When a groyne isn’t just a groyne…

This blog post really is about groynes, but don’t let that put you off.

They say things are rarely what they seem. This may well be true; wolves in sheep’s clothing and all that. But it is also true that, given the right conditions, things can seem to be entirely other than they actually are.

Whilst you struggle to work out if these two statements amount to the same thing (I can’t decide if they do or not), let me explain.

Writers tend not to leave their writer’s heads behind when they leave the confines of their writing space. They constantly observe, listen, smell, feel their way around the world, mindful of something, anything, which might turn out to be useful later; sometimes even years later.

A walk in the countryside is never just a walk: there are the myriad shades of green to try and describe; those ‘earthy’ smells to find the perfect words for. A visit to the supermarket is never quite as straightforward as fetching the groceries. It might be necessary to trail that couple to hear the end of their conversation; or you could end up furtively watching an old woman carefully choosing between two loaves of bread: can she afford the better quality loaf? Is she checking salt content like her doctor told her to? Or is she trying to remember which type of bread her house-bound husband demanded today?

On a trip down to Eastbourne last week on a gloriously sunny morning, I found myself transfixed by the groynes which segment the beach there for miles in each direction. I was unable to just walk along the promenade, taking in the view. I found myself scrabbling over the mounds of shingle, trying to find different angles from which to look at these wooden beach defenses. Up close they reminded me of soldiers standing to attention in perfect parade ground lines.

En masse they were Cnut’s army, repelling the force of the waves.

The long view reminded me of the picked-clean skeleton of a long-dead animal, broken vertebrae snaking along the beach into the distance.

I couldn’t tear myself away from the groynes; there was so much to see in them. Eventually, I remembered that I wasn’t there alone, and I returned to the walk in question, armed with a battery of photos and a head full of metaphors.

Groynes they might be; their practical purpose to prevent longshore drift from eroding the beach. But to me, in those moments, they could have been so many other things. They became those other things because it just seemed that they could. Through them beach came alive, organic; it told stories.

I’ve written a poem about the groynes, (proving, if nothing else, that you can write about absolutely anything), which I’m quite pleased with. Instead of sharing it with you just yet, I’ve decided to submit it to a competition. I’m new to poetry writing (only starting recently as a result of my creative writing course), but you never know; it might turn out that someone else thinks it’s half decent too.

That morning on Eastbourne beach turned out to be more creative than I was expecting. Those groynes seemed to be so many things at once, whilst always being exactly what they were.

Can the world around us really appear to be any more interesting than it already is? If you take your writer’s head with you it can.    

© flyingscibbler 2013

Don’t Tell Me You ‘Like’ Me; Show Me Why

How much do you care if anyone likes you?

Watching one of the many programmes about Margaret Thatcher which were hastily shunted into the evening schedules on Monday evening, it occurred to me that she was someone who wasted little time worrying about such things.

The film in question was Channel 4’s excellent ‘Maggie and Me’, in which Jon Snow showed how he never once managed to get the better of The Iron Lady during a press conference; each and every time she contrived to put him, and countless other journalists, in their place. She didn’t try to flatter them or worry about the next morning’s headlines. In short, the last thing on her mind appeared to be whether she was actually liked or not.

image: abc.net.au

This should of course have been blindingly obvious earlier on, during her ministerial career. As Secretary of State for Education, Margaret Thatcher withdrew free school milk. I know; I was there. One day I was forced to down a mini bottle of warm, been-out-in-the-sun-all-morning milk; the next, nothing. Round one to Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher. The long term effects of this policy have probably not been felt yet: imagine, an entire generation of forty-somethings could soon be clogging up the nation’s orthopedic wards with any number of snapped femurs, tibias and fibulas.

You tell me: if you cared, even just a bit, about your popularity amongst the people, would you dare to take away an infant’s only drop of daily milk?

Today’s political leaders are all much more concerned with being ‘liked’; the desperation is visible on their worried little faces. Now, it hasn’t stopped Cameron from cutting benefits to the disabled and the working poor (it couldn’t; the policies are in the man’s DNA), but why can’t he just get on with destroying people’s lives without trying so hard to do it with a friendly smile on his lips?

Is there a culprit for this level of neediness? The urge to be liked, at all costs? Yes, I believe there is. Facebook: j’accuse!

‘Liking’ is all over Facebook. It’s how they delve into your life and find out what makes you tick (read: what makes you spend money). But for me, ‘liking’ is an action with no meaning. The word ‘like’ is without value; it lacks depth of feeling; it suggests no emotion. If you like something, what do actually feel about it? Why do you like it? What makes it likeable?

And this obsession with ‘liking’ is spreading; into places you would least expect to find it.

Passing through Edinburgh airport last week I was witness to just how pervasive the cult of ‘liking’ has become. Just the other side of security, after the once-happy traveller has re-looped their belt, re-laced their boots, re-sealed their see-through freezer bags containing their not-over-100ml sized lotions, they are now invited to ‘like’ their airport security experience. I kid you not. There is a touch screen on the wall where you can register your appreciation for having your dirty socks aired in public.

I wouldn’t be surprised if David Cameron hasn’t got one installed inside the entrance to Number Ten, probably with a government whip lurking nearby. (But don’t forget, people of Britain, there is another, much larger, ‘like’ button. It’s called a general election).

image: guardian.co.uk

Time was when a person could like something without feeling the need to tell everyone; it was enough to know that you had found something interesting or enjoyable, think about it for a moment or two, and then get on with peeling the potatoes or editing your thesis on integrated mass transit in Croydon.

Nowadays everyone seems to be ‘liking’ like there’s no tomorrow. And for whose benefit? Not the liker. I think it’s all to do with the likee: by ‘liking’ that hilarious video of a kitten drowning in a bowl of honey-nut cheerios, you are, in effect, ‘liking’ the person who posted it; thereby giving the likee hope that someone, somewhere, finds them interesting.

Simply ‘liking’ something tells us nothing about why you ‘like’ it; it also tells us precious little about you. Why exactly does that video of a drowning kitty make you smile? Is it because the film’s creator has caught the emotion and drama of the moment with their use of a sympathetic camera angle? Or because it triggers a memory of Great Aunt Hilda sacrificing herself to save her pet Chihuahua from the frozen village pond? ‘Liking’ would be that much more interesting if we all knew why you ‘liked’ in the first place.

The act of ‘liking’ in isolation strikes me as passive. It’s a short cut; the easy way out. It’s texting when you could pick up the phone and talk; it’s sticking a horse meat lasagne in the microwave when you could be making it yourself.

In writing terms (and let’s not forget this is a blog about writing), it’s similar to the difference between ‘telling’ and ‘showing’. Telling, as we learn on our creative writing courses and from peer feedback forums, can be one-dimensional and uninteresting: “Margaret Thatcher closed the coal mines and imposed the poll tax.” Yes she did, but the real story comes alive when you show the effects these policies had on real people: the desolation that mining communities faced, rusting machinery, queues at soup kitchens, crying children, warring siblings; or tens of thousands of poll tax rioters rampaging through the streets of London. By showing these things we understand more about the policies that caused them.

I disliked Thatcher and all she stood for; in fact I loathed her. Friends with different politics to my own always ask why; they want to know why I hated her so much. Always happy to oblige (particularly after a couple of glasses) I explain why I thought she was ripping the heart out of our country; why privatising all our utilities would end up costing us all more in the end (it did); why widening the gap between rich and poor was divisive and unjust; why Section 28 turned me, as a gay person, into a monster in the eyes of the world. I could go on. But at least they know why I hold these views. What’s more, I can show them how much I loathed her by producing photos of me marching at demonstrations, placard held aloft, screaming the most-heard slogan of the eighties: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out!”

Putting my loathing/disliking into context gives my emotion more meaning. It should be the same every time we hit the ‘like’ button.

I’ve noticed that since WordPress introduced the ‘like’ facility, the number of readers leaving a comment has plummeted. People used to show me why they liked a blog post by actually telling me what they found interesting or stimulating; they also used to tell me what they disagreed with or disapproved of. Now they tell me they ‘like’ my post, but I don’t know why. I have no idea what it is about my story, or my piece on an obscure Quebec poet, that they ‘liked’.

To be honest, I don’t need to know that you ‘like’ my posts; but I’d really love to know how you feel about them: what works for you, what doesn’t; why one story is successful whilst another falls flat on its face.

In this respect at least, (and here’s something I never imagined I’d be admitting), I have one thing in common with our deceased ex Prime Minister. She didn’t appear to give a fig whether she was liked or not; Margaret Thatcher was driven by ideology. But I’ll bet she would have engaged you in conversation to find out why and then try to challenge your opinion.

So come on bloggers and blog readers, don’t just tell someone you ‘like’ their post; show them why (or why not). Stop your endless ‘liking’. In fact, just stop. Stop for a moment and think. Think about why you ‘like’. Think about why you don’t ‘like’. Then put those opinions into words; open a line of communication. We might all learn a bit about ourselves and each other in the process.

It’s my new manifesto:

Stop Liking; Start Commenting.

© flyingscribbler 2013

Creativity Update

I’ve been rather quiet here of late. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing; far from it. My creative writing course is providing me with lots of opportunities for that, and we are all working towards an end-of-course piece. Mine is taking shape and is going to take the form of a trilogy (triptych, if you will) of flashes. I’m not particularly happy with progress at the moment, but there is a reason for this. I’ll be blogging about THAT shortly.
Please don’t worry. Flyingscribbler is not unwell.
But that’s all you’re getting. For now, at least.
My writing course was cancelled twice in a row, which rather conveniently coincided with the two sessions I was unable to attend, but I’m keen to get back to it. The last class I went to was all about life writing which I didn’t enjoy half as much as the poetry class. However, I did have the chance to read out the poem I’d been working on throughout the previous week. It was based on a recent trip to Tanzania and took the form of a list poem (which we had discussed in class) similar to Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. We were to use anaphora – a repeated introduction to each line – and try to include grace and musicality in our work. I was quite pleased with my effort and received decent feedback from the class. I thought I might share it with you here.

Feel The Heat

Feel the heat.

Feel the sweat trickling, feel the skin slowly softening.

Feel the heat.

The warmth presses, kisses, wraps you in winter-quilt caresses.

Feel the white-wash glare from slumbering clouds.

Feel the city pulse slow, feel the sun’s burning glow.

Feel the heat.

Seek relief in noon-day shadows with locals who know.

Feel shots of hibiscus blooming blood through leaves.

Feel the afternoon breeze.

Watch seed pods spin from long-fingered clutches.

Hear palm fronds ripple applause.

Feel the marzipan softness of frangipani flowers

beneath your feet.

Feel hearts sing as old friends meet

to knock willow on leather.

Feel the heat.

Now the warm draft of eagle-soaring thermals.

Feel them rise and glide and fall.

Then the first cooling breaths whisper in from the sea.

Feel them calm and balm and soothe.

And the dusky blue pink platinum sky

feels the vibrations of a cow-hide beat from the street.

Feel the heat.

Let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, here’s a writing news update: my story ‘Kid Gloves’ is published today at everydayfiction.com. Please feel free to leave comments and vote. I also made the long list in the micro fiction category of The New Writer annual competition. Whilst it’s a shame not to have gone any further, it beats last year when I made no list at all, long, short or medium. Anyway, I’ll be peddling the story that made the list to plenty more competitions. It’s one I was quite proud of.

Losing My (Poetry) Virginity

 

CREATIVE WRITING STUDENT IN

VIRGINITY LOSS SHOCKER!

 

I was a virgin until last night.

There, that got your attention. It’s also a shameless ruse to bring traffic to my blog; well, if it’s good enough for the tabloids…

But I was a virgin; a poetry virgin.

The theme for my creative writing class yesterday was poetry. Clearly, there’s a limit to how much ground you can cover in only two hours, and I wasn’t expecting to learn about every aspect of poetry in such a short space of time. I wasn’t even expecting to graze the surface. But then again, I wasn’t expecting to come away having written my first ever poem; but I did.

Sensibly, the tutor concentrated on aspects of writing poetry which can also be useful to the prose writer, and how these writer’s tricks can improve all of our efforts.

We were asked to find, and bring in, a short piece of poetry or prose which had influenced us, or which we had found particularly inspiring, and to concentrate on the sound qualities of the writing. Oddly, I found even this simple task rather difficult. Short of re-reading every book I own to find a suitable passage,(and being short on time, this wasn’t a sensible or achievable option), I decided to simply choose something from the book I’m currently reading. As luck would have it Mrs Dalloway is crammed with beautifully poetic prose. I have always struggled with Virginia Woolf, but having determined to read this novel in two sittings, (and these need to be daytime sittings: a novel with no chapter divisions, a stream of consciousness, requires proper concentration; my day-weary bedtime reading frequently lasts only ten minutes before my book drops to the floor as my eyelids droop south), I succeeded in completing her masterpiece. It is, and I rarely say this, a work of genius, and furnished me with the necessary example of a piece of writing with interesting sound qualities.

The class read their various selections, which ranged wonderfully from Sappho to Carol Ann Duffy, via Dave Eggers, Gerard Manley Hopkins and, of course, Ms Woolf.

It was refreshing, and interesting, to hear how such varied writers use language, rhythm and words to create atmosphere and emotion. It was also an instructive way of introducing the poetry novice (me) to aspects of writing verse or poetic prose. We spent some time discussing use of alliteration, assonance and repetition in writing, using further examples to illustrate how each can be used effectively. I have always been reluctant to dissect writing like this, but as I found out last week, it’s entirely necessary to the study of how successful writers write successfully. This week, I found that I enjoyed the task even more. I think because I’ve never really tried my hand at poetry (I’ll be honest: I’m a touch in awe of poets) I’m really keen to understand how they go about their art.

Throughout the session, I was aware that the class would culminate in being asked to write a poem. It was a moment I had been, if not dreading, then nervously anticipating; and my previous weeks’ efforts at on-the-spot writing hadn’t been entirely satisfying. The tutor offered us two wildly different types of poem (although by the same poet) to use as inspiration: the first was a series of words depicting colours; a poetic roll-call of paint shades, formed into carefully constructed stanzas. This poem, titled ‘Colours’ by Georges Szirtes, makes full and glorious use of alliteration, assonance, musicality and goodness knows what else to astonishing effect. The second Szirtes poem was ‘We Love Life Whenever We Can’. Following a more conventional (to me, at least) form, the poet reuses the title line repeatedly throughout the poem. There’s a lot more than that going on here, (surprising punctuation, unexpected line breaks, varied sentence length), but it was this feature I decided to try and emulate for my attempt.

For two terrifying seconds I had no idea where to start, but then decided to latch on to the very first thing that came to mind and just write it down. This then became my repeating phrase: ‘If you ever get the chance.’ I don’t know if it was the convivial atmosphere in the room, or the inspiration from having heard so many great pieces of writing, but I suddenly found myself writing fluently. Before I was aware of what I was doing, I’d given birth to a poem, fully formed and crying to be read. So read it  I did. To the class. It may not be a Carol Ann Duffy or a Manley Hopkins, but I am, never the less, proud of my effort. I was thrilled when my fellow students and tutor made encouraging comments. Actually, the tutor said I looked shocked. I was. Shocked to have written my first poem.

It’s the least I can do to reproduce it for you here. I have made no changes; what you read is what I wrote last night. Kindly comments will sooth. Constructive comments will improve.

 

If You Ever Get The Chance

 

If you ever get the chance

stop awhile and stare.

If you ever get the chance

linger there and take a look.

If the lights are on I don’t mind you peeping

toms can sometimes be excused.

If you ever get the chance

rest your limbs and slowly regard.

If you ever get the chance

wait outside to keep your watch.

If the lights are off shine a torch

songs always make me cry.

If you ever get the chance

ring the bell for your return.

If you ever get the chance.

© flyingscribbler 2013

 

The Anatomy of a Short Story…and An Exercise in Exorcising Weak Metaphores.

I performed open-heart surgery this week.

Surprised? I bet you didn’t know I could do that, did you?

There wasn’t any blood, swabbing or stitching; or for that matter, nurses or anaesthetists. I wasn’t even in an operating theatre. No, the scene of this surgical act was not a hospital but an entirely different public institution: a university. More accurately, my Creative Writing class.

The procedure we undertook was an analysis of a short story, and by the end of the session it really did feel that we had, between us, performed a major operation akin to cardiovascular surgery.

Someone forgot to feed the dog!

First, we read the story as a whole, before examining sections in isolation; you might say we carried out a literectomy. Then we proceeded to dissect paragraphs in order to get under the skin of the author; in short, we conducted a prosopsy. (That’s enough with the surgical metaphors, even the made-up ones. Thank you, Ed.)

I found the process fascinating. Of course, I know that there is an art to writing a successful short story (I don’t mean a commercially successful story; rather one that is just plain brilliant), and I strive to learn and understand the methods and skills required to produce one of my own. But going through one story, looking closely at the way the author has sculpted characters, set the scene, created tension and conflict and used a particular point of view to the best possible effect, reminded me that I have a long, long way to go before I might be able to come up with something to be truly proud of.

We looked especially at how the author creates the sense of a character without really describing anything physical about her; instead the author shows us how she reacts to other characters; we learn about her through how she speaks and the words she says; even the building she lives in reflects aspects of her personality.

We looked at how a subtle change in a character’s vocabulary can be used to suggest a change in their circumstance. It might not be something you notice straight away, but you gradually become aware that a change has occurred. Then you understand that a skilled hand has been at work; so skilled that you can’t see the stitches (careful there with those metaphors, Ed.)

Everything the author does is quite deliberate, despite the apparent effortlessness involved. Our tutor suggested they had more than likely written fifty or so drafts before they were entirely happy; a sobering thought for someone who has taken an age to complete a rough first draft of a story. 

And yet, I felt totally inspired by this session. I now want to employ some of those skills in my own writing. I’m aware that much hard work will be involved; it’s a challenge I’m prepared to face.

The class ended with a session on the pitfalls of using similes and metaphors in your writing. We were given a list of actual examples found in high school essays; apparently English teachers make a sport of rounding up the best (worst) examples in order to entertain the laughing masses. Our task was to rewrite just one so that it would sit more comfortably in a work of fiction.

I honestly think it’s impossible to improve on the one I was given, which I reproduce here for your entertainment:

“Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.”

You see? It’s good. Very good. Almost genius. But try I did, and after what felt like hours, but was in fact only five minutes, I came up with the following pathetic attempt:

“Her vocabulary was as bad as illiterate person’s parrot’s, but lacked the finesse afforded by the bird’s feathery flourish.”

I have every reason to be embarrassed by this. But creating subtle and appropriate similes and metaphors isn’t easy; cliché lurks around every corner, just waiting to leap onto the page.

See how you manage with improving some of these. (Actually, just read them for a laugh. They’re more entertaining than anything on the telly).

“Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.”

“The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.”

“John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.”

“The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.”

“The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.”

By common assent in our class, our favourite was the following gem.

“He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a landmine or something.”

I hope you enjoyed those. It’s poetry next week in class. I’ve never written a single line of verse. Should be interesting.

(The short story we looked at was ‘A Real Durwan’ by Jhumpa Lahiri.)

© flyingscribbler 2013

Creative Writing Class: First Hurdle Cleared.

1,2,3,write!

I attended my first creative writing class during the week. Despite a distinctly nervous start, I’m pleased to say that, on the whole, the experience was a positive one; one which I am keen to repeat next week.

Interestingly, in the immediate run-up to the first session, I found myself obsessing about purely practical issues: how to time my arrival; where to park cheaply if I had time enough to walk from there to the venue; where to park if time was running short; what to take to write on (should I start a new note book?); even what to wear (not because I’m vain you understand, but because in my, admittedly distant, experience, when attending educational establishments in the depths of winter it pays to layer your garments in order to accommodate the wildly varying environmental conditions which prevail within).

I suppose these concerns were merely a subconscious displacement process to avoid the more obvious worries I was having about the course and whether my efforts would reveal shortcomings in my writing I hadn’t been aware of.

As it turned out, I was stuck in rush-hour traffic (those hours spent planning my journey didn’t factor that in, did they?), and was forced to park in the most expensive spot in the city. But I wasn’t late and didn’t miss the ice breaker, in which I somehow managed to reveal to twenty complete strangers that I’d read neither Margaret Atwood nor Zadie Smith. Was that a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the room? It was more probably my nervous imagination. Although I think I detected it again when one of the younger students announced that the first book she really remembered reading was Harry Potter. Jealousy of youth: it’s an ugly thing.

Naturally enough, the aim of the first session was simply to get us all writing. I had anticipated this and yet….and yet when it came to it, I found myself floundering; I was all at sea, swimming against a thick tide of wordlessness.

The task was simple enough: write about a room as seen from the outside; the things you can see, what you can smell, anything you can sense, without stepping inside. We were given ten or so minutes. Instantly I was transported back to that moment in an exam for which you know you are poorly prepared: the clock starts ticking and everyone else starts scribbling immediately, whilst you are left clutching your pen optimistically, its nib hovering just millimetres from the paper.

Where’s my muse when I need them?

I stole glances at my neighbours; how was it possible that they had already filled lines of their notebooks? I simply couldn’t think of a room; my mind was as blank as my paper. No it wasn’t; my mind was blanker. The paper I use has lines and a margin.

Part of the issue is that I’m not used to ‘free writing’. It isn’t something I’ve ever practised, although I know many writers do. But even with the guideline of a theme of sorts, I found it incredibly difficult to get going. I’m putting it down to nerves and fear of failure.

At the end of the exercise I stole another glance at my right-hand neighbour’s notebook. What I’d mistaken for lines of prose ten minutes earlier, were those all-too familiar markings of a writer desperately searching for inspiration: single words plucked from the air, arrows, crossings-out and doodles. We whispered conspiratorially to each other: ‘they’ve all written so much’, ‘how do they do it’, ‘I can’t possibly read this out’.

And of course, to my growing discomfort, some of the work which the students proceeded to read out was really very good. My meagre lines of description would never stand up to the abstract prose I was hearing. Several students appeared to have written reams of stream of consciousness á la Proust or Joyce; insightful words which begged further exploration. My own, in comparison, seemed child-like and amateur.

I declined the tutor’s kind offer of reading out my effort to the class and steeled myself for part two of the exercise: I was now to describe walking into the room from the point of view of someone who ought not perhaps be there. I experienced another fleeting moment of panic before my muse finally turned up, (perhaps they’d had trouble parking too. I’ll make sure we car-share next week). Suddenly I knew what to write, and although I didn’t achieve a particularly impressive word count, I was much happier with this effort; so much so that I even read it to the class, notwithstanding the sweat prickling behind my neck. I think someone might even have commented positively; I can’t be sure because the sound of relief in my head drowned anything else out for a few moments.

Towards the end of the class, the tutor read her own effort out, and to my delight (and further relief) the first part of her piece was as descriptive as my own, unheard, scribbling. Not for her the abstract, literary lines some of the students had come up with; instead well-observed, insightful and poetic words.

This is not to denigrate the work of my fellow classmates; I look forward to reading and hearing more of their writing. Indeed, one of the things I’m most looking forward to about the class is sharing such different styles and forms with each other, and learning from them all.

Above anything, what my first foray into Creative Writing has taught me is to not doubt my own abilities and, perhaps more importantly, to be brave. Finding the courage to share my work, to release it into the wilds of the classroom where it must fend for itself, was a difficult, but important step to take.

I took it and am still standing.

© flyingscribbler 2013.

Let’s Get Creative! Why I’ve signed up for creative writing classes.

google images

I finally bit the bullet last week and booked myself onto a creative writing course. I’ve been thinking about it for ages, and had my eye on a suitable course, but it took a week of being off work and laid-low with a flu-type virus to give me the time to decide that it was what I definitely wanted to do.

It wasn’t such an easy decision either: there are lots of reasons why I had hesitated to take the plunge, and an equal number in favour of picking up my pencil and going back to the classroom.

image: fineartamerica.com

 It’s a big deal embarking on any course of study, not least because of the cost involved, and there’s a huge amount of creative writing classes out there to choose from. Many are provided by universities or colleges, but there’s a significant market for creative writing courses run by individuals, including several organised around the ‘mindful’ concept of living. There’s one like that available not far from here, and I have no doubt that it would be as useful and interesting as many others; I’m just not sure I’m ready for the meditative aspect of ‘mindfulness’.

The outlay for ‘adult’ education courses varies hugely, depending, amongst other factors, on the length of the course. Not knowing very much about the creative writing industry (and it is an industry; a real money spinner for many institutions), I opted for a short course at a nearby university. My thought process behind this decision was that if the course is being run by a university, the tutors are more likely to be experienced in the field; also, as it is only ten weeks long and not so expensive, if I don’t like it, or it doesn’t suit me, at least I haven’t had to re-mortgage the house to pay for it.

Another thing which had been putting me off is the bad press which creative writing courses seem to generate; there does seem to be a snobbish attitude around the whole concept of being taught skills which could make you a better writer. It’s as if a ‘real’ writer shouldn’t have to be shown by someone else how to do it. I worried for a while that it might be a waste of time, let alone money, attending a course at all. However, I came to the conclusion that it is more likely to be a benefit to me.

The Guardian last week ran a piece by Rachel Cusk in its Review section about the rise of creative writing courses. In it, the writer S J Watson is quoted as saying “the only way to become a better writer is by writing.” It’s true: my writing has become much better with practice. I know this because I’ve started to have pieces accepted for publication and I’ve even won a couple of competitions. With time, lots of time, I know that I will continue to improve; and I think I would be likely to do so without attending a creative writing course. So why bother? All writers, I think, need to do two things to be successful: they should write a lot; that goes without saying. They must also read, and read widely. I have no problem with reading; I read all the time, and I am happy to read almost anything, (I’ve been known to read the back of a shampoo bottle for want of any other form of literature), because it all helps me understand how other people write (even those bubble-filled words of a cosmetic industry copy writer must have taught me something). As far as the writing is concerned though, I try my hardest to get things onto paper as often as possible, but it just isn’t that easy: there are distractions; there are books to read. I find it very hard to develop the habit of writing regularly, and I’m hoping that by forcing myself out of the house every week, in midwinter, to attend an evening writing course, I might start to find a rhythm I can stick to.

Another author quoted in the Guardian’s piece is Anne Enright. She says: “A creative writing course gets the stuff out of your head and into the room.” That’s what I need, a process to help force ideas out from within my brain to a place where they are infinitely more useful: written down on paper or a computer screen. If a writing course can speed this process up, or perhaps teach me methods which make it more likely to happen, then it’s money well spent.

There’s a more important reason I want to do this course; it has to do with the communal aspect of attending a class. Writing is a solitary occupation; it demands that you spend long periods of time alone with your thoughts. You are never lonely because your characters and settings generally come along for the ride. But that protagonist who’s just spent hours driving your story forward from the front seat, is hardly likely to start pointing out the hidden pot holes in your plot or suggest a different route you might take for better effect. My issue is that it’s hard to find people to share my work with. Attracting instant feedback on your efforts isn’t easy; the internet helps to an extent, but it’s very hard to give (and take) criticism in a tweet or a comment on a blog. What I’m looking for is a group of peers with whom I can discuss the ins and outs of writing, the nuts and bolts if you like.  Better by far to share opinions and ideas in the ‘safe’  and immediate space of a creative writing class; a place where you can more easily find out what someone really means when they say something in your writing didn’t ‘work’ for them. It is this feature of my course that I’m most looking forward to exploiting: receiving constructive comments on my own work and offering my own thoughts on everyone else’s, but with the added input of tutors with a proven record in the business of writing.

I’m not naïve. I don’t expect to be shown how to write an award winning novel after just ten classes. But if I can be helped a little on my journey to becoming a more confident and, dare I say, more competent writer, then I won’t have wasted my time.

The business of writing is much like that of living: just as I constantly aim to live my life ever more productively, without wasting too much time, so I wish to improve my writing, word by word, sentence by sentence, until it can be as good as it can be.

Hmm…perhaps that ‘mindful’ writing course would suit me after all.

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