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

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Your drabble was very chilling!

It was wonderful to meet you. I certainly had a great time!

Thanks for the link to LJ book. It wasn't me that asked for it, but I am going to take full advantage of it. Hee!

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Chilling? Hee, thanks.
It was altogether a wonderful week end.
Not you? Ah well, hopefully whoever it was will see the link, or they'll find it now they know it exists.
I'd better go add my drabble to the comm thread.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Congrats on losing your drabble virginity this weekend ;) It was a good one!

I'm glad you had a good time :)

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm dead chuffed you linked to me. :D

I love your drabble!

One way or another, see you soon, hon. We all got on so very well.

[just-sue.livejournal.com]

It was lovely to meet you this weekend...you are one stylish lady. *hugs*

Had a blast this weekend and am still trying to finish my drabble! I give myself one more day before I get all huffy. LOL

BFN

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

I had a really good time. Thanks again for all the hard work you put in to making it a success.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

And I've linked to Suki now too. *g* I have spent years practicing the art of sitting back and watching others work.
Thanks for the nice words on the drabble.
Yes, one way or another.
Have fun.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

It was lovely to meet you. *hugs you back hard*
*rushes off to put a tag on the drabble thread*

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

It was a fun weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Clearly people forget me because I'm so quiet and short..... shut up, stop laughing

Love the drabble, I was in awe of the speed at which people can put these together.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

*peers up at you* Quiet, yes, that's what it is. *g*
It was a great week end. Thanks.

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

That was an excellent drabble. The punchline line was such a chilling reveal that Angelus was back, when what had gone before had built up such a convincing picture of Angel's road to redemption.

Having conquered the drabble so easily, you should now consider the 369er. That's three pieces, each of 69 words, with a linking theme though they're not part of the same story. Both the drabble and the 369er are a great discipline and useful for tightening up the writing if it has a tendency to start waffling.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Thank you, so much. I'm really glad you felt it worked. I was not that confident. But then, I knew the punchline in advance. *g*
369er eh? That's an interesting idea. I'll have a think about that. It could be a challenge.

[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.

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

You have a lot of lovely imagery in there.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[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.

[smwright.livejournal.com]

I love your new look here, hon. :)

The drabble is lovely. I hope you'll do more of them. I find the discipline very rewarding. And I'm so glad you guys had a wonderful time last weekend!

FYI, there's another lj backup source here. It doesn't create a pdf, but it's interactive with your LJ, backing up live. The only downside is you can't create offline posts and queue them for upload. There is one that does that, but I haven't tried it yet. Will hunt the link I got from another friend and send it along.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

I love your new look
Thanks. I learnt stuff this week end. *g*
I'm glad you liked the drabble. I can see why they could become addictive.
And thanks for the link. I'll go investigate that, once I catch up to the present (feels like I've been saying that, forever *g*)

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

Last time I looked you hadn't put the banner up. That is well groovy!!

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Thanks hon. I just love Rene Magritte (what do you mean, you'd guessed that?). It took ages to get the colours right. I think I changed entire colour scheme at least three times. *g*
For the banner, kazzy_cee gave me a hint at the weekend and I followed a link on her profile to japewierd's community jape_answers which has all sorts of code to be copied and used. Fantastic.