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Creative writing course
I have just returned from this mornings creative writing course at our local library. It is week five out of six in total, although it is my last week due to prior commitments.
As it was a "library" run, funded and themed course, each week was centred on using a specific section of the library resources as inspiration for wiring ideas. Maps to relay a journey from one place to a destination, using snippets from several random fiction pages to spark a storyline, facts gained from reference books to form the basis of a perm or pice of prose. All quite entertaining. Although I did struggle for ideas on one week, mainly due to the pressing nature of that following afternoons high level site installation I was due to supervise being chief among my thoughts that morning.
Today though, I found the exercise incredibly entertaining, fun and "doable".
From a selection of books given to use, we each had to choose a word or phrase that we felt inspired by. We wrote this in the middle of a sheet of A4 paper. Our paper was then passed to the person to our right and they added the first thing that our initial phrase prompted them to come up with. The papers were passed around the group four or five times; each of us adding our additional reactions to the new words and phrases that resulted from the originals.
Finally, our own pages back with each of us, we each chose the entries that we felt we could best work with and set to writing.....
My starting point of "a quarter of Everton mints" prompted some intriguing comments. After a few minutes choosing from the responses I made my choices. And, I must say, they allowed me to "write from the heart" and "about what I know" - they say to do that, don't they? (Well, I read a lot of crime and can only surmise that there are a heck of a lot of folk out there who have a stack of bodies mounting up!)
I read my piece out to the group, as we all did, and the response was encouraging. Encouraging enough for me to want to revisit the piece, adding new parts, tweaking others and generally polishing it a tad.
If I get time, and can read back through my awful handwriting, hastily scrawled down, I will type it up and post it to my blog.
G
As it was a "library" run, funded and themed course, each week was centred on using a specific section of the library resources as inspiration for wiring ideas. Maps to relay a journey from one place to a destination, using snippets from several random fiction pages to spark a storyline, facts gained from reference books to form the basis of a perm or pice of prose. All quite entertaining. Although I did struggle for ideas on one week, mainly due to the pressing nature of that following afternoons high level site installation I was due to supervise being chief among my thoughts that morning.
Today though, I found the exercise incredibly entertaining, fun and "doable".
From a selection of books given to use, we each had to choose a word or phrase that we felt inspired by. We wrote this in the middle of a sheet of A4 paper. Our paper was then passed to the person to our right and they added the first thing that our initial phrase prompted them to come up with. The papers were passed around the group four or five times; each of us adding our additional reactions to the new words and phrases that resulted from the originals.
Finally, our own pages back with each of us, we each chose the entries that we felt we could best work with and set to writing.....
My starting point of "a quarter of Everton mints" prompted some intriguing comments. After a few minutes choosing from the responses I made my choices. And, I must say, they allowed me to "write from the heart" and "about what I know" - they say to do that, don't they? (Well, I read a lot of crime and can only surmise that there are a heck of a lot of folk out there who have a stack of bodies mounting up!)
I read my piece out to the group, as we all did, and the response was encouraging. Encouraging enough for me to want to revisit the piece, adding new parts, tweaking others and generally polishing it a tad.
If I get time, and can read back through my awful handwriting, hastily scrawled down, I will type it up and post it to my blog.
G
Comments
Sounds like the group has been a very worthwhile investment of your time, Kramer!
Typo in title......
Creative Writing Course.
Course, not curse.
***NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS A FEW MOMENTS AFTER MADE THAT ORIGINAL ***NOTE TO SELF***...***
Now edited the title, so my first ***NOTE TO SELF*** may appear confusing.
Apologies to one and all.
I've been to some writing courses like this connected with our local museums. They were all really interesting. I learned about the exhibits and, in one case, modern art and ended up with several stories which I later sold.
Some of you may enjoy this.
https://themoustachioedreader.wordpress.com/2017/03/04/an-exercise-from-my-creative-writing-class-brought-back-memories-of-20-years-ago/