Swanwick Writers Summer School 2019

Wednesday

Having started to blog about my week I am feeling the pressure to keep it up.  Part of me wants to relax and write it up afterwards, and another part of me says 'do it now while its fresh'.  So the latter has won again and here I am fitting it in between the end of lunch and the beginning of the next exciting session.

Part 3 of 4 with Della Galton this morning was as enjoyable as ever.  We looked at Dialogue and colloquialisms ie. "Y'know what I mean"; "So.……" "Cool"; "Ace" etc.  I have a friend who uses "Sweetie" a lot - I love that and am surprised I haven't used it for one of my characters well used phrases because not only is it a nice term of endearment, but tells you the person saying it is actually a Sweetie type of person (not someone who likes sweets/candy but sweet natured).  A lot of people say "Erm…" before a sentence, "Like" is another well used word.

We discussed Dialogue, Dialect, use of Italics, Americanisms etc.  The time goes very quickly and my notebook is being well used.

The second morning workshop was Blogging for Authors by William Gallagher: a Dr Who writer; Journalist; Radio Times writer; has a BBC news blog; and is a scriptwriter for long running television programmes.

His first question was what do you call a gathering of writers and the reply from a quick witted delegate came back : A Volume of Writers.  Another suggested a Saga of Writers.  Perhaps you have another suggestion?

I sat next to a lady who blogs about her travels of which it sounds like she has really seen the world and, for the exercises set, we paired up and exchanged ideas. During the workshop I learnt how to combine my passions into my blogs and so you will be getting more from me than just book reviews.

As a result of a discussion on Comments I researched quickly in settings why 'comments' don't seem to be activated on my blogs and am wondering if commenters have to have a Google account in order to do so.  Perhaps other BlogSpot users will enlighten me?

Lots of questions and answers gave food for thought, inspiration and valuable insight into the benefits and pitfalls of blogging.

Yoga for Writers hour gave me some new exercises to try at home with my limitations not to bend like a flexi-card.

Being a Tree!  I need to work on my balance! (3rd from left front row)

The torrential rain of the day has now ceased and I'm off to dinner. Thank you for stopping by and taking a few minutes to see what I've been up to.  I hope you have found it interesting and comments can be posted to me @tweetsue13 on Twitter.