Back from WritersconUK

[thismaz]

What a fantastic week end!

Well, it was an evening, a day and a morning, but the organisers jammed so much into it that it felt like a whole week end!

kitty_poker1 has done a much better summary of the programme than I could hope to achieve here, so that saves me even trying *g* You don't mind me being lazy, do you Kitty?

I second everything she says about the workshops, although I'm very glad that sparrow2000 and I had a smoother journey to get there than she and suki_blue had.
ETA: And while I'm being lazy, Suki did a really good summary too - here

However, I do really want to add my own thanks to hils, just_sue, woman_of_, bogwitch, gillo and hesadevil for all the work they put into it.
ETA: OMG, I missed out kazzy_cee. How could I do that when, besides everything else, she was a member of our award winning quiz team? I'm so sorry Kazzy.

Oh, and the drabble thing. I've never written a drabble before, so this was totally new to me, although I have read some wonderful ones. The starting point was that Angel had experienced a moment of true happiness, but the fact that he was now Angelus was supposed to come out in the last line, which was meant to be dialogue.

There were some really funny ones that had us all laughing. Mine was a bit angsty *ponders* Strange that. And in truth, I think I need more practice with the form.

But if you want to, you can see it under the cut

Drabble

After one hundred years alone, the promise of redemption hung like the north star far above him, and his soul's compass homed to it across the oceans of his desolation, despair and self loathing.

Then the star came to Sunnydale, bright as a super novae, and he was blinded for a while, until she reached out and led him on. To save the world.

And with her were her friends, who had no super-powers, but fought anyway. Fought with her (in both meanings of the phrase) and gave her strength. Angel smiled, "Now I know how to kill this girl...."



Thank you again to everyone involved. It really was fun.

ETA: Two people asked for the link to the site that allows you to back up your LJ. One was Sparrow, was the other you, Suki? Anyway, it is here: http://www.ljbook.com/ click on 'create pdf', on the left hand side.

Comments

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

But then, I knew the punchline in advance
I often write that way, and not just drabbles either (I agree with Speakr that the final line is the most important one in a drabble). With longer fics, I frequently have the opening scene and the end written first. Then all I have to do is work the story from one to the other.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

I wish I had my ideas so organised. I usually end up writing scenes all over the place and then joining them together. Although the exercise from writing to a weekly prompt has taken over at the moment, and I've found that that is totally different - the whole story took a major, unexpected turn to the left as a result of one week's prompt. *g*

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

I think I organise my writing because I came to fiction very late after years of writing non-fiction. Having written the school history I am fairly ruthless about cutting out non-essentials and working towards a known ending is the only way I know how to write. I have to confess I often allow myself to become very distracted from the writing by the research.

I always said that the piece I wrote for the Winter Solstice challenge was my swan song but I am a member of open_on_sunday and find writing a drabble every now and then has kept the Muse on his toes.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

I imagine writing a lot of non-fiction would do that. I had done no writing at all, except the odd report for work, but I think it is also something to do with preferences.
I'd heard of open on Sunday, but thank you for the reminder. I doubt I'd have gone and had the look without your prompt. So I've joined and I'll watch a while and if the impulse arises, I may well have a play. Cheers.