Book Reviews feat. Patrick Ness

After a couple of uncreative months, I decided to put books on the backburner and focus on some fun creative projects during the month of March. As a result, I have only read one book this month. Shock horror! 

I'm currently staying with my Grandma in the South East so I'm indulging in lots of food, tea time quiz shows and itv3. It's truly glorious! Although, I'm definitely looking forward to getting home, being bookish and hanging out with my family properly. Let me know what you're currently reading in the comments below and I'll have a gander. 

- check out my tbr jar post

London & The Penguin Blogger Event

Last Wednesday, Lyzi and I packed our backpacks and headed to London for the #penguinbloggerdo at Foyles' Charing Cross store where we had an absolute whale of a time. After arriving in London, we located our super cheap hostel, Clink78, before heading out to Covent Garden for food. With bellies full of Shake Shack burgers, we stumbled into The Gallery where we were welcomed by tables of books and tote bags for us to peruse and take at our leisure. As you can imagine, it felt way too good to be true but also rather bloody brilliant! After picking some books, we settled down and had conversations with fellow bloggers, as well as some vloggers and authors. I have to say, it was pretty awesome to go to an event full of like-minded bookish people! After nattering for a while, we sat and listened to the Penguin authors read from their upcoming releases accompanied by a pianist playing such delights as the Jaws theme tune and Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).  I picked up the following books that I'm really looking forward to reading...

How To Write Twitter Fiction

Surprisingly, there's more to Twitter than subtweets, updates on what you ate for breakfast and calls for John Krasinski lookalikes. I know, who knew?! I've been talking a lot recently about creativity, and this is one creative outlet that I've been seriously enjoying this month! This outlet, my dear friends, is Twitter Fiction. The art of storytelling within 140 characters. 

HOW TO WRITE #TWITTERFICTION  

1. gather visual and literary inspiration

Set up a little private Pinterest board, or Tumblr account, or go old school and create a REAL LIFE collage or list. Watch your favourite film and note down things that jump out at you, whether they're feelings or settings or characters. Listen to everyday conversations - what makes them extraordinary? What makes them ordinary? Take a lyric you like, or a line of poetry that really resonates with you, and then adapt it. Take inspiration from everywhere. Some of my pieces are taken from words I've heard being passed round in conversation, or photographs I've reblogged online. 

2. be brave 

It's so easy to criticize yourself, particularly if you're trying something new and completely alien to you. I have a habit of judging my work before I've even started, and that's really unhealthy. However, I've found myself a lot more willing to take risks and make a leap with #TwitterFiction, because the brevity is so much fun to play around with.  If you're reading this now and thinking 'Oh, that sounds cool but I can't write and I can't this and I can't that', this sort of fiction is probably for you. 

3. create a list of creative prompts

I like to dedicate pages in my journal to little prompts for future bits of creative work, be it single words or phrases or questions. Browse your inspiration board and note down some ideas to think about in the future. Here are ten prompts to get you started:

you and I, limbs, metropolis, bread and butter, declutter, for sale, home, mistake, breakfast, a historical event. 

I have a creative prompts series that you could refer to for further inspiration!

bee's examples of #twitterfiction

I've been working on Twitter Fiction in my journal for a while now so I thought I'd share some of my ideas with you to show you what it's all about. I've also included the prompts behind each piece so you can see how my pieces started out!  I'm still playing around with these pieces but I think the concepts are all pretty interesting, even if some of them are a little dark!  

blossom

Cupid

digital clock 




moon

the end of the world

What do you think? Will you be giving it a go? Even if you don't consider yourself a writer, you can still get involved with #TwitterFiction. Trust me! It's seriously fun and extremely therapeutic. 

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If you'd like to scroll through all of my advice posts then you can do so.

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Wreck This Journal 1

I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. I do things in a certain way, and I conduct myself accordingly. Whilst this can sometimes be a good thing, it can also be a bit of a creative hindrance. Therefore, I thought I'd completely go against everything I stand for creatively and embark on a chaotic creative project, also known as Wreck This Journal. Everyone and their cat has this journal so you probably know what it's all about but, for those that don't, it's basically a book that gives you lots of creative prompts to help you break away from perfection / procrastination and just create. I'm by no means an artist. In fact, I'm very far from it. However, I thought it'd be fun to share my progress with you all in the hope that fellow perfectionists / rubbish artists would take heed and join in the fun! I have to say, I'm really enjoying this project. It's so much fun and so easy to fit around my schedule. If you've blogged your pages, leave your links below as I'd love to have a nose at them. I thought I'd start off with some of the easier tasks first to ease myself in nicely....Be gentle with me!

Book Reviews feat. Shirley Jackson

If you haven't read the first half of my February book reviews, you should do so now. Seriously, it's a matter of urgency...or not. It would seem a lot of you had some interesting things to say about Nabokov! 

 If you'd like to keep up with my reading,  shimmy your way over to my Goodreads page and my Insta hashtags: #beesreads and #bees52books.  Feel free to leave your thoughts on the books I've read below. Here's part two of my February book reviews:

Book Reviews feat. Vladimir Nabokov

February was another great reading month for me! I think I made some really great reading choices and, on the whole, I really enjoyed what I read. I read some modern classics, some books I'd been meaning to get round to for ages, a play, some middle grade, some award winners...A nice eclectic bunch. If you'd like to keep up with my reading then you can do so in a number of ways. As you well know by now! You can do the following: follow me on Goodreads,  read my previous Mini Book Reviews or follow #beesreads and #bees52books on Instagram!