade…
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They lay on a queen sized bed, side by side, yet not touching. ‘How’s this one feel? It’s big.’ ‘Yeah, it’s okay.’ ‘Too big?’ ‘It’s okay. Could you move over?’ ‘Nope. Anything other than okay?’ ‘Not really. You’re too close.’ ‘The last one was bigger, was that better?’ ‘That was okay too.’ ‘Do you maybe want to use a word other than okay?’ ‘I like okay.’ ‘Ugh.’ A moment of quiet, then one—the taller one—begins to flop and bounce, wriggling around on the bed in a gyrating motion. ‘What…are you doing?’ ‘Testing the bounce.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Useful information. Uh, excuse me! Miss!’—an attendant rushes over, a questioning look on her face—‘Can…
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Week two of my Writerly Aspirations is here and with it, two new stories. While I am still striving to meet my ten chapter quota, and my reading quota, I am happy that I’ve managed to stay on track with these mini stories. For my first short story of 2017 I drew on my novel Extinguish. One of my characters, Freddie, is mute and I’ve been toying with the idea of writing from his perspective for a long time. So I did. I’m actually really fond of how this turned out. It encompasses much of what I think is missed in my novel of Freddie’s personality and inner dialogue. I won’t…
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Wanting to write - really wanting to write - means shutting up, sitting down and actually doing it
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Dear reader, If there is anything I have learned over the past several years, it is that I am very good at rewriting things. My current book (the not-so-well-loved, often-times-bemoaned novel Extinguish), is on it’s ninth draft, and second edit. When I refer to drafts, I talk about major rewrites and overhauls. That doesn’t include all the little (and by little I mean the entire book) edits I did of each draft. This time, I’ve decided to shift a pivotal event to a later point in the novel, and to also cut a central character. I still have to rewrite the new ending (I canned the old one in draft…