Well July’s certainly been an interesting month – there was the hugely successful Zombie Luv contest, I tried out my 6 part mini serial The Man I Want To Be and both Mrs Bazelli and Mr Watkins were both kind enough to give me the “One Lovely Blog Award”. Receiving any sort of merit is always a pleasant surprise but to receive it from two such, genuinely talented individuals really means a lot so thanks to Tessa and Stephen for that. Now – onto the roundup!
Zombie Luv: Rose by AlphaDelia
This was my favourite entry in the Zombie Luv competition (and came 2nd place in the readers’ poll).
Fox, Goose and Grain Riddle by John Wiswell
I’ve flagged John in this category before but couldn’t resist highlighting his great take on the old Goose, Grain and Fox riddle. It’s great to read about someone finally getting one over on this old chestnut!
Tranquility by Cathryn Grant
A classic example of Cathryn’s “suburban noir” work – a familiar setting and an everyday scenario quickly escalates into something very sinister.
Character Sheet by Jody Hedlund
Okay so this isn’t advice but an excellent check list of features and characteristics for putting together your characters. It might feel a little clinical breaking your lovely creations down into fields but its a really handy way of thinking about things you might skip over otherwise.
Platform by Stephen Watkins
Stephen gives a well founded argument against the surge of blogs and books saying you need to build a platform and an audience if you ever want to get published and urges writers to remember that a platform isn’t much good if you haven’t actually written anything!
Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi
Not actually a new album but I felt it was about time I wrote a bit about Ludovico Einaudi, the wonderful Italian pianist and composer. I love listening to his work whilst writing so much so that there’s a character in my novel loosely inspired by him. His work is melancholic, uplifting and inspiring – seriously, go check him out.
Title image courtesy williac
Wow, David, thanks so much! I appreciate the shout out. You may have noticed in the voting that yours was one of my favorites as well. It was such a fun contest. I’m hoping my schedule clears enough to participate in more of them in the future.
Cheers!
Delia
I hadn’t noticed Delia so cheers! It was a great contest, really interesting to see people’s differing takes on the same theme – hoping someone organises something similar soon!
Thanks for the mention! If another contest like that happens in the future… I’ll have to participate if I can…
Yeah the Zombie Luv competition worked out pretty well, had a really good community spirit around it. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for anything similar in the future.
Thanks for the recognition, David. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying my comedy stylings. The take on the Goose/Grain/Fox riddle was actually my initial answer to it when it was first posed to me years ago. Apparently I broke the rules, but I let another little boy win with it.
No problem John – your stuff always brings a grin to my face so happy to recommend you. Yeah I seem to remember coming up with some overly elaborate solution the first time I was given that riddle as well.