Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: The Whimsical Fairy
It’s Friday which means it’s time to start writing some fiction.
Fiction Friday is our weekly writing prompt. The aim is to write for a minimum of five minutes and then keep going for as long as you can. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post in the comments box below.
Today’s prompt: a whimsical fairy.
Your character is a fairy who is, well, away with the fairies in her/his own little world. They have earned their wings but on their final warning.
Your setting is a secret room in a library. In this room, there are boxes filled with…..
Continue the story.
by 
Novel Kicks Writing Room: Free Writing
For our writing group today, it’s a bit of free writing.
I have started a story below. Writing for a minimum of five minutes, continue the story. You can either keep the current POV or maybe carry it on using the point of view of the person being followed?
Have fun.
*****
I watch from the other side of the road whilst she waits in line for her coffee. She hasn’t spotted me. Her head is looking down at the phone in her hand; a small smile plays on her lips as her fingers fly across the screen.
I wonder who makes her smile like that. An agonising feeling of jealousy rises but I quickly try and brush it aside. I need to keep my focus. I am so close.
I come out of the shadows and begin to follow her when I see her finally leaving the busy coffee shop, almost loosing her in the crowds of people on the pavement. I keep my distance, careful not to be seen.
by A Moment With… Effrosyni Moschoudi
Effrosyni Moschoudi is the author of The Raven Witch of Corfu series.
She is joining me today to talk about how Corfu has inspired her writing.
*****
My love affair with Corfu began when I was only a child. Ever since I was about five years old, my Corfiot grandparents used to have me over for long periods every summer, first in Corfu town, then in the village of Moraitika.
Moraitika is situated on the southeast coast of the island between Benitses and the port of Lefkimmi. Back in the 1980s, Moraitika was a bustling holiday spot. My family ran both a souvenir shop and a small business of room rentals at the time, which meant I had plenty of opportunities to mingle with tourists on a daily basis, Brits mostly.
My sister and I often spent three-month holidays in Moraitika as youngsters, where we helped our grandmother with the cleaning of the rented rooms. Yet, there was always time for plenty of swimming and sunbathing, as well as for having fun in the evenings with a host of cousins and friends. This time of my life remains the most precious I hold in my heart, and this is even more so the case now that my grandparents have passed away.
I have strong family roots in Moraitika. My great-grandfather, the teacher and priest of the village in the turn of the 20thcentury is buried beside the old church. Part of his home that’s still standing in its entirety near the church was originally used as the school of the village. Today, it has been split up into small apartments which stay closed for most of the year and only come to life for 1-2 weeks at a time when descendants of my great-grandfather (my cousins, aunts and uncles) arrive for a short holiday. Having inherited the part of the house that once belonged to my grandparents, it is a precious bond with that special part of my life that literally comes to life for a few days every summer when I stay there.
Beside Moraitika, and across the river of Messonghi, lies a small fishing village of the same name. Unlike Moraitika that kept getting more built up over time, Messonghi has changed very little since I’d first laid eyes on it in the 1970s.
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: Plotting and Timelines
Plotting and timelines.
I am fast realising that I am one of these writers that has to know what is happening in my story; the experiences of National Novel Writing Month has taught me this.
I have been finding this method below quite helpful in plotting my story. This is something I have featured before but thought it worth revisiting.
Grab either a pad of Post-It notes (author Julie Cohen swears by Post-It notes) or some bits of paper and write out all of the current plot points for your current work in progress; all the things you have so far (and don’t worry if you don’t have the end yet. Neither do I.)
Also, if you aren’t currently working on anything, as always, you could pick a published story.
by NK Chats To… Beth O’ Leary
Hi Beth, thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell me about your book, The Flatshare and what inspired it?
Thank you so much for having me! The Flatshare is a story about two people who share a one-bed flat but don’t meet: one works nights, the other works regular hours. It was inspired by my own experiences of moving in with my boyfriend when he’d just started work as a junior doctor and was working lots of night shifts. We would go days on end without seeing one another – he’d get home from work just after I’d leave in the morning and vice versa, so we passed like ships in the night. It got me wondering what might happen if two strangers lived that way…
What’s your writing process like from idea to final draft?
For me, the basic concept is often what comes into my head first: in this case, two people sharing a bed but not meeting. The main characters come next, growing out of that: so here, I asked, why might two people be willing to do that? What sorts of people would they be?
I generally do a rough plan after that point, which features some key moments I want to happen in the novel, but then I rarely look at that plan again once I get writing. For me, first drafts tend to snowball – I write very quickly, almost with the sense that I’m trying to keep up with the story, and then when I hit the end of the book I go back and do a lot of work from that point onwards. The first draft gets the raw, emotional stuff down, the clay of the story – the second draft is all about shaping that into something.
Do you have any writing rituals and somewhere special you like to write?
Well, I wrote The Flatshare on my commute to and from work, so after a while that became my writing ritual – it took me ages to get used to writing full-time at a desk at home after that! I often listen to music while I write, and tend to create playlists for stories. These playlists are especially useful when I’m editing, because they get me back into the character’s heads even when I’m looking at the book more analytically.
by Book Club
