Hi, my name's Anna Reynolds and I'm one-third of the team behind WriteWords, one of the UK's most successful and popular writing sites. We set out to create a real community for all writers, from beginners to experienced, across all genres and media, and we're excited by how diverse and lively the site has become.

My WriteWords colleagues are David Bruce, the Webmaster, and Richard Brown, a non-fiction writer, who is our Directory Editor. One day back in 2003, the three of us sat down in a pub- as you do- and decided we wanted to create the kind of site we'd like to be part of ourselves, something very friendly and accessible, but also with great info, jobs for writers, interviews with The Great and the Good, and lots, lots more.

It's exciting to follow what goes on within the WriteWords community - some members have started out with us at a very early stage in their career, and gone on to get major publishing deals; other times there are really interesting debates and discussions on the site - which, unlike a lot of sites rarely end up in pointless bickering and in-fighting. I also love it when writers help each other- my experience as a stage writer is that we're an isolated bunch, working in our own spaces, not really sharing what we do and often feeling intensive rivalry- but I think WW writers are incredibly supportive and helpful toward each other, and great at sharing and swapping advice, opinions and info.



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but this weather, really! A bit of a reprieve, at night maybe??

So other than moaning about being too hot I've been working, lots and I am ALMOST up to date. Hu-bloody-rrah! And about time too. It's good because it means that I'll be able to concentrate on new projects with a clearer, less cluttered, mind. And with my mind as it is, that is a good thing.

***

Very pleased that I'm an honoree in the Binnacle's Ultra Short competition, sponsored by the University of Maine. I've just finished proofing my story for inclusion in their anthology.

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There's been a lot of debate on here about whether or not Michael Jackson was guilty of molesting children and it's really shocked me how people are quick to attack the man based on what seems to be very little true proof or evidence. It seems a sad world where so many of us who purport to be intelligent, rational and considerate human beings, are so quick to point the finger, basing most of our accusations upon things we read in the newspapers. It's even sadder that so many people still do take everything reported in the tabloids as gospel. Make something a big screaming headline in the Mail and of course, it MUST be true. And yet by all accounts, MJ was to his closest friends was a gentle, loving, sensitive and even shy man who was a good father to his three children. Somebody wrote on the forums that in most cases it was advisable to take the word of the allegedly-abused child over and above that of the adult who was supposed to have abused them - well, yes, certainly, but in the moneyed world of Michael Jackson, how can anybody be sure that the accusers and their families weren't merely out to make as much money out of the Jacksons as they possibly could? The out-of-court settlement surely was no admission of guilt, but a desperate move by a weary Jackson to put an end to the media speculation so that he could attempt to pick up the pieces of his wrecked life. The saddest thing of all is that the abuse now doing the rounds of forums and websites over the world is carried out by US as we attack and speculate over this lonely man who ended his days with a doctor living in his house. No words of compassion for his family. No thoughts of how the death affects his friends or his true fans. No realisation that - hang on - the newspapers need to sell copies! No sensitivity to stand back for a moment and wonder how WE would feel if we'd been accused of abusing children and it wasn't true. Think about how that would make YOU feel. It would break you. It would depress you. It would stop you eating, sleeping or hoping. It would make you want to end your life. The treatment of Michael Jackson by the media both before and after his death was bound to be despicable. But the attitudes of people on the street are even worse.

Based on the true events of 21/06/09…

I’d been so looking forward to today. My husband deserved those tickets to Rick Wakeman at Hampton Court, despite his protestations that we couldn’t afford them. He’d been a lifelong fan and it was a special concert of music the star hadn’t played before. So, despite the price of £120, I bought them secretly in January of this year – as a combined Father’s Day, anniversary and birthday present. The concert was in May 2010.

On Father’s Day I hid them in a box of chocolates and told the children to pester him for one until he opened it up. Which they did. Okay, okay,’ he grinned, ‘let’s all have a Rocky Road with a cuppa.’

The kids and I sat on the sofa and looked at each other with excitement as he fished out the bag of goodies and then two “cards”. He turned them over, his eyes widened and then filled with tears - he couldn’t believe I’d bought them. With flushed faces, the kids hugged their knees and gazed from their mum to their dad. Oh god – I was going to cry. So I stood up to make that cuppa. As I got to the kitchen door I glanced back.

But now his brow was furrowed and he mumbled something about the date. ‘May 2010’ I grinned, thinking he was pulling some joke. He bit his lip and slowly shook his head. The kids’ smiles dropped. ‘May 2009’, he said.


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'Say, can you direct us to the Prime Meridian?' said one half of an American couple. The light was fading as I pointed to the path winding up towards the observatory. They'd left it late to photograph themselves astride the line but maybe like me they'd latched on to the idea that evening is best time to visit Greenwich Park in Summer.


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Wowsers but it's hot and humid up here in the the north. And it aint something I'm used to. There's a storm coming soon, I've been told, and I'm looking forward to it.

Well, what a week. I've barely stopped (and yes, I am much closer to being up to date now, thank goodness). Writing's been done as has editing and reading.

And what reading. I've been dipping into, and really enjoying, Niki Aguire's 29 Ways to Drown, which is well worth a look. But mostly I've been reading Big World by Mary Miller and, well, it's gone straight onto my Incredibles list (for those reasonably new to the blog that just means books I think are incredibly good). I'm not going to review it because a) I've not finished it (and don't want to!) and b) I'm not very good at them but I will point you to what Tania Hershman said about it on The Short Review, which was what encouraged me to buy it in the first place.

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Perhaps that title should be: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Or it could be: Why sweat the small stuff? Or, Sweating – the small stuff. That one sounds quite funky. Or, perhaps it could be . . . and that’s my point.

How easy it is to agonise over the syntax or grammar of a sentence. I have to confess to a love of all that tinkering. Part of the beauty of the language is that we have a lavish assortment of ways to express the same thought. I enjoy taking the time to feed every single one of the eighty thousand words in my WIP through the mental thesaurus?

Writing a novel is all about making a series of decisions. Martin Amis made this point in a conference speech about one of Saul Bellow’s books. He includes it in Visiting Mrs Nabokov, but I can’t check exactly what he says as all my books are in boxes at the moment with builders crawling all over the house. As I remember, Amis describes the process a bit like a decision-tree with Bellow starting with big decisions and then working his way steadfastly down to ever smaller ones. The biggest decisions include the overall structure of the plot, who's the main character, the setting, etc. The small decisions include choices of words.



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A gunshot sounds offstage; a female voice shouts from the same direction: ‘It can’t happen! It shan’t happen!’

A man’s voice from voice calls from the audience: ‘Well, it already has happened!’

The moment reminded me of Dickens writing about ‘Hamlet’ when someone from the stalls shouted at the Prince, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, make your mind up!



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In the same week that choreographer Arlene Phillips (aged 66) is rumoured to have been given the chop from Strictly Come Dancing and replaced by a former contestant (aged 30), Alan Yentob’s Imagine followed The Company of Elders, a dance company whose members’ ages range from 61 to 85, as they rehearsed their latest contemporary performance at Sadlers Wells.

Part of me thinks it’s terrific that an hour of prime-time television has been devoted to older dancers. Another part feels uncomfortable, just as it did during the Susan Boyle fiasco: is this a celebration of talent, or does it lend more weight to the underlying cultural belief that older people are unlikely to be successful in their chosen field?

There’s a great democracy about writing. Few can tell, from reading a book, how old the author actually is. You can write a novel at the age of 14. You can write a novel at the age of 84. Whether that same democracy applies to publishing a novel is another matter.






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