5 Word Challenge – The Answer
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Writing on January 18, 2012
The 5 word sentence, where each of the 5 words is identical is:
Image via Wikipedia
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
The meaning is:
Buffalo buffalo (i.e. buffalo that live in Buffalo) buffalo (i.e a verb meaning to intimidate or fight) Buffalo buffalo (i.e. buffalo that live in Buffalo).
This is also explained here and a longer more complicated version is here. One day this knowledge might make you the winner of a pub quiz!
Whilst we’re on the subject of short pieces of writing, here are a couple of flash fiction competitions:
- Early Works Press are offering £75 first prize plus two runners-up prizes of £10 for a 100-word story. Entry is £3.50 and the closing date is 31/8/2012. Full details here.
- Multi-Story want 600 words and offer prizes of £300, £100 and £50 for an entry fee of £5 (or £8 for 2 stories). It’s an open theme and the closing date is 29th February 2012. Full details are here.
5 Word Challenge
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Writing on January 16, 2012
Here’s a challenge that my sister-in-law set me at Christmas – I failed miserably but I’m sure you can do better.
Can you create a 5-word sentence where each of the 5 words is exactly the same?
Here’s a clue – the word has 3 different meanings within the sentence, it is used as a verb, a noun and a proper noun. The word is spelt the same each time it is used.
I’ll post the answer on Wednesday (if you use the box on the right to subscribe to this blog via email, the answer will automatically arrive in your inbox as soon as it’s posted – it’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time).
In the meantime if you’re running out of inspiration for your writing, take a look at Sally Quilford’s blog. She’s currently running a challenge to write 100,000 words in 100 days – not for the faint-hearted and definitely not for me! But to help those who are up to the challenge she is posting a selection of writing prompts each day. Many of them are quite inspiring and could easily trigger a short story or a poem. Why not nip over there, choose a prompt and get writing!
Cloud Backup or External Hard Drive?
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Computers & Technical on January 11, 2012
Over the last couple of weeks the computer gremlins have invaded our household, throwing up the ‘blue screen of death‘
Image by Bill Strong via Flickr
on the desktop PC and various funnies/frozen screens on my daughters’ laptops. This made me nervous and I decided we needed to have a proper back up copy of everything. I’ve mentioned the importance of regular backups before on this blog (see here) but I’ve still been bumbling along with a memory stick for documents and the occasional backup of photos to CD when we remember to do it.
So off we went to buy an external hard drive. But the nice man in the shop talked us out of it and into buying a Cloud back up instead. This would mean we could access our data from any PC, it would be equivalent to an ‘off-site’ backup and my elder daughter wouldn’t have to cart yet another bit of kit off to university with her. It seemed a great idea so we bought it and set it to save everything that was on my elder daughter’s laptop – music, photos, university work etc.
It took hours and hours and hours and sent us way over our internet usage allowance (I suppose if I’d thought about it I would have realised this would be the case). Then we had trouble trying to determine whether the scheduled hourly scan & save for changed documents was actually happening. I tried phoning the Cloud support line but a machine told me all queries must be logged via the website.
We concluded the Cloud was a bad idea and went back to the original, external drive idea for the other PCs. It was so much easier! A few ‘copy and pastes’ and everything was saved and we could easily see it was there.
I’ve previously used the limited free cloud storage provided by Dropbox (and recommended by Simon Whaley) for some of my documents and will carry on using it. But it seems to me that if you have large amounts of pictures or music then an external hard drive is the better choice (especially since they don’t tend to change very often and it’s easy to remember to back them up each time you download a new bunch of photos or an album).
Does anyone else have experience of Cloud backup – am I the only one that struggled with it?
Valentine’s Day Short Story Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions on January 5, 2012
Gail Lawler has asked me to give a mention to the Valentine’s Day short story competition that she is running through the website www.5minutefiction.co.uk. Entries should be on the subject of ‘Love’ and must be between 100 and 1,500 words in length.
The entry fee is £1 per story and the prizes are Amazon vouchers to the value of £30, £20 and £10 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes respectively. These 3 winners, plus up to 20 additional entries, will be considered for publication in an e-book anthology and will receive a share of the royalties. The rules also state that ‘all entries will receive feedback’.
Entry is via email and the entry fee is payable via PayPal. Closing date is 5th February 2012 and the winning stories will be published on the website on 14th February 2012.
I’m sure that most of us have written a story at sometime on the theme of love, so with such a reasonable entry fee, now is the time to dig it out, polish it up and send it on its way!
But first check out the full terms and conditions here.
New Year’s Resolutions…or maybe not
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Writing on December 28, 2011
I don’t like New Year’s resolutions for two reasons – both related to the fact that they have to be made public. Firstly, when you say aloud something that you really want to do, it can sound impossible to achieve or just stupid – and that is a bad way to start. Secondly, once everyone knows that you’re training for a marathon or writing a novel, they will keep asking how you are doing. This is fine when things are going well but it’s awful to have to own up if you’re struggling. So I am going to keep my own aspirations to myself this year and instead I’ll just share a few mini-goals that I’ve put on my ‘Writing To Do List’ fot the first part of 2012:
- Enter all 4 of Eddie Walsh’s Emerald Writing Workshops 500 word story competitions plus the 4 sentence story. I intend to send them all together in one envelope (saving money on stamps!) before the first closing date of 28th February 2012. I’ve already drafted most of them – I just need an idea for the story set on a train…
- Enter Della Galton’s competition for a 250 word story about a New Year’s resolution that went wrong. The prize is a copy of her new book ‘Moving On’. Closes 10am Jan 4th.
- Enter The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2012 competition. Stories on the theme of ‘Identity’ of up to 2,000 words. Closes 14th February 2012. I really fancy the prize – £500 plus an Arvon course.
- Enter the Swanwick 2012 competition for a story or article on the theme ‘A Sense of Duty’. First prize is a week at the Swanwick summer school. Closes 30th April 2012. I fancy there will be fewer entrants in the article section but at the moment I’m struggling to come up with an idea.
Finally, (following yet another rejection from Take a Break’s Fiction Feast) I am going to stop banging my head against a brick wall on markets that my writing is obviously not suited for.
Happy New Year to you all – and thanks for sticking with me through 2011!
Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books on December 23, 2011
I’ve just read a terrific book – Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson.
It’s about a lady called Christine who suffers from memory loss. Each morning she wakes up next to a strange man, not knowing who he is, how she got there or if anything happened between them. This man is her husband, Ben, and every day he has to explain their relationship to her and the facts about her past life. This happens day after day after day. Then a doctor takes an interest in her case and begins to see Christine without Ben’s knowledge. He encourages Christine to start keeping a journal and it appears that Ben may not be telling the full story about Christine’s past.
The ending is nail-biting stuff …
In 2009 Watson took part in the first Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course and this book is the result. Ever hopeful, I’ve just had a quick look at this course and it’s £3,500 for 6 months – a bit out of my league but it was obviously a good investment for Watson because the book has been translated into 30 languages and the film rights have been acquired.
Before I Go To Sleep is Birmingham’s Big City Read and 1,000 free copies (999 now because I’ve had one of them) are available from the city’s libraries. More details are here.
Notes From a Hospital Bed
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Non-writing, Writing on December 19, 2011
A few days ago I had to go into hospital for a minor operation. Like most people, I was nervous and tried not to think
Image via Wikipedia
about the actual procedure. Instead I tried to focus on the more pleasant things – such as choosing which book to pack to fill the time before I went down to theatre, going shopping for new slippers (fruitless – they were all old ladies’ styles!) and the relief I would feel when it was all over. If I had dwelt solely on the operation I would have been stressed, anxious and maybe I would’ve chickened out of the whole thing altogether.
Sitting in the ward in a backless gown, thick white anti-embollism stockings and paper pants (too much information – sorry!), it struck me that it was all a bit like attempting a novel. The thought of the huge task of slogging away at 80,000 words strikes fear, anxiety and stress into the heart of any writer – and scares many of us away from starting chapter 1 at all. But taking our eyes off the task ahead and instead concentrating on the preparation (character sketches, plot, chapter outlines etc) and allowing ourselves (brief!) flights of fancy to a future book launch party makes things less daunting – allowing us to slip into the actual writing without too much worry, just as I slipped under the anaesthetic (well, after a couple of attempts by the anaesthetist at finding a vein for his needle).
So don’t let that unknown black hole of hard work frighten you off attempting a longer piece of writing – concentrate on the pleasanter bits to ease yourself into it.
NAWG Short Story Competition 2011 Critique
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Writing on December 14, 2011
A couple of months ago I entered the National Association of Writers’ Groups short story competition and I paid £3 extra for a critique by Linda Lewis. The story I sent had already been in 2 competitions (without success!) but I am fond of it and decided it deserved one more chance.
Again, it came nowhere but this time I found out why. Linda was very gentle but constructive in her comments. She explained that the story didn’t include enough information about the heroine to enable the reader to care what happened to her. Essentially I was writing about a lonely old lady in hospital but I didn’t explain why she had no visitors or what she’d done with her life (all rather obvious stuff when I look at it now). Linda also said that this kind of story had been written many times before (and I thought my idea was original!).
So now I know where I went wrong. I still like the story so I’m going to add some background information and try to think of a twist to make it a bit more unique. Then I’ll look for somewhere else to send it.
Linda writes a regular column in Writers’ Forum magazine and is offering a critique service through her website (don’t be scared – she knows how to phrase things kindly!).
Every little helps…
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Successes, Writing, Writing Exercises on December 9, 2011
Writing is a frustrating occupation with little reward. It’s easy to get fed up with the rejections, the publications that
don’t bother to reply at all and that blank piece of paper which refuses to be filled with wonderful prose.
So why do any of us keep writing? Why do we pick up a pen or drag ourselves to the keyboard day after day? Is it the pleasure of losing ourselves in another world (in which case it would be easier to just pick up a book written by somebody else)?
Hope is what keeps me going. Hope that the editor might like this article pitch, hope that this story might win the competition or this reader’s letter might bag me the star prize.
This hope is fired by small incidents and minor successes along the way – things that cheer me up when the bigger prizes are eluding me.
One of these was my writing group’s Christmas meeting last week. Our new program secretary, Moira, organised a fun competition for a piece of writing containing the phrase ‘It happened every Christmas’ – with prizes from her attic store cupboard. We all took some food (there was way too much food!) and listened to everyone’s entries. We had fiction, poems, memoir and articles. Moira had the unenviable task of awarding the prizes. I received a scented candle in a pretty box (pictured). It may not be an award to add to my CV but it gave me a boost.
A couple of days ago I met up with my writing buddy, Helen. She didn’t award me any prizes but I did get inspired from our chat about plans for 2012. I came away knowing that I have to produce a certain amount of finished work otherwise I’ll let the side down.
Finally, I’ve been shortlisted in the latest Emerald Writing Workshops competition. It’s good to see a couple of other familiar names on the list – fellow blogger, Susan Jones and Sharon Bee who runs the Fiction Addiction website. Fingers crossed for us all!
So, maybe I haven’t won the Booker this month but there have been plenty of little things to keep me going!
Sally Jenkins 