Monday, May 28, 2012

Laughter


I laugh a lot, at a lot of foolishness and the older I grow it seems there are many foolish things to laugh at. – both people and things. Gets me into trouble sometimes, especially if I am around persons without a sense of humour.

The other day, I saw a close up on television of a rabbit eating and had to laugh out loud. Everything on its face twitched and wiggled as it chewed. It occurred to me that God must have a sense of humour.

I have always laughed at the wrong times. Once when I was in fourth form (a long time ago), the whole class was in detention for making a noise.For some reason I had a reputation for excessive talking and when the form teacher (Mrs. Veitch) came in to ascertain who was responsible for the noise, of course my name was called. I stood up indignantly to declaim. "Miss, I was not spoking at the time." The class, of course, tittered and I collapsed into helpless laughter which earned me an order mark (serious thing).

Then there was the time I was a young teacher and the class had to make a report on their favourite music. One bright spark talked for 3 minutes about her love of 'raw soul.'
If you know Jamaican bad words, you will know how that sounds when pronounced as one word..A teacher should not laugh in such circumstances – right? RIGHT!

There was another day when my car was in a stationary traffic line near where some higglers were selling.  One of them suddenly went into the 'spirit' - tongues and bending, jerking body and all. Then she came out of it, as suddenly as she had gone into it, as if nothing had happened. I was scared at first, as I thought something had gone wrong with her, only to hear her friend asking: "Wha' happen,Missis? How you get into spirit so early in the morning?". She answered quite mildly: "Ah, mi chile, ah so it go sometimes." I laughed all the way to work.

Needless to say, my children don't find my stories funny. They roll their eyes a lot while I am laughing at my own story. I forgive them. They live in stressful times. It seems not much is funny these days. Which brings me to the problem of writing humorous stories for the present generations. What makes them laugh?  I will have to research this. If you see me quietly chuckling while in a waiting room somewhere, I'm not going mad, just enjoying a joke which nobody else can see. And then perhaps I'll put it in a story.

Here's a link to one of my humorous stories. have fun reading  Very High Science
 


Check here for my ebook My Darling You (love stories -sort of)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007U78HEC 

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Good Reviews


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007U78HEC


Getting some good reviews on my new ebook My Darling You (love stories-sort of)

Helen 'Billy Elm' Williams   
 Hazel Campbell's `sort of' love stories are certainly original....
Yaz
 Brilliantly written, with strong characters, and although short, well crafted. Kudos!!!!!My Darling YOU (love stories - sort of)

Geoffrey Philp
The stories in My Darling You are engaging in their deft development of character, use of dialogue, and adept handling of plot. But there's more.

Go on over to http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007U78HEC


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Short-short Story

The short-short story or flash fiction intrigues me. How can you tell a story in 150 words, or less? Can such a piece - rather should such a piece be called a story?

Today I read this article by a writer who found that he could produce this short fiction
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction

I 've tried my hand at it and have not been happy with  the results.

Last year, I think - ( this year is flying by so fast sometimes I don't know which year I am talking about)- a bookstore in Jamaica had a competition for a 24 word story. It created a buzz in the writing world here and I think they got a lot of entries. Then they started publishing the winning story and a few others. As in any competition, many were unhappy with their choices, and the whole thing seemed to have died quietly. They stopped publishing the entries and nothing more was heard. They did have an evening of readings by the authors which unfortunately I couldn't attend, and never managed to connect with anyone who actually went. I hope they repeat the competition this year

 I entered, largely as a challenge to myself. Could I produce something that made sense in 24 words? These were my entries


ADVENT
It was a different Christmas. Green bananas ran through the streets ringing bells, while oranges marched when the trumpet sounded. Jonkunnu change fi true!
TABLES TURNED
To shackup or not? We’re both over eighty. Harder to decide       than when  we were just twenty. 'At your age?' Our children disapprove.

Here's what I understood after writing. The second 'story' TABLES TURNED would be better for a competition as it deals with a situation with which many can relate.There are shared assumptions to fill in the blanks. Actually I could have left out the third sentence and it would still make some sort of sense.
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The first 'story' deals with a special situation in Jamaica. Late in December 2011, the country had a general election. The situation in this 'story' is very localized  The two main political parties have adopted the color orange for the PNP and green for the JLP. The JLP uses the bell as a symbol and the PNP's traditional song is The trumpet has sounded.  Jonkunnu refers to traditional Christmas celebrations. I thought this 'story' was clever, but,without this background knowledge, ADVENT wouldn't work for the reader.

I am still learning.
Visit my amazon page   buy a copy of my ebook My Darling You (love stories- sort of)
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Thursday, May 10, 2012

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Meet the authors-read their bios

Photos and bios of the authors whose books and short stories have been shortlisted for the commonwealth writing prizes this year.It's quite an honour for me to be on this list.
http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/shortlisted-author-biographies-commonwealth-writers-book-prize-and-short-story-prize-2012/

The winner of the regional prize (Caribbean) for the short story is fellow Jamaican Diana McCaulay announced today..Congrats to her.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Remembering the future

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward." Lewis Carroll




How can one 'remember' the future?


I wish I had an answer to that as I face a challenge with  a novel I am writing.  I would like the setting to be about five years in the future. However with the rapid changes in technology and indeed life in general how can I know if facebook ,twitter, utube and other social media will be in existence then or operating in the way they are now?  I suppose I could change the names especially as I intend to introduce changes in the way they operate. But the story is not in the scifi genre, so I am busily confusing myself trying to find a workable/believable solution.