Header to the old Allrighters' News and Diary Blog

Where is the roaring fire you ask us?

One thing leads to another

Overview

http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/our-landmarks/properties/queen-annes-summerhouse-10475/#tabs=0

Video

http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/our-landmarks/properties/queen-annes-summerhouse-10475/#tabs=3

This links back to our comments on awriterofhistoryabout airship hangers and the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire England

http://awriterofhistory.com/2014/08/15/mission-to-morocco-j-r-rogers/

Good browsing

Allrighters

Do you really want to write a book?

We receive several posts about writing everyday and many cover ground already trodden before. Sometimes nothing special but then two come along together as today.

Having made a start in June 2010 and then seen many people with a book in them not being able to start ... the message in this post from Bobbi Linkemer is relevant. Maybe the world has already reached a stage where it is buckling under the weight of books looking for readers ... but then if you write for pleasure it does not matter one can have a good time just writing without caring about publishing so have fun and make a start ... on non fiction or fiction.

http://www.writeanonfictionbook.com/really-want-write-book/#more-11537

Amended extract about not making a start in the plural ...

This is very sad because one of the hardest things to come up with is a good idea. Authors with a good idea, an idea they love, have two of the six elements they need to write, publish, and promote a book—desire and a concept. The other four are a plan, a long attention span, discipline, and support.

From our experience we also had the first two and to some extent, varying each week, the other four. We would add another ... time. Like a good whisky writing needs to mellow and mature so after making a start there is no need to hurry ... enjoy the scenery of a writers journey. 

Thanks to Bobbi for her ideas based on many years experience.

Alexander

George Orwell

We would like to thank Tony Riches for this reference to his post today on his Writing Desk web site.

 http://tonyriches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/george-orwells-writing-habits.html

Extract

As well as his novels, Orwell’s famous six rules for writing, taken from “Politics and the English Language” have inspired writers ever since:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

 In our own current editing phase which we are finding hard ... some food for thought.  

On Tony's list of writer's tools he lists Auto crit. we have tried a trial test of 500 words and the results have cheered us up no end  ... with praise like - "awesome, good job, great work" as well as advice to remove many overused words. We am going to investigate use of this facility further.

Tony's most recent book is Warwick - The man behind the wars of the roses. We found the book a good introductory read not knowing much about the period, apart from the bloody battle of Towton on 29 March 1461. We understand more people were killed on the first day of the battle than on the Somme.

Allrighters

Changes to web site

Twelve months have passed since the Allrighters' web site was set up. Various updates and changes are currently being made to the site including new header pictures and changes in colour schemes. A peacock has returned to the garden in the Norfolk house where the Allrighters do most of their fantasy work. Our peacock is now pictured on a new front start up page to the web site which should appear when you visit www.allrighters.co.uk or the other international feeds co.nz and com. We are getting used to the cries of the peacock in the same way the chiming of the grandfather clock repaired by Henry last year.

As previously advised Mick Rooney of TIPM has agreed to the Allrighters making a regular monthly post. Three posts have been made so far. The link for the third is here and the other links in the previous post below.

http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/08/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-part.html

These are being made under the Writing and Reading for Pleasure heading as this is beginning to reflect more of what the Allrighters' are now doing. After completion of their 1,000,000 draft words in January 2014 effort has been concentrated on editing and restructuring against a target of one 18,000 word small book a week from the end of May 2014. This Writing and Reading for Pleasure blog has been set up and this will be the one used for most of the Allrighters' new posts. If you receive posts from this and other Allrighters' blogs you will receive an e mail soon asking if you want to receive updates from this new site.

May we wish you a good summer of writing and reading

Alexander and the Allrighters and Ywnwab!

Welcome to Writing and Reading for Pleasure

The Allrighters started writing on June 2010 following a bad dream at 3.00 am in France while on holiday. They set a target of writing a million words in three years and passed this target in January 2014. Plan A has always been to produce a series of well written and produced fiction and non fiction books and as a minimum put them on our book shelf simply for pleasure and satisfaction.

The million word target has proved a good distraction to thoughts of early publishing. A small book of short stories was published, as an e book and in hard copy, in September 2013 for the Tenby Festival and in response to a challenge from a friend "You will never write a book" YWNWAB!

The main Allrighters web site was set up in July 2013. Since completing the million draft words in July the hard work of self editing and restructuring  these words into small 18,000 word books has started.  

Douglas Burcham of the Allrighters writes a monthly blog on the TIPM web site run by Mick Rooney who saved the Allrighters from the clutches of Vanity Publishers in the summer of 2010. The posts are made under the same title as this post.

 http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/06/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-part-1.html

 http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/07/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-part-2.html

In July 2014 a peacock was recruited from the garden of the Cross family home in Norfolk England to show off the Allrighters.

Good writing and reading to you all.