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October and Halloween Soon
Blog: October 2020: October (again) Bits and Bobs
Last time I wrote I was so cold I was going to put a T-shirt on under my rugby shirt (adding layers). Well, I did the very next day, but, I had to take it off within a couple of hours as I was sweating so much. Here in the UK there was a bit of an Indian summer and it was hotter than most of the rest of the summer. This lasted a couple of weeks. It’s turned a bit chilly again but this time I’m going to tough it out. NOT for long. It’s chilly and I’m gonna keep warm with another layer.
Competitions
Another Furious Fiction writing contest is on the way this weekend.
Don’t forget about the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest. You have until November 1st (2020) to enter. Good luck. My first attempt was about a telepathic spider and though weird it wasn’t a story, so scrapped. Back to the drawing board so then I thought, ‘Do Zombies celebrate Christmas?’
I’ve never written about Zombies and since I’m a little squeamish, only read a couple of Zombie stories. Then I remembered that with over 2,200 stories tagged Zombies (other common fiction tags listed here) here on Medium I should be able to get plenty of ideas about what Zombies can and can’t do. I want my Zombies to be friendly… only a month to go.
Halloween Horror Story Contest
Tempest used to be a publication on Medium but it then became independent Tempest Community Writers with it’s own web site. They are looking for more writers to join their merry band and to get a bit of publicity are holding a Halloween Horror Story Contest.
Watch out you only have until October the 10th to enter, and the competition closes once they reach 50 entries. Good Luck if you enter.
Reading
I seem to be starting plenty of books but not finishing any. I have at least six books on the go right now and no one book insists on me having to read the next chapter.
I’m half way through Children of Ruin (Adrian Tchaikovsky) and I keep forgetting who’s who — I have a terrible memory anyway. It’s about spiders, so can you guess why I tried to write about them. The first in the series ‘Children of Time’ was a real page turner which I heartily recommend.
I’m also part way through War of the Worlds (HG Wells) and I hear music from Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’ particularly Forever Autumn. The book and record diverge (and the Tom Cruise film 2005) so the book must be a fuller story. The book was first published over a hundred years ago (1898) so it’s hardly a surprise that some of the sentence phrasing feels unusual. I can’t just let it wash over me, I have to concentrate.
I’m also part way through reading about the myths of mortals whose lives affected by Greek gods. Heroes by Stephen Fry. I think I should have started on the myths of the Greek gods Mythos first, but never mind. Those Greek gods did whatever they wanted to do — you name it they did it usually to the detriment of us poor mortals.
Another Book Added to the To Read List
I recently watched the chilling docudrama Des, about the serial killer Desmond Nilsen on ITV (UK). This series, based on real life, is drawn mainly from the book Killing for Company by Brian Masters which I read some time ago and want to reread.
Serial killers are fascinating and frightening at the same time. But this one is particularly relevant to me as I used to live in Muswell Hill (London) during the time Nilsen did. I sometimes used to go to the same local pub that Nilsen frequented. I was a single male at the time. Luckily I wasn’t homeless, but one does wonder about fate sometimes.
Nilsen killed about 14 single men and claimed it could very easily have been 100. He wanted to be caught. He was the only resident to complain about the smell and blocked drains. Investigation of these led to his arrest.
Writing
I finally had a story published outside of Medium at journal Free Flash Fiction. It’s a fairly new journal so take a look and make sure you read my centina Everyone Needs Grandparents (I also reprint here on Medium).
It’s amazing how real life encroaches and interferes with plans. I find I can’t write if I have ‘stuff’ happening to me. That old cliche of a writer going off and renting a cottage in the middle of nowhere must really work as I could do without all the distractions of everyday life.
The Use of Simile and Metaphor
Simile — a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g. as brave as a lion )
Metaphor — a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Look out for the metaphor ‘legs were noodles’ in this TED Ed video for :
The more stories you read the more you start to notice that there is something missing in your own work. For instance my fiction is okay but increasingly it feels like a newspaper article, a factual representation of what happened, rather than art.
Q. Why can’t I write stuff like ‘legs were noodles’?
A. It doesn’t occur to me. I’ve NEVER wrote metaphors or similes, well not intentionally.
How to Resolve?
How does one go about writing metaphors?
If you know of a way to develop ones writing to produce metaphors please let me know. But the only way I can think of is to spend time on attempting it, perhaps BRAINSTORM some random metaphors?
I just looked at wiki-How on How to Write a Metaphor, and it seems metaphors are created by changing something already written. Time to look at my old (non-published) stories to see if I can spice them up.
Well, for the next month I will try to come up with ten metaphors.
What Now?
I’ve got some hard work trying to create a few metaphors ahead of me. It’s hard because I have never done it before. Nothing else springs to mind that I want to write about this month, so, Happy Halloween and ‘till next time,
Stevie
