Some Notes on Online Tools for Writers
Short Stories and Vignettes
Thursday, 19 February 2099
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
Words
Words (Second Draft 2013-09-25)
A short exercise to use these words in a story: Slice,
Wonder, Pull, Water, Corner, Leaf, Number
Expanded to see where
it goes after that first paragraph.
He saw her sitting at the corner table, number 17. She was
waiting for the next round bell, toying with the lemon slice in her glass. Was
it water or vodka and tonic he wondered?
The bell sounded and he moved over to her table.
“Hello” he said, “I’m Simon”.
She dropped her eyes from his face to his maple leaf sweater
and said,
“Get your coat. You’ve pulled.”
He smiled and sat down.
“So, I guess you are a Canadaophile or just go for men in
styled knitwear?”
“I’m intrigued by why you chose that to a speed-dating
evening, but it does seem to be an ice breaker. Were you trying for undertones
of Darcy?”
“Err … um, I’m sorry?”
“Sorry, it’s from Bridget Jones’ Diary - you know the
Christmas party scene – Darcy wears some
atrocious festive designs and Bridget puts him down as a total dork… But I
don’t mean you must be a dork, he turns out all right in the end. Sorry, if you don’t know it then that must
have sounded very odd. Maybe it’s a bit too “chick fic”. Let’s start again. I’m
Laura – nice to meet you Simon.”
“Nice to meet you Laura”
They shook hands in the mild but polite style of those who
have already shaken a dozen hands that evening. Moderately firm for him to
imply masculinity but without a crushing machismo, and light but definite by
Laura, casting herself as feminine but confident in her equality.
“And I have seen it. Bridget Jones I mean, the film not the
book.”
“Ahh maybe you do fancy yourself in Colin Firth’s part
then….” She leaned forward, “Do you have hidden depths?” Simon settled back in
his chair looking thoughtful.
“Well I have been known to watch the odd romantic film, and
I do read some light fiction – but nothing too deep. I did enjoy Bridget Jones’
Diary, and I’ve been reading a series of crime novels featuring a woman – I
think it’s aimed at a female audience, it’s quite stylish and mainly from the
woman’s perspective. She’s American not French, but I like to think of it as
`Chic Flic’ if you follow the allusion.”
“hah – that’s very good. Parlez vous francais?”
“Non”.
They both laughed and sipped their drinks before he said
“How about you – do you speak any more French?”
“Ah, I get by. I did an A-level and read Proust, somehow, but these days it’s occasional tourist `combien
pour deux croissants’ !”
She looked down at the sweater again, “So… how come you chose
such a “, she paused to find the right word, “distinctive costume?”
“Oh, I guess I thought it was a good idea at the time, - but
ah maybe there was some subconscious choice in selecting something less than
hip.”
Laura cocked her head at him expectantly, waiting for Simon
to go on.
“I err… I errm, I’m not exactly comfortable with the dating
scene, never mind events like this. I’m not even really trying to date. My wife
wanted me to try this to spice up our relationship. So I’m here to flirt and
practice my chat up skills. But I feel a fraud since I don’t want to get
involved with anyone.”
“Radical! Are you some seventies throwbacks with an open
marriage? Your wife has sent you out to a singles night. Rather risky of her
isn’t it? …. Are you sure she’s not trying to palm you off on some other woman?
What if you find a new soulmate?”
“Oh, no – I’m sure she wants us to stay together. But she said
we needed some excitement.”
“Seems to me that you are the one who might get the
excitement, what if you had a one night stand, or are you only window
shopping?”
“Well my wife is here as well, but we’ve been talking about
a temporary separation”, Simon’s voice tailed off , “You know, a trial space to
find ourselves.”
“Or to find somebody else” suggested Laura. “I’m sorry, I’m
not being very sympathetic. But it sounds like she wants to play around a bit.
Maybe she wants to see if you are jealous enough to still want her. I think you
should play her at her own game, see how she reacts if you take someone home.”
Laura’s looked at Simon askance, her eyebrow raised. He felt
himself flushing at the unspoken invitation.
The bell rang as Laura squeezed his hand and said, “Take me home darling”.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
More Tools for Writers
Gmail from Google offers a free web email service that is secure and massive.
It's large enough you need never delete any old messages (unless they have truly huge files attached)
and there is an associated Google Drive that offers storage that works a lot like Dropbox.
They have a new service called Google Keep which is a note taking service (but currently only for android phones or web access).
Microsoft also offer free storage from their Skydrive, and similarly massive email space at outlook.com (formerly hotmail.com)
They also have an note save and search application, called OneNote.
IDrive is more of a traditional copy backup to the internet - so it's a bit more complex to use - but if you delete a file and then notice later there will still be a copy
it also encrypts your files to keep them even more secure (so you create two passwords, one for login and one key for encryption/decryption.)
If you run out of free space or want more features then two other services broadly similar to Dropbox are:
Useful Tools for Writers
These services are all free to sign up for and use, but offer more storage or facilities if you want to pay for them (but you don't need to!)
Dropbox offers free bonus space (up to 16GB) if you perform some tasks to encourage your use, or refer friends to use the service as well
(which is why there are fancy links here to get me a bonus if you sign up :-) ).
Dropbox is widely used and simple to setup - put any writing files or ideas in your Dropbox folder and a copy will be stored on the internet.
You can install Dropbox on more than one PC and the files will be synchronised up and down between them.
Dropbox will still have a copy of your file (which you can download via the web) even if your PC breaks or is stolen!
It's rather like using a USB drive but you always have it and files are synchrovnised automatically
(so huge files or numbers may take some time to synchronise depending on the speed of your internet link)
Evernote is similar in someways, but rather than being a general file backup and synchronise it is focused on saving notes.
It works well on smartphones and saves not only text but also photos and sound recordings.
It has features for tagging and searching your notes - for example for that story idea you had last week, or just a shopping list ...
Dialogue - The Bermuda Triangle
Fiona took a deep breath and steeled herself for the trial to come.
She moved from the sofa to the armchair facing it, and then called
out to her husband who she had heard putting his coat away in the hall cupboard.
”Hello George. I’m in the living room.”
“Hello dear. Have you had a good day”
“Oh, you know… how about you?”
“Oh, nothing special… The usual. Bloody train was late again
this morning. Eleven minutes late – signal failure at Clapham Junction.”
“I need to talk, George.” she said pointing at the couch. “You’d
better sit down. Ahh - Do you want to
get a drink first? It’s… it’s not good news.”
George sat down looking worriedly at his wife and trying to guess
what this was about.
“I Know George.”
He looked blankly back at her.
“I Know. … I know about Susannah, and I can’t keep
quiet about it any more.”
His face crumpled.
“How long have you known?”
“A few months. I found the ticket stubs for the Bermuda. Mr
George Jenkins, Ms Susannah Ayres. After that I started to look and listen more
carefully. The credit cards, your excuses when you were late.”
“I ought to explain..” he started but she cut him off,
“George, it’s too late for explanations. I don’t care and I
don’t want to hear them. You You You’ve been hiding this from me, lying to me, and
living this secret life for God knows how long… ”
“Three years” he said
“WHAT!, THREE FUCKING YEARS”, Christ George I can’t BELIEVE you’d
do that to me. And with Susannah Ayres for God’s sake. I can understand that little
whore milking you for whatever she could get, but didn’t you have the sense to
see she was just after your wallet? ”
“I’m sorry…”
“YOU’RE sorry! Hah – I’M SORRY – I’M BLOODY SORRY. I’m
disgusted, revolted, betrayed; I’m so angry it hurts. It HURTS George, it hurts
me so much, it’s physical, it’s eating me up from inside…. DON’T TRY AND TOUCH
ME!”
George lowered his arms and sat back on the sofa again.
Unable to do anything else he tried to look Fiona in the eyes again, and
blinked as the intensity of her anger dazzled him. He took a breath and waited
for the moment to speak again.
“I am sorry Fiona. I didn’t mean it to happen. But working
together we just found a friendship, more than that, an empathy, it was all
innocent at first. She’s too young for ”
“You got that right you fool.”
“And I enjoyed working alongside her. It was, it was … it was
like the daughter we never had.”
Fiona let out a subdued whine that escaped in spite of her efforts
to keep it confined. The guttural low notes growled slowly and were then capped
by a short high pitched “eak” as she choked it off.
“You can’t blame me for that”
“Fiona I don’t blame you at all. It was just that, just that
she seemed so full of life. I took pleasure in her company. Nothing more…
nothing inappropriate … then.”
“But you didn’t stop there, did you? What was it? The blonde
hair or long legs? You couldn’t keep your
hands off could you!”
“I, I, eyes. I just noticed her eyes. They sparkled – just with
joy, at doing a good job”
“Hah! I don’t want to know… She fluttered her eyelashes at
you I bet. Did she gaze longingly at you is that it? Tell you how much she was
in awe of you as her manager?”
“I, I, I just liked being with her. It was like being able
to look at the world afresh. She had energy, vivacity and a lovely smile whi…”
“Oh I bet she smiled you stupid bastard. She must have smiled
when she saw you coming. Oh look George is going soppy over me, I wonder what I
can get out of this. Better flash some cleavage and show a little leg and see
if I can get me a sugar daddy and promotion.”
“It wasn’t like that, Fiona”
“Well tell me how it was George? How did this fatherly
platonic admiration end up with you in bed? I assume you have been screwing
her? Or has the little tramp kept you on a string of promises without putting
out?”
“She, she was ill Fi.
Very ill. Bone cancer. I found her in tears in the stock room and it all came
out. I only put my arms around her to comfort her.”
“And then you ended up kissing her I suppose.”
“No, we never kissed well not on the lips. You don’t understand…”
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Third Person Exercise - Soldiers
The soldiers moved cautiously along the hedgerows as they
emerged from the woodland. The platoon
comprised nine men, each dressed alike in camouflage clothing. One carried a
sub-machine gun (perhaps an officer?) , the others all had rifles.
Their field craft was sloppy. They moved separately, but
clumped too closely together with one moving up to where another took temporary
cover behind a bush or in ditch.
Although they kept to the edge of the fields to avoid being
silhouetted by the skyline they made progress steadily, and predictably.
Walking fully upright, rather than crouching or crawling, their heads and
backpacks bobbed along like balloons, occasionally outlined against the grassland
as the hedge dipped.
When they came to the track that slashed nakedly across the
scrubland one man called the others towards him and they huddled together below
a small tree. Two or three faced outwards looking for discontinuities
The leader pointed up towards the rocky outcrop, and
indicated the route they would take.
The group began to disperse with a pairs of men slipping one
along each side of the track. The leader and the man without a rifle stayed
back by the tree, observing the troops they had sent up the slope.
The leader was turning to the other when he suddenly jerked
and backwards as if kicked by a horse, clumsily clutching at the man net to
him.
As the corporal instinctively grabbed at the officer the sound of the shot reached them, but before
it echoed he was already pulling the captain into what little cover the tree
provided. He heard another bullet strike the ground behind them, and then a
second later the sharp crack of the shot that had sent it on its way.
He shouted urgent orders to the men spread out in the
undergrowth around the track, who lay as low as possible in whatever cover they
could find while staring up at the hillside searching for any sign of the
sniper.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Present Past and Future (version 2)
Elaine Strowger hefted the bucket of pig nuts onto her hip
as she stepped up over the stile in the yard wall. The eight hungry weaners
clamoured around the trough as she tipped the food in.
Sascha the breeding sow looked on anxiously from the segment
behind the fence, waiting for her share. Elaine had kept the small holding for
15 years now, the last 5 working alone. Her mother had been with her at the
start, but gradually her health prevented her doing any but the lightest work and
she had had to move to a nursing home three years back when Elaine could no
longer cope with caring for her and the animals. She visited twice weekly,
weather permitting, but still felt the pain and the shame of abandoning her
mother’s care to others in a home that she felt barely provided a decent
quality of life and certainly not up to her own standards.
She felt worse about letting her mum go to “Rosy Banks” care
home than she had when her dad has died in ’83. That had been sudden, and she’d
been powerless to help, and although as a teenager she’d felt less
responsibility she had been able to let out more grief. They’d all been so
happy on the farm; her earliest memories were of the cows being driven into the
yard towards the milking parlour. Susie, her younger sister, and she had made a
pact to keep the family farming. They’d been tenants on the Castleford estate
and the tenancy had passed on in the family. But the bloodline, tears and sweat
had not been enough even before Susie had left home to marry John.
Elaine had persevered on the land although their dairy income
had struggled once the milk marketing board was abolished. So she eventually
moved with mum to the small holding, keeping goats not cows now, but selling a
little milk, as well as a small pig unit around the acre of root vegetables
grown in the soft fen soil. Somehow she kept the mixed enterprise running,
scratching a living from the land like one of the half dozen free range hens
she kept for her own eggs (and for barter to anyone willing to overlook the
lack of mandatory salmonella testing).
She sighed as she tipped the last of the pignuts into
Sascha’s trough. They’d been one of the lines of feed cereals John had been
selling for the agricultural wholesalers when he first met her and Susie. He’d
been a handsome young salesman who had flattered both the sisters before
sweeping Susie off into matrimony.
Elaine had had her romances too, most notably with David
another member of the local young farmers. They’d been engaged for years, and
she could have been a farmer’s wife with all she’d wanted … but she’d broken
off the relationship months before the wedding.
She still felt bad for David – “It’s not you it’s me” had
been about all the explanation she could give him – but it wasn’t enough to
satisfy either of them. She’d never been able to tell anyone the real reason …
that watching her sister’s marriage to John she’d become infatuated with him …
loved him still, and could never show it, or admit it even to herself.
Pulling her mind away from the everyday issues of pignuts
and the memories they had awoken Elaine turned and took the empty bucket back
towards the house.
Chores were done, for an hour or two anyway, and
mid-afternoon she took a short break and watched a little TV. She switched on
the set and browsed the channels while the kettle boiled.
Come Dine With Me was on, and she watched the set of four
people prepare their meals and and host their dinner parties. One of the contestants
(quite a handsome man) hosted a fancy dress party, and she mused on what she
would wear… She’d always longed to be dressed as Cleopatra, like Liz Taylor in
the film. But with hardly a pause in her train of thought she decided she was
more Margaret Rutherford than Elizabeth Taylor.
Maybe a Marie Antoinette dress, or Regency – was that
contemporary with the French Revolution? Frocks with lace and frills and some
pizazz.
But who would she invite to a dinner party? She’d never feel
comfortable on any TV programme – never mind one with all the sarcastic
comments from the narrator.
What was that dinner party game? Your ideal guests from
history, present or even fiction.
She’d have Liz Taylor for sure … there were so few real
stars these days. Tom Cruise maybe. Also her parents of course, Susie and John …
and … Neil Sedaka, he writes such lovely songs. It would be nice to have
someone handsome and attractive like the TV man … someone like John, but
unattached. Someone who might get attached to her. They didn’t need to be a
farmer, or even a dog lover, as long as they had some compassion for animals.
Maybe somewhere there was a man who’d put up with her irritability, someone she
could get close to. Someone like John …
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