by gailaldwin
I was delighted to join five other writers at Retreats for You in Devon, where Amanda Saint delivered input to support the development of flash fiction pieces for inclusion in a Retreat West Books anthology to be published November 2019. Each morning we met after breakfast to write three new pieces of flash fiction based on a different theme.
On Tuesday we were inspired by picture prompts to develop characters and settings around the theme of peace and there was a further activity using sentence starters to complete our work. On the following day, Amanda encouraged us to write new fiction on the theme of love using prompts including music, selected words and what if scenarios. Our final day focused on the theme of power where further images and sentence starters activated ideas. My task is now to develop nine pieces of new flash fiction for submission to Retreat West Books in April 2019. A couple of the stories arrived almost fully formed but others will need considerable work to bring them up to publication standard. It was great working alongside other writers to achieve the shared goal of ideas generation and drafted pieces to be developed over the next few months.
We were very well looked after by Debbie Flint and her team at Retreats for You. If you fancy a few days dedicated to writing, you won’t find anywhere better than this. With a warm welcome, comfortable accommodation and meals with wine, what’s not to like?
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by gailaldwin
David has held life membership of the National Trust since a maiden aunt left him £100 when he was eleven. Here is his membership card complete with boyhood signature.
The membership allows an accompanying guest to enter free of charge, so we tend to gravitate towards National Trust properties when out and about. Recently we visited Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. Both the Abbey and properties in the town are administered by the National Trust and this makes for an interesting visit. The Abbey is situated within extensive grounds where you can see the approach of spring.
The building benefits from a variety of architectural styles owing to its history. First as an Augustinian abbey, then the home to a Tudor rogue, and finally as a family home and the birthplace of photography. In more recent times it has acted as a film location to a variety of productions including Harry Potter.
Cloister that appears in Harry Potter
I usually come away from these visit with ideas for creative writing. Word prompts include stone feathers and stone blindfolds. Watch this space for creative outputs!
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by gailaldwin
The Wimborne Writing Group went on a summer outing this week to the Blandford Fashion Museum. Tucked away behind the market square in a delightful Georgian house, the fashion collection of the founder, Mrs Betty Penny, forms the basis of the displays. I loved looking at garments from the 1960s and 1970s and remembered owning dresses with Laura Ashley flower prints. My favourite exhibit was a mini dress and hot pants set made from lime green cotton with white trim. It was sleeveless with off centre decorative lacing on the skirt in matching white cotton.
Sarah Barr who leads the Wimborne Writing Group, provided some prompts for writing as we browsed the displays. She suggested we find an outfit we liked and to imagine:
- who the owner would have been
- what they were like
- their name, age and occupation
Why don’t you have a go at writing a short piece of prose by using Sarah’s prompts and applying them to this lovely exhibit?
1960s Mini Dress and Hot Pants Set
Get in touch if you’re willing to share your story.
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the writer is a lonely hunter 