Sunday 15 February 2015

Follow the White Rabbit

Exciting news - some of my work has been selected to be read aloud at this event coming up next week in London!
White Rabbit: Are You Sitting Comfortably? are hosting an Alice In Wonderland inspired evening featuring original prose and poetry from several different writers - and one of them is me.

The evening is celebrating 150 years since the publication of my favourite stories - I have a dog-eared and battered hardback of Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass that I received for my seventh birthday. Alice has been a constant source of inspiration for me and a companion through a childhood spent nose-deep in books.

I'm really thrilled and honoured to have had work chosen and I'm super excited to see what other wonders the evening will hold!

Follow me on twitter @ruthsedar as I'll be tweeting throughout the week and at the evening using the hashtag #whiterabbit.

Join me as we tumble down the rabbit hole...

Thursday 12 February 2015

Courage is a rabbit

Years ago, I used to submit work without batting an eyelid. I'd contribute copy to music review sites, kept about four different blogs, sent spec letters to anyone and everyone. The courage of being 17 years old is a special kind you rarely feel again once you are past 27 and picking up speed.

I am beginning to submit work again. This is a Big Deal. Short fiction, mostly, to a few open publishers and I'm trying to write something, no matter how short, each day. Practice is as practice does. And courage comes.

Sunday 8 February 2015

Inspiration

My inspiration comes from funny places. The same places as everyone else, I suppose - I'm not suggesting my own inspiration is more important or interesting than anyone else's.

To look outside and see a rare hint of Spring in spite of it being early February made me want to sit and write. "Spending warm summer days in doors..." Morrissey knows all about this, too. I don't know anyone in Luxembourg, though.

Projects this week are focussed around submissions I am planning on making, one of them being a short 'Alice' inspired story for http://www.thewhiterabbit.org.uk/

The Alice stories are some of my favourite things. I have a hardback copy of Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass which I received for a birthday present when I was seven. You know those people who read the entire Lord Of The Rings every year? I'm like that, but with Alice.

I want to work mostly on the reality themes, rather than the unreality and the surreal themes. I'd like to see Alice as an adult working through her messed up, subterranean childhood as led by woodland creatures.

Friday 6 February 2015

Back to basics

A Christmas in retail is a terrifying creature. But realising it is 37 days into the New Year and having not written a damn thing since October - that's far more frightening.

Back to square one; a notebook and pen in every bag, on every journey. No excuses.

As I mentioned above, I haven't been writing. Not even writing about not writing, nor writing about anything at all. Life got in the way.

However, an unexpected thing has happened. I have become inspired again. You can expect further rambling updates of the progress of various projects. My main project is sitting pretty at 10,000 words and there's maybe another 20,000 to go before I can think about diving back in and killing my darlings.

Publication fears. Proof-reading terror. Prose and grammar fails, I hope you'll stick with me through it.