The bad and good of writing

I love this mini heatwave we are having in the south of England but it doesn't do anything for my creative juices. At poetry class on Thursday it was just too hot and my concentration was nil.  We did have a good look at a poem by Gillian Clarke called Taid's Grave, which is a beautiful poem.  Mainly we were looking at the line breaks and language and it was interesting to see how others saw it/read it.  The more we looked at it the more we found and connections made.  A really useful exercise.  We also compared our homework and again it was interesting to see that most of us put the prose into similar lines.  The writing exercise on the day was dreadful for me.  The hum of the fan and the noise outside (the singing classes going over their scales) only seemed to make my headache worse and I felt hotter.  Most of us struggled, to be fair.  We were in fact supposed to be writing about the noises around us, though some ended up writing about the heat!  Only one person found any stillness (I wish I knew her technique!).  Our tutor recommended a book to us called Writing Poetry by W.N. Herbert which she says would be helpful to us in understanding how poetry writing works  It has interviews with poets about different aspects of writing.

Yesterday I attended the AGM and Writer's Day of the Association of Christian Writers.  We had the shortest AGM I have ever been at (if only other committees could be that brief!) and then the main attraction.  Adrian Plass is a well known Christian writer and speaker and happens to be our President.  This being ACW's 40th anniversary it was lovely to have him with us.  He spoke in three sessions across the day, firstly about how he ended up writing, his early life, his breakdown and his first books The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass which took off overnight (he thought they would be a failure).  He told us that the first writing he ever did was found by his brother and written when he was aged 5.  It said 'At Christmas we remember Jesus by having a turkey'.  Adrian read from the Sacred Diary as well as from his other books.  He stated that he wants to share the 'yes' of God in his writing and that the cross is a mission field.  He was utterly amusing with 'off the wall' comments, but also very moving.  He gave us a little exercise - we each had a small piece of paper and he wanted us to write My God is......and write what he meant to us that day, not want we thought we should say, the right thing, but how we felt.  Adrian then read each one out (it was all anonymous) interspersing with Our God is many things....so it was like a prayer.  It was very powerful.

Adrian spoke of his work at Scargill House, a retreat centre where he will be until next year but he has no concrete plans afterwards just ideas about books he would like to write.  He said that writing was a passion and I think most of us who write understand that to some degree as I can't imagine my life without writing, even if it's rubbish!  Adrian then helped cut out anniversary cake and I accosted him to sign his book of poems I had bought from the bookstall (Silences and Nonsenses). What a lovely day!

Creative writing in Newcastle

For anyone living in the Newcastle area (UK) check out www.poetryfolk.co.uk as they run creative writing courses in Newcastle.  Worth a look.  You can sign up for a free e-newsletter too.

In the poetry class last week we work-shopped our poems and it was interesting to see what others wrote about and how they went about it.  There were some nice surprises, enjoyable and some moving.  Our tutor laid down some rules for workshops and we each had feedback on our writing, which is always useful and can be reassuring.  We then looked at line breaks and considered what it said about a poem, like the era it might have been written, whether a serious or light verse.  For homework we have been given some prose to break up into lines and then to explain what affect we were aiming for.

I finally sent off my short story to Best magazine (for their competition) and have been working on some exercises from the current Mslexia magazine which has produced a draft poem. I've just finished reading one of Jackie Kay's poetry books (Fiere).  The Scottish words were a challenge!  Somewhere on here (Blogger won't me give the link where I want it!) Jackie will entertain you with some Scottish words!

I see that Christopher James has a new collection coming out.  He is a recent 'find' of mine.

On 1st October I'm off to a Writer's Day put on by the Association of Christian Writers, of which I am a member.  I am particularly keen to see/meet Adrian Plass!

Old Tongue by Jackie Kay

New student!

A little flower power (Hampton Court Flower Show)

I went to my first poetry class last evening.  I've signed up for a beginners-intermediate course at Morley College in London.  Very nervous!  There were six of us round the table all with different experiences.  We spoke about what we wanted from the course and then our tutor showed us a postcard (we each had 30 seconds to look at it) and then we went into ten minutes of 'free writing' - basically just write non-stop without thinking or stopping.  After that we talked about how it was for us and reviewed what we'd written and highlighted or made notes of any phrases that stood out.  We then chose one of those phrases to write something else but more deliberately, stopping when we needed to.

Our next task was to write on a small piece of paper any six letters of the alphabet in a column then pass it to the person to our right who then wrote one word for each of the letters.  This was then passed to the right and then we had to write a six line poem with one of those words in each line (order didn't matter).  Afterwards we shared what we had written.  There were some interesting poems (also interesting how many words came up more than once like orange, apple, kettle and yak!).  It's amazing what can be achieved in a task like that.

For our homework we have to buy and use a writing notebook/journal as an ongoing thing and to draft a poem to workshop at next weeks class.

I am already feeling the benefit of the class as I have two potential poems from the work I did yesterday.  This is just what I need to get going again and be with others who write for mutual support.

The class had an odd starting time of 5.30pm and finished at 7.30pm.  I was starving by the time I left and headed for the chip shop on my High Street when I got back....'No, don't wrap them I said.'  I think I looked desperate as I headed out of the shop eating as I went!

1,000 words to tell a tale

I've collected all my vouchers from Best magazine and now am considering entering the short story competition. Not having new ideas I am editing a story I wrote when I attended a creative writing course some years ago.  I had to take out several hundred words to get it down to 1,000 in total.  That's what I have been doing this afternoon.  It is the only suitable story I have and I think it has been improved by editing but whether it's a winning entry is another matter.  Still, it's a free to enter and I have nothing to lose, so I shall send it once I am happy that the edit works.  I'll leave it for a few days so I come to it fresh again.

Early morning jogging for the brain!

I was up earlier than usual today and thought it would be a good time to do some writing.  I was trying to talk myself out of it (as you do) and wondering what to write.  I remembered that earlier in the year I bought a downloadable course from The Society School and hadn't made much headway with it.  In fact I am only on Lesson 3 so I decided to attempt the exercises to finish it off.  From not having much idea what to write about I ended up with three poems.  The first part of the lesson was on how couplets work so one exercise was writing a poem using couplets.  Another exercise was taking an existing draft and experimenting with the structure and finally to write using the whole of an A4 sheet writing different length of lines and indenting some, really play with it.  Once I got going I really enjoyed it and wrote possibly the longest poem I'd written in years.  Here is my couplet (the explanation of couplets is that each new couplet offers something new, a progression apparently).  It is still a quick draft but here goes:

The Last Day of Summer

Quickly
I razor my armpits

re-varnish my toe nails
pull on shorts and vest

dust down the plastic chair
take root with a book

drain the sun's energy
and store