Writing and Black Friday - What's that all about?

Having started this week's blog as a review of the year, which I quickly shelved, I started again.

 My writing hero William Gallagher had written something similar for his weekly Self Distract blog. William has his channel on YouTube and has his own web and blog pages http://williamgallagher.com/. If you are interested in everything Apple and writing, both YouTube and the web/blog pages are worth a look.

William is an extremely busy writer and has an impressive run of starting work at 0500 each morning for several hundred days. I spent four Monday evenings with William and other writers, writing together over a Zoom Link at the back end of the summer. I wrote several thousand words in those sessions, and I know there were some fantastic word counts from the other writers. I hope we can do it again in 2023.

It has been very pleasing to see that last week's post provoked interest, and as predicted, several other ways to clean brasses came up. Sadly, all the brass work has is now stay-bright, it seems!

These last two weekends, I have been working and having my non-working days (days off) in the week. It is different from my usual working routine; however, I had double booked myself in December.

Black Friday, how has it been for you? For the record, I did take advantage of 20% off on an order of coffee beans.

It has been very pleasing to see that last week's post provoked interest, and as predicted, several other ways to clean brasses came up. Sadly, all the brass work has is now stay-bright, it seems!

Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the USA. Thanksgiving is something that we do not celebrate over here, and I suspect that Black Friday started with the advent of online shopping from American websites. I don't see what all the fuss is about it. As usual, it brings out a load of scam alerts. Unfortunately, these scammers prey on the venerable in society. These scams with the state of our economy have tempted more people this year.

To keep you updated on my writing, I have two short stories/flash fiction ready for competitions at the end of the year and into 2023. A couple colleagues at work had a read of them for me and they went down well. One story got the perfect reaction to the ending that I had been working for, which was very pleasing. I intend to ‘crack on with another couple of stories this week and all being well a Christmas Story for this blog over the Christmas holidays.

VERDIGRIS , Drum Major, LOOK THERE VERDIGRIS!

Something unusual this week. But first this...

I have bought myself a couple of reference books for my writing exercises. One of them is a book of 5000 writing prompts. I have already used one for a flash fiction piece. I'm not 100% how long and which competition it will be in just yet. I have a competition for 500-word flash fiction that is closing on 31st December. I want to get a couple of entries written to take advantage of the entry price and because it is New Year's Eve. Not that I will be drinking, though. I'm working that weekend.

Ok, let's get on to the unusual part of this blog. Well, I say unusual. Many of my former and still serving Royal Marine Band Service colleagues will recognise and have experienced 'challenging' outcomes of this word.

Verdigris - A noun meaning the green patina that forms on copper, bronze, and brass. It can also refer to the shade of green ( which is blueish).

The Royal Marines No.1 Ceremonials consist of a tunic and trousers, a White Pith Helmet (Helmet WP), a Cross Strap and Music Pouch and a White Belt. All consist of Brass elements.

Those who haven’t experienced an inspection in Full No.1 Ceremonials will probably not have experienced the wrath of the inspecting officer and Drum Major when verdigris is detected on your brasses. Extra parades…urgh!

There were and most likely still are many different ways to clean said brasses. My preferred routine was to use Brasso first, then, using an old toothbrush, scrub off the Brasso with Goddard's Silver Foam. Any copyrights and trademarks are fully acknowledged. All was finished off by drying with a towel and a quick buff-up with one of the famous yellow cloths ( also used as a spit and polish cloth for boots) from the NAAFI shop.

The benefit I found with cleaning brasses was that if we had multiple gigs in a short time, it was easy enough to buff them back up to standard, even if it had rained. 

I tell you this on the big proviso that no Drum Major is ever informed!

Successes, no failures and getting busy once more

 

This week, a former Royal Marine colleague and fellow Blogger inspired me. I received an email from James Pilates with his latest blog, apologising that he hadn't blogged for nearly three years! He has been a very busy chap during that time, and at least my blog is only three months adrift!

These last three months have been a less productive time for my writing, but the tiny bit I have done has been at least successful. My Flash Fiction story 'Trapped' received Highly Commended in the Ottery Literary Festival, which was very pleasing.

During the festival, I attended a workshop, Introduction to Short Story Writing. Our lead was author Jenny Kane. Jenny passed on her knowledge wonderfully and was a true inspiration to us all. I've joined her mailing list for future online courses. In the meantime, I have been searching for more short story competitions.

Having found a few competitions, I have been fervently writing and editing a few more stories. I started one at the workshop, which has since turned into a rather good story with a twist. Having edited it over the last couple of evenings, I had a colleague at work have a read, and it went down quite well. I will leave it again for a few weeks before a final edit.

Another story that I am working on comes from the opening of my novel. When I first came up with this opening many years ago, I did wonder if it was a short story. I am doubtful at the moment. 

The question being is, it is a story or a scene from a bigger story. I want to get it to work in 300 words. Other than that, I might look at it working it up into a longer story of 1000 to 2000 words.

With all these stories potentially written, It got me thinking about what to do with them. If one were to win a competition, it would appear in a competition anthology; however, I have thought about compiling a collection of my own. It's a thought.

Writing work does come in fits and starts for me, and at the moment, I've again got a few things that will keep me busy for the rest of this month. I will keep updating this blog, and there is another project that I must briefly mention.

You may realise that this blog is on the Microsofts Blogger platform. With the greatest respect, Blogger has been an excellent platform for many years, but now it's time to move on to a newer platform. Blogger is proving to be rather difficult with formatting. I should be able to do much more on a unique platform. I've got my eye on one, so it is up to me to find the time to set it up.

There we are, then, the latest update. I have thought about posting my 'Trapped' short story. I must be careful as I might use it in another competition sometimes, and I would like it to be protected.

I'll blog again in a couple of weeks. I won't let it be three months this time!