Each Wednesday we feature a single-word writing prompt, to provide a springboard to your creativity. See where it takes you, and feel free to post your work in the comments.

“affair”

Every Wednesday, we feature a single-word writing prompt for you to use as you wish. Use the word as a springboard to wherever your creativity takes you. Feel free to post your poems / stories in the comments each week.

“dancer”

Following on from last week’s book club, I interviewed top short fiction writer Tania Hershman about her collection The White Road and Other Stories.

WW:  How did the collection come about? Can you tell us anything interesting / unusual about it?

TH: You might like to take a look at the post I wrote for How Publishing Really Works blog last year, on the 2nd anniversary of my book.  I write about how it all happened, but in a slightly different way! Here’s a taster:

How I Got Published

Or, How Tania Hershman Achieved Her Dream and Got A Book Deal
1. The girl reads everything. She reads books through every meal. She finishes the entire section in the library for 8 year olds and moves on. One day, she thinks, she will hold a book with her name on it.
2. The girl doesn’t find her English classes very inspiring, but she loves maths. She gets steered by her teachers towards science and away from literature, and ends up studying maths and physics and University. But words are her medium, not bunsen burners. She writes for the University newspaper and then discovers there is such a thing as a science journalist. Ah, she thinks.

WW: Many of the stories come from ideas in the New Scientist magazine – can you say a little bit about how this inspires you, what is it about scientific ideas that sparks your creativity?

TH: What fascinates me about science is the “solving the puzzle” aspect, that the universe has hidden secrets and we, humans, are trying to crack some code, to work it out. I love the relationship between theoretical and experimental – that there are a bunch of scientists thinking up the way things might be, sometimes crazy, preposterous ideas (String Theory – the proposition that we are all fundamentally made up up tiny vibrating strings – is highly imaginative!) and then the experimenters design experiments to try and prove them right or wrong. I’ve spent a year as writer-in-residence in a biochemistry lab, getting a feel for the rhythms of daily life as a scientist, and it truly is a different world. Mostly, it’s about what doesn’t  work, what goes wrong, and how a researcher can learn from that. Scientists ask such great questions: What are we made of? How do plants work? What’s out past the stars we can see? How is this not inspiring, to any artist? I am thrilled to have a new science-inspired short story in the Dec 24th issue of New Scientist, it’s wonderful that my fiction is reaching a new audience.

WW: Which is your favourite story in the book? Can you tell us a bit about how you wrote it?

TH: Ah come now, this is like asking a parent to pick one of their children above the others! I love them all. The stories in the book were written between 7-8 years ago and I think a writer has to love love love her or his latest story, otherwise how can you write it? I think you have to fall in love with your own story. So my favourite, if I have one, is the one I’m working on now. But the characters in the book have never left me, I felt them all as I wrote, they are all real to me, I’m very fond of them .

WW: My favourite story was The Incredible Exploding Victor. Can you tell us a
bit about where the characters / idea came from?

TH: Ah, Howie and Victor! I am fond of them. It’s lovely to me that different people have different favourites, as it should be.  Well, the idea came from that New Scientist quote at the top of the story about an exploding star, but the story really came while I was in the US doing a writing workshop – I remember very vividly how the first line popped into my head while I was wandering around a book shop, and I was so delighted because both the characters were there, immediately, in the first line. For me, it all comes from first lines, the voice, the style, the characters. I can’t do anything til I’ve got that. And then I never know where it’s going, I keep writing to find out.

WW: Anything else you’d like to say about the collection? I really enjoyed it, very different from anything I’ve read before.

TH: Thank you so much, that means a great deal to me. I didn’t ever think I’d have a collection, it was a distant dream, and it still amazes me, over three years later, that people want to ask me about it, tell me about it. It’s miraculous, the places the book has taken me, and how much I have learned about my own stories from readers and their comments. I feel very very lucky.

Thanks Tania, a great book.

Don’t forget our February read is Faber Young Poets 6: Annie Katchinska, a slim volume, so get your hands on it now!

Yes, it might be a cliche to make New Year Resolutions, but it’s a good excuse to take stock of where you are with your writing and think about what you want to achieve in 2012. Do you want to commit to writing a short story a week, a poem a month? Finish that novel? Join a writing group?

Whatever your thoughts, here are some tips on making achievable goals and keeping the motivation going, to ensure you achieve what you want for your writing in 2012:

1. Make your goal realistic – you might want to write a novel in a month / year, but isn’t it more practicle to make a writing date with yourself each week, and to stick to it.

2. At the end of each month, take time to review your progress. Did you meet your writing dates each week? Where did you fall down, and how could you improve things / make more time?

3. Get a buddy – hanging out with other writers with similar goals can certainly help the motivation, and even if it’s only posting your weekly word count in a forum (try ours!), then the pull of committing to even doing that might be just the push you need to get those words down. The constructive feedback that writing groups provide might also help to hone your skills.

4. Try something new – if you’re feeling bored / stuck in a writing rut, then why not try a different form of writing. If you usually write novels, why not try some poetry, or a flash story? Or try a different subject matter / genre / poetic form. The change can spark your creativity in ways you never predicted.

5. Take time to think – go on long walks, or soak in a bubble bath, whatever it takes to get the creative juices flowing.

6. Subscribe to writers’ magazines like MsLexia, to get ideas and keep that motivation up.

7. Enter competitions – the deadline can often help with finishing projects.

8. Use writing prompts – use photo prompts, or a word as a starting point for brainstorming ideas.

9. Book a writing retreat – a great way to get rid of distractions, and indulge yourself in your writing. Try the Arvon Foundation, or book a cottage in the middle of nowhere.

10. Make an ‘inspiration board’ – fill a noticeboard with inspirational quotes, photos, and people. Write your goals on the board, and use it as inspiration . motivation.

Why not start now and post your writing goals for 2012 in the comments?

Wordless Wednesday is so 2011. For 2012, we will be featuring a single-word writing prompt for you to use as you wish. Feel free to post your poems / stories in the comments each week.

“illumination”

The first book in our ‘book club’ is The White Road and Other Stories by Tania Hershman, published by Salt. This is a collection of stories, some the more traditional ‘short story’ length, some much shorter. The collection seemed to alternate longer pieces with the very short ones, which I think worked very well. Tania’s background is in science journalism, and many of the stories here are influenced by ideas which have come from articles in the New Scientist magazine. These stories were introduced by a line from the article, and I found this very thought-provoking, and a clever link between the idea in the article and the story in the book.

For me, this book was really unique, for its clever use of scientific ideas in fiction. When I first picked it up, i was a little wary of this, but don’t let it put you off – I am not one for ‘sci-fi’, but the ideas here are presented in a very ‘literary’ style, quite playful at times (see ‘Evie and the Arfids’). Tania describes this as ‘science-inspired fiction‘, as opposed to ‘science fiction’. This was something of a revelation to me, and a great spark for creative ideas, although I think it presupposes some scientific knowledge on the part of the writer (but not the reader, necessarily), so not that easy to pull off.

I found this an inspiring and unique collection, and look forward to re-reading in the future. Watch out for an interview with Tania about the book later in the month.

If you have read this book, please feel free to add to the debate in the comments.

February’s book will be Faber New Poets 6: Annie Katchinska

Kick-start your 2012 writing resolutions with a 6 week online course in writing flash fiction with one of the masters of the form, Calum Kerr…

The Whole World in a Flash

Flash-fiction is the newest form on the block and one which is catching on at incredible speed. There are two reasons for this. For the reader it’s a quick read, easy to carry on a mobile phone or e-book reader, and perfect for fitting in on that bus-rise, tube-ride, coffee-break or wherever.

For the writer it gives the opportunity to craft something small and perfectly formed, but something which will not take too long to write, nor take over your entire life in the way a novel can. It also gives the writer the chance to dip their toes into the whole huge range of literary styles and genres.

This course will introduce the writers to a large variety of different prompts from which they can write stories, show them how to find and generate new prompts for themselves, and encourage them to spread their writing nets wider than ever before, fishing off coastlines they have never heard of, and catching brighter and more exotic fish than they thought possible. (Over-extended metaphors will not be compulsory, however).

The course starts on Monday 6th February and runs for 6 weeks.

Calum Kerr is a writer and an associate lecturer in Creative Writing and English at Winchester University. He has been published widely in print and online magazines and anthologies. He specialises in flash-fiction. His self-published collection, 31, is available to buy here and his current project to write a flash-fiction every day for year is online here.

Calum is also the coordinator for the first National Flash-fiction Day to be held on 16th May 2012. More info at www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk.

[The small print: no refunds will be issued unless the course is cancelled by Winning Words or the course tutor. Please ensure you have basic computer proficiency before signing up!]

The early-bird price of £89 will only last until the first week of January, so sign up today!

Sign up here:

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, life just seems to be getting in the way! All will be back in the new year, but until then relax, eat, drink and be merry. Oh, and watch this space for details of a brand new flash fiction course coming soon…

Every Wednesday we feature a wordless writing prompt.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Nick K.