Saturday, June 27, 2009

What words would you ban?

I am absolutely certain there must be something I should be doing but today should is a banned word. Today is all about what I want to be doing, so.... I got up way too early for a Saturday, went to an appointment which of course I wanted to go to ;-) and then went back to bed which I REALLY wanted to do.

Now, I am going to READ- yes, that amazing leisure time experience that is so often sidelined because of all those things I should and have to do!

Then I intend to WRITE- another activity that is too often sidelined. And well then I am going out, which I want to do.

This week, Anna Perera, whom I wrote about some time ago, came to my school to talk to our students about her book Guantanamo Boy and she ran a workshop for them. I'd organised it all after being impressed by her when I met her, so I was pleased that her visit went well.

Anna spoke with passion about Guantanamo and was very informative. The students left with a greater insight into the world at large, life as a writer and of course the publishing world. I'm hoping she may have inspired one or two to go into writing or editing, which is what I want to have happened.

Now that should has been banned, I wonder what other words could be banned? I imagine there are one or two out there just waiting to be banned.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Cat talk

This will be the fastest post ever as I am both exhausted and in the middle of researching my MA assignment. I am currently reading Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, a recommendation from Anna Perera which is really very good. Whilst it is primarily aimed at aspiring and existing screen writers its advice is useful for novel writers too.

At the weekend I went to see Write me a Murder which was about amongst others a couple of writers and proved to be an entertaining couple of hours. I didn't see the end coming and the twist was cleverly executed. Yesterday I watched The Other Boleyn Girl which I enjoyed. I'm predicting a weekend of work- given my assignment commitments!