Skeleton Architecture

I've been getting interested in poetry lately.  Now that I spend more of my time writing, I'm more impressed by well chosen words, and by imagery that speaks so much louder than it might be expected to. Here are some of the poems which keep coming back to me at the moment. 1. You are at the Bottom of My Mind  by Iain Crichton Smith is a fabulous poem, which you'll find in full if you follow the link. It's also a poem which has inspired me to write one of my favourite poems by me to date, which I'd share with you if you were paying to view this stuff, but unfortunately, I am forced to keep to myself... for now. 2. Snow by Louis MacNeice is a really interesting poem. At first glance it is flowery (literally) nonsense, but it grows on you. It keeps coming back to me. I first came across this poem on googling a line from it that someone had quoted: "World is suddener than we fancy it." Here's the poem in full. Read it out loud. Let me

I love high fantasy books.  I've written a post about my love of fantasy fiction before, so I shan't go over that again here. Today we'll stick with high fantasy. What's high fantasy? You can check out the Wikipedia entry on the topic, but I'd describe it as big stories, set in slightly magical alternative worlds, often peopled with things like elves. The societies are well worked out, with power structures, religion, and rules for any magic. The most famous books in this genre are probable Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, although George RR Martin is currently vying for that position with his Song of Ice and Fire series and other stories set in the same world. High fantasy is often set in a medieval-esque world, although it doesn't have to be . Similarly, the books often use medieval-esque societal rules, although they don't have to. These rules often result in women, and races other than white human, getting the short end of a rather shitt

This is my first link up with The Prompt (click on the link pic below to find out more - or have a look here ). I'm finding it hard to work out what to do, so I thought I'd just do it. Eek. Inked Colours written on the body; stories told inside the skin. The ink-ed creature recreates herself. Inchoate markings clothe in colour: carnation blooms within the skin. A crimson kiss comes carmine, but is kept. ©   Cara L McKee, 25th October 2015

Today's exercise is similar to previous exercises I've set out, in that you take six starting points, and use a dice to decide which one to run with. Today though, they are literally (and literary) staring points. The first lines of books you have to hand.  The first line of a story is very important. You need to grab your reader, and make them want to keep going. So using something from a book you've already deemed worth reading has to be handy, right? Here are the six I had to hand (references at the bottom of the post if you're interested, although it might be best if you ignore them just now): 1. They found blood on the trail on the seventh day, five spots, red against the grey of old snow. 2. Even though the temperature had not risen above freezing in nine months, the bear carcass was not frozen. 3. The lady of the castle huddled with her children in the shattered tower. 4. The prophet was drowning men on Great Wyk when they came to tell him that the ki

Today's writing exercise is all about building up your arsenal of stuff to be used in stories. You'll need to be in a cafe, or other public space (preferably one where people stay for a while). You're going to need a notebook. You can write stuff on your 'phone or some other gadget if you prefer, but personally, for quick jotting, I'm a big fan of a notebook. Choose a person. You're going to write about this person. What they look like, how they move, the cut of their jib. Unusual people may be more interesting, but anyone becomes unusual if you look long enough (try not to get done for stalking). Describe, describe, describe. Get a really good idea of the person as a character. You might want to move on from doing this to making stuff up about them - a name, the roles they play in their life. Their opinions on various topics. It's all good. If you're like me, you'll make that stuff up as you go along. Now you've got an idea about your char

I've recently heard about 'Shut up and Write' - it's an academia thing. Academics or research students get together somewhere and write in companionable silence for a while, before chatting together over coffee. There's a useful piece on it here . I like this plan, it might be because I like coffee and writing, but hey. It seems like a good enough plan for all of us. If you're going to a 'Shut up and Write' gathering and you're stuck about what to write about, I'm intending on giving you some suggestions to get you started. You'll be able to find a few different ideas right here under the Writing tab. If you've got suggestions for useful prompts then let me know, because different things work for different people at different times. Disembodied words For this exercise you gather words that you hear when you turn on a radio/resume your podcast. You know, just a random sentence from the middle of an interview or news report. I wro

Sometimes I have ideas rattling around my head and they keep tickling me, but they won't quite come out. So here's one thing I do. I take some brief ideas. The ones set out below came from the sentences I was recording on Vocal ID tonight. As I was recording them I was wondering if people ever said most of those sentences, which made me think about context, so I've taken some to act as prompts (thanks Vocal ID). These ideas are supposed to be pretty general, so they can lead off in many directions, but they were ones that grabbed my fancy while my mind was being tickled by a particular thing so I suspect they may be more amendable to that thing... If that makes sense. Anyway, you take six prompts.  Here are mine: No one else can help me. I should have asked him in. He looked so wistful as he went away. I know a story. I will not grant your wish. Now go and do not seek me again. See what I mean? You're not likely to say most of those are you? Right,

I'm afraid I'm well behind the times with this one... so behind in fact that I thought briefly that I shouldn't bother saying anything. However, this book really bugged me. This is a book of short stories with the central theme of 'dangerous women', which is basically cobbled together in order to piggyback some other authors onto the current success of George RR Martin, who has one of his World of Ice and Fire novellas in here.  I got it because of the George RR Martin story, and I did enjoy some of the other authors. I welcome the chance to find new stuff to read (despite the length of my 'to read' list). I don't even mind that I don't like some of the stories, however, some of these stories are just shite. Some of the  women aren't dangerous ; they're barely even characters, and they drag an otherwise good book down. I've been through the stories so you don't have to. Some Desperado by Joe Abercrombie. A great Western s

Today for Friday's Fab five I'm sharing five poems I've come across. They are really fun/moving/good, depending, and are well worth checking out. 1. I'll kick off with Harry Baker, a British poet who has written the best poem in the world; well, he's won the world poetry slam anyway. Here he is doing a TED talk entitled 'A love poem for lonely prime numbers.' That is not the only poem in the TED talk. Harry is light hearted and fun, and has a wonderful way with words. 2. Another TED talk poem now from Shane Koyczan. This one makes me cry. Shane is an amazing poet, and it's well worth checking out his other stuff too. 3. This poem from Josie Pizer about her experience of pain is beautifully personal. 4. I shared this poem the other day on my post about my favourite physical traits. This is a little blue, but it's also awesome. This is Heels by Imani Cezanne. 5. My last choice is from Liz Lochhead, the current Makar (Nationa

I heard on the news this morning that they've discovered another type of human which was living at the same time as our ancestors and the other species of humans. Sadly, we're the only humans left, and, while it's possible that there was some interbreeding, it is also possible that we killed them off. We can't know for sure, because there wasn't anyone writing it all down. Humans like us have been around for about 200,000 years. Throughout our history we have communicated, at first through gestures and sound, but we have evidence that we've been communicating by making marks for 40,000 years (which isn't long compared to how long we've been here, eh?). The first thing that springs to mind is cave painting, but there is also evidence that some marks were made to communicate to others. However, writing as we think of it, has only been around for about 5,000 years (probably - it might be earlier, but not written on things that lasted - think Betamax)

I have spoken before about how my list of books to read is huge, and ever growing. This week for Friday's Fabulous Five, I thought I'd share five books which have recently gone on the list. Perhaps I can make your list grow too?! 1. First up is Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther, as recommeded on A Good Read back in March 2015. This is a really old book, but I've not read it yet, even though there was a Virago version and I used to read EVERYTHING from Virago! Have you read it yet? 2 Next up, and I don't know how it got on the list, but it looks good is The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch. This is pretty old too, but fascinating, telling tales from Lesley's life. It's reviewed in the Telegraph here . Lesley died in 2007, aged 103, and having packed a lot in. Literally. 3. Also from A Good Read (I should stop listening to that programme) is The Village Against the World by Dan Hancox (they talk about it at about 10 minutes in). This is about Marinaleda i