Day Trip to Grenoble and a New Exercise for IWSG Day

aytripping!

Last weekend we visited Grenoble, France, a town in the Rhone-Alps region. Grenoble has a long history; one thing I learned is that it was the centre of glove-making for many hundreds of years.

View from our hotel on the square.

I tweeted about the brass band that was playing there in the afternoon

Another view from our balcony

Fountain inaugurated in 1897 to "commemorate the pre-revolutionary events of June 1788.

Built by the sculptor Henri Ding, the Fountain of the Three Orders, which represents three characters, is located on the Place Notre-Dame.

People in Grenoble interpret these characters as follows: 'Is it raining?' inquires the third estate; 'Please heaven it had[has?] rained,' laments the clergy; and 'It will rain,' proclaims the nobility" (Wikipedia)

Les Bulles, or the bubbles, the telepherique taking visitors up to the Bastille (not that one!)

A Canadian restaurant!

Santa's still clinging to the balcony, no doubt in honour of the ice-cold still gripping Quebec and Ontario...

Sunset over the Isere river

Back home, there was a lovely rainbow!

Today is Insecure Writer's Support Group Day!

I'm feeling a little less insecure today as I've actually accomplished a few of my ROW80 goals.

Mainly, I finished transcribing my latest batch of Wallace letters. Though of course as soon as I sent them off, I received a new batch!

Which just goes to show, there's no reason to feel insecure as new goals and accomplishments always come and go.

My latest mini-goal is to take part in the newest writers' exercise on the Forum. Here's the theme:

This month we're going to get into the skin of our characters. We're going to experience the physical sensations that he/she experiences and use them in our stories.

Remember learning about the five senses in school? Sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. We learned that we gather information about the world around us, or about our own physical well-being, through these five doorways.

The same is true for our readers - with a slight twist. They get their information through the five senses of our characters. It's important for readers to feel what our characters experience physically if we are to create a credible story, one that they believe in and remember long after they've finished reading.

And here's an added bonus for using sensory descriptions: one of the mantras of writing is Show, Don't Tell. The beauty of using the five senses in your writing is that it pretty much guarantees that you're showing, not telling.

Hope you'll come participate!