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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · 5d

I can’t wait to read yours!! 🤗

Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · 5d

CBC Summer School was a game changer! I fully recommend it! So great to have in person lessons, and to meet other writers. The tutor was AMAZING! Showed me my writing in a new light. Most sentences need to change in some way. A lot of work but I think I’m making progress (or at least I hope so!!)

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · 5d

Good luck with your draft!
Draft 4 is taking the longest out of any for me!! 🤯

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · 6d

Thanks @cali-warham.bsky.social !! Your favourite time of year is approaching!!! 🧙‍♀️
I hope all is well!

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · 6d

The lock catches, I’m not sure why. Must get it checked. The hallway dims when I shut the door, now only watery winter light from the transom. The clatter of my keys echoes. I pause. Slide my son’s clay monster back to its place. Then I see it. The photo. Someone’s put it back in its frame #writecbc

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Reposted by Lia Jashanmal

Curtis Brown Creative @cbcreative.bsky.social · 6d

#WriteCBC task from @unheimlichmanvr.bsky.social: Halloween is coming, so let’s introduce a spooky setting! The house lights dim, and the curtain rises on your location: where are we? What small details intrigue us in the opening lines? And why does it make us feel subtly uneasy?

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Sep 5

'A drawer for me! You shouldn’t have.'
'Leave some things. Stay.'
'You left something in it.' Isla holds up a Tridatu bracelet, makes for the bin.
'Wait.' Vik holds it in his palm, puts it on, can't get it over his thumb joint. Isla sees his gaze emptying, returned to a past only he knows. #WriteCBC

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Jun 19

Such a great episode, so interesting! Another aspect of publishing that brings more complexity into the mix!

Reposted by Lia Jashanmal

The Honest Authors @honestauthors.bsky.social · Jun 5

Tanja Goossens from Curtis Brown tells us (@gillianmauthor.bsky.social and @holly.bsky.social) everything we wanted to know about foreign rights! Episode now available wherever you get your podcasts. www.spreaker.com/episode/s8e0...

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Reposted by Lia Jashanmal

Curtis Brown Creative @cbcreative.bsky.social · Jun 10

Not long left to join our Novel-Writing Summer School! ✏️

15 talented writers will be taught by popular tutor and award-winning author Jake Arnott. Plus, you'll practise pitching to Curtis Brown agents Lucy Morris and Jess Molloy!

Apply now: www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/novel...

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Reposted by Lia Jashanmal

Curtis Brown Creative @cbcreative.bsky.social · Jun 5

#WriteCBC task from @gabriellegriffiths.bsky.social: Start with your character opening the door to a stranger. Use specific details to introduce this stranger and to hint at how their relationship might unfold. Do they trust each other? Will they fall in love? Or is disaster in their future?

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Jun 5

I get to the door, hair dripping onto a hastily worn t-shirt.
"Hi. Sorry. My son's ball is in your garden."
I peer into hazel eyes, familiar, like his voice. Look him up and down. Receding hairline, clean jumper, new looking shorts, nice legs.
The signet ring. I've seen it before.
"Tom?" #WriteCBC

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · May 9

She'd sensed it. But even now carried on not listening to herself, though all color had drained from lustrous palms under a sky without a trace of blue. The intangible clues of something souless, futile, to this soul-searching, that paradise isn't an actual place, that nothing was true. #WriteCBC

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Apr 7

You're having an impressive run with the #WriteCBC competition!! 😲

All is well, thanks! Ploughing through this final draft, still finding myself wanting to add things to the "finished" parts, but I know I need to suck it up and put it out there to some treasured beta readers 🤗

Hope you're well!

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Apr 4

Well done, @cali-warham.bsky.social!!!! Keep up the beautiful, atmospheric (and in this case, eerie) writing 💫

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Apr 4

Ed sits up, eyes not adjusting to the dark as a myna shrills unexpectedly. Wrong time of day. Dread spreads like ink from his chest. A movement, a silhouette almost the same shade. Then a scent. Of her, still the same. His hand slides to the underside of the mattress, feeling for the knife.#writecbc

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Mar 7

Caliiiiii! So happy to see you on Bluesky. And such a pleasure to see your writing again. This is just brilliant ♥️ Well done for the shout out!!! 👏

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Mar 7

Ada steps over discarded coconuts with limp paper straws. The scent of grilling corn is lost on her. She looks lost. But this beach is as familiar to her as the weaves of her thatched ceiling. At dawn, she stares up at it while willing the tempo of the cicadas to settle her tumultuous mind #WriteCBC

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Feb 7

I turn the key, hear echoes of his loneliness in the click. A fallen tree not heard. A woody scent. I can smell it from my desk at work, where I saw the ad. The stuffiness of sleep. A dirty bowl. He could've made an effort. A guitar. So he plays. A photo of them before she left. Now torn.
#cbcwrite

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Dec 16

Thanks @cbcreative.bsky.social and @clotimms.bsky.social (I love your podcast!) for such a fun writing challenge! It was really inspiring to see so much great writing and originality. Great examples of how action drives story. I'm also happy to start connecting with the Bluesky #WritingCommunity 💙

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Dec 16

1 week on
Ella looked around the crystal castle, pure ice, then smiled at Arne, her oldest ancestor. It felt familiar when she arrived, trembling and weak, not from cold.
It had been the absence of all this. She understood Mum's reasons, but now her life made sense. She was home.
#5ActFestiveStory

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Dec 13

Mum too, who dragged herself to the fireplace, now only embers the colour of sunset. The door flung open. A monstrous creature, half-man, half…frosty abomination. Ella didn’t know he transformed every Christmas. Mum took a deep breath, readying herself, reaching towards the heat.
#5ActFestiveStory

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Dec 12

She marched ahead, scrutinising everything though the village was shrouded in fog. Ella scurried to her, snow tugging her suitcase. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Later. There’s no time.’
Ella’s mum let go of her suitcase. Ella followed her gaze. They were back at the house.
‘It’s too late.’
#5ActFestiveStory

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Dec 11

But she didn’t hear. She’d been swept away to another time, when that familiar hand made up her everyday. Her happiness.
“Mum, is it Dad?”
"You could say that,” she replied, as fear, desperation, replaced the gleam. She knew the moment she’d been willing (and dreading) had come.
#5ActFestiveStory

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Lia Jashanmal @liaj-writer.bsky.social · Dec 10

Now having a think for Act II... 💭

Curtis Brown Creative @cbcreative.bsky.social · Dec 10

Please post your Act II response as a reply to our pinned post by 10am, 11 Dec (UK time). Remember to include #5ActFestiveStory. #WritingCommunity

For more information on how to participate, check out this blog full of info and tips: www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/blog/5-act-f...

It was on the twelfth consecutive day of snow, the country held in an icy standstill, when a postcard arrived. Sodden and exposing just two words: I’m sorry.
Ella followed the sounds of dreary Christmas hymns to where her mother sat in the living room. “Someone left this on our doorstep,” she said, handing over the postcard. Upon seeing the handwriting, her mother’s eyes gleamed with tears. “Who’s it from?” Ella asked.

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