Tag: sunshine

Writing Ideas and Picture Prompts

~ JacciGoodingAuthor ~ 1 Comment

Summer is often the time, if you’re not working and have the opportunity, to rest the mind and sink into the world of books. Summer reading is always a big thing, with bookshops doing their best to tempt you with beach reads and not-to be-missed novels. Shop windows will be magnificently dressed to entice you in. Maybe offers of coffee and comfy sofas too will be positioned near to the door offering you the chance to nip in to browse then nab a book or three.

But what if you’re the writer? Been to a few lit fests and been inspired? Need to get those words down? Well now’s the time, and never shy to offer you, loyal reader, a few writing prompts, how about these: how often do you see a shop described as a Noted house for paper bags? Isn’t it wonderful? If you’d like to know more, here’s a link to the website Ghost Signs where you can learn more about it. If you fancy a bit of black and white, try this, taken at one of the UK’s last remaining tidal mills, Woodbridge Tidal Mill in Suffolk.

Or maybe this? Early morning sunlight on the River Leam in Leamington Spa. And here, one of my favourites this year, taken somewhere in the Caribbean. And not by me unfortunately! No filters, nuthin.

How about some written prompts then?

Here’re some that may nudge you toward a poem or short story, novel even…

1 The Tunisian sand, warm beneath his feet, shifted slightly as he moved. There, out at sea, he saw something resting on the water…

2 Heat was everywhere. The ground, the walls, the windows, fever-hot and unrepentant. Shadow was in short supply…

3 Midday and the forest air was still. Silently life continued deep underground and in the canopy, but for now, the stillness held an eerie calm…

4 The fight in the street caused little interest. A baby cried somewhere and a desolate dog barked. Ed returned with onions and apples stolen from his local supermarket and his stomach grumbled, hollow and cold…

Something About April

~ JacciGoodingAuthor

There’s just something about April, dontcha think? Is it gonna be warm? Is it gonna be cold? Is the sun gonna shine? When will it be summer? As I write, despite the horror news of the world burning to a crisp by Christmas it is quite actually properly April out there. You know the kind of thing here in the northern hemisphere, first bit of sun and we all rush outside like idiots getting sunburn while complaining it’s still chuffing cold, or migrating to the pub to quaff vast amounts of ale/cider/gin/something fizzy because it is SUMMER AND THAT’S WHAT WE DO only to discover that as soon as the sun goes down we return to winter and a halter-neck and flip flops just won’t cut it.

But why this nonsense about the weather? How about this is why we should include the weather in our writing:

Thanks NOAA at Unsplash for this great picture

‘On the fifth day, which was Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.’ – Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

or

‘It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.’ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

There was once a school of thought that suggested writing about weather in our work was dull. B Or Ing. Something we shouldn’t do if we wanted to keep our readers engaged. No one wants to read about the sunshine pouring in through the window or the rain battering the door we were told. Why ever not? I think one of the most important elements of a novel or short story or even flash, is, if applicable to the plot, the weather. It can set a mood, break a mood, and is as important a plot device as any of the others. Thrashing storms have to be thrashed out on the page to bring them to life. Simply saying there was a horrible storm at sea and the ship nearly sank doesn’t creative many waves, does it? So bring on the weather.

With climate change and the heating of the Earth many authors are turning their skills to writing cli-fi, much of it not fiction at all, so it looks like the weather in our writing is well and truly here to stay. But not in the way authors 50 years ago expected I guess.

Is cli-fi speculative? Can be. Dystopian? If you want. Utopian? Up to you. But all of it deals with the human fallout of a warming planet.

Climate Fiction: sounds like 21st century gothic horror to me.