You say prosecco, I say Prosecco

Samantha Henthorn talks about whether to write ‘Prosecco’ or ‘prosecco’ in her novels.

Hi Everyone,

I want to talk about something that has been on my mind for a while.

PROSECCO!

If anyone follows me on Twitter or Facebook, you may have noticed that I have… noticed that fizzy wine has started giving me heartburn! Talk about #45yearoldproblems I am gutted! Literally.

That is not what this post is about – I just don’t know whether to capitalise or not when I am writing fiction (it crops up often in Curmudgeon Avenue) and I have been doing some serious research about Prosecco during the past few years.

Photo by Sebastian Coman Photography on Pexels.com

Ha! I have even drank it by the sea according to the above photograph (although on closer inspection that is another brand of fizzy wine).

What I have done, when I say research is every time I am reading a book, and the word Prosecco or prosecco pops up, I make a note of it. by pressing some buttons on my Kindle.

Well, the results have come in (from traditionally published books) I have read on my Kindle, and four are spelt prosecco with a lower case p and eleven are spelt Prosecco.

Interestingly, comedy drama/light humour (the genre I write in) capitalised the P for Prosecco. And literary fiction/crime novels do not. (In the non scientific research I carried out).

Let’s do a google search (google is another one! Google/google)

WELL

Lots of things came up

There is a village called Prosecco in Italy, but the fizzy wine is produced (inside and) outside the village. In the past, the grape used to make Prosecco was called both prosecco and Glera. (I got this information by doing an internet search, an article came up by Wine Enthusiast which you can read here)

And from the dictionaries:

Prosecco in British English

(prəˈsɛkəʊ )NOUN (also without capital)

a sparkling Italian white wine, usually dry

Did you see that above? ALSO WITHOUT CAPITAL – so both are right! Phew!

And let’s look at the Chambers Dictionary that I was advised to buy for my Creative writing degree, hold on, it’s upstairs.

Phew! Massive dictionary – I am shattered now!

Tiny writing! It just says ‘prosecco n an Italian sparkling white wine.’

I asked my friends. Most of them didn’t care, one said that he had been to Italy and they don’t capitalise the word prosecco. Then he said he was just joking and had made this little anecdote up. I could text my friend who is a school teacher but it’s a Tuesday afternoon and who has the time to answer my nonsense?

So, there you have it. Some say Prosecco, some say prosecco. And that’s OK! Apologies if I have made you thirsty on a school night.

Cheers, and see you next time, Samantha xx

PS here is my Curmudgeon Avenue Series

‘Write What You Know’ Doesn’t mean ‘Write What You Know’ (and I’m over the moon about this)

The above is actual footage of me losing it during medication time in my old job when I was a ward sister (or deputy ward manager in the modern naughties) on a psychiatric ward. Not really! The photo is from the WordPress free photo library (thank you).

Ever since I had to give up nursing (sad face) and start writing (YAY!), there are certain phrases, questions and instructions that us writers often hear. And when I say hear, I mean roll our eyes and get bored with.

So that’s what I’m going to talk about this month, in my writerly ramblings post. Thank you for joining me, and yes, I know I made that word up…

‘WHY DON’T YOU WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW?’

Me: ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Fortunately, my mature student adventure of my Creative Writing degree has taught me that when ‘they’ ask ‘Why don’t you write what you know?’ In true expert literary terms does not mean ‘Write what you know about (in the sense of I used to be a nurse, so write about nursing)’ No, this means, write about what you know as a human being, use your senses, your imagination and your memory. This will help you with your descriptions, your characters, everything. I mean what you can see, taste, feel… what you can create.

THE ABOVE IS WHAT YOU KNOW AS A WRITER.

THRILLER WRITERS HAVE NOT COMMITED MURDER IN ORDER TO WRITE ABOUT IT.

HILARY MANTEL WAS NOT ALIVE DURING TUDOR TIMES YET SHE WAS ABLE TO IMAGINE ENOUGH TO EXPERTLY WRITE ABOUT THEM.

RICHARD ADAMS WAS NOT A RABBIT, YET IF YOU’VE READ WATERSHIP DOWN YOU WILL HAVE FELT LIKE YOU’VE LIVED IN A WARREN.

I do hope that has cleared things up for those of you who insist on asking those questions to myself and other writers.

This is not to say that I may have drawn on my experiences of psychiatric nursing to write a short story for my degree (one that I got 92% for btw)

Happy writing, Samantha xx

PS Join me next month for my writerly rambling about character names – I feel a guest post series coming on!

On Achieving a Distinction in The Creative Writing Module of My Degree.

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining me on my monthly ‘writerly ramblings’ blog post., (yes I made that word up!)

Yesterday, I was thrilled to bits to receive an overall score of 82% in the creative writing module of my degree. I have no words, I have regained my self-worth.

Achievable, I would say because I am studying with the Open University. The teaching and support is first class. I don’t need to leave my house. I only work when I feel up to it, (I have to pace myself ALL the time because of fatigue). I can turn the computer off if I get a headache, or if my eyes start hurting, and so on. I won’t go on about MS, you won’t meet two people who have the condition with the same symptoms, and impetuously worded conversations around it can become rather tiresome.*

When I was forced to give up nursing six years ago due to having MS, I went through a very difficult time. This is part of my (non-fiction) story. When I started writing ‘full-time’ an ex-colleague commented ‘If you can do that, why can’t you still work?’ Not the case, and not the point either, it was not my decision to leave work, and it was not my fault that I have this chronic condition.

You can see why I am nervous about celebrating my good news, but the point I am trying to make is, this is me now. There is hope, it is possible to dig yourself out of a hole, and if you happen to be reading this post because you have searched ‘writing inspiration’ then I am saying to you ‘JUST GO FOR IT’. Writing will give you SO MUCH.

Writing for me is not just a case of my legs don’t work like they used to so now I have to do something different. I write because I love it. I love reading, I love escaping into a different world and I love that I can write and escape into another world too. And I am studying writing because my husband (correctly) suggested ‘why don’t you learn your trade?’

I write because it feels like this is what I should be doing.

Getting a good result has been an added bonus, I have learnt so much during this module which will hopefully feature in further blog posts – in particular, that ‘writing what you know, doesn’t mean writing what you know (about)’. That blew my mind, and I was very pleased to learn it. I don’t think J K Rowling knew about how to be an eleven-year-old wizard, and Stephen King did not know how to be a menstrual teenager but they still wrote about what they could see, smell, taste, imagine etc – this is what you know – AS A HUMAN.

On reflection, I have learnt that I am ‘safe’ in my writing style, this is what I’ll be working on next – although I cannot promise any sex scenes in my series Curmudgeon Avenue!

* I must also add to why I am able to ‘achieve’; I am in a good place, I have an amazing, supportive husband not only in what he says but he makes life easy for me. Doing the shopping, the garden, walking the dog, anything. My daughter is the funniest person I know and, she has grown up! She has a fab job and lives with her lovely boyfriend. (in other words, I don’t have small children to look after!)

This is the Curmudgeon Avenue series

Happy reading and writing everybody! Samantha xx

PS, the picture is from WordPress’ free photo library, I have a while to go before I graduate. 🙂

My Routine! My Writing Routine!

Before Christmas, I met with Business Mentor expert Carl Bradshaw, available on Twitter at @CarlBradshaw (he has a fancy business name I think but this was they easiest way for me to mention him.) We spoke at length about routine and he also suggested blogging a ‘writerly’ type post every month. So here I am, in the third of this series I am blogging about writing routines!

This is what I do, and I’m only sharing this to make the point that finding out what works for you is a great way of managing your time and producing results. And by results, I mean books!

I do wake up fairly early. I have more energy in the morning, my husband gets up early and we have a dog and two cats. I have a quick scan of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see if there is anyone interesting to follow, any books that catch my eye, and occasionally to pop something on about my own books! (Why not? We all do it!)

Then I write a list of things I want to work on later.

The above list is very important. In the morning, I have my ‘thinking head’ on. If I don’t complete my list, no problem it goes on the next day’s list. Then, and this is relevant to me personally, I spend some time on the programme my physiotherapist put together for me. I visit SP Therapy Services in Bury once a month at least this helps keep me ‘well’ enough to write.

Then I have a rest.

This is important to replenish energy and get me ready for the big event. Between the hours of one and three on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday is my writing time. Two hours may not sound like much but last November, for example, I got down a 50,000 word draft of book number three of the Curmudgeon Avenue series. I consult my list, which might include working on my Open University degree in Creative Writing, working on the next chapter, writing a blog post, or reviewing a book that I have finished reading.

Then it’s the end of the day!

Although I work from home, it is important, for lots of different reasons to stop writing/working change position and do all the other things that I haven’t mentioned. I try and keep any socialising to the weekend (without overdoing it, of course!)

Just to say

I am able to write full time because I had to give up nursing because I’ve got MS. It is a full time job on its own managing this. It has taken me years after I retired, for lots of different reasons to get into this routine, sometimes life gets in the way, for example, next week, I have three appointments during the week that will wear me out and stop me from writing. But I am in a better place, when I started writing , I was waking up during the night, creeping downstairs and writing then. Now I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it wasn’t right for me.

It was Roald Dahl that gave me the idea.

A few years ago, I watched a documentary about Roald Dahl. His wife said that he would lock himself away from 10am until 4pm every day and write. So it’s not just me recommending routine!

Tough Love Needs Me to Blog About Writer’s Block

I sometimes have too many ideas, I wouldn’t say this is a block as such. It’s like I cannot write quickly enough – and that’s the truth.

Ernest Hemingway famously maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing. But it was alright for him- he was Ernest Hemingway! He had a point though; after two and a half years of self publishing and almost five years of writing full-time I know that it is more important to actually write than spending all day talking about it. And by talking, you must know I mean social media, not just writing groups. Dorothea Brande agrees in her 1934 book ‘Becoming A Writer’ (I am recommending this book) when she said that although talking about writing can be valuable, too much of it is draining (a paraphrase of a quote).

I would much rather write than talk, my goodness, there is so much out there on the internet and I feel it has put me at risk of THINKING I have writer’s block, and I don’t. Do you know, the other day I finished doing all the formatting nonsense on KDP for my latest book Edna and Genevieve Escape From Curmudgeon Avenue and then I wrote 31 first draft lines of a 40 line poem I have to write for my degree, and I still thought I ‘hadn’t written anything’ know what I mean?

Let’s find out what the experts say.

Larry W Phillips edited Ernest Hemingway on Writing this is a collection of diary entries and letters (Scriber 1984/2004) in it, Ernest Hemingway talks about some books being easy to write, some are like drilling rocks (not a direct quote). Thanks Ernest Hemingway, to me, that means GO FOR IT, sometimes it’s meant to be hard.

Stephen King hardly mentions writer’s block in his 2000 book On Writing from what I can glean. I read this book studiously three years ago and often return to parts of it. King talks about only experiencing true writer’s block when he was at university studying Creative Writing! His advice is to write anything you want to as long as you are honest (paraphrased quote) .

Dorothea Brande in her book I mentioned earlier talks about the ‘Artistic Coma’ again, this book is well worth reading. The Artistic Coma is about the importance of writers having time to dream- I love that, from that I took the notion that I am writing subconsciously, even when I’m not writing.

And what of the actual Creative Writing degree I am studying? The advice I have picked up, without directly quoting, is to leave your ambitions at the door when writing because they are not part of the experience of writing itself. I felt a whole lot better after realising this.

What’s my advice? GO FOR IT. If life events sabotage your writing time that cannot be helped, but worry not because more than likely, you will be writing subconsciously when you are stuck in traffic, or some other distraction. Rejuvenate those creative brain cells, make sure you read loads and if you still can’t think of ‘something to write’, then tough love is telling me to tell you ‘don’t’ – well not today anyway…

Happy writing, Samantha

Tag: writing advice