Project Plan: Silent Scream

 This is my project plan which I made on Visme.

Visme Project Plan

Chapbook: Timed Writing 2

 This writing is based upon my idea of an old man going to Canada - a journey that will change his life/death.

It was the day the sun exploded, he had awoken to a low droning sound, that seemed to be coming from inside him.  That morning he had grumpily forced his eyes to open and as he did so the light seemed to be extra bright from the window oppoite teh bed, he hauled his aching body up and shuffled over to the window to look out properly.  The droning seemed to be getting louder as he aproached the light and then a blast, the sun seemed to detonate, a violent ringing in his ears made him put his hands over them in an attempt to make it stop and then a flash of light accross the sky like a nuclear catastrophe and then utter blackness, the last thing he remebered was the sound of his last breath.  

'I think he's dead!' Little Tommy peered over the prone body of his grandfather and then just to check he poked him in the ribs.

'Muuuuumm! I think he's dead!' Tommy called out, while poking him again, this time harder.  Tommy's mother, Janice came running in still carrying half the shpping bags she was getting out the car.  She groaned upon seeing her father on the floor and dropped to her knees.  She gently shook his shoulders and whispered loudly, 'Dad..Dad...' she then put her hand on his heart and turned her face to see if he was breathing.

'Grandad is dead, dead, dead!' Tommy started chanting.  'Tommy ...please!' Janice, worn and tired, looked up; 'Grandad is fine, he is not dead' At this point Grandad, actaully his name is George, George Fox, but rarely now did he hear his own name, opened his eyes suddenly and shouted - 'What the F...' 

'Dad!' Janice jumped back, Tommy laughed and started chanting; 'Grandad said a swear word, naughty Grandad!' 

'Dad, are you okay, what happened?' Janice had her best 'concerned' look on her face which George has startws rto recognise as a bad sign, as talk of care homes and hospitals always followed. 

 

Chapbook: Planning

 

Danny Wallace (2004) Random Acts of Kindness

This is the plan for my writing, I will answer the questions below to assist me in finalising and visualising what my final book will be. 

What is your final idea? Please explain in two sentences the theme and the form your writing will take.

My final ideas is to create a story on the theme of change.  The form it will take will be prose probably three chapters of a larger story.

Considering the form, how do you intend to layout your book pages?

I will be using conventional book chapters and will also use images to illustrate the text. 

How many pages do you expect there will be?

My book will be between 30-40 pages (no longer) 

Are you going to use images? Are these your own images (illustrations/photographs) or copyright free images that you will source?

Yes I will be using my own photos and I will also be soucing copyright free images to illustrate my text. All artists will be credited in the final work 

What is the plan of your time and how much you will need to spend on this?
Remember writing is something that you will need time and concentration without disturbance - you must make sure that you plan time to do this.

Week One - Sat/Sun - Initial structure of the work and plan for the three chapters.  Aim to complete first draft of chapter One

Week Two - Sat/Sun - Draft chapters two and three

Week Three - Edit and proofread and redraft all chapters 

What do you imagine the final book will look like?

Will be A5 or slightly larger depending on Blurb sizes.  I may choose a square format rather than rectangular as this will be different from previous books and may make it more interesting as I will be buying a physical copy.

Have you considered the cover page/contents page/back cover with blurb?

• Cover Page we will be designing in class/ however I will draft out ideas once I have started the writing
• Contents Page - I will include a contents page for my three chapters
• Back cover I will want to illustrate with an uimage and I do want the blurb on the back in the conventions of a book

Drafting and redrafting will need to be done? Who would you get to proofread your work?

Will ask a colleague of my partner to proofread after my final checks to ensure there are no mistakes before publication.

Write down any other thoughts or comments related to your plan on your blog post.

For this book I will need to be strict about the time taken over the weekend so I will put aside 3 hours to make sure I have a long length of time and then I will review later that day or on Sunday evening and spend another hour on review and structure/layout.  

I will also need to research which I will try to do during the week so I have this at hand when I am writing.

Creating a Website: About Me Page

 Zoe is an artist, photographer and writer, who disappeared to Germany and then reemerged years later with no explanation.  Some say she joined a commune in the mountains of Switzerland, and there is evidence that she resided in Basel for some time, but no one knows for sure. Zoe's performance and artwork are obscure and for some challenging, but sublime. Zoe works on themes of feminism, memory/remembrance and identity.  her work is influenced by the Neo-Dadaist Carl Laszlo, the writings of Colin Wilson and the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and Corrine Day. Zoe lives high above Leicester city and every day considers her next creation. 

Zoe also teaches art, design, and media at DMU International College.  Zoe has a first degree in English and Media She also achieved an MA with Distinction in Creative Media Arts (Photography) from the London South Bank University. Zoe's film 'Let's Eat Hair' was shown at the Phoenix Cinema in Leicester.

I proofread and improved grammar/spelling and then checked mobile view

Creating a Website: Contact Page, Social Media & Copyright

 Today we discussed legal and ethical issues with our presence online and also copyright issues.  On my website I have now changed my copyright to my own name and this year which I will update yearly

My next was to add a contact form, so I did this andlined up with my navigation bar and just changed the page background. 

I then changed the setting on my form by clicking on settings and this opened the contact form dashboard.  I then checked the settings and I ensured that all the boxes were required fields and I added a Submission message.  I then saved all my changes and then previewed.

I then went to 'setting' button over the form and then I went to 'design' in the dialog box.  I then changed all the fonts in each field, title and button to Palantino Linotype.  I then went through and changed the colour of the background, the field boxes, the text in all areas included the hover and regular text. 

I finalised my contact page by adding a title and message - I did this by clicking on add in the left hand tools menu and then text and I dragged in a heading and small parargraph.  I then just wrote my text and changed the font again to Paklantino Linotype and just adjusted the size.  I then used the Wix gridlines to centre the text.  Lastly, I added an image, for the moment I used a copyright free image from Unsplash.  I then quickly edited the image in Wix Image Editor, I simply went to filters and then mellow so it was a soft black and white so it matched my website. I then saved my website and just previewed to check it looked as I wanted. 

I am happy with the result for the moment and my form is set up and I will test this when I UX test the site when it is Live. 

I am going to now add the social media icons so that my audience can connect with my work.  I clicked on the 'Add' button in the left hand menu and then clicked on 'Social' and chose a social media icon bar and dragged it into the header.

My next step was to click on the social media bar in the header and then in the dialog box I clicked on 'add icons' in the right hand top corner.  I then added Blogger, YouTube and Linkedin and added live links. I then saved and previewed to check these work correctly.  I also changed the size of the icons once I had completed this by clicking on 'layout' over the icon bar and so they were 68pts and 14pts spacing.

I finally checked all links were working and the social links were ready for publication.

Creative Writing: Initial Ideas and Research

 Today, we began by looking at the three week Creative Writing Brief.  The aim is to create a chapbook, this is a small cheap book that was popular through the 17th to 19th centuries.  These books could be poetry, prose, factual, manifestos, fairy stories and dark tales. The National Library of Scotland states; 'The subject matter of chapbooks was quite broad — sermons of covenanting ministers, prophecies, last words of murderers, songs and poems by Robert Burns and Allan Ramsay, and biographies of famous people such as Wallace, Napoleon and Nelson. There were romances and legends, not to mention manuals of instruction and almanacs.' (National Library of Scotland, 2025) They were popular with children and were passed around.  They tended to be made on cheap paper and were highly valued and enjoyed by those who read them and them passed them on. 

The Seaman's confidence: A Dialogue between Two Seaman after a Storm.

Published and sold by T Cheney (circa 1800)

National Library of Scotland (2025)

Chapbooks 'gradually disappeared from the 1860s onwards.This was not only because of the explosion in the amount of cheap printed matter available, but also due to strong competition from religious tract societies such as the Stirling Tract Enterprise which regarded many chapbook publications as 'ungodly'. (National Library of Scotland, 2025) However, there has been a revival in the 20th and 21st century and people now produce these small cheap books.  These are sold online and often are handmade and self-published.  There are also examples of online versions of these small books an e-book is a cheap book in our contemporary society. 

Initial Ideas: My Own Chapbook 

On my mind recently has been change.  Many years can go by and suddenly you realise you are in a kind of Groundhog Day. Things stay the same and they stagnate. Once you start thinking on this, often the reaction is to talk yourself out of change as it will be a real hassle, it will be hard work, it might change your financial situation, home situation, work situation. Change is basically fairly terrifying whereas staying in the comfort zone, the status quo everything can carry on and no boat has been rocked!  Change is hard and almost alarming, this is perhaps why I am drawn to writing a story with this kind of theme.  Many books use a sudden change as the catalyst for the story, so I wonder how I might do this and, be interesting and have an original story to tell?

I began thinking about other authors who use this technique and 'Yes Man' (2005) By Danny Wallace is a good example.  The story begins with Wallace saying no to everything, his girlfriend has left him, he is depressed, he doesn't want to do anything, go out with his friends and his job is unsatisfying - he just keeps saying 'No' to things.  Then one day, Wallace chooses to only say 'yes' and the rules are that he must say 'yes' to everything no matter what and he draws up a contract with his friends and there is some kind of forfeit if he breaks the rules.  The book is a bit silly, it is like a bunch of boys who think up silly challenges for each other however it is entirely positive, Zoe Williams writes of the book;  'you have a high tolerance for inanity, and that's where brilliant ideas happen, in a rainforest of daft ideas, not in a desert of someone saying things are daft and going back to bed. He [Wallace] once spent some time - entirely for his own amusement, he insists - making up the worst joke in the world, then sending it to comedians.' (Williams, 2005)

Yes Man (2005) By Danny Wallace

This book is a bit of silliness and was made into a film with Jim Carey, however, there is a bravery to it which I do think it easier when you are young, before you have a family/children/responsibilities.  It is a bravery though that admire and perhaps I should take something from this bravery...

This idea about positivity leads me to think of Maslow - they use Maslow in Teaching Training however they don't tell you his most interesting studies, these I found through the writing of Colin Wilson who was also an advocate for the positive for higher experience and for not spending your life sleeping (or as he called it the robot).   Geoff Ward states; 'Crucially, Wilson recognised ‘the robot’ – his term for how our consciousness operates on ‘auto-pilot’, narrowing our perception so as to enable us to handle everyday life – and the need to get beyond it in order to evolve.' (Ward, 2016) Below Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Needs' which shows that basic needs have to be fulfilled to reach higher levels psychologically and this brings love/belonging, esteem and then self-actualisation which is where it gets really interesting with Maslow as Maslow got sick of treating sick people and wanted to see what happened when he treated healthy people and he discovered that the more the healthy people talked and shared the more they started having 'moments of clarity' or even ecstasy; 'A moment of clarity is a powerful cognitive experience where someone suddenly gains deep understanding about themselves, their life, or a specific situation. These insights can range from recognizing personal capabilities to understanding life purpose, often feeling profound and meaningful to the individual experiencing them.' (Bridges-Ruiz, 2025)

Why I am writing about Maslow and Wilson is I began with change and with change can open the door to new experiences, a new understanding of the self and those around you and get you out of circular and perhaps in self-destructive thinking. So where do I go from here in terms of my ideas for writing my own chapbook?

Form

If the theme is change, I now need to consider the form that my book will take.  For this project, I think I would like to write prose, a story - previously I have done this and written three chapters of a longer story and I could do the same here as I enjoy the fact that the story can go one and often I have various subplots at play for development. Or I could just stick to a short story and really contain this and be very precise in the story development to ensure that the story will work a short story/novella form.  I lean towards the three chapters of a larger book simply as I find the containment of the novella a little restrictive (not that boundaries are bad, boundaries do help to avoid getting lost out there!). I have just found one of my old books and I created this in diary form. I enjoyed this as it really gave an insight into the life of the character and his daily thoughts, anxieties and annoying everyday problems! I will see where this takes me once I have explored some story ideas on this theme. 

Story Ideas

Story of a woman, happy, alone but stuck in a rut.  Needs change and this comes in the form of finding a diary in a café.  The diary belongs to a professor of something important in a midlands university.  The story will take the woman out of her stasis and bring new opportunities that she never expected.

Story of an old man nearing the end of life who wants to take a last journey to fix something he did wrong a long time ago.  The journey will be across Canada and will take the old man on a road much less travelled and to unexpected places 

A series of letters between an artist and photographer creating a conversation between images and words 

These are just a few ideas I would like to meditate on, they all take different forms but stick with the theme of change.  I will choose one and see where it takes me...

References

Bridges-Ruiz, V. (2025). >> The Power of Moments of Clarity. [online] Unbreakable Bonds. Available at: https://unbreakablebonds101.wordpress.com/2025/01/03/the-power-of-moments-of-clarity/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2025].

National Library of Scotland (2025). Chapbooks. [online] National Library of Scotland. Available at: https://www.nls.uk/collections/rare-books/collections/chapbooks/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2025].

Ward, G. (2016). BEYOND THE ROBOT | colin-wilson-world. [online] colin-wilson-world. Available at: https://www.colinwilsonworld.net/beyond-the-robot [Accessed 4 Feb. 2025].

Williams, Z. (2005). The opposite of toxic. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/02/biography.features [Accessed 4 Feb. 2025].

Creative Writing Exercise One: Timed Writing

 Emotion: Disgust

Jane watched him from across the time-worn cherry wood dining table, they both sat silently as they began their evening meal.  This now tired and repetitive scene had started to make Jane's head swoon with déjà vu and as she looked up to see her husband of twelve years, shovel inelegantly food into his mouth, she started to feel rather nauseous.  Her husband, John's mouth was very slightly open and she could see his rather uneven, wine stained teeth working the cooked vegetables into a rather vile spit-filled mush, he just kept moving the food round and round until she had to look away from fear of the digust showing on her face. Jane stared down onto her plate of food looking at the vegetables she had overcooked (again), the vegetarian chicken parts that were too greasy, and potatoes that she had accidently dropped onto the kitchen floor, so had just scooped them up with her hands and thrown them indecorously onto their plates.  Jane picked at the food wih her fork, but now could hear the squishy, slimy sound of his revolting chewing followed by loud repugnant swallowing which made her think of the filthy scene inside his mouth.