Why make a video series? It’s not the most obvious thing to do when you’re someone who dislikes having their photo taken. But when Covid-19 started and the country went into lockdown, like many others, I wanted to do something to help. So I made a few writing challenge videos, primarily for my Patron of Reading school, I put together story prompt postcards and creative writing activities. My ever-lovely husband found a video editing package and starting teaching himself to use it. Also, as festivals and awards ceremonies moved online, I found I was filming a lot of interviews and readings and I wondered if I could get better at it.
Then Literature Wales put out a call for authors to submit ideas for online projects and I immediately thought of something that could get people writing even if they were stuck indoors. I came up with Write Where You Are, a series of videos and activity sheets, finding story ideas around the house. I sent in a proposal to Literature Wales and was thrilled when I got funding.
Becoming ambitious, I commissioned artwork from Jackie Evans for the opening titles, and roped in some other authors to do guest slots in the videos. With the help of my husband I learned the ropes on the video-editing and we all became very excited as the series took shape.
Here is episode 1. I’m on my own, today, in the kitchen, although there is a surprise guest appearance from another member of the household.
And here is the downloadable challenge sheet for episode 1 with lots more ideas for stories:
Write Where You Are Challenge Sheet 1
If you do any of the challenges and you’d like to share your work, please do send it to me. You can find my email address on the contacts page
Love it! How interesting that kitchens often feature in your books. Do you like to write in the kitchen?
I do like to take my laptop into the kitchen and work at the breakfast bar for a change of scene sometimes. I was surprised how often kitchens feature in all my books – I hadn’t realised I was doing it until I stopped to look. My current work in progress has a scene in a kitchen, too!
Whilst I have only featured a kitchen very briefly once on the way through! I will have to try harder to get a kitchen scene 🙂
If I can squeeze one into a pirate ship, you can definitely get a kitchen onto your smugglers’ boat!
Really enjoyed the video. It was really fun to have a different way to get ideas for stories. Can’t wait for the next episode to try out another new way to help write a story.
Thanks, Linda. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series.
This is a great way to get ideas for writing stories. Will use it with my children.
Thanks, Ruth. I love using the kitchen story bowl idea. It’s even more fun doing it as a group and mixing up everyone’s ideas.