This post will help you respond to the following Spellbinder Instagram post. “Experiment with a watercolour painting of gorgeous springtime flowers. You can paint a field of flowers and/or flowers in a vase. What colours, shadows and vibrance can best convey the unique specialness of flowers?” One of the most distinctive features of spring is… Continue reading Painting Spring Flowers
Author: Ned Vessey
Spring Writing Exercises
This post will help you respond to the following Spellbinder Instagram post. “Challenge yourself with a constrained writing exercise this spring. Here are some examples: write a haiku about new beginnings and or/rebirth; write a 500-characters memoir about springtimes past; write a fiction piece without ever using the letter ‘S’.” Here in the UK, we… Continue reading Spring Writing Exercises
Winter 2022 – Drama
Sarah Wallis’ comedic stage play My Psycho Ex Was an Angel is a genuine delight to read. As an editor, I was instantly captivated by its unusual plot and surreal tone. The scene painted for us is one of a first date, which is taking place in an art gallery between Adrian and Claire. It… Continue reading Winter 2022 – Drama
Openings
Sometimes, starting a piece of fiction can be one of the most daunting and difficult elements of the whole process. This post will suggest some ways in which you might wish to begin a story or piece of flash fiction, and hopefully serve as an aid if you are struggling to do so. These are… Continue reading Openings
Art and Mystery
This post will explore the relationship between art and mystery. I will look at a couple of my own favourite pieces of art. However, the points I will touch upon can also apply to your own personal favourites too. Mystery often serves an important purpose within art. A painting can create a small slice of… Continue reading Art and Mystery
Winter 2022 – Non-Fiction
A difficult year calls for the fulfilling familiarity that the cosiness of December brings. The last few weeks, leading up to the beginning of a new year, feel like a suspended simulation where one revels in one’s guiltless liberty to take a pause, disconnect from the harsh realities that life demands, and simply dwell in… Continue reading Winter 2022 – Non-Fiction
Winter 2022 – Fiction
A Bargaining The red plate on the green table has a loaf of lemon bread on it. There are blueberries on top of the loaf. You know it smells freshly baked even though you can’t actually smell it. Your nose is broken and doesn’t work anymore. You do not know when your nose became broken.… Continue reading Winter 2022 – Fiction
An Introduction to Free-form Writing
This post will introduce you to free-form writing, a technique which is extremely useful and versatile. As a writer, it can often be easy to be overcritical. We can all get bogged down in overanalysing what we have written or agonising over what we write next. Sometimes, we may not know what to write at… Continue reading An Introduction to Free-form Writing
Winter Prompts
This blog post will help build upon the latest series of Winter themed prompts on the Spellbinder Instagram. Winter can be a hard, and harsh, period of time. It can feel desolate and bare. Here in England, it is currently damp with winter rain. The nights come quickly, and are long. As a writer or… Continue reading Winter Prompts