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WORD BIRD

My OCA Journey

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  • About Me
  • Level 3 Retrospect & Prospect
  • Writing for Children
  • Writing Short Fiction
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I’m Second in the Yeovil Literary Prize 2016!

Those of you who follow me on Instagram (because who doesn’t want to see virtually every meal I ever cook and/or eat; what…

characters, competitions, exercises, ideas

Shortlisted!

The picture is of my ‘Opportunities’ folder which I started at the beginning of the year and holds details of all…

blogging, characters, competitions

Project 3 ‘The Blank Page’ Ex.P24

This exercise prompts: “Recall an incident from your life.  This doesn’t have to be a major incident, but it should be one…

characters, childhood, exercises, memory, moments, point of view, redraft

After reading Hemingway’s ‘A Day’s Wait’

The exercise on page 19 asks that, following the reading of Ernest Hemingway’s 1000 word short story ‘A Day’s Wait‘…

characters, Ernest Hemingway, exercises, memory, moments, redraft, voice

My blog post live on the WE ARE OCA Blog

Thrilled that the Open College of the Arts have featured my blog post on the latest WE ARE OCA.  All…

Writing for Children Part 5 ‘Other Worlds’

Eurgh… is all I can say to this part of the course. I am SO not a fantasy writer.  I’m…

characters, creativity, fantasy, Feedback, focus, ideas, inspiration, research, short stories

Focussing on an object #2

  Functional, matte black and tethered like a steed to a strong tubular frame so that it can’t be stolen,…

creativity, detail, focus, Google, inspiration, journal

Focussing on an object: Ex p.56

I very nearly skipped this exercise because the doors in our house merely say ‘four panelled, pine, wrong handles, locks…

creativity, dark, detail, focus, Google, ideas, inspiration, research

Retelling ‘Cinderella’ from different PoVs

The exercise on P.48 asks that you retell the Cinderella story from different perspectives including a) the Fairy Godmother, b)…

characters, creativity, point of view, research, voice

Rewriting Animal Farm for specific ages

The exercise on p. 40 (Part Two) asks that you take the sample from Animal Farm: “Napoleon was a large,…

Animal Farm, characters, research, showing and telling

‘Wonder’ by R J Palacio and ‘The Tulip Touch’ by Anne Fine

I read ‘Wonder’  by R.J. Palacio because it’s a fairly contemporary read and I’d noticed it at the top of…

books, characters, dark, reading, research, Theme

‘The Chinese Cinderella’ by Adeline Yen Mah

I kept hearing about a book called ‘The Chinese Cinderella’ and, as I’d read and enjoyed the book ‘Lucky’ by Alice…

books, characters, memoir, reading, research

Beginning Writing for Children

When my Girl was still living at home and ‘age-appropriate’ for reading the same books as me (so perhaps 13…

books, research

Formal Assessment for Writing Short Fiction (and that ‘tampering’ thing)

It felt worse than it actually was, to be frank (whoever he is).  And although I could’ve submitted my work…

Feedback, short stories, tampering

A Shortlisted Short…

My thanks to fellow student (and published author)  Carole Richardson who alerted me to the fact I’m on the Flash500…

competition, flash fiction, short stories, Writing Short Fiction

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