New Year

Posted on January 1, 2013 by ashleymanningwriter

Happy new year readers

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and enjoyed the holiday.

 
I have a feeling that 2013 is going to be a good year. I’m not sure why, I just have a good feeling.
 
I said in my previous post that I was going to read the second Skulduggery Pleasant book during the holiday, after I finished The Hobbit. This didn’t happen. I was surprised on Christmas with a kindle. Instead of reading Skulduggery Pleasant I downloaded a few Gothic books. At the moment I’m 60% through the jewel of the seven stars by Bram Stoker. I downloaded the book for two reasons. One is that I love Dracula and the other is that some of the mummy films are based on it. I’ve read mixed reviews, but so far I’m really enjoying it.
 
I’ve been searching for good Gothic books online and downloaded as many public domain ones as I can find. In the next few weeks I’m going to read The Yellow Wallpaper, and The Fall of the House of Usher. I would appreciate some recommendations. They don’t have to be Gothic, or free. But just any book you would recommend that I read, thanks.
 
For the next year I’ve set myself some aims. I’m going to write at least 1000 words a day, every day, for the whole year. I should have finished The fragmented Sequence and be writing something else by next Christmas. 
 
I’ve also made it my goal to read one chapter a day, and then finish one book a week. Last year I slowed down on my reading during the summer, and I need to improve on it. 
 
I will be continuing this blog every Tuesday throughout the year. Next week I will be uploading a short story I wrote during the Christmas period. A vampire short story. Hopefully you will enjoy it.
 
Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a good year!
 
Ashley.
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Christmas and Thank You

Posted on December 23, 2012 by ashleymanningwriter

I’ve been looking forward to this Christmas for a long time. Not just because I’ll spending time with family, creating memories and having fun, but because I have finally finished my term at University. I’m 12 weeks into my second year on my Creative Writing/English course and it’s been much tougher than last year. So many essays. So many things to write and read. I’ve only had time to read three books that weren’t course related. Zom-B By Darren Shan, the new Lemony Snicket book (Which was seriously awesome.) and Come Closer By Harlan Coben (The second in his Micky Bolitar series. Another good read, looking forward for the next one.) I’m enjoying the course, but 4 books to read in a week when you’re not enjoying 3 of them is a struggle. I can finally read things that I want. I started with The Hobbit, which I’ve read more times than I can count. With the film coming out I wanted to remind myself of how good of a book it is. 3 films though. Really can’t see it working, but looking forward to seeing them anyway.

After I’ve finished The Hobbit, which won’t take long, I will be reading the second Skulduggery Pleasant book, by Derek Landy. I read the first one earlier in the year and really enjoyed it. It’s fun, adventurous and exactly what I want to read during the Christmas holiday. I’ve been looking forward to reading it for ages, and am glad I finally can. I really think that the series is worth reading, and its my recommendation for the Christmas period. Not the whole series, but at least the short story, The Lost Art of World Domination. It’s fun, and shows the pace and tone of the first book. It’s well written, and enjoyable. Anyway here’s the link (Hopefully Landy won’t mind) to read online, I hope you enjoy:

The Lost Art of World Domination

I started this blog in November and I really thought that no one would read it. I hoped that people would stumble across it. I’ve really enjoyed writing it, and am glad that you’ve at least read it. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’ve gotten some useful comments, some good support and I feel more confident now that some of my work is out there. I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read this and has read or visited any pages of this blog. Thank you.

I hope you all have an amazing Christmas an even better New Years.

See you next year,

thanks for reading,

Ashley.

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Short Story Edited.

Posted on December 18, 2012 by ashleymanningwriter

With the help of Juliet McHugh I’ve edited my short story The Valley of the Shadow of Death.

You can read it here.

I would like to thank Juliet for taking the time to go through and edit my work. It’s much appreciated.

Juliet’s own writing can be found here. It’s more than worth a look.

Thanks for reading,

Ashley.

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Planet of Vampires

Posted on December 18, 2012 by ashleymanningwriter

“Any more Earth people?” Someone said. “No? Slow day, usually more.”

Slowly I opened my eyes. I was in the middle of a crowded room. Lizard people, aliens, monsters and all types of indescribable creatures stood around me, all facing forwards. Everyone, including myself, was wearing a black robe, with the hood down.

“Last call. Earth people.” The same voice.

* * *

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE SHORT STORY, CURRENTLY KNOWN AS POD.

Last week I was sitting in my Non-Fiction lecture watching the documentary, Of Time and the City. I was pretty bored, and decided to take the time to write a short story. I had no idea what I was writing, but had an idea of a planet of the dead. I wrote two hundred words and then the light in the room was turned out. By that point I knew what the story was and had a basic plot. If I develop this story, this extract will appear in chapter two. I called it POD because planet of the dead sounded cliché while POD sounded more in vein of the quirky story I was attempting. I hope you enjoy it.

Anyway Vampires. Quite a few years ago now my Uncle introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Within two episodes I was hooked. I knew of vampires but had never read or seen anything about them. I thought the show was brilliant and went on to watch every episode of it and Angel. I then went on to watch everything Joss Whedon had made. Firefly, Serenity and the disappointing Dollhouse. At least The Avengers was as good as it should of been.

A couple of years after I first found Buffy, I was in the library at school, during an English lesson. We had an hour a week where we had to read. I had no idea what to read, and spent about twenty minutes going through the books. Someone I knew handed me Vampire Mountain, the fourth book in the Darren Shan Saga. I had no idea it was the fourth book, despite the number 4 on the side, and started reading it. I loved it. I spent the next few weeks reading the series, once I read book 12, I looped and read 1 – 3.

A couple of years ago on a trip to Whitby I picked up a copy of Dracula. I thought, at the time, that it was the original vampire story and saw it as a necessary read. It took me a couple of weeks to get through the book, and I loved all of it. It was creepy, interesting, different, and just plain amazing. When I studied the book in my A-level literature class I saw all the different ways in which other people read the book. Everyone had a different view on the plot. Someone even thought that there was no vampire in the book, that the characters were insane, and that the narrator couldn’t be trusted because the story was written through diaries and letters. The book is amazing, and should be read by everyone.

It was after reading Darren Shan’s book that I decided I needed to write a vampire book. This dream was only increased by reading Dracula. I’ve had several failed attempts. I want to add to the genre, changing and developing vampires in my own way. But I’ve never finished any vampire book. Originally To The Other was a vampire story. I wrote it with that in mind. But when I started writing it, a couple of years ago, everyone I told hated Twilight, and they rolled their eyes at the mention of vampires. So I changed it. I’m glad I’ve changed the story, as I’m happy with what it turned into, but I am now more determined than ever to finish a vampire story. It’s one of my goals as a writer.

Thanks for reading,

Ashley.

The next post will be on Sunday, rather than Tuesday. Thanks.

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UNO, DOS, TRE!!!

Posted on December 11, 2012 by ashleymanningwriter

I recently read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath for my university course. When I saw the book at the top of the book list I sighed. I’ve read her poetry, and don’t think much of it. I dreaded the thought of having to read an entire novel by her. But it had to be done. I started reading it about a week before the lecture, and had finished it a day later. Its not a long novel about 200 pages, but that doesn’t matter. From the first sentence I was hooked. The novel is nothing like her poetry. It tells the story of a young woman who wants to be a poet and is struggling to find her place in the world. As the story progresses it becomes obvious that she is suffering from depression. Its impossible to read the book without seeing connections to Plath’s life, as it was only less than a month after it was published that she took her own life.

The book itself is perfectly written, there isn’t a word out of place. The imagery, the plot, the characters, everything fitted so well in the short novel. I took my time while reading it not wanting to miss anything. I’ve read that she wrote it very quickly without making much revision to it and if that is true then it just makes the novel even more impressive. I’ve spoken to a few people about it on the course, and most say the same thing: They wouldn’t have picked it up if it wasn’t on the book list, but they are really glad they did.

I really recommend that everyone reads this book. It is one of the best books I have ever read, and instantly went towards the top of my favourites. It even made me think about going back and rereading her poetry, because I know that’s the only other thing she wrote. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Anyway back to my writing after finishing To The Other I handed out a couple of copies to people I know to look through it and used this time to start on the second book in the series. I knew straight away that there was going to be more than one book to tell this tale, and wanted to write the second one as soon as possible. Once the people I had given the books too had read it I started editing the novel. I’ve gone through the first half of the book in detail looking for errors and making corrections that others have pointed out. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I hate editing. I just wanted to carry on writing the second book. Once I reached the half way point in editing I put that to one side and decided that I was going to spend the next week writing the second story. At the moment I have just reached the 10000 word mark, which is about a fifth of what I’m aiming the story to be. I will carry on writing like this until next week when I will go back to editing the first one. Its horrible knowing that I am going to have to go through it again and again, but I need to to do it, so not much I can do about it.

The title of this post. Green day’s album trilogy. American Idiot is one of my favourite albums, it made me love rock music. Its the first album I remember buying, and its one that I always have on my mp3 player, or next to my CD player. From American Idiot I discovered Nimrod and Dookie and everything else they have produced. So earlier this year when Billie Joe announced that they were releasing three albums at the end of year, and start of the next I was excited. I couldn’t wait. I went out and bought Uno the day it was released and did the same with Dos. It was then announced that to apologise for the cancelling of their tour, due to Billie being in rehab, that Tre would be brought forward to a December release rather than in January. I’ve listened to all three albums a lot. They aren’t as good as American Idiot or Dookie, but they are still good albums. When I listened to them back to back I realised that there are a few songs that could have been missed out. Too many fillers. Some songs like Baby Eyes from Dos, and Fell From You from Uno were forgettable. It makes me think that it would have worked better as a double album, and that a trilogy was too ambitious for the band. They’re not the best albums but they are definitely good, and songs like Nuclear Family, Let yourself go and Dirty Rotten Ba*****s aren’t going to be forgotten any time soon.

I also, for some reason, find myself really liking he song Ashley from Dos. Maybe its just me.

Thanks for reading

 

Ashley.

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