Advent Story 2024 - The Sleeper

Last December I wrote an advent story day by day on social media, and I felt inspired to do it again this year on Bluesky (with round ups every few days on Instagram and Facebook). Now it's done I'm collating it all here, and it begins...

***

Let me sing you a song of a sleeper. She lies on a bed of woven boughs, cushioned with mosses. Her pillow is mounded leaves, she has no coverlet. When the sun shines, she is warm. When it rains, the water runs over her skin in rivers. When the snow falls, she is blanketed in white.

She sleeps deeply, does not toss and turn, not when the wind breathes on her neck nor when the mist fingers her air. She does not stir when a blackbird alights on her wrist, looking for worms. A regiment of ants march a road across her belly and still she sleeps. But she dreams.

What Roleplaying Games Taught Me About Writing

Lessons From Roleplaying: Collaborative, Playful Storytelling

[A previous version of this craft article was originally posted in the Retreat West Community, during my time as Community Writer-in-Residence.]

Even if you know nothing about roleplaying games, you've probably heard of Dungeons & Dragons, but what you may not know is that there's more to roleplaying than just D&D.

I've been a roleplayer for more than 20 years. I started on tabletop games, where a group of friends play out a story and (usually) roll multi-sided dice to determine the outcome of actions, and later moved to live action roleplay (LARP) events, in which you get dressed up as your character and act out the scenarios.

LARP events range in size and duration from a few hours for small groups, up to weekend or week-long 'fest-style' gatherings for hundreds or even thousands of people. Both tabletop and LARP games come in many genres; fantasy, science fiction, horror, historical, and more.

Over the years, I've learnt a lot about what makes a good story in roleplaying, and I think much of this can be applied to writing too. I've written this article with writers who may not have any experience of roleplaying in mind, but I hope roleplayers with an interest in writing may also find it useful!

Telling Old Stories in New Ways

Writing Retellings of Fairy Tales and Myths

[A previous version of this craft article was originally posted in the Retreat West Community, during my time as Community Writer-in-Residence.]

Retellings of old or traditional stories are extremely popular; you can find them in the form of novels, TV shows, movies, and also in the world of short/flash fiction. In a Reader’s Digest article titled 'Why do we love retellings of old stories?' (sadly no longer available online), journalist Kate Townshend speculated as to why:

There’s an argument that says the best stories, the ones that take root in our imaginations, lend themselves to retellings as we turn them over in our minds, digging deeper and deeper in order to reach the underlying “truth” of a tale. Perhaps this is why fairytales have long been a genre particularly ripe for retellings.

But what makes a good retelling, and how can you approach writing one? For me there are two key elements; having a good knowledge and understanding of the story you want to retell, and finding an approach that means your version of that story says something new.

Advent Story 2023 - Bianca's Tale

In December I decided to write a story day-by-day on social media (posted on Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook each day), for advent. Having completed the tale on Christmas Eve, I'm collating the whole thing here - and it starts like this...

It was winter, and the naked trees reached for the cold sky with twisted fingers. Bianca had wrapped up warm but the chill crept in around the edges of her clothes and worried at her skin. She knew it would get worse before it got better, for the night was only just beginning.

Lit Mag Advent A-Z: The Full List

So I had an idea for a series of Twitter advent posts of stories/poems I love from different online lit mags, and for an added challenge I figured is could be an A-Z (so would actually end on Boxing Day). They are all on Twitter under the hashtag #LitMagAdventAtoZ, but if you missed any of them they are all listed here as well, for completeness.

I dug back into stories I had bookmarked in the past, so they are not all from 2022, although some of them are. Quite impressed I managed the whole alphabet, considering I didn't have a full list prepped when I started. And some letters had more choices that others, so the number of pieces/lit mags featured each day ranged from 1 to 5.

Anyway, without further ado, here they all are...

September-November Reading Round-Up

Still playing catch up from the end of 2020 here, so you get three months' worth of online bookmarked loveliness for the price of one. Lucky you!

(I started reading several new books over this period, but didn't actually finish any of them. There'll be one in my post about December though, coming soon...)

Anyway, here's what I do have to share with you:

August Reading Round-Up

Can't believe it's nearly 2021! And here I am backtracking all the way to August... but in August I did a lot of reading 😊 I finished three whole actual books, and bookmarked a whole bunch of great stuff I found online!

First, the books...

July Reading Round-Up

Playing catch up again, because life has got away from me a bit recently... No books in July, but I can tell you there will *definitely* be finished books in my August post! And yes, that's books - plural 😃📚

Anyway, here's what I read and bookmarked online in July:

Lockdown Crafting

Look, a post that's not about reading! (Not that there's anything wrong with posts about reading, of course.)

I thought I would share a little bit about some other creative pursuits I've been indulging, of the crafty variety. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a very sporadic crafter and also easily distracted by shiny new crafts, and I have a bad habit of doing nothing at all for months on end and then taking on a massive, complicated project (usually with a tight deadline) - example: I made my own wedding dress, and a few years later made a wedding dress for a friend (way more nerve-wracking than making your own, believe me!)

Anyway, ignoring the fact that I have a heap of WiP craft projects, I thought I'd start with something I *have* finished.

June Reading Round-Up

June was a pretty full-on month work-wise, so didn't finish any books (although I did squeeze in some reading along the way). 

The problem(/benefit) of following a lot of wonderful writers and small/indie presses on Twitter is that I keep coming across new and exciting books and adding to my TBR pile (it's getting pretty precarious), so I really need to make some quality reading time and dig in to some of them! I have this week off work, so this will be me for some of the time at least:

But I did still collect some links to things I stumbled across and loved, to share here, so without further ado here are my June recommendations for stuff you can read online...

May Reading Round-Up

Falling behind again, but circumstances still being what they are... you know!

Part of the point of documenting what I'm reading (even if it's only for me) is an attempt to read more widely and finish books on my TBR list (I have a tendency to re-read old favourites a lot), read outside of my default comfort zone (which is SFF/speculative), and also read more deliberately around the genre(s) I want to write in, which currently includes interesting/weird short fiction and books that draw heavily on folklore. You can't write a genre you don't read!

So, in May I finished two books, and while I haven't wandered very far from my comfort zone yet, this month I did cover the last goal: both folklore and short fiction.

April Reading Round-Up

I do plan to use this blog for more than just book/story reviews, and I have other things (like updates on my own writing, and various crafting projects) that I will hopefully manage to share with you soon, but frankly I'm quite pleased with myself for getting these posts done, as historically I haven't done very well at sticking with blogging!

Anyway, April was the month in which we all realised that all of this *waves hands expansively* was likely to go on for a while... I've been working from home since lockdown began, so in theory I've gained back the ~2.5 hours a day I usually spend on my commute, but we all know that doesn't necessarily translate, especially in such weird times. But I have done some reading, in spite of all that, and here it is.

March Reading Round-Up

Will I ever catch up and post these in a less delayed fashion? Who knows. Does it matter? Probably not. What day is it anyway, the 413th of Quarantinuary?

Right, March. March was that weird month that started out sort of normal and ended up with working from home in lockdown. Yeah. But... I did read some stuff. So here goes:

February Reading Round-Up (a month late!)

I'm now well over a month late writing this, but I think I can be forgiven with everything that's going on! I suppose I could have conflated February and March together, but having only started this in January I thought I'd try and stick to the format I wanted...

I actually finished two books in February (!), so let's start with those.

January Reading Round-Up

In an effort to get through more of my endless TBR pile, and rebuild my reading habits a bit, I thought it might be nice to blog about what I read each month. Turns out, in spite of having several books on the go in January, I haven't actually finished any of them yet... D'oh! Best intentions and all that 😳

However, I also read quite a lot of flash/short fiction and poetry online these days, so I decided to make a note of things I came across this month that jumped out at me, moved me in some way, or were just downright brilliant! Obviously there is a huge amount of great writing out there, so this is just a short personal selection of things I happened to read and enjoy.

Slightly Belated 2019-in-Review Post

Before it gets completely too late to do so, I thought I should try to sum up how 2019 went for me in terms of writing stuff.

30 Tiny Stories in 30 Days

In June I successfully completed the Like The Prose challenge from the lovely folks at The Literal Challenge. The idea is to write 30 short stories in 30 days - one complete new piece of prose every day for a month.

Writing About Writing

So, that 2015 relaunch went as planned, huh? Let's try this again...!

Last weekend I attended the Northern Short Story Festival in Leeds. It was a bit of a last minute decision (just two weeks before the event) but, it turns out, an excellent one! I've come away all inspired and motivated, and feeling the need to network and achieve things with my writing, or at least attempt to (hence: blogging). Long may this feeling last!

“I Don’t Like Fighting” (or, How I Ended Up Playing With Swords)

So here’s the thing: I’m not a fighter. I have never been a fighter. I didn’t get in fights as a child (except for the occasional spat with my brother, but that hardly counts), and I never had any interest in doing martial arts.

 

I was a reasonably active child and teenager, but the activities I took up were non-combative (and often, I suppose, those that would be considered more ‘girly’).

Obligatory Intro Post

In theory I’ve had this blog since 2012. In practice I’ve basically never used it, so I’ve decided it’s time for a bit of a relaunch (also I’ve written pretty much nothing this year, and blogging might kick start that bit of my brain… maybe?).
 

So here we are.

I’m not really sure quite what this will turn out to be. Most likely a collection of random posts about my various interests and hobbies, which include but are not necessarily limited to:

• HEMA (historical European martial arts)
• LARP (live action role play)
• Writing
• Crafting (mainly sewing plus other bits and pieces)
• Running

I have a fairly severe issue with procrastination, so any activity that doesn’t involve regular stuff to attend or externally imposed deadlines is likely to be pretty sporadic, and therefore blog posts on particular topics may well come in fits and spurts as my brain engages and focuses on something for a while and then wanders off to something else (or just resorts to sitting in front of the TV). You never know, this might actually help me be a bit more consistent with some things (…who am I kidding!).

I haven’t blogged regularly since my LiveJournal days (and to be honest ‘regular’ is something of a misnomer for the level of LJ activity I managed). I’d love to say I’d like to post once a week, but I know myself better than that! If I manage one or two a month I’ll be happy.

Anyway, let’s get on to some actual content…