Seana Moorhead – Page 4 – Ascribe Writers

Fall Harvest Sauce

February 8, 2021February 9, 2021 Seana Moorhead 2 Comments

I invented a new condiment.

I know you’re probably thinking we don’t need a new condiment. After all, we’ve got ketchup, soy sauce, mustard, relish, plum sauce, salsa…is there space in the fridge and on the table for another one?

As a writer, I sometimes wonder if I have anything new to contribute to the book world. Occasionally when I enter a bookstore I have a moment of panic. There are so many books in there and how can I write another one to jostle for space on the shelves? Would anyone even pick up my book if I ever get published?

Supporting Authors

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

I always thought I supported writers by buying their books. Obviously purchasing books does support authors but a recent conversation with a fellow writer made me realize that I could do more. By more, I do not mean by buying more books. Not everyone has a book budget and I read books through a variety of ways other than buying an actual book: library, loans from friends and family and once by finding a book forgotten on a trail.

Maybe the pandemic has got me thinking about all the non-monetary ways we as writers can support other writers. It also made me realize how one person can support another in simple ways. It takes some time and thoughtfulness. As part of a writing community, we should put some time and effort into helping each other.

Winter is Coming – Hurrah!

September 21, 2020September 20, 2020 Seana Moorhead 1 Comment

Don’t get me wrong. I love summer time. Strangely enough, I especially enjoyed it this year. It became a time to reconnect with friends in outside spaces, to play charades on the driveway under the stars, find new kayak paddles in crystal blue-green water and to weed my flourishing Covid-19 garden.

But I’m kind of exhausted by summer. Like an excellent party – it’s great fun while it lasts but the clean up the next day is daunting. I’m canning my garden bounty (turns out that 40 tomatoes plants are too many), experimenting with a dozen ways to eat zucchini and discovering that not everyone loves cucumbers. Sadly, my writing got shelved during this time of outside merriment.

My short story journey into Nefariam

July 27, 2020July 26, 2020 Seana Moorhead 4 Comments

Several years ago, I wrote a blog for this site about things I found during a summer day to inspire my writing: https://ascribewriters.com/summer-time-to-be-inspired/ One of the inspirations was a visit to the Keady market and observing the live animal auction. I began to imagine a dragon auction and what it would be like, who would come to such an auction, would it be dangerous? This idea floated in my head and although I loved the idea, I could not fit it into my current fantasy book. It was nothing more than a scene with no characters or plot yet.

Writing a Short Story During a Pandemic

June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

To stay writing inspired during Covid 19 time, I took Lori Twining advice (see her blog, ascribewriters.com/everything-is-cancelled-almost ) and registered for the online Master Class. This was perfect for me as the classes are in short chunks and doesn’t require me to do anything more than listen to a professional author talk about their writing process. I wanted something to keep me inspired to write during this pandemic when it can be hard to focus. The first class I took (David Sedaris) discussed the importance of journal writing. The author uses his daily journal entries as inspirations for his humorous essays.

I’ve never been a daily journal writer in my every day life. But when I travel, I keep a journal. I have notebooks stashed in my closet from my three months solo backpacking trip in Europe in my early twenties and my year of adventure in India and Nepal. Even a week long canoe trip earns a thin, water-stained book. But in my “normal” life, I never thought of journaling about every day events. Mostly because it doesn’t seem like anything exciting happens to write about. But David Sedairs writes in his journal of the small things such as a taxi drive to the airport or a visit to a shop. Nothing dramatic like being taken hostage. On a side note, you should always carry a small notebook with you at all times just in case you are taken hostage so you can journal the experience.

Preparing for the End

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

Is anyone else secretly enjoying end of the world planning? To clarify, I mean this only in the context that we know that it isn’t actually the end of the world. Let’s stick with the story version where we think it could be the End but in the final moments of the story, we’re saved. Hopefully by some greeky scientist–and what the hell, a female scientist — a woman, her colleagues have previously belittled. Our plucky heroine creates a cure with the help of a sidekick who never passed grade 10. Because if I was writing this story, that’s what would happen.

So while we wait for Alice–yes, let’s call her Alice–to save us, we can prepare for the end of the world. In complete safety.

10 Reasons to Write Short Stories

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020 Seana Moorhead 1 Comment

Confession: For many years, I didn’t like short stories. The concept conjured memories of high school English classes where we were required to create short stories, filling lines with sweet teenage angst like a Boston cream pie donut. I used to like those donuts when I was nine. I also adored the pink and blue bubble gum ice cream at that age. There are some things you grow out of and I had put short stories into that category.

Then I started taking my writing more seriously and I’ve come around to admiring the short story format. I especially like very short stories; those under 3000 words. And I discovered there’s a reason why many short stories don’t work well for me. It’s very hard to write a good short story. You have to pack everything you could put into a novel of 70,000 words and break it down to the essential and still write beautifully. And make sense so you don’t lose your reader for lack of words.

When you find a good short story, it is like the scotch of writing. There’s depth and multi layered flavours from the first sniff to the last lingering taste on your mouth. Like a good scotch, you don’t need a lot to appreciate its beauty.

Here’s my list for why every writer should strive to write a short story:

Finding Lost Words

November 25, 2019November 24, 2019 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

A friend recently leant me a book called “The Lost Words”. This book lists twenty words relating to the natural world that were taken out of the Oxford Junior Dictionary (OJD)—a reference book aimed at young children and contains about 10,000 words. The book, beautifully illustrated by Jackie Morris and written by Robert Macfarlace, highlights twenty of the removed words, all connected to nature.

Obviously, when deciding upon what 10,000 words to use in a dictionary, choices have to be made. What would you pick? What would you leave out? Dictionaries have been doing this for years, adding in new words or new spellings, often to outraged critics. The editors of OJD decided to drop certain words relating to nature and added in new “modern” words. For example, “acorn”, “buttercup” and “starling” were all dropped. The words added were “blog” (ah, the irony in writing a blog about this) and “voice-mail” and “chatroom”.

Author: Seana Moorhead