• Blog

    Three Questions (Day 2 )

    Three Questions Today’s suggestion for the 500 words challenge is to outline my main goal for taking it on and then explain how I hope to achieve this. These three questions should help me clarify things: Why did I take it on? What do I want to achieve over the next 31 days? How will I go about it? Hopefully, by the time I finish this post, we will have some answers to these three questions.. And yes, as you’ve guessed, I’m winging it here.   Why did I take on the challenge? This question is easier to answer and I mentioned some of the factors in the Day 1…

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    Short Story Writing , Five Useful Websites

    Short Story Writing Generally speaking, a short story is a piece of fiction under approx. 5.000 words in length. Is it just a shorter version of a novel? Not really, short stories actually have more in common with the genre of poetry. You are taking a specific character/event/emotion and focusing in on it like a magnet. “To see the world in a grain of sand” William Blake It’s like concentrating on one photograph on someone’s Facebook, rather than their whole timeline…But, of course, that photograph would need to have something unique or intriguing about it. And, of course, create a strong emotional response. That, to me, is the most important…

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    Seven January Targets

    Seven January Targets Having read over my December Review, I realise that I’ve been slacking a bit. It’s okay to make the usual excuses about Christmas etc, but if that’s true, so is this: January is traditionally a time for making new starts, so here goes with my seven January targets.   Seven January Targets Read “On Writing” by Eudora Welty, Pulitzer prize winner and one of the 20th century’s greatest literary icons. Write a post about this book. Edit and publish some of the stories I’ve written as part of my Creative Writing course with Pauline Clooney. Take some new photographs and publish at least one in the Photography section…

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    December Review

    December Review I have to start out by admitting that I didn’t achieve many of my December Targets. As I mentioned in my previous post about the Christmas Open Mic with Pauline Clooney, the season seems to have a mind of its’ own. No matter how hard you try to avoid it, you end up swirled into the mix…At least, that’s always been my experience. So, bearing that in mind, here is my December Review: Christmas Theme Well, at least I managed to keep to my targets here. I wrote a blog post about the importance of Home at Christmas and managed a photo story about the Christmas Open Mic.…

  • Blog

    Christmas Open Mic

    Christmas Open Mic I was delighted to be part of this year’s Christmas Open Mic hosted by Pauline Clooney.  I’d never been at this type of event before and found it really interesting and great fun too. Pauline had invited along both current and past members of her creative writing groups. Basically, we each took turns at reading pieces of our own writing.  There was a nice mixture of poetry, short stories, and novel extracts. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when my turn came around, but I guess everyone felt the same. On the night, I decided to read a few poems: Prism Spluttering Silence Dance…

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    Old Files, Lucky Finds

    Old Files, Lucky Finds One of my December targets was to start backing up the photographs from my PC onto an external hard drive. The first step was obviously to find a hard drive! That meant rooting through several “jumble boxes”…You know the type that is full of old leads and chargers and you have no idea what belongs to what. While searching through one of the boxes, I came across a hard drive that I hadn’t seen since I moved house a few years ago. In fact, I didn’t even remember having it, so was curious about what might be on it. In amongst the house-moving documents, I found several…

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    Ten December Targets

    Ten December Targets   I can’t believe that Christmas is almost upon us, it seems only like yesterday that I started this Cavewoman blog back in September. It has certainly taken a slightly different course than I envisaged in the beginning…I never thought I’d get around to doing so much creative writing. Still, there are several areas that need more work. I had a look back at my November Review and came up with the following ten December targets:   My Ten December Targets   Camera Work: Focus on a Christmas theme, indoor or outdoor is fine. Behind the Image: Write a few “Behind the Image” posts. Include camera data as appropriate. Photo…

  • Blog

    November Review Cavewoman Blog

    November Review Setting monthly targets has turned out to be one of my better ideas. It has helped me stay more organised and focused than usual and there is a certain satisfaction in achieving the targets. So how did I get on with my ten November targets? Well, I had mixed success, really. I seemed to achieve better in overall goals, rather than specifics, but that’s okay too. I think I was over-ambitious in some areas, while not challenging myself enough in others. Here is my November Review, see what you think.   Organization My November review tells me that this area still needs a lot of work, but at least…

  • Photography

    Happy Snappers Award

    Happy Snappers Judges Choice Award I was delighted to take part in this year’s photography exhibition by Happy Snappers Camera Club and really thrilled to receive the Judges Choice award. There was a fabulous array of photographs on display and it was a great honour to have my picture chosen for this award. The image is titled “Balance” and I shot it at a beach in the UK, not Asia as a lot of people seem to think!   The Happy Snappers award looks stunning and is a testament to the club’s attention to detail and artistic appreciation. The plaque will certainly have pride of place in my home. It’s always exciting to…

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    Donegal Weekend

    Donegal Weekend This weekend I took a trip to Ballybofey, Co. Donegal. I was meeting up with my great friend Evelyn and her husband, Brian. Donegal is a beautiful, wild and unspoiled area of Ireland but I wasn’t there for the scenery this time. It was more of a catch-up… Time to reminisce and recharge the batteries. I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and got to see a different side to Donegal than I was used to. I was amazed by the great entrepreneurial spirit of the area and the pride they have in their county. I got to see a performance of Grease by St. Columba’s Collge, attend a ball…