I’m back!
I had my bike ride – it was across the Golden Gate Bridge & I had my icecream – in the heart of San Francisco. (Apologies for the white lie about my holiday but I’m currently wrangling with my car insurance over the theft of my car a few weeks ago and it made me feel vulnerable about announcing to the world that the house would be empty.)
Amongst many other things we visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It contains a video installation that explores the art of story telling ‘without a beginning or an end and with no character or plot development’. I’m sure if we tried this as writers our work would be swiftly rejected. Maybe it’s different in the art world…
I also bought a copy of the US writing magazine ‘Writer’s Digest’. It seemed quite thin compared to our own Writing Magazine and Writers’ Forum but there are a few things of interest on its website:
- A series of writing prompts – responses of up to 500 words can be posted on the site or you could just use them to kick-start your own writing
- Various competitions such as one here for a 1500 word story.
- Writing Tips
- Writing articles cargorised by genre such as Romance, Horror, Memoir etc.
So, if you fancy an insight into the US writing scene, take a look at the site.
Sally Jenkins 
#1 by Patsy Collins (@PatsyCollins) on September 5, 2011 - 5:23 pm
Sometimes I feel as though there’s no end or beginning or plot to mty stories – I do always have at least one character though!
#2 by Sally Jenkins on September 5, 2011 - 7:34 pm
Patsy – I’m sure your character at least overcomes some sort of conflict, thus giving interest to the story.
#3 by Sarah Pearson on September 6, 2011 - 4:55 pm
I can just imagine the editor’s face when you present something like that to them and say ‘but it’s ART…’
#4 by Sally Jenkins on September 6, 2011 - 6:24 pm
Sarah – I don’t think I’d be brave enough to try it!