WARNING! New Challenger Approaching…

Late to the party, as usual. My name is Jonathan. Friends call me Jonty. You can call me Mr. Arnold. Yes, that IS my father’s name. That’s how this works.

J/K Kimora, could you imagine?

You can call me your Aunty Margaret, for all I care. Especially if you don’t have one. Everyone deserves an Aunty Margaret.

I’ve written for stage and page, and in vague theory for screen.

My speciality is world-building. Give me a compelling setting and I’ll spend my time building vast spreadsheets as I start digging deep, filling in the gaps of everything from infrastructure to local lore, family trees, soft drink brand history…

Anything, except the actual writing. Hence why I’m here. I needed something to spur me into action, that wasn’t as intense as past challenge writing assignments. And boy am I ready. So…

*insert “Honey, you’ve got big storm coming” GIF here*

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New year; who dis?

Hello old friend!

Yeah it’s been a year since the announcement of our Writer of 2017, and we think we’re ready to come back for Novel Dreamers 2: Electric Bookaloo!

Over the next few days, you’ll be noticing this years alumni joining us on the page and introducing themselves. New faces, old faces, new old faces, they’ll be here. So with that in mind, I should introduce Novel Dreamers and myself.

WHAT IS THIS?

Novel Dreamers is a monthly writing challenge that lasts a year. The writers are given a subject, 4 weeks, and a 1500 word limit with which they create wonderful content that you, dear reader, will hopefully vote on to help me crown one of them Dagna’s Writer of the Year. There will be additional criteria or stimuli throughout the year, but for now that’s the run of things.

WHO IS THIS?

Remember me? Steve Archer: The Man, the Myth, The Migraine.

I am now older, so let us run off the boasting card. I am a writer of several years experience. I have had my scripts performed in multiple locations across the country. I have written over 3 albums worth of music, I have 2 novels in progress, I write little nothings a lot. I am known for my writing style of dark, eclectically pop culture referencing, fantasy based (most days), and sarcastic. I try to move out of this comfort zone occasionally, like with the challenges in this. My favourite writers are Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I like poking things that people would wish left untouched, but never in a derogatory manner; sometimes you just need to laugh at the things you’re not meant to, and there are people who will say the things you need to hear to do that.

I will be writing the example pieces once more, and I will be giving me the weekend to do this to challenge myself once more but to give some breathing room to make something worth reading all the same.

 

SO! Let’s go get some writers, and I’ll see you October 8th with our first writing challenge.

 

Peace out

Archer

Hello! (Eventually…)

Hello all.  So here we are, close to the (extended) deadline of the first challenge and so, with a sense of epic achievement I hereby upload… my introduction type thing.  I mean, hey, better late than never, right?  Ahem…

So hello.  I am Matt (often known as Beamesy, occasionally Beames).  I am based in Southampton(ish), but can occasionally be spotted in Wolverhampton and Leicester looking generally lost/confused/tired/all three…  I write many types of things, but not as much as I should, so I’m working on getting better at that.

I write plays and fiction and poetry, and try to draw inspiration from anywhere and everywhere that I can.  There tends to be a dark, fantastical element to much of my writing, but not always…

Anyway, let’s see what happens…  Hope you enjoy reading!

Pictoback Writer…

Hello lovely Internet people! My name is Picto, well kind of it’s more of an alias really but it will do for now. I hail from the grim north where meat pie for breakfast is, if not normal, not entirely a thing to be scared of and the gravy flows freely.

I’ve been writing for my own entertainment for as long as I can remember but only recently started to share my… gift is a strong word, umm… vaguely entertaining nonsense with a wider audience. Last year I wrote all of my good friends a birthday short-story and did a couple of small but perfectly formed plays for 14/48 Leicester. I also have a bunch of stories, scripts and miscellaneous odds and sods I’d like to spend more time on if I wasn’t working so darn much.

I’ll read anything that someone can stick under my nose so my influences are many and varied. I’m currently enjoying the works of Orson Scott Card, Cory Doctorow and Chuck Palahniuk but have dabbled in Mary Shelley, John Grisham and Joseph Heller in the not so distant past.

So, yeah, I’m excited to get started and I hope you find something to like in my odd rambles…

Picto

Introducing…

Evening all!  I’m Hannah, HT, Hannah T, Torrance Olivier or a plethora of other nicknames I am too happy to answer to.  I am primarily a theatre director but began writing about two years ago and it has started with a a real bang!  So far I’ve mostly written plays, both short and long, and am embarking on a novel which is a really scary statement.  One of my plays She is going to be performed at the Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton in February so watch out for more shameless plugs.

Everything I write has a different influence.  My first play was sparked by an emotion and inspired by the writing styles of Caryl Churchill, Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp and the like; my most recent began as a statistic that made me unbelievably angry.  The novel is a complete stray into the unknown, going full epic fantasty á la Phillip Pullman with dreams of Del Torro-esq spectacles.

I am honored to be selected to be a part of this writing challenge and can’t wait to see the first theme and where our ideas take us.

 

You can call me Al…

Hi! Hello! How have you been? Yeah, you look peeky; have you been outside recently? Sorry, lost in thought! My name is Steve Archer, or Dagna Theatre if I’m trying to impress the ladies. (Theatrically, of course)

I will be your master of ceremonies for this expedition. Your guide. Your example writer. Your Dungeon Master, if you will. I’m nowhere near cool enough to be a DM but they’ll not question it…

Anyway! This is my example intro blog for our intrepid scribblers; they’ll be posting over the coming week before being set their first writing challenge

I have been writing since the age of 12, though only started working on big projects (songs, albums, novels, shows, a trilogy…) when I started uni in 2011. I have written over 50 songs, countless short stories, currently writing 2 novels and 5 plays. (be a blessing if I got paid for this!) My favourite writers are Pratchett, Gaiman and Hornby and I constantly reference them in my works.

You can find more on my work at http://www.dagnatheare.weebly.com and http://www.brownbeararcher.tumblr.com

Thanks for taking the time to check out the blog and I look forward to seeing the work everyone creates!

 

Peace out

Welcome to the Jungle

Hello, Dear Reader.

We’ve got several writers gearing up in the background, flexing their writing muscles and doing stretches; I’m sure I even saw one doing cryptic crosswords!

Over the upcoming months, you can find each writer’s entry to the challenge on here; by clicking on the month category or by clicking the name/tag of a certain writer and finding all their posts.

Shortly you’ll be finding each of them introducing themselves and their own writing stuff. We plan to start our first month of writing as of the 29th of August with the subject matter and Dagna’s sample writing uploaded for then, all writers then have until the 25th of September to write their first entrance and upload to the blog.

We look forward to what the guys get up to, and hope you’re looking forward to it too!

Happy reading gang!

Steve