New pages, new reads, a new writing challenge

It’s Monday, which means another mini-blog! I hope you enjoy this week’s writing challenge, as well as the latest updates from me:

Writing challenges get their own page:

I’ve created a page for my weekly writing challenges - so you can now browse them all in one place to find one that captures your imagination. I’ll be keeping it up to date every week when I add a new one - but keep an eye on this blog to be first to catch the latest.

When Life Gives You Mangoes.JPG

What I’ve read, what I’m reading:

Last week I finished the most incredible book: When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten. The story follows Clara who’s been having a difficult time with her best friend, and who can’t remember things about last summer. All she knows is, she used to love to surf, but now she’s afraid of the sea... The adult audiobook I’ve just started is The Martian by Andy Weir, which I’m loving listening to as an audiobook. I’m finding a few parallels between lockdown and Mark Watney’s experience of being alone on Mars!

Writing challenge #4:

We watched Spirited Away this weekend (man I love that film!) and the idea of there being a spirit in/for everything - based I think on the Shinto religion - gave me an idea for the next challenge. So here it is. In Spirited Away there are river spirits, stink spirits - even a radish spirit! Take any object you can see or imagine (a tree, an armchair, your favourite mug) or something you can’t (like a smell you love) and imagine it as a character. What would they look like? What sort of personality do they have? How do they behave/talk/move? Write all about them! And please share: I’d love to hear all about your character.

Stay safe and well everybody, and have a brilliant week.

Writing challenge #3 - exploring emotions

I really like thinking about how characters feel when I write, and what the things that provoke a big reaction say about them. (In Glassheart there’s an imp called Castor whose scales change colour depending on how he feels, and that was really fun to write.) So I’d like to try a super fun challenge this week:

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