Because it is essentially a compact journal, competition to be published in it is intense. I’ve only managed to get one story published in this journal, but I should be fair to myself as I really haven’t bombarded the editors with submissions. The submissions do not have to focus on spiritual topics, though some do.  On the web page is says:

Studio is a quarterly journal publishing poetry and prose of literary merit, offering a venue for previously published, new and aspiring writers, and developing a sense of community among christians writing.

I highly recommend this fine journal. More information, including submission guidelines, can be found on the Studio website here.

Good writing.

Every year the Creative Writing department of the university where I recently completed my MA (Tabor Adelaide) publishes an anthology of poetry, short plays and short stories. The contributors are all present or former students, and a few staff members also add to the eclectic mix of writing. This anthology was the 6th edition and the quality is extremely high. The competition to be included is making it harder to be included every year, so I was pleased to have a short story and a poem in the latest issue.

I’ve read all six editions and have enjoyed all of the stories. Many of the poems could easily have found a home in any of our most prestigious literary journals. In fact, two of our regular contributors, both former students, have had stories published in a leading journal in recent months. It speaks volumes for the standard of teaching at Tabor Adelaide, and says much for the talents being nurtured.

The anthology is called Tales from the Upper Room, reflecting the theological roots of Tabor Adelaide and a direct link to the upper room where Jesus and his disciples met to celebrate the last supper. The ‘upper room’ also refers to the fact that our writers’ groups meet in The Loft, the highest room in the university.

Links:

• Tales from the Upper Room - buy past editions of the anthology here.
• Tabor Adelaide - study creative writing through Tabor Adelaide (external students are also welcome)

Cue: the sound of wild cheering, strains of “Happy Birthday”  and the popping of corks drifting through cyberspace.

[Editors note: corks popping? Why wasn't I invited??]

Yes folks, this blog about writing is now officially 4 years old today. It has crawled, stumbled and staggered across the pages of literary endeavour over the last four years trying to say something significant – and sometimes just trying to say something.

At times I’ve shared some of my short stories, at other times I’ve published here a few samples of my poetry. Over the last two years I’ve shared my struggles, joys and frustrations while trying to complete my Master of Arts in Creative Writing, including the trials of trying to write a novel for my thesis paper.

This blog continues to grow and prosper – well, grow a little each day. Still waiting for the prosper bit. I try to post every day but often it can be several days between posts as the other demands of my writing life take up time and energy.

Thank you to all of my faithful readers.

Special thanks to all of you who have made the effort to leave a comment. I’d by mighty chuffed if you left a comment wishing the blog a Happy Birthday.

A extra special thanks to my son Sim’ who does all of the background technical stuff keeping this blog going.

Good writing.

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/happy-birthday-to-my-writing-blog/feed/ 5 http://www.trevorhampel.com/writing-success-4/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/writing-success-4/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:10:36 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=1467 Last night we had the first meeting for 2010 of our writers’ groups at Tabor Adelaide, the university where I am doing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing.

This was a combined meeting of the various writers’ groups. With about 30 in attendance interest is high which is very encouraging. The shared pizza was nice too.

As part of the proceedings one of the lecturers had a long list of recent writing successes from various students, past and present. This must be encouraging to the staff as people are having success with their writing.

The main purpose for this meeting was to launch the annual anthology of writing from students and staff. Tales from the Upper Room has now seen its fifth edition and is going from strength to strength. The standard of writing is very high and competition to be included is intensifying as each new raft of students progresses through the various courses available.

Personal publishing success

I was pleased to see that four of my poems and two of my stories were chosen for the anthology this year. I also contributed parts of a baton poem, an exercise where we all took it in turns to contribute to a major poem.

Writing courses:

Lectures in the creative writing courses start in a few weeks time, but I’m sure you can still enroll. Most courses are available externally. Click here to go to the website – just follow the links to the Humanities department. I can thoroughly recommend the courses as being very useful. Staff support is also great.

Good writing.

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/writing-success-4/feed/ 2 http://www.trevorhampel.com/writing-from-your-children-experiences/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/writing-from-your-children-experiences/#comments Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:15:36 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=1428 Last week I enjoyed reading the collection of inter-connected short stories called The Turning written by award winning West Australian author Tim Winton.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it was all I had hoped it to be. I’ll review it on these pages soon.

One of the most obvious strengths of the collection of stories is how Winton has drawn extensively on his childhood experiences growing up in rural Western Australia. This sense of time and place is powerful, and it set me to thinking and reminiscing about my own childhood. I grew up on a farm in the Murray Mallee districts of South Australia. the more I thought about it the more the memories came surging back. Some good, others I’d rather forget.

I was supposed to be on holiday last week, but there are times when the writer in me just cannot switch off. I actually wrote several stories  and made notes for another one, all based on childhood experiences. At this stage I am too close to the stories to know whether they will stand alone as unique stories in their own right, or they will become a part of a much bigger work.

Drawing on childhood experiences is something all writers can do.

‘Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who has survived beyond the age of twelve has enough fictional material for the rest of her life.’ (John Dufresne in The lie that tells the truth)

What I have done with these memories of my childhood is to take a real incident – and fictionalise it. I changed the names – to protect the guilty – and often twisted or totally changed the  events to suit the drama of the story. I distinctly remember a classmate breaking his arm while we were playing football. His reaction astonished me. I changed this incident to a broken arm during a cricket match. That’s the beauty of fiction: you can change or make up whatever you like. The stories read almost like a memoir – but much of the content is fiction. I’ve drawn on just one incident – the broken arm, for example – and let my imagination soar.

Writing activity:

• Cast your mind back to your primary (elementary)  school days.
• Think of one incident that sticks vividly in your memory.
• Write down exactly what happened – or as accurately as you can remember.
• Now rewrite it in a fiction form, bringing in imaginary characters, new incidents, a different ending – just let your imagination have free rein.

Good writing.

Today I had a totally different writing task which took most of my attention. The whole point of writing, in my opinion, is to be published. Sure, there are people who write just for themselves and are totally happy with an audience of one. I guess my private journal writing comes into that category.  Such writing is not aimed at a broader audience. Unless, of course, I become obscenely rich or infamously notorious as a result of my writing. Some people might want to read my private grumblings. But I doubt it.

Today I prepared some submissions for a publisher. I’m nearing the end of my Master of Arts course, and every year the humanities department calls for submissions from staff and students involved in the programme. The deadline is Friday, so I knew I had to get organised. Successful poems and stories are published in the annual anthology which is published in November. Last year I had a story and ten poems chosen which was very satisfying. This time around I have submitted eight poems and four short stories. It will be interesting to see which of them the editors choose.

One of the good things about this submission is that I could submit electronically. Makes the whole process relatively painless compared with sending off letters. Bit cheaper too.

Challenge to readers

Are you constantly writing but never sending off those stories and poems and articles you’ve slaved over so lovingly? The secret to getting published is no secret, really. You need to write, write, write and then submit, submit submit. And while waiting to hear back from the publishers, you need to write some more, and then write some more and then submit… I think you get the picture.

Send off a story or poem today.

Good writing – and may you see your writing in print soon. I know I will.

We usually gather for pizza at 6pm and then start into reading and critiquing each other’s work.  The readings are based on a challenge set the month before. We limit the activity to 1000 words so that everyone gets a go at reading and having their work critiqued. A good attendance is about 6-8 people, but this week we had 12 eager participants, 7 of whom had risen to the challenge of writing a short story.

This was the fun part. The challenge we had appeared to be very hard, but we all found it very interesting. We were asked to take a poem written by a fellow student which was published in last year’s anthology. This poem had some interesting Nordic references and names, which made the task even more challenging.

The Challenge

The writing task was as follows:

1. Take the first word of the poem and use that as the first word of the first sentence of the story.
2. Take the second word of the poem and use that as the first word of the second sentence.
3. Take the third word of the poem and use this as the first word of the third sentence.
4. Follow this pattern until you get to the end of the story – or the poem – whichever comes first.

The variations were wonderful. Using the same words we came up with seven quite different stories. These included:

• A recount of a classroom teacher grappling with unusual student names in the class.
• A stream of consciousness account of someone justifying why she should murder her mother.
• An account of the arrival home of a Viking raiding party.
• An snippet from a Shakespearean like scene written almost completely in iambic rhythm (this was my effort).

Reader challenge

Try it for yourself as a writing challenge. Take a poem – any poem – and try it. Last year we used a Robert Frost poem. Use one of your own poems. Whatever. You could be pleasantly surprised at the result.

Have fun with your writing.

Good writing.

Occasionally I also get readers leaving ideas from which I can benefit too. This is also great. Louise was one such reader today. Here is what she wrote:

You’ve just solved my problem! I have lots of short stories written – but with no ending! I get ideas for stories but then they sort of fizzle out.

Just for fun, I am going to create my own ‘final sentences’ and maybe something will click and maybe, they’ll trigger more ideas for short stories!

Thanks!

It must be a little discouraging to have lots of unfinished stories. Please, please, please don’t throw them away. They could well be the seeds of longer works later.

Another suggestion is to leave an unfinished story filed away for a few weeks or even months, then come back to it with almost “fresh” eyes and ears. You read that correctly – EARS. Read the unfinished story out loud – better yet – get someone you trust to read it to you. That story will have been ticking away in your subconscious for ages and might well be ready to mature into a complete story. The creative mind can be quite amazing at times.

Another suggestion: a commonly used technique is to ask the simple question: “What happens next?” or even “What if…?”

And how about “interviewing” your main character? You might be surprised what that character will say, or come up with.

You could also ask yourself the question: “What does the main character really want? What motivates her? How will he get what he wants? And what or who is hindering fulfilling those wants or desires? These could be triggers to get you writing again.

Hope this all helps.

Good writing.

Related article:  Short story endings

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/story-endings/feed/ 3 http://www.trevorhampel.com/follow-me-on-twitter/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/follow-me-on-twitter/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:53:54 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=933 A new phenomenon sweeping the internet is Twitter.

Okay – I’ll come clean, I’m new to Twitter and I’m not really sure how effective it will be in relation to my blogging, writing and the way in which I do things. I’ve only been on it a few weeks now, but already I find it great for keeping up with breaking news. The downside of this is that it can be a terrible distraction. During the recent tragic fires in Victoria, however, it was great keeping up to date on happenings.

I joined Twitter at the urging of my son Sim’ so he could keep informed about what I was doing. In return, I can easily keep track of what he is doing. It’s neat.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do so on the sidebar where it says “Follow my Twitters.” That’s really intuitive, isn’t it? That way you will keep up to date with what’s happening around here.

Oh, by the way – I’m also fairly new on Facebook too.

Good writing.

Use them

I invite you to look through this latest list of short story starters. If anything grabs your imagination, run with it. Borrow my idea and use it for a short story (or even a novel).

Writer’s block

If you are suffering from the dreaded Writer’s Block, these ideas are the ideal way to write yourself out of that slump. Take one of the ideas and just write – anything that comes to mind. Don’t worry if it seems like rubbish. Just write – and soon the words will be flowing again.

New writers

If you are new to writing, here you will find some great ideas to get you going. Don’t worry too much about the technicalities of spelling, punctuation and grammar on your first, rough draft. You can go back over those things later, once you have the main bulk of the story written.

Here they are – more Short Story Starters:

1. As Alice rounded the corner she could hear the train coming. She…
2. Before I had a chance to fully grasp what was happening, Ben had whipped out his knife. Seconds later he…
3. Considering his past record, this latest move was sure to create a new round of controversy. Peter knew this, but he was adamant that he must go on. He…
4. ‘Don’t come in here!’ she shouted. ‘After what you’ve done I don’t want to see you again. Get lost.’
5. Even as I entered the room I could tell that she was not happy. She had that certain look that spoke volumes. I knew…
6. ‘Fine! You just go ahead and leave – tonight! Good riddance, I say. And don’t think I’ll come running after you.’
7. Getting over the party was the least of my worries. The cleanup could wait; that mess wasn’t going anywhere. I had to find George and explain. He was probably wondering…

Show – don’t tell

Notice that I start in the middle of the story. Many short stories start in the wrong place. Beginner writers tend to give far too much background detail and the real story starts part way through.

In the example above I have tried to get the action going immediately. Pages of background information is fine if you are writing a novel. Short stories are just that – short. They are tiny glimpses into one scene, two at most.

Beginner and inexperienced writers want to tell everything, going into the minutest of details and their short stories have nothing interesting happening in them. ‘Show – don’t tell’ is a mantra repeated endlessly by teachers of writing. Show the character’s motives through what she does. Show your character’s emotions through what he says (see example 6 above). Notice that I’ve broken my own rule in number 5 above. Sometimes telling is needed; you have to know the rules before you know when to break them.

Good writing.

For more short story starters click here.

Conditions of use:

• Feel free to use any of the story starters listed above. Change anything to suit your needs.
• Give it your best shot.
• Edit your work carefully before sending it off to a publisher or posting it on your blog.
• Let me know in the comments section how it went.
• If you publish your story on your web site or on your blog let me know so I can make a link to it for others to read.