I'm delighted to welcome Bryony Bennett to my blog today. Here she tells us abut her writing life.
1. What do you write? Why this in particular?
I tend to write short pieces, under 500 words in length. The pieces might be autobiographical, devotional, flash fiction or occasionally poetry. Due to medication side effects my concentration isn’t great. For this reason I gravitate towards pieces that are short and sweet. Very recently I have begun writing flash fiction on Twitter, under 280 characters per story. As a writing prompt for my flash fiction on Twitter, I use story cubes. These are dice with a different picture on each side. You must conjure up a story inspired by the pictures you roll. An example of my Twitter flash fiction is below:
https://twitter.com/Bryony08386880/status/1496061852136132610?t=4I5WfXejD4I1DiBQF_F6NA&s=19
2. What got you started on writing in the first place?
I have enjoyed writing ever since I was little. I enjoyed making up stories, writing poems and generally exploring my imagination and expressing my creativity.
My love of writing and reading led me to take my first degree in English. I admired the way the authors I studied communicated to their readers, by use of myriad literary devices. I hope in some small way to emulate them.
3. Do you have a particular routine?
I’m working on this one! I can be rather sporadic in the way I write. Inspiration can strike at any time, for example, a particularly vivid dream might prompt me to write a story first thing in the morning before the dream fades. With my Twitter flash fiction, I tweet one story a week. I might compose more than one a week however, then hold them back for future use.
4. Do you have a dedicated working space?
I will work on my laptop at the dining table if I’m at home, or if I’m out I’ll happily sit for an hour in a coffee shop or pub and write on my phone. I live in a slightly cluttered one bedroom flat with my boyfriend. I look forward to a time when we move into a bigger place and I can have my own office.
5. When did you decide you could call yourself a writer? Do you do that in fact?
Only very recently did the penny drop that I was a writer. My thinking went "I write for work. I write for a hobby. Therefore I am a writer." It’s strange but I think writers often feel the need for external validation or permission to call themselves a writer. Maybe there’s a bit of Imposter Syndrome going on, whereby writers wonder when they’ll get “caught out” for not being as good as others perceive them to be.
6. Do you have any supporters in your life? If so, what impact does this have on you as a writer?
I am fortunate to have a couple of people in my life I consider to be both friends and mentors. These people appeared at crucial times in my life, and have stuck with me over the years. Ann, for example, gave me careers coaching when I was fresh out of University and pretty clueless about the world of work. A link to my story about Ann is below:
https://www.thecareerscompany.com/blog/my-experience-of-a-career-coach
Meanwhile Peter, the Editor of St Mary’s church magazine, for which I am a regular contributor, has taken me under his wing and offers invaluable encouragement, guidance and advice on all things writing related.
7. What are you most proud of in your writing?
I’m proud that I’ve finally learnt to trust that I am capable as a writer. I learnt what to not do during my English degree. For much of my degree I felt very inadequate as a student. My grades suffered as a result as I doubted and edited to death every essay I wrote, believing it couldn’t possibly be good enough. Eventually at some point in the third year I thought “maybe I am good enough” and voila! My grades improved dramatically as I began to trust myself.
Since my breakdown in 2014 and subsequent relapses and hospitalizations, I've learnt that I can't afford to stress myself. One stress I can leave behind is that old worry of not being good enough. The individual piece of writing I'm most proud of is a longer, autobiographical piece about how I found my faith through mental illness. I am a relatively new Christian and was baptised and confirmed within the last few years.
This article can be found on pgs 16-18 on the link below:
http://online.anyflip.com/swric/clga/mobile/index.html
8. How do you get on with editing and research?
I edit things lightly nowadays. In keeping with the necessary and hard won belief that “maybe I am good enough”, I will write and then pretty much leave what I’ve written alone. Correct spelling mistakes? Certainly. However, I must trust the essence of what I have written.
Research is sometimes necessary for my role as Editorial Team Lead at The Careers Company. I find the process quite enjoyable as I get to learn in the process of my work. For example, when researching the phenomenon referred to as The Great Resignation for an article I later wrote, I expanded my knowledge and gained a familiarity with this topic. This knowledge and familiarity is necessary in order to take a stance on any given subject one is asked to write about.
9. Do you have any goals for the future?
I want to continue to grow and develop as a writer. I want to take opportunities when they come up and not be deterred by seemingly unsuccessful ventures. If I don’t win that writing competition, there’ll be plenty more to have a go at. I have vague ideas of getting a book or books published in the future. Perhaps a compilation of my Twitter flash fiction? Or a book of devotionals? I don’t have enough material yet to approach a publisher. Creating a routine will help with this. I’m learning I need to set aside specific time to write. Writing when inspiration strikes is great but the times this happens can be few and far between.
10. Which writers have inspired you?
During my English Literature A Level I remember writing an essay comparing several books of my own choosing. I chose Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I loved those three books and the entire process of writing the essay, for which I won an award. I was in the zone.
During my English degree I was exposed to a broader range of writers including philosophers. I had a particular penchant for Michel Foucault and once again was in the zone when writing about his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of The Prison. More recently I am drawn to lighter but no less excellent books, such as P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, or Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
