Linda Parkinson-Hardman's Blog, page 4

Who’s looking at you kid?

Location, location, location. That’s the tile of a TV series about moving house. But it equally applies to writing. The location of a whole book, poem or even just a scene can make or break a readers experience of your writing.

All the photo’s this month come from Burgh Island. This is the bar as it was when I was there back in 2012. It may have changed, I haven’t been back since to check it out so don’t know. But it seems to me that interesting conversations often happen in bars when patrons ha...

Read, revise, review, repeat

Welcome to the third in the series of blog posts I’m writing during my time as the 2022 Hysteria Writer In Residence. You’ll notice it’s a bumper post, that’s to make up for the gap last month – life and Covid overtook me! Pheww!

Over the last two blogs I’ve talked about submission guidelines (and why they matter), and things to do to help you get stuck in to a new piece of work. Last time, I promised this blog post would explore how we can develop a piece that we’ve already begun.

Sometimes, a ...

What does an entrepreneur need in his toolbox?

There are many things that budding entrepreneurs need. Some are physical or practical. Others though are more personal and reflect a set of qualities or personality traits that will help anyone setting up in business to make it through the first few years.

They include such personal skills as Intuition, Tenacity, Vision, Self Knowledge, Passion, to NOT be Risk Averse and finally open to change.  So let’s think about these in a little more detail:

Intuition:  There is no doubt about it being an e...

Being with Jeremy

How does time affect a story or a poem? Perhaps it’s in the cadence and rhythm, perhaps it’s in the backwards and forwards between timelines. Or perhaps it’s simply the passage of one era to the next.

Whatever the reason for using time in your writing, it’s important to understand how it feels to the reader. Does it make sense to them too? Can they understand the reason you have chosen the expression of time you have?

This week’s word square is an attempt to think about time, about how it affec...

How to make your presentation effort go the extra mile

I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of presentations in the course of a year and I have a tendency to create them, use them and forget them. I’ve been to the meeting, I’ve given my talk and I’ve spoken to those members of the audience that wanted to engage with me; job done, or so I thought …!

I have created a lot of ‘intellectual capital’ over the years, things that demonstrate my knowledge, experience and expertise far more concisely than I could begin to talk about. Yet, once the event is ...

Exploring like Agatha

Can we be inspired by being in the same location as a great writer? That’s the question I’d like to ponder with this week’s writing prompt. How might the late great Agatha inspire you to dissect what happens on this cliff top walk on Burgh Island?

All the photo’s this month come from Burgh Island. Burgh Island Hotel is closely linked to the crime novelist Agatha Christie, as it inspired the settings for both And Then There Were None and the Hercule Poirot mystery Evil Under the Sun. The 2001 TV ...

Happy Days

Experience is an important element of any story. And this week’s word square is designed to get you thinking about the more prosaic experiences that are the meat and two veg of anyone’s life.

I know a story is supposed to be dramatic, but stories often bury themselves deeply in people’s psyche’s when they also show the mundane, the everyday reality of life with the occasional foray into something different.

Can you conjure up a poem, a scene, or a regular event that could punctuate a bigger pie...

If I were 22 today

When I was 22 I was that annoying combination of confident and naïve. I was confident that the world was going to bow down before me as I bent it to my will.

At the same time, I was naïve enough to believe I knew it all and that no one could tell me anything. It was an unsustainable state of being, the consequences of which I have lived with every day ever since.

If I were 22 today I’d want to maintain that sense of having the world at my feet because it’s in this place that big dreams and oppor...

Stained glass shattering

How often do you look up? Think about it, really think about it. We are so used to looking down at phones or devices. People are frequently looking ahead to see where they are going. Occasionally we look to the right or left because we’re chatting with someone beside us. But we rarely look up, unless it’s for a specific purpose.

This week’s writing prompt is designed to encourage you to think about what happens when you look up.

All the photo’s this month come from Burgh Island of Agatha Christi...

The other world

I don’t know about you but I often happen across random ‘things’ that are out of context and this week’s photo prompt is no exception.

This beautifully crafted gate and stile just sat in the middle of the field all on their lonesome. They weren’t keeping anything in or protecting an area from things without. So why were they there?

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to tell us why they are there and what can be found beyond them.

Please feel free to leave your first line, paragraph ...