Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Oh, look! Another image by Gerd Altmann … he’s going to start charging me soon!
With the new regime, I don’t have a lot of time to go into detail, but I think you have the gist of things by now. Simply choose one of the topics, and then brainstorm. Fiction and non-fiction; topical and evergreen.
British Summer Time
The clocks go forward in the UK this weekend. Or do they go back?
I’m not a huge fan of the American ‘spring forward, fall back’, because you can just as easily fall forward and spring back. So that doesn’t work for me. And anyway, it should be ‘autumn back’ in the UK, so it was a non-starter already for this very tweely (?) English writer.
Are there any other previously local sayings that have gone national or international that you don’t like? Could you write an article about them? You could choose Ten Top Sayings I Can’t Stand, or Five Favourite Sayings, or something similar.
Or you could choose one of them and make it a title of a story.
And what about the history of the clocks going backwards and forwards? When did this first start to happen? Do we still want it to happen? And if it stopped, would you prefer to stay in BST or GMT? Or is it stopping already?
Personally, I’m a GMT kinda gal (‘scuse the Americanism!). I function much better on GMT than I do on BST, so I’d sooner daylight saving was scrapped and that we were left on winter-time all year round.
At the moment, writers can still milk it every year, twice a year. So milk it while you still can!
Heaven’s Gate
Twenty-five years ago next year, on 26 March 1997, 39 Heaven’s Gate cult members were found dead. What do you know about this event? What can you find out about it?
Can you write an article or a short story based on similar cults or cults in general? Are all cults bad? Do all cults end in this weird, premature deathness? Or can you write something historical based around this actual event in 1997?
How about a story about a fictitious someone who joined this (or another) cult? Hopefully s/he survives. Did a real cult member survive? And what a great place to set a murder mystery, cosy or gritty.
M.C. Escher
I looked around for an image to illustrate today’s blog using this topic, but the only ones I could find were poor imitations. So we had to have a daylight saving related image instead. (Which is another excellent example of Altmann’s work, btw.)
So, 50 years ago next year, on 27 March 1972, the Dutch illustrator M. C. Escher died.
Where did he live? Where was he born? Where did he die? What did he do for a living? Can you write about the man or any of these locations or careers using this anniversary as your peg?
Apparently, as is often the case, Escher’s work did not receive the acclaim it enjoys today until late in his life. He was apparently 70 before there was an exhibition of his work.
How about a feature on Three Artists Who Became Famous After They Had Died? Or write a story about an artist who isn’t appreciated until it’s too late. Or perhaps a story about an artist who was appreciated just in the nick of time?
Over to you …
… and don’t forget to come back and let me know if and what you did, and how it fared.
