Gwyneth Box

Square photograph of a metal statue. The statue is a bust of a middle-aged to elderly white male with his head turned to look to his right and his eyes looking back over his right shoulder. He is wearing a shirt and tie, with a jacket and a very wide-lapeled coat. The style of clothing suggests he is a historical figure from the mid to late twentieth century.Very little of the background can be seen, but there is a little red brick including a bricked up arch, the cream-painted wooden frame of a shop front and a metal and glass roof. It might be possible to deduce this is a public space, perhaps a Victorian station, so perhaps the statue is of a public figure or one of the rail staff. It can't be known from the photo, but the statue is at Marylebone Station in London.

There's no need to keep looking back over your shoulder. No one is watching you writing.

No one is checking as you write that first draft. So go ahead and write whatever you want. Don't self censor – you can fix things later on when you're re-drafting.

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I've never written a novel. I don't even write much fiction. But I'm still a writer.

A writer is someone who writes - whatever the genre.

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Square photo. The photo shows a tile designed by William De Morgan (Fulham, around 1899-07). The tile is part of the Birmingham Museum collection. The illustration on the tile in shades of blue, green and orange-brown depicts a Lion and snake. It's highly stylised and the lion in particular looks more like a.mythical beast than an actual animal.

Somewhere in your story, you mention a lion.
Most readers will imagine a tawny African lion like Aslan.
Just a few may come up with a blue & regal creature, with amazing eyebrows, like the one here by William De Morgan.

How much should we spell things out for our readers?

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square photo taken looking up and at an angle. The photo shows a high level kitchen cabinet (open) or shelf. Inside is a plastic box with a couple of packets of store-cupboard staples - rice and pulses. Alongside this there's also a glass jar of chick peas. This is all slightly out of focus and not central to the photo. The main focus is a tabby cat, who is sitting on the shelf leaning out and down so all that is seen is her head, which dominates the image. High up on the top of the cupboard, and slightly out of focus is another cat. He is white and all that can be seen is his head, very dark eyes, pink ears and nose, as he looks out from on high.

Skinner may seem to be the main focus of the photo today, but Watson says we shouldn't forget that background characters matter, too!

#writingcommunity #caturday #writerscats

Square photo. The image shows a narrow alley, which runs straight away from the camera into the distance. It is bounded by a high stone block wall to the left and a brick wall to the right. It is clearly autumn as the ground is covered with fallen leaves and there are trees obscuring the sky and their leaves are turning brown. It is night time but the alley is illuminated by street lamps. The alley is deserted and effect is quite spooky.

What's spookier, a dark alley at night or a maze on a sunny day?

You can't see the end of the alley & the lights might go out at any time.
You're lost in the maze & you don't know what's lurking there.

As writers, it's our privilege to create worlds for readers to visit :-)

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Square photo. The photo shows a Michaelmas daisy plant - composite flowers with many thin pale purple petals and yellow centres. There are a dozen or more open flowers and others in bud. The background of the photo is out of focus, but suggests an urban setting.

For me, Michaelmas daisies are firmly associated with shorter autumn days.

If you're writing a novel or a story told over a long period, or at a specific time of year, do you pay attention to the seasons and the flowers and plants that are around as different scenes play out?

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Square photo. Photo of a quiet corner in a big garden. The foreground is an unevenly slabbed area with moss or other plants growing in the cracks. A path leads away from the viewer between tree, shrubs and plants of all heights. On the right of the path there is a border of grass and then other plants.The garden looks well kept, but just a little overgrown. It's all very lush and, although the foreground is in shade, there is sun beyond the trees. In the foreground is an old-fashioned lawn roller.

It may be too late in the year to roll the lawns, but it's always a good time to iron out the mistakes in your writing!

It's hard to spot all the mistakes if you're correcting your own writing, so check out "Ten tips for manuscript checking" on my website journal gwynethbox.com

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Hah! Write to retain your sanity! So obvious a reason that I completely forgot it!!

There are lots of reasons for writing…

Maybe you write to practise or experiment with different styles and forms. Maybe you write background, backstory and dialogues that go on "behind the scenes" of the main story...

…and maybe you just write for fun!


Why are you writing?


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Square photo. A jumbled pile of assorted large cardboard boxes. They could be empty packing boxes from a house move.

With my surname, I have always been fond of boxes of all shapes and sizes. But sometimes even boxes have to be got rid of.

As writers, too, we have to learn what needs to be culled from the manuscript – and all too often it's a case of "Kill your darlings" :-)

#writingcommunity #amwriting

Square close-up photo of the head of a small tabby cat. She is in a red laundry basket. Her eyes are open and the white paw of another cat is pushing her away under the chin. Very little else can be seen in the photo, except a fragment of a curtain and a decorative box. The suggestion is that the photo is in a domestic setting.

Square close-up photo of the head and shoulders of a white cat asleep. He is in a scarlet plastic laundry basket, sleeping on a cream coloured towel. There is other furniture in the background - a wooden chair back painted white and a small wooden tray with glass over a fabric star, which suggests this is in the kitchen or other domestic setting.

When Skinner & Watson were found, the vet guessed their birthday as Oct 21st. These are the official first-birthday photos.

Do you know your characters' ages, birthdays & star signs?
Are they part of the story or just background you know but don't share?

#writingcommunity #caturday #writerscats

It's too late for sunflowers, but this one is wonderfully autumnal and I think the feed needs more florals.

It needs more poetry, too, so here's an extract turned into a stand-alone:

--

the sun flowers
and sheds its petalled light
into the corners
of our unswept lives

--

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Square photo of a bright blue sky with trails of cirrus clouds trailing in from high left to low right.

When you get that first sketchy idea, do you wait till it settles and forms into something more solid of its own accord, or start researching, planning and shaping?

Or do you just pitch right in and get writing?

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Square photo. Close up of a crude wooden carving of a face - probably female. The eyes are wide open. The wood is clearly old and dry as it is cracking in various places.

A bit of an obvious question, given the photo, but here goes:
How do you stop your characters being wooden? How do you bring them to life?

#WritingCommunity #Fiction

Did you think being a writer was all about writing? That it was something you could do alone in your room, in the company of no one but your cat?

In reality the modern writer needs to be willing to be seen, both on social media and – at least occasionally – out in public.

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Square photo. Autumn scene in a park or green space. There is an asphalted path to the left and grass, trees and maybe a bramble patch. The sky is clear, but not a strong blue and there are some shadows, implying that it is relatively sunny. It looks as if it's been windy and wet as the path and grass are covered with fallen leaves. The top of the photo is framed by some almost bare branches. The focal point of the photo is in the very centre. It is a big tree with a triangular shape and still with most of its leaves, which are a glorious russet orange.

There are few signs of autumn where I am in southern Spain, but I still have plenty of photos of autumnal colours in the UK to remind me what it's like to live with "proper" seasons :-)

Do you take photos as notes for your writing? Or look back through them for inspiration?

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Cupboard love :-)

Square photo. All that can be seen is the head of a small grey tabby cat looking down from on top of a wood-veneer kitchen cabinet. The cat's eyes are wide and her pupils dilated. She looks as if she is looking adoringly at someone or something.

I fear that Skinner's look of rapt adoration is not due to her appreciation of my poetry or even of me as a person. I think she's just very aware that I am the one who feeds her.

Maybe I'd have more success as a writer if I included a food package with each book sale :-)

#caturday #writerscats

And it’s the writing that makes it uniquely yours :-)

It probably was! I was just being pedantic :-)

But do you tell anyone else at that stage?

Square photo. Detail of an old-style fairground carousel with galloping horses on twisted golden poles. The fairground is presumable closed as the horses are all wrapped up in bright red protective waterproofs, so their heads and bodies can't be seen. Their hooves and outstretched legs are covered in old socks.

When you get a new writing idea, do you tell the world about it or keep it under wraps like these carousel horses?

The Spanish sun makes daytime fairgrounds sad & tawdry places. But the photo was taken in the UK, which explains the horses' waterproof jackets & woolly socks.

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Square photo. The photo shows a close up of a woven surface. It is dark grey and loosely woven with pairs of threads as both warp and weft. It might be wickerwork or a plastic material. There is no indication what this is part of.

I can't remember when I took this photo, though I do remember thinking that a close-up photo of the textured material might make for an interesting effect.

Relevance to writing? Just a heads-up about remembering to incorporate all five senses in whatever you're writing.

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Square photo. The image shows a close up of a bronze statue of a little boy. The statue looks as if it is in a public park. The boy can be seen from just below the waist. He appears to be wearing belted shorts, but is naked from the waist up. He is sitting down with his right arm behind him supporting him as he looks up towards the sky. His left arm is raised and bent to shield his eyes from the light. From his posture, he might be watching an aeroplane or exclaiming "oh misery me!"

Here we are again, staring into space and hoping for inspiration...

... well, no... in reality I'm actually doom scrolling through the various social media feeds.

Perhaps I should do more staring into space.

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It’s better for your credibility as a writer if your work is professionally corrected and presented. And it’s better for your readers, too.

Don’t forget that your reader is going to give you their time and attention – make sure your writing is worth it!

#WritingCommunity #WritingForReaders

Square photo looking up at a fancy light fitting. The walls around seem to be red and there is a skylight in the background. The light fitting consists of 12 spherical globes in a spiral shape, each globe is slightly higher than the one next to it so appears slightly smaller in the photo. The globes appear to be red and yellow glass, with a dark central metal fitting of some kind. They look a bit like eyes. The effect might be exotic or alien, depending on your take on things.

Every room your protagonist goes into is furnished: chairs, tables, bookcases, light fittings, soft furnishings…

How much do you think about the settings where your characters interact?

Incidentally, if your story is has a lamp like this in it, I want to know more about it!

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Square photo. A white cat is lying on a wooden floor. Only his head, front paws and front half of his body are visible. He is looking up at the camera, focused and alert.

All it takes is the clink of a can opener, the hiss of a ring-pull tin, or the rustle of a bag of kibble and Watson is all ears and adoration.

How do you grab your readers' attention and get them on your side?

#writingcommunity #caturday #writerscats #writingforreaders

Square photo. Close up image of perfect deep pink rose flower.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" – though actually I think this bloom was scentless.

One of the advantages of poetry is that I seldom need to find names for characters. If you write fiction or scripts, how do you choose the names of the dramatis personae?

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Square photo. Large concrete block with a lowercase letter "i" embedded in the surface. The letter is in Baskerville font - a serif font - and it is back to front as if on a printer's block. It is one of the letters comprised in the artwork "Industry and Genius", 1990, by David Patten, sculpture outside Baskerville House in Birmingham, UK.

"I, the narrator"

A discussion on grammar in poetry spurred me to re-read my 2014 MA essay, "First-person fictional; present poetic".

It's almost as pretentious as the title suggests, but I still think tense & person allow us to lay claim or distance ourselves from our writing.

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Square photo. Close up of a strange star-shaped flower with five rough textured petals around a kind of puffy ring. The flower is a pale pea green with small maroon spots and blotches all over. It is clearly a succulent flower from the greenery behind it. In fact it is a carrion flower from the stapeliad family. Perhaps Orbea variegata. At first sight, it looks like a star fish or something alien.

Leopard skin? Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors?

In fact it's a carrion flower and it stinks, so now I'm wondering whether it would be better as carry-on or hold luggage.

Not very relevant to writing, except as a reminder that everyone follows their own train of thought :-)

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