Esther Chilton
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My funny of the week is a quote that will have many women nodding their heads as they read it: “Forget love, I’d rather fall in chocolate.” Author unknown Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to do an ‘Augustus Gloop’!
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Well, I suppose I should be grateful; at least my 17-year-old isn’t sprawled across my work today and stopping me getting on. No, she’s managed to find ‘comfort’ in a drawer 🙂
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Cringeworthy Clichés Building on my advice about short story endings yesterday, comes another tip about short story writing and that’s to watch your use of clichés. Over-used clichés such as, ‘Her skin was as white as snow’, ‘He looked outside and saw it was raining cats and dogs’ and ‘She looked as light as a…
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A couple of years ago, I wrote a tips piece for The Writers’ Bureau’s on-line magazine, ‘E-Zee Writer’ about how to grab your readers’ attention in the opening to your story: http://www.writersbureau.com/e-zee-writer/september-2011/page4.htm Having hooked that interest, you need to keep it there and then finish the story on a high, leaving readers feeling as if…
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A New Term It’s the first day of the school term and so I’ve had the house to myself once more and plenty of opportunity to start the big catch up. I’m concentrating on the tutoring work first as that has priority, though somehow I’ve managed to more or less stay on top of things…
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I’m often inspired to write when I see a photo of an animal, whether it’s my own beloved cats who’ve triggered an idea for a reader’s letter, or another image which has given me an idea for an article. When I saw this chap, all I thought was, grimace or smile? Any ideas?
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Have box, will fit! My beloved seventeen-year-old, Clio loves lying in or on anything, from comfy beds, to pieces of paper, to my i-phone, to my computer. But her favourite place is a cardboard box – whatever the size!
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By Post or E-mail? Even though we live in an electronic age where more and more publications are accepting work by e-mail, some still prefer postal submissions, especially from someone writing for them for the first time. So make sure you research this carefully. If a magazine only accepts work by post, don’t think you…
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Yesterday, in my blog, I gave details of a fantastic flash fiction competition, ‘Flash 500’. Winning a flash fiction competition can give you a tremendous boost and spur you on to write for other publications and enter other competitions. That’s exactly what happened to me. The following story is the first piece of flash fiction…
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After a bank holiday at the beginning of the week, I keep having to remind myself which day of the week it is. It really feels like a Tuesday but as it’s already Wednesday, my deadlines are looming even closer. Though, school starts back next week so I should be able to catch up quite…
Esther Chilton 