Teaching Creative Writing

Tips, exercises & ideas

2011-07-04T16:53:00.001+01:00

This is the 112th entry in the teaching creative writing blog and I'm going to take a break.

But do not despair if you have just found your way here, or indeed if you are a regular. At the bottom of this blog you will see Labels, lots of them, so you can find all sorts of tips, exercises and ideas -- three and a half years' worth!

It's a very long list, so here is a shorter list of the likeliest Labels to find Really Useful Goodies.

Assessment, Assessment Criteria
Creative Process, Creative Writing
Critic Within
Difficult Students
End of Year, Endings
Energy
Exercises (24 entries!)
Feedback
First Class (3)
Homework
How to Critique
Lesson Planning (6)
Pitching a Course (3 -- this is pitching it to an institution, not to students)
Questionnaires
Start of Term, Starting Term, Teacher as Host
Travel Writing
Warming the Class
Workshopping
Writing Residentials

Meanwhile, there's the book, Creative Writing: the Matrix, Exercises & Ideas for Creative Writing Teachers, now in its 2nd printing. Click here to go to my website to explore and order direct from me. Each term there's an exercise and teaching tip. The book's on Amazon too (click here), but costs you more.

So what will I be doing? Getting on with Testing the Gods, the story of my great-grandfather's life, now 60,000 words in. And I want to write a companion to the Matrix, exercises and ideas for teaching creative non-fiction (travel writing, articles, memoire...) -- interested?

Emails will still come through to me; if anything exciting or extra-creativewritingteaching-puzzling arises for you, talk to me!

Creative Writing & technology: the verdict

2011-06-26T21:04:00.004+01:00

End of course and I asked my class to comment specifically on the use of PowerPoint, having told them this was the first time I'd incorporated it into the course. As well, of course, as my usual feedback queries:

- How have you journeyed as a writer on this course?
- What has been most useful? Least useful?

Well, this ol dog has learned the new PowerPoint trick. First, it improved my focus in prepping and delivering (see blog entry of 24 May). Second, here's the verdict from students. Out of 7 responses:

3 positively liked:
'I like having a visual focus so PowerPoint helps me.'
'Good, helped with focussing'
'Seemed to work well.'

2 neutral:
'OK, not necessarily needed.'
'Fine, but not essential.'

2 said nothing, too busy with their journey and other comments.

So, I'm converted. And actually, it's kinda fun.

Weird teaching moments

2011-06-08T23:22:00.000+01:00

All my years of teaching creative writing and I have never bumped into this before... how to respond when a student submits, in effect, a dirty joke?

I was flummoxed and weirded out when I read it. The student is middle-aged, pleasant, well-meaning, innocent or even naive, a beginner at creative writing. From a tough blokish lad affecting cynicism I'd have been annoyed and angry, but not surprised. This left me perplexed and annoyed.

Had to ask myself -- am I just being a prude? It's a silly and fairly good 'dirty joke' -- so why do I feel sullied? I dunno -- I am surprised and insulted. Or maybe challenged (is someone testing or joking me? Oh no, I'm paranoid too!) It's not what I expect from any student and especially not from this one. It's simply totally out of context.

I just have to assume it is a matter of naivety. So, what did I do next? Treat it carefully and solemnly. I emailed (in reponse to the student's suggestion it could be read out in class and get feedback) to say we would not do this for two reasons:

Genre: the class is for prose fiction and non-fiction, and this piece is (self-described by student) comedy-drama. It is a joke, which is a different genre. I suggested trying a comedy writing course.

Content: the content is not appropriate in the context of this class. (This made me stop and weigh up -- why not?) In part, it's to do with genre. Writing in this (or any other) creative writing class may include strong language, references to sex and body parts and marital squabbling, but these would be set up in prose story-telling mode with more depth and meaning to the situation than given in this piece.

So that was to explain in advance, and then I did handwritten feedback with the work, as normal creative writing critique/feedback, based on the content and context of the course. Here I pointed out that the 'story' had two or possibly three elements but did not contain other key archetypal components. Testing this piece of writing against our Hero's Journey storytelling genre demonstrated that this piece was an entirely different genre, successful in its own terms as an entertaining joke.

By treating it in a respectful manner I thus managed to praise as well as criticise. Perhaps the student just meant it as a light-hearted tale... perhaps in analysing it closely for its archetypal quest elements I am a dry old academic... perhaps I am a po-faced prude!

Creative writing & technology -- effects?

2011-05-24T12:00:00.011+01:00

In for a penny, in for a pound. Having woven in some Interactive White Board (IWB) [see 23/02/11 blog] for this term's run of Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey I am having a go at PowerPoint.

Here's the question for you: what effect does I.T. have on teaching creative writing?

Now, I ask you, doesn't your heart leap with joy at the word PowerPoint? Not. We have all been to talks/presentations using it, and well know that it's still the talk, the content that matters. However, as we HAVE all been to presentations using it, it's now regarded as standard professionalism. And, actually, our college's classroom technology is now v up-to-date -- ceiling-mounted IT projector, remote control, light pen (for the IWB, not PwrPt), so it's pretty whizzy. And, dear reader, I've done it.

Good effect: in prepping, and determining to do very few slides and to keep the lecture short, I found PwrPt helpful. Looking over my notes and the handout I boiled down to about 2 or 3 main points... just to pop them up there on the screen on hold while I talked. Doing it really focussed my thinking and -- I hope -- my talking. Then on to the writing exercises ASAP.

Not so good effect: by second session I had a couple of rather anxious queries from students saying that their stories did not have, say, a Mentor, or a Threshold (or other of the archetypal elements).

Whoah! For one thing, we hadn't yet covered these, except in the brief overview I gave in the intro about the course. For another, I had said at least twice that there is no such thing as a 'map' or 'writing by numbers' and that these archetypal elements are merely aids or tools.

So, does seeing things projected in B&W make students think in B&W -- that is, does it interfere with creative freedom? Does it inhibit creative writing?

Next session I talked up creative freedom loud & clear. Also brought in a short story, Rosendo's Tale, by Jorge Luis Borges. It's a fine little story, not great, but certainly satisfactory, and has a number of archetypal elements -- not all, and not 'in order'. We discussed and will continue to refer to it -- creative freedom, I hope, illustrated in this use of heroic quest archetypes.

I've told my students that use of PwrPt in this course is new, and so is use of a 'text', and will be asking them for feedback.

Use of the story raises another question for us tutors of creative writing -- does lit-crit help or hinder creative writing in a class?

Next class session: IWB again. Next I.T. challenge for me: moodle?? Experiences, opinions, anyone?

Exercises for outcomes: person point-of-view views 2

2011-05-15T12:38:00.013+01:00

Apologies for late start to this term's blog. For one thing, my college delayed term by a week to allow for the holidays and Royal Wedding. For another... the faction story of my ancestor's life is steaming ahead and I gave in to the desire to write, write, write. And my Hero's Journey teaching began.

So, I was talking about Point of View as a rich seam of storycraft and last installment (1 April) covered 1st, 2nd, 3rd person. This time the Learning Outcome is 'Learner should be able to recognise storytelling angle point of view.' Obviously it would be very good if the learner would also use various points of view in her/his own writing.

Now, you can do a whole lit-crit analytical thing with this... as tutor, search out a few stories, novels, texts, explain a bit and get students in pairs or groups to read the texts and figure out who is telling the story... moving on to examples where the story is seen from different characters' angles. But that is the lit-crit way... how much will it help writers DO it?

I suggest, instead, one of my favourite exercises. [As you know I like a lot of chatter and enthusiasm in my classes -- as well as a lot of silence: the sounds of pen on paper (or tapping on keys).] This means some fun prep for you: go through magazines to find 'agony aunt' columns or features. You may have to adapt or rearrange, but what you need is 4 or 5 problem situations which involve three or four people, possibly more.

Maybe the web has 'I need help' situations like this, I don't know. Or maybe you can borrow some storylines from Coronation Street or The Archers or even the news. Mind out for copyright infringement. But effectively you want a person with a problem, an unsolved domestic or relationship issue. It could be as simple as the situation I give below.

In small groups of four or so, give each group copies of one of the situations. They briefly read and discuss and each person in the group chooses one of the 'characters' in the story. Each student then writes in the voice of his/her character. So in the situation below, the mother-in-law, the mum, the husband... and even the toddler, even the dog.

Yes, yes, you'll get questions -- first person seems to be easiest but third person is fine, and each student can do whichever, the group does not have to agree (so illustrating/practising the other kind of POV). Some groups or individuals like to develop the story, or tell from later on in the story, and that's okay too. The main thing is to WRITE. They don't share with others in their group. Allow 15 mins of writing. Then each group reads out to the whole class (after reading out the initial situation).

And voila, a real live demonstration of how many angles can tell a story. And then on to discussion as to which one way they'd choose for this story, or would it be a patchwork of various voices, and what effect this has on the feeling and impact of the story, and what surprises/discoveries they made in writing from their person's POV. And awareness of all of this as their authorial creative choice in writing their own stories.

My mother-in-law comes to visit with her wheezy old dog,
I'm worried about my toddler, both germs and possible snappishness. I want her
to leave her dog at home but she's devoted to it and my husband says it's
her lifeline. What can I do about this?

Assessment Critera: Tutor goes around and listens in to groups and answers questions or explains further. Hearing the reading out allows you to assess understanding. The further discussion also clarifies things. At this point, if necessary to show evidence of understanding, you could distribute a handout or worksheet with texts to identify or further discuss, as in lit-crit. But for me, writing's the thing.

End of term

2011-04-12T23:40:00.008+01:00

Break time. Sorry I missed the final week of term -- due to the course I have been attending. Will resume blog the last week of April. My college has cleverly decided not to begin my course that week, being realistic about adult learners' priorities... a Bank Holiday one end and royal wedding the other.

If you are new to this blog and looking for exercises or other juice, just look at the labels below and browse through to find useful stuff. Look at the Matrix book's own website too, as there's a new extract each term with an exercise and tutor support tip. http://www.paxtonpublishing.co.uk

Exercises for outcomes: person point-of-view views

2011-04-01T20:51:00.011+01:00

Apologies for this dense layout; somehow paragraphing will not work. I just re-blogged as if a new blog and the same bog blog effect occured. Maybe google blogger does not like POV? Hope it improves for next entry.SLK Point of view is a rich seam of storycraft that new creative writers need to understand and can have useful fun exploring. Three of the Learning Outcomes in the Narrative Devices course I wrote are about point of view (let's just call it POV from here on). I'll talk about two here. The Outcomes were Learner should be able to: Recognise person POV and Describe the uses of various person PsOV. So, work for you: dip into your fav fiction and find paras of the various 1st person, 3rd person, close-3rd (how about Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall for that!), the challenging 2nd (Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City the best example I've come across), multiple-3rd person. Assessment Criteria: If you had to prove students understood you'd probably do another handout. First one is a talking/discussing sheet. Second one is theirs to figure out which is which, in pairs/groups, with discussion, whatever. Writing exercise (see below) can also be used to assess learning. Discussion aspect is not just noticing I, he, you, of course, but what effect this has on tone/mood, and how author went about writing it. Exercise: Similar to last week, you could do better to discuss later and DO FIRST. Hand out the paras and get students to transpose... how would the 2nd person sound written as 1st, as 3rd? Have them turn 3rd into 1st, and take the 1st person example and make it 3rd. LOTS of technical challenges and YES they have to change words and all sorts of things. It's all about the power of words, the feel, the effect, the limits, the advantages... Next week, the other kind of POV.

Exercises for outcomes: fooling around with tenses

2011-03-23T16:34:00.009Z

I was blogging recently about my course subtitled Narrative Devices (10 March 2011) and think it could be useful to go on. One Learning Outcome is Define verb tenses and their effect on narrative. Sounds so basic, yet I really only arrived at it because I was forced to break down creative writing into specific craft skills; turns out to make for some good exercises.

I invented two Criteria for Assessment.
1) Recognise present, past and past-perfect verb usage in published or own writing.
2) Evaluate strengths and weaknesses of different verb tenses in narrative effect.

Sneakiest way to get into this is to set an exercise, probably starting with a stimulus of listing or even a given list of words to choose from, where you ask students to write a paragraph or two about something (place, object, pet, person, event...). Or it could just start with 'I remember...' and go on.

Why is this sneaky? Because you want them naturally and unselfconciously to write in past tense. This is your (their) raw material. And now you talk a bit about present tense, maybe read out an example, and ask the students to transmute (or maybe we should say timeshift) their own piece into present tense.

They set to it... and then they start to say it is hard to do! Urge them to soldier on. Also some 'ask permission' to leave things out or change things because it won't work otherwise. Aha! Now they are seeing the craft differences in the two modes. Of course it's okay.

Then read out and share and comment and discuss. Good to prepare a handout of excerpts from published works in both past and present tenses to read out to further support the discussion. There's no right answer, it's just... how does it feel? what does it convey? is this the effect you want? have you considered the effect?

A variant or addition is to have students transcribe (transmute? timeshift?) the published excerpts into the other mode; again -- to sense the effect on the reader. Effect on the writer might be considered too -- some people love to write in present tense, some hate it, some can only flow in classic past-tense storytelling, some feel paralyzed by it.

Hmm, all this and I didn't even get to past-perfect, otherwise known as the had-hads.

Support for creative writing teachers

2011-03-17T18:08:00.014Z

Today, an alert on the wider world of support for creative writing teachers -- an alphabet soup: NAWE, UCU, IfL.

First, the good news. Writers in Schools Skills Sharing Day on Saturday 21 May 2011. Organised by NAWE -- National Association of Writers in Education -- for writers teaching in primary and secondary schools. Of 16 workshops you can attend 4. Some titles that call to me are Classroom Management, Working with Teachers, Maintaining Your Identity as a Writer and Digital/Interactive Writing [no suprise, that last one, as some will know -- see blogs of 16 & 23 Feb, Technologies in Teaching Creative Writing].

If you're a NAWE member already you'll have had the notice on this, and know you get a discount. If not -- what are you waiting for? Good stuff, and membership includes liability insurance. ALSO I see that if you are not there yet, but interested, that a September workshop is planned for those who want to get into the writers in schools game. Here's the link. http://www.nawe.co.uk/DB/nawe-sold-events/writers-in-schools-skills-sharing-day.html Deadline 29 April.

Now the rest. You are probably aware that nowadays everyone who teaches/trains in government-funded further education (FE, community, prisons etc) by law must now be a member of IFL -- Institute for Learning. It's a professional body and Good Thing, the professional body offering support and information. However, the government originally paid the membership if you were teaching... but now says you have to pay it yourself: £68. You don't pay, your college/institution can't hire you. Info, http://www.ifl.ac.uk/membership

Deadline for the IfL is 1 April, BUT it's a hot topic. UCU -- University and College Union -- is the union for teachers/lecturers in further & higher education, another Good Thing, offering support and information and political clout with employers, gov't, media. And UCU is fighting hard to see that employees do not pay this... they believe this is injustice, and ask members not to pay the IfL membership until (if) the union goes to bat over this. It's rather fraught. So you may want to go to UCU's site and sign the petition or at least read more about the issue and possibly join the union. https://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5271

Whew. Not usually my thing to be political, but it is wise to be aware of the wider aspects of our world of teaching creative writing.

Meanwhile... my compassion is with Japan.

Mixing newbies & returner writing students - part 2

2011-03-10T18:34:00.011Z

Continuing the theme of mixed levels of students (how're you doing, Helen?), last week I expanded about gentling in the new-to-creative writing students and asking tolerance from the old hands for hearing some of your same jokes and tricks. This week, a bit more attention to the loyal returners. Or: your fan club.

Even without newbies, a classful of students coming back... and back... and back can be a challenge. Details now on the solution mentioned last week. Here's the bad news -- well, not so bad, as we are creative teachers, and passionate, too -- you do have to come up with some new material. However, it's not too painful when you simply think of it as fine-tuning and variably focussing what you are already doing. It all began with the title... and arose in part for administrative reasons.

Let's say the course was originally called Creative Writing. The new tweak was subtitling. I devised two further course names to make a 3-year cycle, so after the first (unsubtitled) came Creative Writing: Narrative Devices. Then Creative Writing: Structure, Pace & Voice. Three years is a good long time to have held (taught? entertained?) a student; if he/she comes back a fourth year when you repeat the cycle, it will have been so long ago -- and they will have grown so much -- that it will feel new again.

The secret is that of course you are teaching narrative devices, structure, pace and voice all the time... but now you and your students are shining a spotlight on them, focussing. And this is what provides the new angle for your returners. Dialogue, character development, setting etc still are present too, and all of this is fine for the newbies, so long as you start off with gentle, fun, freeing exercises (see last week's blog).

Here are the Learning Outcomes I devised for the Narrative Devices subtitle:

Identify a variety of narrative methods
Recognise person point-of-view
Describe the uses of various person points-of-view
Recognise storytelling angle point-of-view
Define verb tenses and their effect on narrative
Generate, submit and engage in writing with awareness of narrative devices

If anyone out there wants my breakdown of these into Criteria for Assessment, please ask and I will put them in future blogs.

Two big supports for these new angles -- add the reading of a book or selected contemporary short stories to the class. I did one novel per term but it was a pretty advanced class. Maybe one or several short stories is better for starters. We are NOT doing lit-crit here, but READING AS WRITERS, to notice and discuss and then try out the points above.

Other one: make it a regular workshopping class, with readers scheduled ahead, committed to reading out. Make this a 20 or 30 min slot per person -- 10-15 mins to read (about 2,000 words), the rest for feedback (developing constructive critical abilities in all). [more on this in The Matrix book]

Oh, yeah, you still have to go to a book of exercises like mine or your big shelf of 'how to write' books and find exercises you can turn into class exercises... but with the above elements, at least not soooo much of this.

Mixing newbies & returner writing students

2011-03-03T11:12:00.013Z

Woop woop, I have just noticed that this is the 101st blog entry -- astonishing!

'How do you handle it when you've got both 'returners' and newbies in the same class?' Helen asks. She's started a new course with some who've done one term, some who had a first session before course cancellation, one with her for 18 months and a bunch of students new, possibly even completely new to creative writing.

Yes, big challenge. A compliment to your teaching when students come back for more more more, AND who can ever finish 'learning creative writing'? AND... the returners help to keep the numbers up, so that there can be a class at all. So, congratulations to Helen.

Sometimes as well as this, there's a management extra: at one time, my writing course had an external accreditation (so that it attracted some government funding... financial mysteries beyond my remit and now defunct). After a year or two, the organisation would no longer allow the same course title with students (and me) completing the paperwork for the same credit --- even though they were progressing their writing and writing new stuff each year. So my helpful boss and I devised a solution, which could work for anyone in the 'repeater' situation.

But Helen's other problem is the newbies mixing in with old hands, so I'll address that first. I'm running into the mixed level challenge (but students all new to me) in my current teaching -- but still, that's different to the knowns-and-newbies medley. So what do I suggest?

First -- be upfront and human about it. Warn the (what shall we call them? I'll stick with:) old hands that they will be hearing some of the same jokes, and doing some of the same exercises, and you hope they'll bear with you. Add that As they ARE CREATIVE, and as each piece of creative writing is new, it is good and useful to repeat the exercises.

eg, if it is Character Profile, or even Profile from a Postcard, Monologue, Stimulus Object et cetera -- of course they will be doing it with a different character. So... the writing will be different and they will have exercised even more than before. Similar if the goal is to write a short story or several poems by end of term: of course they need to be new stories/poems, even if from similar starting point. That's what creating is all about. Assure them there will be new content too (subject of next week's blog, to do with solution above).

Then -- you need to gentle-in the newbies as you would with an entirely newbies class, with your (my?) starting creative writing basics -- Bubbling and Chaos Writing (freewriting) (see Matrix book if you don't know what I mean). By using a different stimulus word on the board, and using your pack of word-start index cards/slips of paper, it will still be fun and useful for the old hands.

In the first session or several, don't ask for whole-group reading out. Instead, put people in pairs or threes to share their writing -- much less intimidating for newbies. Try to put old hand with newbies to avoid cliqueiness, and enourage support and new bonding. More next week! BUT ALSO SEE THE 9 FEB BLOG ABOUT FLEXIBLE ASSIGNMENT SCHEME.

Creative writing & technology, I did it

2011-02-23T16:36:00.010Z

Interesting to experience the trajectory of critique. We writers ourselves know about it from personal experience of workshopping our writing and getting feedback, or getting rejections on submitted work (if we are so fortunate as to get feedback instead of the routine 'no thanks' slip).

Here's the pattern:
Oh, no! Wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong. Sulk a little. Time. Weelll, maybeeeee... okay I guess I could consider it. Oh well, grumble, how the hell can I... oh! (light bulb) I can think of a way! And then (later), hey, it works!

And our scene, dialogue, chapter opening or whatever (in this case, next teaching session) is, by incorporating the critique IN OUR OWN WAY, indeed improved. Exhilarating, actually.

So here's what I did. Instead of a verbal reprise to the class at the start of the session, and reminder of the overall 'map' of the course, I used the Interactive White Board (known as IWB) flip chart, and had the students call out and direct me on the Hero's Journey. This way they were reprising themselves - Hero, Ordinary World, Threshold, Mentor (a few prompts from me of the 'what else' sort), etc.

This map of the journey goes along Aristotle's incline of dramatic tension (3-act play) which they have seen throughout the course. (It's in Creative Writing: the Matrix, and lots of other places.) I quickly ran out of space so, presto, a click of the light-pen and on the map went to the next clean page, and then a third. Okay, it could have been a normal white board or flip chart, but now we are in 21st c technology mode.

So the students took me on the journey, we did it together. Much better than just verbally reminding them. Better too than standing up front and putting them on the spot by straight out asking them to recount. And being electronic, no waste of flipchart paper or need to erase felt-tip marker.

Also, at the end, I projected the college's website to (a) show up-coming creative writing courses, (b) show how easy online course evaluation is.

Thank you to the comments in support on last week's moan. And may I add woof-woof. (Think dog, old, tricks, yes you can.)

Technologies in teaching creative writing

2011-02-16T17:18:00.003Z

Yug. Got some crit on my observation report. For one thing, can I ask YOU,

how much or in fact HOW do you use interactive white board and projector I.T. in teaching creative writing?

And the above question particularly in the context of short courses, two hours per week, with no exam or qualification on offer nor of interest to the self-selected adult students.

Myself, I think writing in class, bouncing creativity off each other, and getting feedback from reading out and/or from tutor are chief methods in the writerly mode.

Increasing student production rate

2011-02-09T19:55:00.012Z

Jury's out on my observation. I await the feedback appointment. Unfortunately the observer came for the Shadow part of the session -- always a sticky subject.

Meanwhile: wrapping up our marking creative writing topic with the related issue of getting students to write outside class and hand writing in. Remarkable how so many do not take advantage of getting feedback, who do not use the stimulus and goals to get on and write. I can completely understand a writer not wanting to use precious time and energy simply doing homework for teacher -- we are not in that kind of teaching. So I devised a flexible scheme to cover several levels of writer. It's the Alpha, Beta, Delta assignment.

For the details I refer you to the whole actual description from Creative Writing: the Matrix, which is this term's tutor tip on the book's website at http://www.paxtonpublishing.co.uk A freebie.

Here's another link to look at, with a freebie of sorts. It's the Institute for Learning, which is, as FE tutors, our very own organisation -- very big, recognised and official on over 18 AND UP, UP, UP learning. You kinda-sorta-gotta join if you are teaching in a publicly funded institution (community, prison, as well as FE colleges), because we all have to be registered nowadays. And we have to do CPD -- Continuous Professional Development. http://www.ifl.ac.uk

That's where their freebie part comes in. Turns out that simply reading their monthly emailed On the Agenda news bulletin can count towards your annual CPD requirement. How easy is that!

Can you mark creative writing? Part 2.

2011-02-02T19:13:00.013Z

I was going to tell you about my secret grade scheme, for my files and institutional admin only, having talked last week about feedback on students' creative writing.

But also I ran into the how much do you criticise issue. And How can you best help a writer to improve without squashing? As a professional writer and self-editor I have to force myself to ignore, or give only slight mention to, grammar and puncuation and spelling errors. I mean, not if they are really really bad -- then I'd have to take the student aside and see about getting help... or... what? So much depends on the level of the course and the students. Even little errors, even typos... I do make a few marks in the margins -- but I let some go by.

My perfectionist editorial self really objects! But I have to tell it/me -- this is a creative writing class, the students are not here to be perfect at grammar but to begin or continue to tell stories, or make poems, convey a mood, create a character etc. However, if their language skills interfere... the skills are so interwoven, ugh, I'm getting a stomach ache just writing this: I feel torn!

So I will leave you with that, and move on to grading, and am very curious to hear from you how you do this. Because I have made this up for myself. In the coursebook, to satisfy any management who look, I put

1 for excellent/very good/hardly any weaknesses
2 for good, some weaknesses, satisfactory
3 for some competence, but many weaknesses
4 for weak, but made an effort
0 for made no effort

It is still a matter of very personal judgment and the student's own level and the course expectation. But at least it's got a number on it for those bosses and computers who can only think in numbers. And guess what, I am being observed as part of the regular cycle tomorrow night, so we shall see if my secret scheme meets with management's approval. What grade for me?

Can you mark creative writing?

2011-01-25T15:22:00.012Z

Do you get pressure from your management to give an 'assessment' -- that is, a mark -- for each student? Most institutions insist on it; and no, it cannot be a little statement [brilliant characterisation but needs to improve language]. It has to be a number or letter to put in the box so that the computer or observer can see instantly that the student has been assessed.

A whole 50% of my lovely keen class, in week 2, completed 'homework' (polishing up one of the exercises we did in class) or, per my invitation, gave me something they'd written previously. I have often had classes where hardly anyone gave in writing, which is a shame. Students aren't getting their own money's worth if they don't get feedback.

So I had a busy day yesterday prepping for class and reading and giving feedback. So how do YOU give feedback? I would never-never-never put a grade on a piece of creative writing -- far too specific and potentially devastating to a tender writer. No, I just put comments on their pages.

Obviously this indicates to you that I do not accept emailed writing from students. I spend enough time at this screen on my own stuff... as well as ink and paper. No, I tell them that publishers and competitions have their rules, and so do I. I want them to Make the Effort. Also, to practice proper layout.

I use pencil, not pen, because it looks softer, kinder. I adopted something that I liked from feedback I have received... tick in the margin and/or bottom of page. Shows I like something, or at least it looks like I have actually read the page.

Except for very small comments I put all my feedback at the end of the writing. Yes, I do it sandwich style: a positive, enthusiastic sentence or several, then some critique (I give page and para numbers, or sometimes in the margin of the section in question I pencil a squiggly vertical line). Then end with some upbeat encouragement.

It is all handwritten on their work. Gracious me, if I got into typing out my feedback I would spend far too much time and perfection on my comments; I know, because I have tried it once or twice, that I tend to get too far into explaining why something isn't working. As in writing this blog, I think and type simultaneously... and always find things to say. In the case of feedback, too many things.

Handwritten feedback is more personal, too. AND, I am famous for my illegible handwriting (though for students I try harder)... so I apologise in advance and say it brings me closer to my students: if you can't figure out something I wrote, come and talk to me!

Then there's the challenge... how much do you criticise? Where do you rein in your perfectionism, where can you best help a writer to improve without squashing? Hmmm, think I'd better continue this next week. And I do have a secret grade scheme, to keep management happy.

Wordstarts exercise

2011-01-17T19:58:00.010Z

Well guess what? The querying student did enrol (see last week's entry about managing student expectations). Surprise, surprise as to what his genre is: graphic novels. Interestingly, out of 17 students, another is also writing in that genre.

It is a form that I know nothing about -- however, a story is a story, and at the end of the session the original enquiring student said this had been a really useful class and that the whole course would work for him. I thought it would. Synchronicity: this week's Sunday Times Culture has an excellent mini-review for a children's graphic novel.

Wordstarts exercise: Exercise 22 (actually called 'I remember...') gives your students a structure for freewriting. It is something you can use just once, or use over several weeks or longer. Used one way you can also turn it into a self-editing project.

At the start of each term I give away a new exercise and new tutor support tip on http://paxtonpublishing.co.uk/ the website for my book of exercises and ideas. So this blogweek, tune in there for your teachingcreativewriting goody.

Managing student expectations

2011-01-12T12:04:00.014Z

First week of term! Yes, I do have a class, enrolment has met the required number. Maybe by now, exceeded it. I will go in early tomorrow to check the numbers and to be sure to get in the photocopy queue with time to spare. Also, to pick up whatever admin bumpf the college has devised over the break.

A prospective student emailed me via the college -- will The Hero's Journey teach him to write a true adventure?

Hmmm -- depends on what he means by 'teach him to write', by 'write', by 'true' and by 'adventure'. In just about every new class, someone arrives with the idea that he/she will have written a book by the end of the course, or end of the year. If only!

But this is just a 5 week course, so in the first instance I said that this would give him the tools with which to start and to continue to write a story (by which I mean story or book-length story). The same answer actually also applies to a full year course.

So that's the gentle disillusionment you have to deliver if a student arrives with that goal. Let alone the student who says he/she will write, get published and be rich and famous by the end of the course. But we cannot shatter and trample upon dreams and motivation: gently, gently.

I hope I didn't sound too snippy when I said I was sure he must already have looked at the course outline online where I explain the elements of the course.

But then maybe he was talking about genre? So I explained that the course does talk in terms of heroes and dragons, mentors and Shadows... the stuff of fantasy and sci fi, Star Wars and Lion King. BUT my exercises and lectures are about the psychological power in the hero's quest -- power that works in every story, on a domestic or a galactic canvas. Pride and Prejudice, The King's Speech, Peter Rabbit -- these too have a hero's journey template. But I don't know if his query stems from wanting fantasy or from an aversion to it. Or maybe, by 'true', he meant a real-life adventure, like the 127 Hours story? Hero's Journey can work for that too.

Interesting how so many people can't bear fantasy novels; some students insist literary novels are the only thing, and hate popular fiction of the chic-lit or crime sort. I know of one class that was nearly wrecked by one such student. On the other hand, the few (in my circles) who love fantasy/sci fi are rather lost souls in the world of creative writing classes and I believe in supporting them as well as the others.

I encourage genre tolerance -- we can all learn from other genres, even if we don't like them. Whatever the genre, it has readers or it wouldn't exist. The most important thing: beginning, middle, end -- and getting it written!

I wonder if he will join the course...

Publication for one of my students!

2010-12-08T19:07:00.013Z

[Last entry before the break; back in January when I find out if my class has made its numbers and will run...]

Oh, the thrill of it. One of my long-time students (whom I no longer teach -- this group of Writers at Work have gone on meeting on their own weekly, reading out and encouraging each other) has told me that his novel is to be published!

CONGRATULATIONS, JOHN ELLIOTT!

John is a fine writer and has completed several novels and a number of short stories over the years I've known him, sensitively and interestingly written. He has sent novels off and achieved rejections. This novel, with the group's support, he approached in a different way: a crime novel, called Dying for a Read. I will be tracking its progress.

I met with another student from that course recently to catch up on things. She had gone in a different direction, asking me to write a reference for her to go for a Master's Degree in Literature & Psychology... six or so years later, it transpires that this became psychology only, and she is now working on her PhD, speaking at international seminars, and editor and driving force of Pendulum, the journal of MDF, the Bipolar Organisation. Go, Clare Dolman!

Several other now-published writers have passed through my classes. I find it really interesting that when my students get published I always feel -- 'it wasn't me, my teaching, they simply had it in them.' And they did! I think what a good class and good teacher do is provide a mixing-holding place for talent, a nurturance and belief, helping writers to sustain their effort.

Many, of course do not get published. Because they stop trying? Because they have not improved enough? Because writing is too hard? Because they find other things to do? Because they aren't writing to get published? Still... it is a journey of discovery.

Helen's comment last week on the student who blossomed... that is so rewarding. Seems to me that with the shy student confidence-building is the key, and patience, and not forcing him/her to read out, and an attitude from you that you take his/her efforts at writing absolutely seriously, you believe in it.

Along these lines of 'growing people', perhaps, is a piece in the NAWE (National Ass'n of Writers in Education) Director's Report 2010 summing up a report on writers teaching in schools. The project effectively demonstrated 'how writing can be used to unlock both intellectual and emotional responses.' Yes, that's what I like about teaching creative writing: helping people to say what they want to say, and sometimes to find out what they want to say.

If you haven't yet joined NAWE, do. Good, re-launched, website: http://www.nawe.co.uk
HAPPY CHRISTMAS SEASON AND NEW YEAR
-- I'LL BE BACK IN 2011, START OF TERM.

Critiquing & feedback

2010-11-28T20:04:00.017Z

Hello! Back to the blog after a wonderful travelling holiday.

On my mind: giving people feedback that supports their creativity and motivation. On my mind because I am getting RSVPs for my Creative Open House. It is a celebratory party, a weekend afternoon open house, and for fun, the invitation asks people to

bring something small(ish) that you have made

or written or photographed or otherwise created, or,

if you deem yourself not creative,

a postcard, shell, stone, feather, flower

or other pretty/handsome/fun thing

for each other to love, remark, admire,

not to judge, just to share...

or just come and enjoy a temporary gallery

I've invited lots of my long-time students, my papier mache group, my novel-writing group, haiku friends, creative-writing-teaching friends, psychoanalytic fellow students, and local friends and neighbors. In other words, my kind of people.

It is fascinating to see the way people respond. I didn't mean the whole thing as a terrific challenge, just a bit of fun and mutual 'gosh! gee! wow! how interesting! I love that too!' OR 'You did that! I never knew...' OR 'That's so pretty (astonishing/interesting)'

As I expected, the writer-types and art-makers are intrigued and all for it. But a surprising (to me) number of others seem to feel put-on-the-spot. When they express this to me I jolly them along and remind them it can be something they like, not something they made. Of course some may have RSVPd NO out of sheer stage-fright.

The instant reaction I'm most chuffed about is by hearsay from the younger generation (early 20s) who glimpse the invitation and say: 'What a great idea for a party!'

So what does this have to do with teaching creative writing? It's a reminder that so many people are so 'tongue-tied' and shy about revealing themselves, about feeling confident in liking and sharing something, about the very notion of their own natural creativity.

Gentle, consistent, encouraging feedback is ESSENTIAL if writing students are to grow in their writing. This does not mean not to criticise (more on that another time), but is a reminder to me and all of us that confidence and pleasure in writing/making/seeing/being comes before any progress is possible. Usually? Agree? Disagree?

Also, re teaching, this could be an idea for your class's end-of-term party. See how they react to the invitation!

Wanderlust

2010-11-06T20:45:00.000Z

Lucky me -- two weeks of fascinating travel. Will be back to blogging about teaching creative writing in late November. Meanwhile, use the Labels list to search through for exercises, teaching tips or a host of other things.

Sour-puss students

2010-11-02T19:46:00.009Z

I mentioned the possibility of a querulously querying student last week, and Helen, for one, wanted to know if I have run across this situation much and how I handle it. See her comment on last week's blog where she describes witnessing such an incident.

The situation she describes -- a student actually stomping or storming or flouncing out of a course -- I have witnessed too. In fact, I've seen it happen at three residential writing events I have attended! It got so that I took it as routine and decided to re-assure myself: every residential WILL have a super-tender or super-ego participant. Seems to be a law, so if I ever lead one I should not blame myself for the outbreak/flounce/storm.

The question is what to do about it? If the person does leave, I say: breathe a sigh of relief and soothe your ruffled feathers and go on... you will probably have to soothe the bruises or worries of the other students too. DO remember NOT to feel guilty or act defensive. Writing courses, especially residentials, seem to attract some vulnerable people; they come loaded, primed to go off.

If the person doesn't leave, or if you are, like the example mentioned, attempting to smooth things with the student, try to stay clear of 'counselling' -- unless you are trained and qualified. I think you have to keep the talk to the writing and behaviour and the needs of others in the group. Good luck!

How about in regular weekly classes? I've never had a storm-out (that I know of, though of course some people cease attending without saying why -- private storms maybe). But I have indeed had the Questioner, the Doubter, the Success Maven, the Cynic, the Party Pooper... you can name some more. Usually one per year, not, thank goodness one per course.

Sometimes I pre-empt, especially with the more strange of my exercises (as last week; and the ones straying into psychological territory), and tell the class: 'this exercise does not work for about 1 out of 10 people. I have found that it does bear wonderful fruit for most people, but it's pefectly fine if it does not work for you... please put up with it, we'll soon be on to something else today. You might want to write to yourself about what you don't like about this exercise -- could be useful!'

When I get those 'what's the point' queries: sometimes there IS a point (to explore the character, to try other styles, to let go of perfection -- whatever). Sometimes I just ask them to trust me, they'll see why... or get something from it at the end.

Well I could go on and on... I have had two classes where somehow among the students a lot of bad feeling stirred; seemed to be one particular person who knocked or gossiped about others in the class. I only gradually became aware of this; then avoided it as long as I could, not wanting to get sucked into it. Seems to come from the student who is writing least, actually, and simmering with hostility -- all to do with being blocked. I did finally take aside this one I suspected of being the ringleader/meanie and ask her to be gentler in her criticisms (to readings out), suggested she did not realise how powerful an effect she had. And told her she wrote very well (which she did, WHEN she did) and had high standards. I stayed out of the 'bullying' problem as I only knew of it from hearsay, which in itself might have been poisoned. Don't know if it worked; things settled down; she did not join the class for term 2...

The joy of it is that most of our students most of the time are bright, warm, fun, eager to cooperate, supportive of each other and of the tutor. And several times I have had the reward, at the end of the course, of the Gadfly praising the course and my teaching -- sweet indeed!

Creative stimulus

2010-10-24T23:42:00.008+01:00

So I have been talking about cross-discipline (cross-media) as a help in creative writing. And I promised some in-the-classroom ideas.

- Feel Free Joy, exercise 86 in Creative Writing: the Matrix, is about getting loads of felt-tip pens, crayons, chalks, and horizontal blank A4 paper (the better for lateral non-thinking) and telling people to just make marks on paper. Just let go, choose whatever colours appeal, change colours and textures, don't make pictures or specifics... It is fantastically fun and freeing... which is how we wish we felt more often when writing.

And if you have the sour-puss student who insists on a reason for doing this (usually because he/she feels inhibited or threatened?): even just doing this is loosening and stimulating. Sometimes we forget to have fun.

- Creativity Doll, from Julia Cameron's The Vein of Gold (1997 ed, Pan Books) pp 127-135. A colleague of mine had a hugely successful Saturday class doing this. She brought, and had students bring in, all sorts of oddments of fabric, buttons, trimmings, wire, string, nuts & bolts, shells, sticks, rocks, wood, old jewellery, magazines et cetera. The idea is to make a 'doll' (or thing) about the lack or the wish or the missing piece or frustration or ideal or hope of creativity (Cameron also suggests a Creativity Monster, about all the negatives). People get engaged, relaxed, have fun, find new energies... and usually discover some new aspect of themselves.

- Instant Productive Crumpled Chaos, requires absolutely no props, except a half-sheet of blank paper (or two). This isn't crossing media actually, but it gives an element of anarchy and urgency that gets results, and fun. Each person writes a word on the blank piece of paper, an object. Crumple up the paper and chuck it onto the floor in the middle of the room (if an open square), or into a basket/bin/bag. [but the tossing onto the floor is the anarchic, loosening part]. Everyone gets up and draws one out. You can repeats this: on another piece of paper, write a first name. Crumple and retrieve again. [If you have two different colours of paper to distribute, then you can do this all in one go.]

Then everyone has a word, or a word and a name and -- write for 5-10 minutes on it! See what you get. Forcing together a name and an object usually brings about the start of a story. Or try two objects. Or... well, you get it.

Using different creativities to help writing

2010-10-17T19:51:00.014+01:00

So I promised (last entry) to say what papier mache taught me about writing. Two main things: trust and patience. Or maybe they combine to make one thing.

First of all, this kind of sculptural papier mache starts with a wire armature -- a stiff bit (or bits) of wire you shape into a simple sketch or line or stick-figure of the intended creation. A standing man, a sitting dog, a dancing rabbit... whatever.

Next, without going into too much detail here, you wrap the wire tightly with newspaper, then scrunch up newspaper and begin to build up the legs, arms, body, head... At first you use some masking tape to hold the scrunches in place, but soon you use strips of newspaper that you have covered with (special recipe) flour and water paste. Yum, that's the start of the icky, sticky, gooey malleable stage. You go on and cover the limbs/shapes with a layer of short torn strips of pasted newspaper.

Then -- you have to wait. Because it has to dry before you can add another layer, or another scrunch or three to fill out or improve the shape in places. In fact, you have to let it dry several times over this stage. (If you don't let it dry it will become a damp, mouldy, smelly lump.)

So where's the writing bit? About the time I was working on my third piece I realised that I had learned to trust the process. To be patient with the work -- AND WITH MYSELF. And I realised I had not been doing this with my fiction writing. So, step by above step:

The armature, the simple wire shape, is the backbone, the centre from which the piece will grow. It is a vague, vague outline of the end result. It comes after an idea or 'vision' (an idea of an idea), which may have some specifics but not many -- it is felt or seen rather than thought.

So -- a haiku; the vision or feeling or urge to capture something comes... the shape (the wire armature) is a given (usually) 3 lines. Or -- the story of my great grandfather Ephraim's life; I had the urge, need, to write it, but didn't until (after YEARS of trying) I broke through and settled for chronological 3rd person telling (the armature). Yes, this is structure -- but believe me, in both papier mache and my creativity it is not structure planned and thought out in detail. It is an idea of form, loose, open... but enough to be the start of a direction.

But the most useful lesson came in the waiting that the papier mache process imposed on me. No matter how perfect I want it to be, or how fast I want to it to progress, or how bad it looks right now -- I have to wait. Wait until it dries and I can continue (1-2 days). When I come back to it -- oh, hey, it's not so bad. Or oh, yuk, it is bad... but if I put a bit here and a bit there... etc. In other words it kyboshed my fear of imperfection. It made me trust that I can, and will, make it better. By doing it with less impatience, by accepting that for now, it is a mess. Some part of me knows where it is going, knows it will take time -- I manage to turn my chattery self-critical head off and just scrunch and paste... or write a paragraph, scene or page that probably isn't perfect, but at least it is going forward.

A final thing (for now) about the sculptural papier mache process: you can get out your Stanley knife and cut off the head! Or the tail, or the biceps or whatever part just isn't working. The dried paper-and-paste is easy to cut away and to patch over or rebuild. So liberating! And this is like cutting and shaping my writing -- yup, that paragraph has to go, actually, that whole passage is much too fussy and detailed, aha, if I move that last sentence down then I can put in an essential bit without ruining the flow et cetera.

Once again this is long-ish, and Downton Abbey is about to start, but I promised to relate this to your classes, because the point of this blog is not ego-tripping but being USEFUL. I can think of one thing, but will take too much space tonight. So how about just airing this with your students -- do they do other arts, music, dance, sport, where the emphasis is on just doing? And possibly discuss this quote from Paul Cezanne: If I think, everything is lost.

Poetry & TV, prose & papier mache

2010-10-10T17:47:00.020+01:00

Did you watch The Song of Lunch on BBC2 last weekend? Do poetry and television drama work together? The poem by Christopher Reid presented the meeting of a pair of former lovers on a lunch date from the point of view of the (sad, sorry for himself and eventually drunken) man in an interior monologue. So there, for me, is an example of crossing disciplines (or media) that did not work. Much of it did just what we have to drum into the heads of our writers NOT to do -- it told what we could see for ourselves. Sometimes it told, and then showed the same thing. Sometimes showed and then told. So... it was slow and frustrating and un-engaging and gave me too much time to dislike the narrator character.

Oh well, it did give me new insights into what I do want in drama. And in what not to do with poetry, or at least with this particular poem in this particular way (however, the photography was excellent and Emma Thompson looked wonderful). You could think of talking to your students about this kind of artistic experience -- sometimes it can be easier to appreciate the craft of creating via something that is flawed: what's wrong with it and why? Also, allowing for debate: some people may have loved The Song of Lunch!

But I bring up this crossing of disciplines because I wanted to share another cross, one that I have found useful, much to my surprise. I took up sculptural papier mache three years ago -- that is, not kiddy-stuff masks and bowls, but wire-armatured figures (though anything goes among this marvellous group of artists). I wanted a different creative outlet, a WORDLESS, PUL-EEZE!, creativity. And gradually, as I learned it and loved it, I found it helped my writing. Because the work demonstrated to me the patience and confidence I did not have in my writing.

Hmmm, I can sense that this blog entry is going to go on far too long if I begin now to tell you what papier mache taught me about writing -- so I will make you wait until next week. I will also link it to the classroom so that it can be of direct use to you. I promise, the benefit is NOT making use of one's crumpled-up and abandoned writing drafts as papier with which to mache!

Just for fun, some of my story-figures are on my site http://susankerr.blogspot.com if you want to see. A good website for a worldwide gallery of creative papier mache is http://www.papiermache.co.uk/

A fabulous first class

2010-10-01T17:31:00.005+01:00

Hurrah for Helen! In a posting to my 13 September blog she added a description of her first class of the term. It's down there in the comments attached to 'The required number of students' entry, but so full of good sense and good ideas and the joys of teaching creative writing that I'm putting her comments right here in this entry -- inspiration for all of us. So thank you, Helen.

"I wasn't sure how it would work but I decided to follow your book's advice and gave them all a questionnaire to fill in and writing magazines to flick through while we got through the chaos of enrolment and late arrivals! Then, as you suggest, I asked them to bring their completed questionnaire up to me and I 'rewarded' them with a little chat and wrote their name on a name 'tent' for their desk. It worked really well! And definitely helped me remember everyone's name and 'welcome' them all individually.

"Then I did a couple of exercises that I've done myself - as a student and trainee on a PTTLS course this summer. Firstly, I asked each person to say their name and to tell the group something they wished they were brave enough to do. We had everything from 'have a baby' to 'bungee jump' or 'ride across America'. I told them that, through Creative Writing, they could do all those things! (bit cheesy but it got their attention)

"Then, in groups of 4, I asked them to discuss their 'expectations and concerns' for the course. I find -perhaps you do too [YES] - that people come to Creative Writing courses with all kinds of misconceptions about what it is and what it can do for them. Getting someone from each 'team' to present their comments to the whole class - and allowing me to respond where appropriate - meant that we covered lots of ground in an interactive way (not just me lecturing!) AND I was able to reassure them and answer queries. I also got across an important point: the best way to learn is to WRITE! I also found myself explaining my own 'expectations and concerns' for the course (which I hadn't expected to do!). By coffee break (and we did some wrting after that), the group was already gelling, laughing and chatting to each other. Definitely the best 'first night' I've ever had!"

Sounds ideal, Helen, thank you so much for this. Great use of small groups; I too love them as a way to air lots of material, to give everyone a voice (and some friends) and to not be 'Ms Teacher' talking at them. Your class next week is bound to be just as much fun, as the students are all warmed and raring to go.

Using a class text

2010-09-23T16:45:00.013+01:00

I have never been to a creative writing class that used a book or story which we all read in common, but I instituted this practice in my long-running courses. Interesting, isn't it, that poetry-writing tutors often start off a session by looking at a published poem or two, before moving on to exercises. And screen script-writing courses often look at bits of films, yet prose classes don't generally.

So I wanted to revive this practice for my class -- what did I choose? And why? In talking about characters, character development, plot and archetypes I often refer to films. To books, too, but it is easier to find a film seen by many than a book read by many -- usually I call on famous movies like Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, Lion King. But even those have never been seen by 100% of a class. I also call on famous tales, like Peter Rabbit and Red Riding Hood. If if were a longer course I would have us all watch a film or read a book together. But it's not.

I chose Liver, a short story by Louis de Bernieres, published in New Writing 5, eds C Hope and P Porter, Vintage in Assn with the British Council, London, 1996. It's ten pages, a bit over 3,000 words. According to the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), if working at a recognised educational institution we can photocopy a short story or poem of not more than ten pages from an anthology without permission so long as it is only for instruction.

But anyway, as I was saying -- why this? Well, some of the stories were longer, too long for the class time we have. And many were subtle and literary -- not clear demonstrations of the points I wanted to make. And quite a view featured raunchy language, sex or violence (being contemporary) which, again for time reasons in this 5 week course, I did not want to bring into the class room.

You can use a given text to talk about voice, pace, description, point of view, whatever! I wanted to talk about the Hero (main character)... he has a daily life and worries (domestic chores for his wife) and then a challenge, a call to action (so now this is about structure and archetype). He has a Shadow, someone to conquer (his wife), a Mentor (nice man who runs the laundrette), Allies (West Indian ladies at the laundrette) -- so all of these are about characters/characterisation, also about setting and the Special World (laundrette and Turkish restaurant).

It is a comic, or even blackly comic, story of sweet (if deathly) revenge, so of course it does not exactly fit the Hero's Journey pattern. But enough of the elements are there to prove to students that the archetypal energies and patterns occur in every story.

And here is your let-out clause: if a story does not entirely bear out the point you are trying to make, it is a learning point. Why doesn't it fit the 'rules'? If it still works anyway, how did the writer make it work? Writing is never writing by numbers, and creativity is infinite.

The required number of students

2010-09-13T13:37:00.009+01:00

Argh! It has happened -- today I lost the brinkmanship game of adult education, for this term. The enrolments for it last week were at 50% of the required number. Today, Monday, it's the same -- sigh! My Line Manager rang with the news, and the choice: delay the course by 2-3 weeks, or put it off to a new start of term in January.

What would you do? The already-enrolled may not be able to do either delay. But then again they might. I'm geared up to teach... but can gear down.

A main problem -- the course is listed in print prospectus as November start. This could be a reason for low enrolment, but then the website was corrected early-on.

Manager says lots of enrolments are low, lots of classes closed or delayed. If we delay mine and my numbers still aren't made, it will still have to close, and the original enrolling students will have been mucked about twice.

My decision: January start. College will offer this, maybe we will carry through those already enrolled. ADVANTAGE: we can catch any print-prospectus customers who try to enrol for the (erroneous) November dates and direct them to enrol for January. AND the College, if running this and other courses as new listings, will be giving January courses an extra promotional boost.

Speaking of promotion, this is what I will do in December which I did not get round to doing in August -- see my blog on that under Promoting Your Course.

Meanwhile, per last week's prep, I did decide on a short story to use as illustration of character and structure. But I will make you wait til next week to learn which one.

Back-to-school

2010-09-03T15:17:00.011+01:00

Hello, creative ones. We are back in the back-to-school saddle. My first class isn't til 16th Sept. because this year, in these hard times, my college is running a promotional 'taster' week. I wasn't invited to offer a tasting, nor were any other creative writing courses, but anything that gets people through the doors might bring want-to-writers our way.

If you need them, find tips and ideas for start-of-term introductions and exercises by calling up the labels on this blog -- like 'starting term' and 'start of term': 4 entries altogether, what more can I say? (I can say buy the book; also can say, I put this term's new excerpt of exercise and tutor support tip on the book's website http://paxtonpublishing.co.uk)

As an old hand, having taught this course in various versions for several years (Creative Writing: Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey) I won't re-organise my notebook and review my first session plan until 2 days before, so that I am sharpened and energized by the slight adrenalin of performance anxiety. However I have decided to add an element to the course -- one must ever be tweaking in order to keep fresh.

In describing archetypes I tend to talk about films in this course, as well as novels, as there is more of a concensus of those who have seen or at least know the story of some popular movies. But it is a prose narrative writing course not scriptwriting. It's only 5 weeks long, we haven't time to read a novel nor view a whole film nor do people have the commitment to watch a given film as homework (I've tried, but nope).

So I am going to find a short story and photocopy it (one is allowed to, for teaching purposes) so we are all on one hymn sheet. I have several volumes of the excellent annual New Writing anthology sponsored by the British Council (is it still published? I must check), in which I found many good stories to study with my Writers at Work class. I have to find one that illustrates the hero's journey quest structure and (given that it is a short story, not film or novel) some of the key character archetypes. I will let you know what I choose -- and welcome your suggestions.

PS I have added pictures of some of my more recent sculptural papier mache fantasy figures to my Susan Lee Kerr 'holding' blog page. Take a peek http://susankerr.blogspot.com

How to do endings

2010-06-07T16:24:00.011+01:00

See you in early September as we approach the new term. See last para for tips on where to get tips in the meanwhile.

It's hard to teach endings, isn't it? I mean, beginnings are easy-peasy*... or rather, it is easy to spark students with stimulus exercises in all sorts of ways (a picture, an object, a word, a sentence, a memory etc etc) but an ending has to be an ending... of something.

You might think of having students complete a draft of a short story/poem and then make them change to a different ending -- YOU might do that, but I wouldn't. I feel that once a writer has got all the way through to an ending he/she has invested too much in it to flippantly 'stimulus exercise' different endings.

But you can get students to think about different endings -- via lecture and examples from published writers. And -- here's the main exercise I use: get them to mess around with published writers' work. I have a wonderful book called Great Beginnings, opening lines of great novels (Georgianne Ensign, HarperCollins 1993; thank you to dear friend Beverly for the gift of it). From it I have copytyped selected short opening paragraphs. Each student then writes an ending for the opening paragraph she/he has been given. They have not a clue as to what happened in between, but it's extraordinary how the start gives clues for the final few sentences of a work.

We read out, and here we discuss some types of endings (echo, closing the circle, opposite, open-ended, image etc). Then (here's the flippant stimulus-type approach) I make them choose a different way to end (opposite to what they did, or stronger or gentler or happier or blacker) -- that's what I mean about messing around. From this the students get a good working sense of the options and power of the very ending of a piece. This method can work with poetry as well. Now they can go away and consider the endings of their own works in progress (or works yet begun).

*Of course beginnings aren't really easy -- how many times have you re-crafted the opening of your novel, short story, poem, article? It's got to hook and intrigue, got to say enough but not too much, got to have the right tone, language -- the voice. But this is the writing is re-writing part, which all writers eventually have to get comfortable with... without letting it inhibit their initial start.

With all of this ending stuff, guess what? My way of saying it's the end of the term and this blog until September! If you need ammo during the summer check my list of labels for past blogs, especially under exercises and stimulus. And there's an exercise and tutor tip from the book on the Creative Writing: the Matrix website.

Another source of exercises is http://www.mslexia.co.uk/magazine/workshops/workshops.php#latest

Sense-ual writing

2010-05-26T12:22:00.006+01:00

Super to hear from Helen who had a great buzz in her class through using the 8 senses (see my blogs labelled senses) and pictures. Then -- O Creative One -- she went on to focus on senses and poetry, and she suggests an excellent source for poetry workshops. 'All the work's done for you, if you pick a good one!' she says. It is on the Guardian website, and the one she used was by Matthew Francis... I checked it out, YES! Here is the link http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/apr/14/poetry

So thank you Helen and thank you Matthew. If anyone else out there has useful, relevant resources to recommend and creative teaching variations to share let me know and I'll blog it -- one big happy creative mix.

Last pub-gather of my academic year this week; I have sent a reminder to all of my Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey writers. It is fun and rewarding to introduce the new batch to the previous 'graduates' and see this group of local writers build and encourage each other. I don't go every month (got my own bunches of writers to build and encourage me) but I do like to keep in touch.

Remember to encourage all your writers to enter competitions -- the Bridport deadline is in June... must be loads of others too. Make it an assignment: they all have to look up comps and bring them in to share -- online, in libraries, in the Poetry Library, in writing magazines. Like I said, one big happy creative mix.

Creative unblocking

2010-05-18T18:28:00.011+01:00

Alternative title for today's blog is 'The Uses of Silliness' and it comes from Trickster energy, that is, the archetypal Trickster element of the Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey. It was the final class (of 4) last week. I save Trickster til the end because... (a) it takes nerve to present it and (b) it is a good laughing antidote to taking ourselves and our writing too seriously.

First part of the session was writing exercises and talk on Ways of Ending; also reprise on structure/dramatic tension -- why a story needs both a crisis and a climax. (See Christopher Vogler's book, The Writer's Journey, on this.) Then the silly part: little pots of Play Doh, and instructions to paired students to quickly-quickly make a little creature and create a little drama:
they meet, they like each other, they fight, they hug and make up, The End. Fast-fast-fast!

Silly? You bet. Everyone starts giggling and laughing, and I do it with them, and there is NO TIME to be self-conscious or serioso... just time to be quick, childlike and fun. As tutor you have to present it so rapidly that students don't have time to object or think about it or ask questons: be confident, steam ahead!

Afterwards I explain the Trickster archetype -- the jester, the comic side-kick, the banana skin, the puffed-up-ego-deflator, the bringer-down-to-earth, the loosener of soil. In a wonderful talk, Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells the story of Demeter mourning and seeking Persephone http://shop.soundstrue.com/shop.soundstrue.com/SelectProd.do?prodId=1871&manufacturer=Sounds%20True&category=Inspiration&name=The%20Creative%20Fire, when in her moment of deepest despair the impudent Balbo comes along... a bit of the comic erotic. All the same stuff -- the force, often unbidden, that makes or lets us laugh at our troubles. And in so doing gain perspective and refreshment.

I describe a similar but somewhat less courage-demanding (for the tutor) exercise in Cr Wr The Matrix, Exercise 86, Feel Free Joy, page 115; using crayons, pencils, felt markers. I've done it with coloured paper, too; a rapido collage. Any of these are ideal not only for fun, but to loosen a class, a group or an individual (yourself???) to break up po-faced, rigid, blocked creativity... to aid
loose and flowing creativity.

And then it was farewell, Heroes (after the usual evaluate/feedback forms the college needs and I use as my own 'report card' for my own future teaching ideas). And then, off to the pub.

Storyboard and writers' chat

2010-05-11T17:35:00.013+01:00

So last week was the third Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey class, and this coming week it is The End -- shockingly soon, especially because I am used to teaching it as five weeks.

As mentioned earlier, I had to choose the best-of-the-best to squeeze 5 into 4. The new combinations seem to work. Where I used to have The Mentor's Gift (see earlier blog on this using the labels list) in session two, I moved it to session three, so as to get early to the character and plot enrichment of The Shadow (see last week).

This made session three combine the always fun writing-from-an-object Serendipity Bag with a scene writing session and more. I tried something new, and introduced the Scene Storyboard (thank you Robert J Ray and your Weekend Novelist book) AFTER they had written an Approaching the Inmost Cave (Ordeal or Crisis) scene. Again this was because of my time squeeze.

Normally I give the storyboard format as a handout, explain, have them fill in the prompts, and then write a scene. This takes time, so it was a question of skipping storyboard altogether or... following my recognition that actually most people instinctively know what a scene is and how to write it. Or at least they have a good go, which is enough to get started (after all, everything can be improved, and writing is re-writing anyway).

So now (here's the new genius part), using storyboard handout and their own PRE-WRITTEN scene I asked individuals at random, 'What was the place and time of day of your setting?' 'What objects and images were in the scene?' 'What were the large actions?' What could be small actions?' and so on. This made each writer answer from her/his own writing, providing a perfect illustration and discussion point for the lecture-y bits about storyboarding. They were all too shy to read out their scenes, by the way, so this was also a good method to let them show their writing without having to totally expose themselves.

Finally in this session I was able to leave a good 20-30 minutes for writerly chat about overcoming obstacles to writing. This is the Writer's Journey part of the content, and rather than the paired chats and reflective writing we'd done on the writing life so far, by this week the class was warmed and ready for friendly, supportive, open discussion about struggles and strategies for starting and keeping on writing.

Writing exercises that work!

2010-05-04T19:13:00.008+01:00

I'm halfway through my Hero's Journey creative writing class -- did the small group plotting exercise* which, as always, was lovely, exciting, energizing and fun. It's so easy when you can set them up and then... they practically teach themselves.

Meanwhile, hope you'll forgive my presenting you with the big bouquet sent me from Helen who describes herself as a new-ish creative writing teacher and follower of this blog.

thank you sooo much for your brilliant book which is making my class preparation/delivery a cinch!... I've already used the 'write the names of 6 people from your childhood' (and they developed one of those into a character sketch or poem) and the character profile form, based on picking a first name, surname and age at random. They all really enjoyed that - we had some fabulous names (eg: "Desiree Daniels"!! which sounded like a pole dancer, we all agreed...!) and it took ages (bliss!) for everyone to feed back because the'd all been so inspired.
If only I'd had your book when I started out 2.5 years ago... it is going to be my 'bible' for quite a while!

Thank YOU to Helen, who's given me permission to quote her here. And all best to her for carrying on carrying on. Thanks to her students, too.

* this is on pp 74-76 of Creative Writing: the Matrix -- Mini-lecture 8 and Exercise 66

Postcard exercises

2010-04-26T20:10:00.006+01:00

I've just given the how-to's for four different categories of postcards for writing stimulus exercises -- on my website. I change the Exercise extract and Tutor Support extract at the start of each term, so if you are a regular to reading this blog, do go to http://teachingcreativewriting.blogspot.com for your freebie teaching help this week.

If you are new to this blog, arrived here from the website -- well, the website only changes termly, and the extracts are not archived on the site. So that's all you'll get today. BUT if you are looking for exercise ideas just select stimulus from the labels of this blog... and you'll get a choice of ten. And more under other labels. Because this blog IS an archive. Of course you could always buy the book.

But here I am live! (oh yes, new pic of me on the site too). And surviving in the brinkmanship of adult education, hurrah! The class did NOT make its minimum but my line mangagement asked me if I could cover the Hero's Journey course material in 4 weeks instead of 5. So of course I said yes. And their management agreed.

This was all on the morning of the first session. Rapid go-through of my material -- fortunately all organised in my binder and well sunk into my bones because I have taught this 5-week version four times.

Interesting and probably even useful to juggle and refit things -- which were the very very best exercises? Which did students enjoy most? Which capture the salient points of the Hero's Journey archetype for creative writing?

First class went well (and all agreed to stick with the course as 4 weeks for the same fee as they paid for 5; alternative was to close the course). Of course first class is always a wee bit stiff and shy, so I'm really looking forward to second session this week. I am probably moving up the Shadow -- it is a great character deepener -- and the very lively plotting exercise (small group work) which will be a good darkness antidote.

Seriously writing

2010-04-20T20:46:00.009+01:00

Welcome to the start of the third term of the year. If you are teaching a long course you may be flagging by now -- how to keep the students inspired and entertained, how to keep up your energy?

There's nothing like a goal, so this is the time to announce a group or class anthology -- you can make one or several (part) sessions of the topic. I talk about this in my Matrix book, but in brief: you can bring in samples of other class anthologies (you have saved them over the years, I hope; or those produced by, say, your Arvon/Ty Newydd etc week).

Debate/discuss cover, size, page-count, length limitations, deadlines, production -- oh, yes, and content. Should it have a theme? All be new work, a new assignment or inspiration? Or 'best of' work done during the year? This is excellent edtorial experience for students -- a little taste of the publishing business which sheds light on the process and how it relates to their own writing. What I mean is, you can point out how and why writing gets rejected: often NOT because it is not good, but because it doesn't fit the publisher's needs or parameters.

Other deadlines to shoot for are writing competitions -- I have blogged this before, check the 'labels' to find the blogs. June is a time of a number of important comp deadlines.

Meanwhile brinkmanship continues. At the time of writing, my class due to start in two days has not got the enrolment it needs... but then people are still waking up (or stuck due to volcano ash), so maybe by mid-day tomorrow, the college's cut-off hour, another 5 will join.

Otherwise I will have time for my own serious writing on The Gleaner, the resstless life of Ephraim Epstein. I refer you, regarding seriously writing, to my colleague, the novelist, writing coach and all 'round creative energizer Jacqui Lofthouse, who has an online support service and a free, encouraging weekly e-newsletter http://www.thewritingcoach.co.uk -- look her up, and tell her Susan sent you!

Promoting your courses

2010-03-23T19:24:00.014Z

You know how it is when you are building up to writing something? Ideas, information, facts, conjectures, gaps in information, deadline looming like a black cloud on the horizon -- and finally, finally you actually start to write? That's where I am right now on my psychoanalytic psychology 3000 word paper; the relief at last of writing. Even though I have a long way to go and don't know exactly where I'm going, it's a relief.

But I took a break this afternoon to dash over to the college and collect flyers to promote my April-start Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey 5 week course. In fact, I interrupted my psych research reading last week for a precautionary check on enrolment level for the course. Eeeek! Only one person. Hence the emergency action.

So here we are: the brinkmanship of adult education, as always. Nowadays, with all the Further Education cut-backs, and more to come, one is lucky at all to be offering a course. As for expecting the college to promote it -- marketing and admin have their hands full just keeping major courses like EFL, GCSEs and A levels going, rebalancing their decreasing budgets and, often, interviewing for their own jobs as cuts continue.

However, the wish to creatively write is undying and most colleges, like mine, will try to offer some courses to meet this market, along with other perennial 'leisure' favourites like languages and art.

As a tutor, you now can rely less (if ever you could) on your institution promoting your course except for listing it in their major prospectus and on their website. So it is up to YOU to get flyers printed and distribute them. Maybe your place allows you to design your own (easy-peasy with computers for a creative person like you) with a pithy appealing blurb and the essential details.

Mine insists on their own logo and certain format parameters, so I used sweet persuasion to get marketing to update the black-type details (dates, code number) on the flyer they'd designed for the course in palmier days over a year ago. This was after I got the OK from my line manager.

I offered to repro it myself on the college's copier, or to bring it to repro myself. But they very kindly sent it to repro -- and I collected the 200 A5 flyers this afternoon. Very kindly (again) desk staff had put some flyers around the building, which I was going to do. I then walked to the nearby library and asked the desk to pin up a flyer on thier community board, and put a few in their brochures displayer.

You need to learn how things work in your area, make contacts, do your own PR. In my case I walked further on to Town Information with 100 or so -- some for their brochures table, the rest I asked (verbally and via a note) for their central service to send to the libraries around the borough.

As well as flyers at the college and local libraries, here is how else I am promoting the course:

asked the departmental administrator to email students on the two writing courses I substitute taught in February. [Have to take care re data protection, so I could not do it myself]
asked marketing to flash the course on the lobby promotional screens
will email my old writing students who have given me their e-addresses and permission to contact them from time to time. Though they may not want me or this course again, they can forward the info
will email my psych classmates -- unlikely, but as this course draws on archetype, springing from Jung, some may be interested, or might forward
will take flyers to my art workshop group; they are and they know creativity-interested people

This short course enrolled very well for its last three runs, ever since we changed it from afternoon to evening. The fee is very reasonable, the time slot works, the subject and angle appeal -- so it should enrol. Absolute minimum due to the financial situation is 12. Well, good news today is enrolment is up 100% since last week... so now there are 2 on the course. Hmmmm. Fingers crossed and flyers flying, tune in a month from now -- will Heroes run or not?

As usual, I take a break from blogging about teaching creative writing while we are on term breaks. I'll be back 19 April. If you are new or recent to this blog you can go through earlier entries (over 70) to find exercises, tips and ideas to help you in the meanwhile. And there's always my book, Creative Writing: the Matrix. I'm standing by to send it to you for just £10. See my website for more info.

A travel writing class... the 3 further senses exercise

2010-03-15T18:39:00.013Z

Continuing the Writing with the 8 Senses exercise begun in the last blog entry... After sight, sound, taste, smell, touch are the 3 I have invented or discovered along the way. In any writing, including travel writing, conveying these senses can make the experience all the more vivid.

As described previously, after explaining and giving a few examples of each sense I allow a minute or so for the students to think back to their chosen travel destination experience and jot a few memories of this sense. Then I move on to introduce the next sense. This 'turns over the soil' as it were, of the experience. I reassure them that they won't use all of these recollections, but the exercise stirs the memory of the experience to keep it at hand.

Kinetic -- By this I mean body position: awkward, comfy, stretched, cramped, turned, straight... Jot some memories of your travels, for instance:

crouching in a corner of the pickup truck with the other hikers' back-packs pressing into your spine; spreadeagled, luxuriating in the acreage of a king sized bed...

Inner/Visceral -- Similar to both touch and kinetic, but interior sensing in body organs, gut reactions: churning stomach, tight throat, full bladder, scratchy eyes, prickling scalp, gooseflesh, genitals responding (or not). Recall:

the leaden weight of the crepes I shouldn't have eaten on Brighton Pier; the release of the band of tension in my thighs as the shiatsu-master's thumbs got to work

Time -- This is a bit ephemeral, but I mean awareness of differences in a place and experience to do with night/day, evening; light, shadow. Also, time creeps, time whizzes...

Think of Monet's series of Rouen Cathedral paintings -- stone precise and beige, rosy pink and blurred, blue and yellow... how it changes through the day. Also -- the forever when you are waiting for the wine and moules to appear, the blink of time in which the bowl fills up with empty black mussel shells.

Now... now can they write?? No! One more exercise, one of my absolute favourites, #1 in my Writer's Toolkit, page 19 in the book: Bubble Chart. As it says there, and as with 8 Senses it can stand alone as an exercise, but for this class I used the students' chosen travel writing subject as the central focus. Many people know of and use this 'spider chart' method, but a surprising number don't know it. The magic is that it can stimulate ideas and directions, or if one has too many of those it can help to corral and organise them.

In this case I explained that they all now had lots of rich sense descriptions ready, but a travel article needs narrative, too. So focus here on events, anecdotes, things that happened.

I demonstrated on the white board, using Varanasi -- in a circle in the middle of the board. And then (sorry blog-readers, my e-skills aren't up to reproducing this here), dashing out all around this word, splashed down everything I could think of that I experienced --

exhilarating threading through the crowds down to the Ganges, the placid brown cow crossing the road amidst mad traffic, the seat above the crowd as evening came on, the bells, fire and smoke of the priests, the 4 am wakeup, my puja offering -- sank, 2nd offering, marigolds, rose petals, rubbish in the Ganges, the families dipping in, the little boy being dried down by his parents, the old man swimming off, the sun finally rising, my blessing...

Well, actually I didn't put that much on the board, I've just indulged myself here. It's their class. And this basic creative writing exercise was the final stir before I said... Now choose one of the events or experiences and write a sentence or two or a paragrph to begin to describe it...

...and that's the beginning of your article. It was now about 10.30 (class started at 9.30), so I said they could continue to write, or go for a break and come back to write... and we'd write until 11.10, and then read out, if they wished. Or talk about the experience.

Lo and behold, only 3 or 4 (out of 13) students went for a break right away. Over 15 minutes some popped out and came back. Then all continued writing. And at the appointed hour 11 students read out -- some excellent pieces, two of them I would deem ready to submit for publication, many others vivid and colourful... and all were very well pleased with themselves.

And so, the travel writing class ended. There's more I could have said and done -- I have taught travel writing as a 5 week course; also as a 4 week insert in a year-long professional writing and creative writing courses. But for a substitute class, I was well pleased too!

Mentioned earlier, but here at last is the link to my friend Cathy Smith's website with details of her travel writing book http://www.travelarticles.co.uk/info/info.htm#book

A travel writing class... and then the 8 senses exercise

2010-03-08T18:44:00.015Z

We are about half an hour into the 2 hour class (see previous two blog entries), warmed, travel writing ideas in our heads, informed a little about styles and approaches to travel articles. Now at last the class is closer to actual writing.

But I hold them back just a wee bit longer to, as I explained to a query, stir things, loosen the soil. (The doubting or untrusting student; there's usually one in every class.) Besides helping to remain loose and freely creative, this exercise cum lecture could even be seen as adding compost. It is my Writing with the 8 Senses excercise/lecture -- it is in my Creative Writing: the Matrix book and I use it with every new group I meet, the senses being essential to vivid, rich writing.

But this time, for the first time, I wove it right into the travel writing at hand. The exercise can stand alone (see the book), but now, I did it as staged questions, as I talked through each sense. An 'applied exercise' if you like. And we saw/heard in the travel article examples how the senses bring a destination and experience alive.

The first instruction is to chose one travel place from the list earlier (see blog of 15 Feb) that you want to write about today... choose it by gut feel, it doesn't matter which, just the one that calls to you most right now.

And here we go through the senses, the 5 usual ones and 3 I have invented, or rather, discovered. I sometimes invite the class to call out a sense as we go along to cover the usual 5.

Sight -- With your travel place in mind, jot down some of the sights that come to you. Not just general pictures, but specifics, if you can, and not forgetting colours, corners, shapes, textures, flaws, visual rhythms, like

the series of creamy arches at the villa, the operatically flaking stucco of a building in Venice, the missing chinks of pointing in a brick wall...

I give them a minute or two to do this jotting, and then move on to the next sense. I allow this time after each sense (but won't repeat that for you here in this blog).

Sound -- Jot down the sounds of the place. Not just the memorable

call of the muzzein, ringing of bells, plashing of fountain... but also see if you can recall other small or background sounds: children's laughter from out of sight, draft of lager filling up, drone of plane overhead...

Taste -- Food's always good for evoking the here-&-now, what tastes did you encounter in this place? Jot some down, and remember the temperature and feel of food in the mouth as well as taste. And try to capture a taste new to you (and readers)...

it was like thin, moist, eggy bread pudding, with a clear amber-brown syrup tasting half-way to brown sugar and the rest of the way to Vermont. (Trying to do American Challah French Toast with maple syrup, from my trip to New York City last week.)

Smell -- Like taste, recall some smells of the place both familiar and unknown and indescribable. Like my taste sample above, you may have to try new combinations of the familiar to convey a new experience. Also -- don't forget the negatives...

the whiff of sewage, the iron tang of the water, the cellar's mustiness

Touch -- Now, remember some of the physical feelings of the travel and place. Not only hot/cold, rough/smooth but things that touch you (breeze, raindrops, rim of a glass) and things you touch (yak's coat, palm trunk, kelim rug)

Okay, guess what -- I'm going to leave you at a cliff-edge for the three 'invented' senses. Wot a meanie I am. But this blog entry is long enough, and I am on deadline as editor of the British Haiku Society newsletter. So tune in next week!

A little note re Comments -- nice to feel read and appreciated. A couple of emails, too, saying how useful the blog is -- keep 'em coming, share the experience! However, I still won't publish the oriental comments I'm getting because I don't know what they say. Also, I had to remove a nice comment that had its own link attached promoting another education-related website -- sorry, no can do. I will only put links in my blog to sites I have looked at and deemed appropriate to the subject of teaching creative writing, or sometimes of writing itself, but they have to be spot on-target, relevant and vetted by me.

A travel writing class... continued

2010-02-22T15:57:00.014Z

There we are, 25 minutes into the two hours, we're underway in this substitute creative writing class with travel writing the subject (see last week's blog). Students now have ideas buzzing round in their heads and I feel well comfortable and focussed. Time for the lecture part, and here's the gist of it.

OPENINGS & STYLES -- OUTLETS FOR TRAVEL WRITING.
It's important to think about where or to whom you are writing about your travels. Different outlets have different styles, and different lengths, so this affects what and how you might write. For example, I looked at the weekend's newspaper supplements and found these...

... and I read out the openings of 3 or 4 travel articles which were first person, lively, involving. Here is just one example,

When I found myself in a canoe on a huge wilderness lake in Prince Albert National Park, Northern Saskatchewan, sweating and swearing, neck and back stiff with pain, I blamed Richard Attenborough. I never would have known about Grey Owl if he had not resurrected one of his
childhood heroes and made a film about him. (Actually this is an article of a few years ago, by my friend Cathy Smith, whose travel writing how-to book I will talk about later in this blog.)

So you can see that what newspapers and magazines mainly want are a narrative style and the writer's personal experience... the more fun, or amazing, or different or even painful, the better. These pieces are often 800-900 words, sometimes up to 1200... (you need to do a rough count if this will be your target). The length, of course, affects how much of the adventure you can fit in.

Still sticking with the newspapers I moved on to another kind of article opening, the factual. Here is one example of several beginnings I read out:

The Romans invaded Britain in AD 43. It took thousands of soldiers six years to build Hadrian's Wall and the purpose was to mark the boundaries of the great Roman Empire. (Cathy again; walking Hadrian's Wall is the subject of the piece.)

Besides history, geography or mythology, statistics or cultural facts etc can make intriguing openings.

Moving on from print media to cyberspace, I spoke only about one outlet I personally know -- but there must be loads out there: up 2 u to find!! But have a look at Suite 101 http://www.suite101.com/writer_articles.cfm/unclejim which will take you right to Cathy Smith's list of articles... it's a huge site covering lots of subjects and it does pay contributing writers (pennies per click though, you won't get rich this way... )

Point to note with Suite 101 or any online writing is that pieces must be short -- like 350 words. So they tend to be pithy... not so experiential. A bit less fun to write?

Another kind of travel writing is the service piece -- online and in print -- which might be a round-up of ski resorts or city visits or B&Bs in a region etc. Or articles about travelling and the travel business. These are usually written by travel journalists, not worth trying for at this stage.

BUT OF COURSE there is the thought of your own blog! My cousin Lyn in Australia publishes her gorgeous world travel photos and 'journal' in a blog... lots of people do. And here, the personal experience narration will make your blog an involving, exciting -- as well as informative -- read.

So, back to our writing, and my assumption that you want to have fun writing and sharing your travel experience(s), which we will soon be doing. But first we need to take a moment to think about that word experiential, which means thinking about the senses. I am going to take you through a series of questions to loosen up the soil and help you to get WRITING WITH THE 8 SENSES.

ahhh... but this 10 minute marketing lecture is long enough for one blog entry; senses to be continued in 2 weeks, when I return from my travels -- to The Big Apple and to North Yorkshire.

A travel writing class

2010-02-15T11:22:00.007Z

So why not take you right through the two hour creative writing class that went so well (mentioned last week)? The subject was travel writing. Here goes...
On my class plan (I always write one out, to keep me focussed and on track), I listed the following Learning Outcomes/Objectives:

To list and develop travel writing ideas
To consider outlets & styles of travel writing
To practice vivid sense-experience travel writing
To begin a travel article

P.S. You should know that I write those objectives AFTER I have thought and doodled up my ideas for filling the 2 hours with a good pacing of exercises, interaction and straight lecture. Once the draft ideas are tightened I can see that they add up to sensible "objectives" (teaching jargon..., but actually, it helps)

5 mins to intro myself and what we will do and ascertain that they do have a break, when & how (as a substitute I wanted to fit into their patterns, not impose mine -- might make them unhappy...)

Jumped right in and gave them 5 minutes (or less) to LIST 5 PLACES YOU HAVE BEEN TO AND WANT TO WRITE ABOUT... that is, would like to share, tell people about. Someone asked, and my answer was, Yes, as well as holiday places they might be a place you know well, like one you used to live in or visit every year; can even be places right here in your own home area.

When I glanced around to see that most had a list, or at least a list of 3 places, moved right on to CHOOSE ONE, one that speaks to you right now, and SHARE WITH YOUR NEIGHBOR for 5 minutes, then SWAP AND THE OTHER SHARES for 5 minutes. The task each time is for the listener to ASK QUESTIONS. Note-taking isn't necessary, but do, both of you, notice what questions are asked... what do people need and want to know?

The numbers were initially uneven, so I partnered a young woman who had been to Jerusalem just this Christmas. I didn't get to share my Nepal trip with her, because a latecomer arrived and became her partner. It can be hard to join in a chatting exercise as tutor because half your attention has to be on the rest of the class and the clock... Got to remind all to swap roles midway.

Then, 5 minutes for REFLECTIVE NOTES. Pulling them back from the chatter is a challenge! But, hey, they're having fun. This is a little space to calm down and jot down what you spoke of, and to note the questions and what your listener wanted to know, what you wanted to know. (I didn't get round to mentioning it directly, but this brings out the famous 5 Ws of journalism -- Who, What, Where, Why, When -- the keys to clarity and communication.)

It's about 20-25 minutes into the class, and they are well 'warmed'. I'm feeling comfortable and they are fizzing with thoughts. Time now for me to talk at them.... but this blog has gone on long enough, I have to get on with Ephraim (and my morning caffeine fix), so the Travel Writing Lecture, on openings and styles, will continue next week...

Postcards for the edge

2010-02-07T20:27:00.009Z

The substituting for two classes last Tuesday went really well!

In fact I will be so unblushing that I will here quote a comment made in the class at the end of the session by one of the 13 students in the course which has been running since September:

'I think this is the best writing we have all done in class this whole year.'

What a fine compliment. 11 of the 13 read out, and all were good, with a handful so rich and smooth they were publishable; the others were excellent starts just needing to be finished. Sometimes magic does happen.

I think I will make you wait for details on what I did (and what they did) til next time. Instead: the other class, which was a workshopping class. Well, good thing I did bring a 'just in case', as I said last week, because, as opposed to the team leader's assumption, the 2 hour class was not in the habit of workshopping for the entire 2 hours.

So, after the one scheduled writer's slot (that was fun; as well as two stanza'd poems, she'd done a page of 8 haiku, as happenstance has it one of my special areas of knowledge), I provided a stimulus for writing. Introduced thus,

'I suppose you've done lots of excercises with postcards in this class.'

This met with mystifcation -- no! Strange, I'm not sure how you can inspire writing without postcards somewhere pretty soon along the line. I'd chosen some of my weirder ones, assuming they'd have done character and senses work using postcards previously.

The task was to use the picture to write a character's dream. I had been going to do the Postcard Ambush (from my book -- you drop a second card on them as they are mid-flow, to additionally weave into or shift the dream, as dreams do...). But as this was all new to these students, it would have completely thrown them, so they had a one-picture dream.

Of course a dream can take you anywhere -- and so these did, from a fast-running river to a dentist's chair, from a castle garden to a 5-door'd hallway...

Eeek, substitute teaching travel writing tomorrow

2010-02-01T17:05:00.005Z

Ooops, got so carried away with the successful outflow on my great grandfather Ephraim's story that I forgot to blog here this weekend. And now my team leader has just rung to ask me to substitute two classes tomorrow.

Fortunately one is Advanced Workshopping, so I am presuming no prep -- but maybe I'll bring some postcards along for a simple stimulus exercise, in case I'm wrong about that... or in case the workshoppers fail to bring work.

The other is Travel Writing as topic for a Ways In to Writing course -- don't know if they've had any input on it yet. Will assume no -- anyway, my intro to it will have my flavour, the regular tutor's will have had his. Yummy topic, no problems getting people excited about travel experiences... then just have to segue them into writing.

I haven't written/published travel for ages, no longer looking to do that, so I'd better glance at yesterday's travel supplements. And I just browsed through my mate Cathy Smith's Suite101.com site -- she's got 285 travel articles on it! http://www.suite101.com/ Got to suggest students think about cyber as well as print markets, and maybe their own travel blogs.

Some ways to open a story & avenues for publication

2010-01-24T16:24:00.011Z

Hope you didn't forget the Mslexia short story competition, if you are female, that is. Closes 25th January - tomorrow! Here's the link, but if you've missed it, never mind... on the website you can find exercise ideas in their archived monthly workshops -- another good source for you! http://www.mslexia.co.uk/whatson/msbusiness/scomp_active.html

Some ways to open a story, that's the exercise I put on my website for this term, which I realise now I haven't yet mentioned. So if you hit this blog first, or if you haven't recently revisited Creative Writing: the Matrix website, this is the link that will take you right to the goodies. It will get your students pushing and exploring. Dialogue? Landscape? Interior? Character? Cleverly, you can impose your will on them, and expand this exercise to a full, say, 45 minutes, or keep it shorter. http://pages.123-reg.co.uk/sleekerr-1197627/creativewritingthematrix/id3.html

PS if this is your first visit to this blog from the website then you've seen the Sample Inside page for this term -- sorry to repeat! But then if you look at the labels for this blog which began 2 years ago, you'll find a backlog of exercises, ideas and tips -- welcome!

Other avenues for publication is the tutor tip for the term, which brings us neatly to paragraph 1 above. At some point -- and I usually wait til half-way through a course -- you will probably want to stop and explain the world of publication to students. You can make a series of this, a real study looking at publishers' sites and catalogues etc, which adds the kind of market and media reality to creative writing that some institutions insist on these days.

I talk about that in the book, but the freebie tip is about encouraging students to enter competitions, explaining their variations and values. Value as a teaching/learning experience is deadlines, presentation and the experience of not winning (good practice in rejections) or maybe... winning!

e-homework, do you?

2010-01-16T11:30:00.017Z

First of all, try this:

Sun column real reason tip of our own... Our Committee lost our wisdom teeth
and an unfinished of free capacity. Glass Note... a gentle rain, early sense of a shaft of light.
Eternal
old piece of flooding. sky and add Yes we still free.
My last blog entry received a message in Japanese (I assume?) characters. No idea what it says, but Google Language Tools gives the above as 5th of 212 translations. Daren't publish the characters as sent, for who can know (in my lack of language) what it says. One title says Hiroshi customers, the next says Mushrooms Mushrooms.
So, sorry to that commenter, but thanks for the venture into Google poetry. Another translation starts: Pine, wearing morning bath, standing. Another, Sung-dyed piece of yellow gold. Mmm, nice. I do write haiku, so maybe that's the source.
Meanwhile, MoiraG commented back a few entries on the joys of being a student as an aid to teaching creative writing (O Yes). And that set me wondering about 'homework' in our area. My daughter is completing her doctorate in clinical psychology and has to hand in everything in hardcopy AND online -- so they can do accurate wordcount (and maybe plagiarism checks). But that's university for ya. A colleague of mine in adult ed does allow students to send work by email attachment. Myself, I refuse e submissions -- what do you do?
Here are my reasons, as written to a student at the end of last term (having announced and repeated my policy earlier in the course):
(a) why should I have to go to the work, ink and paper-invest of printing it out in my place and my time when I have so much other work and time at the pc and printer
(b) it allows student to send in any old time and feel he/she will get feedback, whereas the time of a tutor at home is spent on preparing for class, and doing feedback on student's work in a planned time to fit the tutor's schedule (the tutor's own writing, other work and life activities)
(c) writers need to learn to meet deadlines and present to parameters set by editors/competitions etc professionally. ie, 'play the game'
(d) it is good writing practice for a writer to print out in hardcopy to critique and revise his/her own work -- to be able to see it whole.
I always only do hand-written feedback on the page, by the way -- when I have once or twice done on screen I end up explaining and nearly editing by way of explaining... can't help it, I'm a writer, I get sucked in. No sir, on the page, puleeeeze.
So am I an old meanie, or what?

Useful writing how-tos

2010-01-08T12:59:00.009Z

Happy New Year, happy new term. And new decade too. Will you write? Will you teach? Will you do both -- the balancing act... let alone learning, earning, living. Courage, strength, faith! I wish you onward.

Do you give out a Writer's Resources List to your students? I do: recommended books to help craft and to support the writing life, also magazines and organisations ditto. This is a different list than the sources I use for a course, one I usually send them away with towards the end as they fledge into the world.

Surely you have your own favourite helps -- and these are no doubt sources for the content and exercises you teach. Today I got an email from a site with a list of '75 Books Every Writer Should Read'. http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/01/75-books-every-writer-should-read/ Worth a look. I am pleased that a dozen on the list are old familiars to me... which makes me think that the rest of them may be of equal calibre.

However, they've left out a few that I have learned much from and drawn upon for both writing and teaching. These are:

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande
Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henrietta Anne Klauser
A Writer's Time by Kenneth Atchity
The Weekend Novelist by Robert J Ray
52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel

Let me know by comments what your favs are. The trouble is... reading these how-to books (I finally realised) takes me away from actually doing my writing. And as I am up and running with great-grandfather Ephraim again (he has arrived in New York City, April 1850), I think I'd better stick to the writing.

The creative process

2009-12-01T13:51:00.019Z

[Last blog for the term. See you here in January 2010, but don't forget that you can search this blog for exercise ideas any time -- see tips at end of this entry.]

'There is also often a feeling, both in the artist and in the recipient, that the artist not so much creates but reveals a reality. It has been said that nobody noticed the mists on the Thames till Turner painted them... Books reveal to us another aspect of reality... the aesthetic experience has to do with a feeling or revelation of some half-perceived, apprehended truth, which is discovered, not invented.'

Hanna Segal there, 1991, Dream, Phantasy and Art, Routledge, London & New York. Page 94. A fascinating psychoanalytic exploration of the roots of art, especially chapters 6 & 7.

The trick for us teachers of creative writing is -- and this is the gist of a short presentation I'm doing for the Melanie Klein and Object Relations class -- how to get the artist/writer/maker into the inventing/discovering process. Of course you can't make a person create; the urge, the wish or even just the curiosity has to be there. Must be there, otherwise the student wouldn't have signed up for your class. (Or are you in an education situation where you have to teach and the students have to do creative writing? In which case your work is to light their fire; same methods can be used.) I believe that everybody has some creativity in them; and everybody -- even experienced creators sometimes -- can use a little help in letting the creativity out... which means a journey inward to discovery.

'Kerr's ideas are inventive, sparkling, and inspiring and she comes up with many useful solutions to commonly encountered problems... Kerr leads potential teachers through all stages of the teaching process.' Extracts from Zuzanna Bartoszewska's review of Creative Writing: the Matrix in Writing in Education issue 49, Autumn 2009. It's the journal of the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) http://www.nawe.co.uk Just had to share that with you, dear reader :-)

LAST CLASS this week. I had a chance at a guest author, always a thrill for want-to-write students. But I have so much to share/do to wrap up the Hero's Journey that I declined. Then we'll be off to the pub for a farewell heroes drink. This is the place where once a month former hero writers and other adult student writers meet to continue the support beyond the class -- a community of writers, how good is that. I drop in now and then to see how they are faring, offer encouragement and to be with writers.

Because of the psyche presentation this will be my last blog for the term. See you here in January 2010, but don't forget that you can search this blog for exercise ideas anytime -- try 'stimulus', 'exercises', 'class materials' and 'starting term' for these. And there's an exercise extract from my book, plus tutor tip extract, on my website for the book http://www.paxtonpublishing.co.uk

Frabjous day and an extra for you

2009-11-22T16:35:00.020Z

Dear followers and new readers, my apologies for missing more than a week of this blog. Last year I was faithful to term-time Tuesdays; this year I've slipped to Fridays, then Sundays... and then came a triple whammy of teaching Hero's Journey and attending Melanie Klein & Object Relations class and being on committee of British Haiku Society -- and having a life besides all these!

Maybe, too, my lapse was a waa-hoooo!! having reached a readable 10,000 words 4-chapter section of the story of my great-grandfather... a long, long, too-long project. I think I needed to flap in the breeze, lose my grip, let go... choose your metaphor. Time to get back in the saddle.

So because I have something to celebrate (see below) and because I feel I owe you reparation (a Kleinian word!) today I'll give you one of my favourite exercises from the Hero's Journey. We are in week 3 now, and the well-bonded class had a great time brainstorming story arcs in a structure exercise. But this one, The Mentor's Gift, is from week 2.

The archetypal concept of the Mentor is a character or force who acts as a guide, teacher/coach to the main character. He or she may give or award the main character skills or equipment or just words of wisdom and support, but always strenghtens the hero's confidence, courage and motivation.

For the exercise, you, as tutor, need to have what I call a Serendipity Bag, a motley collection of objects. Mine includes a tiny teddy bear, an empty cello-tape dispenser, a fancy little hand mirror, a sea-worn shell, a key chain, a coloured-lead pencil, a marble etc etc. After explaining the role of the Mentor, you take the bag around to the students, who one by one plunge a hand into the bag and draw out an item. Ask them to contemplate the object for a bit, and then ask this series of questions, using the example of a ring as illustration. They simple jot or write phrases or a few sentences -- this is an exploratory, stimulus exercise. I direct them to list several ideas, to keep loose and stir possibilities. This is not the time to commit.

1) What physical qualities does this gift have? Strictly its physicality.
e.g., a ring: it is round, circle, whole, hard, gold, shining...

2) What meaning does this object have, what use or function?
e.g., a ring: eternity, bond, whole, joined, perfection, union, marriage, wealth, forever, return...

3) If it had magic powers, what would these be?
e.g., flight, sight, travel, love, riches, power...

4) What could it mean to your hero; when she/he looks at or thinks of it later on in the story, what does she/he feel and think? At their darkest hour the mentor's gift gives the strength to go on.
e.g., 'Love is what matters most'. Or 'Keep faith, believe in him.' Or 'We are together, no matter what.'

This exercise gives the writer insight into the main character (hero), as well as the Mentor. Each time I teach it I draw an object from the Serendipity Bag and do the exercise with the students using a character I am working on. Even using the same character several times I learn new depths of him/her, and get new ideas for the story.

To be continued within 24 hours!! Off to see Bright Star. Back now -- it is slow, but deep. I emerged feeling that I had actually lived at the pace of real life (nearly). It is not 'exciting'; it is real. What's more, my lovely husband recited Ode to a Nightingale to me from memory as I drove us home. Our anniversary tomorrow and dear reader, I'm glad I married him.

* GOOD NEWS! NAWE's Writing in Education has given my Creative Writing: the Matrix a glowing review!

The questioning student

2009-11-08T18:14:00.010Z

Once in India I thought I would like to meet a major guru or teacher face to face. So I went to see a celebrated teacher named Sri Krishna Menon, and the first thing he said to me was, "Do you have a question?"
The teacher in this tradition always answers questions. He doesn't tell you anything you are not ready to hear.
That's Joseph Campbell talking, in an interview by Bill Moyers, from their book The Power of Myth, 1988, Doubleday, New York. Page 67.
It's a pretty good model, I think. But often it means that you are faced with that dreaded silence when you ask a classroom -- 'Any questions?' Guess I'm not a major guru or teacher of the Sri sort... too anxious to wait for long enough for questions to form, I move quickly along to the input I want to share. But... isn't their just being there a kind of question? If students sign up for a course with a given title, it means they want to know something about it, yes?
The question gambit can turn tables. This week a student asked in class, 'What is the point of this course? What will we get at the end of it?' 'Fraid I blanked slightly, so she want on, 'Will we write a short story, or what?'
She'd arrived a bit late to this first class, or perhaps wasn't listening, when I read out the 2-line course description honed by me and printed in the course outline. At that moment the course outline was not in front of me, so I asked 'Do you want to write a short story? If that's what you want to write, you will.'
Not good enough. She went on with a no-but query-demand. This course draws and is designed for people who may be thousands of words into a novel or memoir, and for people who have never taken a writing course before and have only the flicker of desire to write something, and all variations in between. On the hoof, I came up with 'It will help you create involving characters and a narrative with dramatic tension.'
So there's where a question from a student can be good for the teacher -- I'd never put it quite that way before. Maybe that guru was learning from his followers.
P.S. Despite her question, it was an answer she did not want to hear, because at the end of the class the student told me she wouldn't continue on the course...

The joy of being a student

2009-10-31T20:41:00.006Z

Maybe you are working on a Master's degree in creative writing, or maybe you've recently been on an Arvon residential course... or are you, like me, taking a course not directly to do with creative writing? I've just begun my third evening course in psychoanalytic psychology (Freud, Jung, Klein) and my! how lovely it is to be well-taught.

Mickey Yudkin (female), to give credit where it is due, makes each person in the class feel welcome and known by her. Even on day one, she'd say, 'oh, yes, I recognise your name from the list.' And every time someone asks a question or comments she addresses this, and before she finishes she circles back to the person saying something like, 'so that's why it was a good point, Susan' or 'you were right to ask, David.' Very supportive and warming. Even her attention and alertness make me feel that I am being nurtured, that I am interesting, that I am valued, and that she is knowledgeable and passionate about the subject.

Do you ever feel you are running out of steam as a tutor? We creative teachers do pour our energy into our students... there's nothing like a dose of being student of a good teacher to get a top up.

Hero's Journey, the first steps

2009-10-22T19:20:00.005+01:00

Yes, so the brinkmanship of adult education is in my favour this time, and on 5th November the course starts. This raises the issue of prepping, and prepping for a class one has taught quite a number of times -- how to keep fresh?

Fortunately I have a passion about creative writing and about archetypes and the Hero's Journey, so I love learning more on all these areas. I have just finished reading The Power of Myth, an interview series of Joseph Campbell (he of the Hero with a Thousand Faces) by Bill Moyers; publisher Doubleday, 1988 [eeek! well, it's new to me!] Super illustrations and marvellous meaning-and-myth talk. I will add it to my booklist handout for students

Am also reading Writing Fiction, Creative and Critical Approaches, by Amanda Boulter, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. I bought it at the Winchester Writers' Conference in July. Some sound stuff on reading for writers -- and yahoo, she gets into myth and Campbell as well. She has exercises, too, but I haven't read that far yet.

Blogger is playing up right now, so keeping this short. I won't buckle down to looking at my class notes and handouts etc til next week, so the presentation adrenalin builds up to good strong energy for greeting the roomful of new faces.

Deeper into character, part 2

2009-10-16T16:00:00.009+01:00

I am trying to get back to doing this blog on Tuesdays, as I did throughout last year, but our oven sort of blew up -- well, dramatically shorted -- this week; fair amount of upheaval, but now all is sorted.

Continuing with the question of building characters, how to deepen. And how deep need they be? I began noticing characterisation a lot in my reading over the last few years -- I suggest you do the same, and get students to do so too. This is why it is good for a creative writing class to all read a book in common each term.

I like to ring the changes among genres. I have encountered one or two snooty students who refused to read sci fi or chick lit (not that I chose only those). One can learn from all genres, even cereal box backs. In fact, maybe learn more easily, because one is more detached in reading out of one's fav genre.

I have just finished reading Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Now that's character depth. And illustrates the rule -- depth of character requires time with the character, ergo, different genres, different depths of character (a) possible and (b) expected by reader. ULoB has essentially 3 characters (plus the narrator, a strong 4th) and the whole book is about getting to know them; indeed as they plumb their own depths. A fascinating, curious book. For contrast, as mentioned last week, read Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code: tons of characters, lots of action and pace, no time to get to know characters. But it works, of course, in its way. So it all depends.

One of my fav eye-openers to bringing a character alive is a paragraph in Anna Karinina early on, where Tolstoy has Kitty looking in the mirror, just about to descend to the dance where she will see both Levin and Vronsky. I call it 'the hills and dales of thought'. It gives insight into her state(s) of mind, and we live through it with her.

Currently I'm reading Elizabeth George's For the Love of Elena, Inspector Lynley working on a crime. I think she has a good balance of character depth (Lynley, Havers) and intermediate depths and quickly sketched characters. All of them ring true. What do you think?

Good news, my November Hero's Journey course has sufficient numbers, so it will run, hurrah! I have found that re-doing some of its character exercises has let me surprise myself with things I didn't know about existing characters I am working with. Particularly the Mentor's Gift.

Deeper into character

2009-10-07T19:44:00.009+01:00

First of all, thank you and hi! to Nellie59 who posted a little fan note on the Teacher as Host blog entry a couple of weeks back. It is just great to know that Creative Writing: the Matrix has been proving really useful to her in teaching creative writing... if anyone out there has found favourite exercises in the book, or devised variations they'd like to share please get in touch.

I am thinking that at some point I will do Creative Non-Fiction: the Matrix (or some such title), from the many exercises I amassed (is that how you spell it?) in years of teaching Journalism & Professional Writing. It would include feature writing, travel writing, life-writing and other miscellany [have to add blog writing!], including a bit on copy writing... all 'creative' but not the usual thing people get in creative writing classes... yet it is not essays, reports or academia, and people do need-want help in these areas. What do you think, as teacher-writers?

Communicating with a fellow writer Peter Ward; I have just reviewed his book -- Dragon Horse http://www.dragonhorse.co.uk on Amazon. We were talking about deepening character, how to.
The Matrix book has 4 exercises on character (p. 53 onward), but those are pretty basic essentials -- never hurts to go back to basics though! Then later there are 4 more called Deeper into Character (p.84); The Dream and The Scar could be particularly useful if you worry that your characters are too thin. However, some genres don't want deep-deep character (hello, Dan Brown). I think depth of character means dwelling for quite some time inside and with a character's head and heart (hello Marilynne Robinson's Gilead).

More to say on character, but that will have to be next week.

Sense and surreality - plotting exercise

2009-09-28T14:31:00.024+01:00

An interesting little item in 23/09/09 Telegraph reminded me of an exercise that explores plotting and point of view which I did not include in Creative Writing: the Matrix. The news item says psychologists have 'found that bizarre juxtapositions of facts and time frames force people to engage their brain.'*

Researchers at the University of California and the University of British Columbia gave a study group a chopped up, nonsensical version of a Franz Kafka story, while a second group read a sensibly edited version. The first group remembered more and better. Conclusion by psychologists: they did better because they were motivated to find structure.

Their research seems mainly to be about learning (though it also mentions film director David Lynch's work), but I'm interest in that last phrase I bolded. I was trying to get my class to explore plot AND point of view (angle)... the various ways of telling a story, and how the ways then affect the story. It took a fair bit of preparation, worth it for the resulting lively group-work session.

Prep: I took a published short story and analysed, or deconstructed, it into key actions in the narrative. I typed out these key events (synopsis-style, not the actual text); nine in total. Each was only 1-3 lines long.
Prep, cont'd: I printed out 4 copies of this list. I numbered the first event on the first copy #1, as it occurred in the telling of the story. I studied the events and on the other three sheets chose different starting points. (I got quite deeply and creatively involved in this editing task and could see how all versions might conceivably work.) Then I cut up each sheet into strips of the 9 identical events.
In class, I gave each of four groups (2-6 people in each) one set of the story events. But each group had a different #1 starting event. The task was then to put the other events into an order that made sense -- possibly eliminating one if it just would not fit. This took a good noisy 20 minutes.
Then a speaker for each group told its story to the class. The discussion was fascinating as the variations provided different tones to the basic story, differing sympathies, motives and even personalities for the characters, and differing themes. Two groups did not manage to complete the task, but that mattered less than the working at it and all contributed to discussion.
Point of the exercise: to realise how flexible plotting can be, to be creatively free in storytelling, to experience how the sequence of telling a story affects readers' interests and empathies.
P.S. I revealed the order of the original published story (and its author) at the end; some students preferred their own versions!

Point of learning for the tutor: it was a bit confusing and chaotic (surreal!) but very stimulating and open-ended... showing, not telling, students the potentialities of plot and point of view and their effects. It is not necessary to agree, there is no one right way.

*The study is published in Psychological Science.

Teacher as host

2009-09-20T20:21:00.014+01:00

Back to school -- autumn still always feels like the real start of the year to me, so Happy New Year.

If you teach primary or secondary school you've been in place for a fortnight or more, if adult/community education a week, if university or continuing higher education you still have a week or more before you stand up in front of your students.

See previous blog entries tagged First Class, Start of Term, Stimulus for ideas on short, sparking exercises to get people writing -- this week I'm thinking more instead of YOU, the teacher.

Flying back from a holiday (Lake Como, since you ask) I browsed through British Airways' magazine aimed at business readers and happened on a feature useful to us tutors. I clipped and saved it -- but blast! it was here on my desk before the university son used my pc, and it's gone now (surely he can't have... nah, he's a chemist and a drummer). So I will dredge up the tips I recall -- for businessfolk, it was on on giving presentations. But the advice is excellent for teaching:

think of yourself as the host of this group before you... what does a host do? welcomes people, helps them to feel relaxed and in friendly circumstances, makes clear he/she is glad to see them
be clear -- in yourself and to your audience -- what you are here to do, to say, and why they are here
prepare in advance, know what your main message is, keep focussed
use notes or bullet points if you must, but don't read from a page; ideally your preparation and your passion for the subject provide natural liveliness and information
speak clearly, project your voice, watch audience faces and body language to be sure they are receiving your communication
smile! make eye contact
move about; don't cling behind the table/desk/podium, step to the side, or even into the audience (ideally for creative writing tables are arranged in a U-shape, or boardroom style)
be flexible, allow for interruptions, adjust pace and order if needed, bring things back to the main message of the session

So there you are, creatively writerly businessly presenting -- hosting your audience into their new or growing creative world. See also the blogs tagged planning or preparation.

Sparking the Written Word

2009-06-26T11:34:00.007+01:00

Farewell for this academic year, but it's not quite all over for me. I am off to Winchester next Friday and have a slot for writers or teachers who want to teach creative writing. That's the title above.

Woke up in the night this week (as one does) and got to thinking about it, even though I had decided not to plan it til next week. A bit of insomnia can be very useful! It is only one hour, and the tough part of this brief is that the teachers might be teaching to 9 year olds... or 90 year olds. I want to pack the session with interactivity, so have decided on:

The Rant
Stone Writing
Postcard Prompt
Gift-of-Writing

Each of these is an exercise in itself, but I also will use different instructions to lead each one, and also point out how each draws upon a different inner source. Why and how did I choose these, I asked myself in the night -- came up with a list of 7 reasons which add up to Voice. Teaching creative writing is about helping a person to find her/his own voice.

If you want one of these (end of year freebie) contact me via comments or profile. Better yet, buy Creative Writing: the Matrix!

I have just completed my CPD for IfL via Reflect online. The simple IfL declaration is easy-peasy, but you don't put in details -- no sense of accomplishment. The Reflect blue-coloured step-by-step on the IfL site is simple to use and more fun. I suggest tackling it in 2 - 3 sessions. Does NOT really take that long, but learning a new click-path is wearing. I got cross when I got to the 'send to CPD' stage and had to perform yet another (simple) series of clicks. Anyway, all clicked and on board now.

Have a happy writing summer! Back in mid September -- but if you are new to this blog, feeling urgent and planning a new course, do look back on blog entries of the last 18 months where you'll find plenty of ammo.

How'm I doing?

2009-06-16T12:31:00.013+01:00

Here is my self-critique following the 1-hour Hero's Journey class I gave last week (see Quart into Pint Pot Challenge blog of 2 June). I do this on the back of the class plan after every class I teach, an aide-memoir to tweaking improvements.

Went all right, a well-gelled class of committed writers. BUT I read out from an article arguing for myth/narrative. Maybe it interested them but felt like a droning start to me. Won't do that again, because I still had to explain Hero archetype overview (w/ handout), which is yet more me talking. Finally got to 'Your call to writing' pair-chat and it felt alive. Mentor's Gift they all liked and all reported what they found from it. No time to write a scene, but I told them about it. Be clearer, repeat that it is not a formula.

Another way I assess my teaching is by direct student feedback. I begin every course with a half-sheet asking what they are currently writing, what stage of writing. This helps me to tune the level of course content and my own expectations. Final class, I return the sheet and ask how they felt about the usefulness of the course, and for any specifics they liked or not, any ideas for change.

Tedious, perhaps, when they have one or more assessment questionnaires for the college as well, but I encourage them to be open and to help me out. When I take these home it's always a little 'hold my breath' moment -- will I get a stinker? But then any negatives are a guide to improvement. By now the 5-week Hero Writer course is pretty well tweaked, it seems. From one 'report card':

We got so many ideas and were allowed to work creatively whilst learning important skills at the same time. I loved the structure of the hero's journey as a framework to help you write and particularly enjoyed the Mentor's Gift and the little bits at the end, the Writer's Journey.

So, that's all right then. The sort of negative comments were only in the form of 'I want more of this' -- a longer course, more of the Writer's Journey aspect (internal process of becoming a writer), more courses from me. So that's all right too!

The academic year is almost done -- hope you teachers/writers get useful report cards too. I'll be blogging next week and then taking the summer off, getting on with my own writing.

Planning farewells

2009-06-09T18:06:00.007+01:00

Tis the season of farewells -- end of term, of course, of year. Maybe I am a bit late in suggesting this to you now, maybe not: a class anthology to round out your course?

The important thing is to make a learning experience of it. Do NOT choose the samples of work, reproduce and put it together yourself. No, no, no.

Bring in anthologies from previous classes, or from other writing gatherings (the Arvon week I attended did one, and many medium-level competitions issue anthologies of winning entries). These show your class the range of simplicity (photocopied pages stapled together) to sophistication (a www.lulu.com booklet) so your students can decide what to do.

Then set out the editorial and production realities, and get the class to discuss and make decisions. This is what makes it a lesson in publishing, so that writing students may come to appreciate some of what publishers do for them. What size, how many pages = how many, how long contributions are.

Will there be a theme? New writing for the theme? Or selections of existing writing? What about a title? Cover design? Someone has to do table of contents. Someone(s) has to collect, collate and then number pages -- is it going to be done all in one style of font and layout? Therefore is proofreading needed?

And don't leave out the fun bit where writers get to write their own short author description for a listing at the back. Or front. Or at end/start of each piece.

And then there's reproduction. How many? Will your teaching institution do it? At no charge? Or do students have access to photocopying, or do they club money and take it to a copyshop?

Whew -- a lot of work. So it is not up to tutor but up to proud writer-students to do the work and learn from it. A class anthology makes a wonderful souvenir of the course for everyone -- including you, the tutor.

Quart into pint pot challenge

2009-06-02T20:38:00.009+01:00

Quarts into pints or litres into halfs, the challenge is to boil down or skim off a course-worth's material into a 45 minute class. I am substituting for a writer-tutor buddy who has asked me to tell her class about Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey.

Well, hmmm. I first devised the course as 6 one-day (10 am - 4 pm) workshops over an academic year. That is, first session class was on Hero, second entirely devoted to Thresholds, Guardians, Allies etc. It worked well and we had oceans (well, I am talking myth here) of time for writing and for discussion.

A couple of years later I re-jigged it as a course of five weeks, 2 hours per session. Less time to write and discuss in class, fewer readings out of material. But still, it works well -- that's the course I just finished teaching. To run again in November.

But in 45 minutes -- what to do? I don't want to drone (I mean lecture) on and on about the hero concept and its many parts. I am much happier -- that is I feel and see that I am reaching students with my teaching -- when they write and we interact. So I must work in one exercise -- which one? This class is pretty well established and most are engaged on a work in hand, so my standard Character Profile beginning does not feel right.

I think I have decided on Mentor, with my Serendipity Bag of odd items (some very odd indeed). It is a useful way for a writer to gain insights into a character she/he thinks they know already. It uses staged questions. I have done it with the class each time, and it has suprised and enriched me every time.

I met a mingling of two former Hero writing classes at the pub last week and sought the opinion of one writer-on-the-journey. She liked the postcard exercises most of all, but saw my reasoning and liked Mentor too.

I will let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, if you don't know what staged questions, character profile and serendipity bag are -- buy Creative Writing: the Matrix!

Birds don't brag

2009-05-20T19:31:00.008+01:00

Feeling a little blue today -- maybe because tomorrow's the last Hero's Journey class. We will cover the Resurrection of the protagonist, and dwell on endings. Never sure of a good exercise for endings, so I looked up endings in this very blog, wondering what I have said before. Lo and behold it was this very week one year ago that I wrote about endings! How enthusiastic I sound, and it reminds me that the class I planned did work well. If you need endings ideas, go there.

I'm also covering the Trickster archetype, and will repeat the risky venture I took last year, using play-dough for a lively funny exercise. Trickster loosens things up!

Meanwhile, here is something from the day-by-day calender my sister the artist makes for family and friends every year. At this moment it strikes home:

Birds don't brag about flying.
They don't write books about it
and then give workshops,
they don't take on disciples and
spoil their own air time. -- Tukaram

That old writing/teaching pull. I think it is time for me to write.

Commas and creativity

2009-05-12T15:34:00.018+01:00

Hey! It is Adult Learners' Week! See http://www.niace.org.uk for info. I should have told you weeks ago.

A challenge this week, and one that arises in just about every creative writing class -- commas. Okay, colons, semi-colons, run-on sentences, non-sentences and apostrophes, too. Mostly my adult students arrive with punctuation and grammar skills, but now and then someone gives me a good, or even excellent, piece of writing marred by flaws in basic language craft. What to do? How to help?

I'm intuitive at punc & grammar -- I guess I was taught right somewhere early on, plus I was raised reading The New Yorker, and my father was a journalist, my mother an avid reader. It's all to do with the rhythm of writing. I know how to do it, but I can't teach the rules. What's more, I don't want to; I'd rather create!

So when I get a good piece with commas randomly splashed about (or not), my copy editor's hand and mind can't resist a lightly pencilled correction. But I hate to give back work all speckled with these picky little marks. On the other hand... if a sentence doesn't make sense... well, it's not very creative if a writer interferes with his/her own clarity of communication, is it? Therefore, fab as a piece might be, it has got in the way of its own creativity. Of course I always feedback on all the good aspects of a piece of writing -- in bigger, stronger comments.

Can anyone out there recommend a super-duper punc & grammar book for creative writers? Fun, correct and NOT BORING? To my student who asked this week I am going to suggest the best I know of, including two evergreens:

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and EB White; my copy is Allyn & Bacon, 1979, Massachusetts, but the orginal was 1935, with updates 1959, 1972. A slim and amazingly enjoyable read.
Fowler's Modern English Usage, Oxford University Press (regularly updated). A huge tome, very specific. The section on commas is enlightening, and there's everything else, from a to z.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, Profile Books, 2003, London. Very entertaining, explains why things like commas got the way they are and gives entertaining guidelines, too. Was on the bestseller list for ages.

The jam-packedest writers' conference ever

2009-05-05T19:51:00.007+01:00

Have you ever been to or heard of the Winchester Writers' Conference? I went for the first time a few years ago, drawn by its biggest, most wonderful plus -- in-person working editors and agents you can book for a short 1-to-1. Dates this year: 3-5 July 2009; sessions are limited and first come first served, so move quickly if that's what you want. But there's more!

The Saturday offers 5, yes five, 1-hour activities or lectures led by experienced speakers on your choice of a range of 60 subjects (I just stopped to count). Titles range from 'Writing for Children' to 'The Best Dialogue Exercise Ever' to 'Everything You Wanted to Ask an Agent' -- and more, more, more.

You can come Friday - Sunday (more stuff going on on Friday), or just Saturday, or there are even week-long workshops. Extra speakers, writing competitions, optional tour to Jane Austen's home, meals, student bar, friendly fellow writers and a room in student halls on the pleasant hilly University of Winchester campus are all part of the event, which is now in its 29th year. Winchester town itself is also worth a visit.

This year I am attending as a speaker, in the Special Subjects category: Sparking the Written Word: Especially for Teachers. In the section about speakers they have billed me with surname as Lee Kerr. Oh well, at least L and K are near each other in the alphabet, so I am not hard to find.

So do suggest this to your students (if appropriate) or yourself (ditto). Prices, booking etc: have a look at the site http://writersconference.co.uk/ and you can also send for the info in printed form. Maybe see you there!

The passion of writing and teaching

2009-04-28T17:50:00.009+01:00

Paperface commented on the last blog: about wanting to write... and wanting to teach writing? I must hasten to say it's not a job -- it's a life.

I think that writing and teaching each have at their hearts a generosity. Or maybe it's a compulsion to share. Paradoxically, it is selfish at the same time. Or I find it so. Because both are creative and need interiority and time, time away from people, in order to find the stuff... the what-you-want-to-say. I need journal-writing time, thinking time, researching time if it's that kind of thing, reading time, organising time, admin time, actual originating time, editing or going-out-to-teach time.

You're right, it sounds like a full time job. Good thing my husband is a creative person too -- we hole up in our corners and get on with our projects. However, none of the above pays much at all; hardly at all what a 'real job' pays. You've just got to love it, the life and the creative satisfaction.

Of course I left out another big important element: procrastination time! That's where teaching is so useful -- a class awaits, so that's a real deadline. And there's the lovely person-to-person engagement of direct communication -- an antidote to the shut-away time.

To all who wish they were novelists -- half your battle is done. The main secret is to WANT to write. The next is to actually write. That's what the teaching is about... leading the want into the do.

Stone Writing

2009-04-20T13:06:00.006+01:00

I said stone, not stoned! Here is a stimulus exercise I love to teach.

Confession: if you have arrived at this blog from my Paxton Publishing Matrix website, it's the one I used on the termly 'sample inside' page. Okay, yah, saving my energies. But tune in next blogweek and you'll find something new. So, the exercise:

Just like collecting postcards to use in class, I love picking up stones or shells when out in nature. In fact, I can't resist -- it's not for teaching, it's for me. So, out walking or in a shop, collect a small boxful of semi-precious stones in their wondrous variety of colours, textures and patterns. You can add stripey, sparkly or textured stones picked up at the seashore and rocky streams. Or run a variation on this, using seashells.

Find a good container, say of rattan or woven grasses for an elemental feel, or of velvet or lacquer, associating with valuable treasures. Proffer the container, letting students choose one of nature’s objects, then contemplate, bubble and write for 10 minutes -- whatever comes to mind.

This usually brings excellent freewheeling results, but some other time you can prompt them if you wish, for instance:

Where has this been?

What does your stone remind you of?

Who found, or who treasures this natural item, and why?

If it could talk (or if it had a smell, or if it was once a person)

And now for good news: my Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey class has made healthy numbers in the great enrolment gamble, so ho for a new cohort of heroes starting this week.

Winchester Writer's Conference 3-5 July 2009, and I have a lecture slot. Here's the link, more on it next time.

Planning forward

2009-03-22T17:50:00.003Z

I had an unusual and wonderful class experience this week, turning up to my group of experienced writers with NOTHING PLANNED. That's because the agenda was: what next?

This is the NIAMO (Novel-in-a-Month) class which ended before Christmas. Nine participants wrote a total of 215,545 words (every word counts!). We are hooked on this addictive practice. A fascinating session of sharing and discussing our aftermaths, self-crits (not toooo harsh) and hopes.

When I floated the idea of a gentle reading out session the response was uncomfortable silence; I do not disagree... there is a wrong time to read out and get feedback (workshopping). Mid-precious-flow is the wrong time.

We want to continue that writing flow... but finding 30 days this time of year is hard. Mutual solution: monthly 'sustenance' sessions of the NIAMO 15-minute group writing experience to get us through to a full 5-week course in the autumn. We couldn't end without writing however -- one 15-minute bash provided the flow-feeling-fix.

Breaktime, folks! Have a good Easter holiday, I'll be back to this blog weekly about 20th April -- as I find out if my Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey class has made its numbers and will run.

Stuckness Prompts - part 2

2009-03-13T20:40:00.005Z

And here's the other half of the '8 Days a Week' which I began last week; see the explanation there:

Your character takes a dislike to someone.
Dinner last night.
Your character tells a lie.
Write into your created world something that happened in your own life this week.
Your character chooses something that reveals something new about himself/herself.
Your character assesses how she/he looks.

Yes, I know I said the other half. So there should only be four prompts -- consider this your lucky day: a bonus!

This week my deadline pressure is an essay for the Jung course I am taking; working title, 'Jung and the Hope of Art'.

Stuckness Prompts

2009-03-07T15:51:00.005Z

Lo and behold, following my blog appeal late last week, Moira reached me! [hi, Moira] So I was able to supply her the promised Stuckness Prompts from the 26 Nov blog entry. Still doing penance for having missed those comments, I continue with stuckness this week, so nobody has to ask -- here it is in the blog.

I created '8 Days a Week' for my class who were deep into their own pieces. The writers were in completely individual worlds and stages of their work in hand, and by the 'rules' of novel-in-a-month method should have been writing every day. They should have overcome the blank page freeze syndrome for themselves, as part of the experience, but I softened and provided this emergency escape. The report back from the writers proved this a worthy invention.

It is an envelope for each writer containing 8 slips of paper -- each envelope bearing the student-writer's name. Each slip has a starting phrase or situation, very simple and sketchy to allow for the variables in their work -- I printed out the sheet of them and cut into slips. Each writer got the same slips... but might have drawn them out in any order, and NOT every day. Instructions: to be used Only for Stuckness.

The phone rings.
(If yours is a period world, then There’s a banging at the door.)
Your character is bothered by a dream he/she had last night.
Everytime it rained she…
(Everytime it rains he…)
Something reminds your character of her/his mother.

Cheat! I will supply the other four next week. Because right now I have to continue my task as editor of the British Haiku Society quarterly newsletter, the brief. Eeeek, on deadline.

Desperately seeking nellie & moira & bryan

2009-02-27T20:11:00.004Z

Three kind blog-readers posted comments back in January, and I have only now seen them! I thought I'd taken care of my change to new pc, new server, new email address for my blog, but seems it didn't penetrate all the layers.

So I never got the alert and didn't look back to see the comments. Very sorry!! Bryan said re 11 December he's a Nanowrimo veteran and he likes a teacher sharing the journey...

But especially nellie and moira, in January, commented on Writing Students Demand Homework (26 Nov 2008 blog) and asked for the Homework sheet choices and Stuckness prompts I offered.

But now I reveal my total pooterishness -- I cannot figure out how to reach them. So I hope you are looking at this dear bloggees (is that a word?). For them, and for anyone else, the best way to reach me, so that I can reach back to you, is to go direct to my Matrix book Paxton Publishing website, from where there are direct email routes to me. Also, I suppose, by asking you to go to this trouble it shows that you really really do want to get in touch. Or else you can instruct me on blogspot procedurals! Humble apologies.

Sweetie Jar Exercise

2009-02-26T20:22:00.007Z

I promised creativity after last week's tutor admin topic, so take a word, any word. Or take about a hundred words. Here are a few from the big list in Creative Writing: the Matrix (Exercise 20: Word Box):

additives
ballerinas
cable
diplomas
eagle
... zip

Tutor's preparation part is to type, print out and cut up into one-word slips of paper. Fold once or twice and put them in a great big sweetie jar or kitchen canister. Looks especially intriguing if you print out on sheets of different coloured paper.

The fun part -- each student pulls one from the jar, then has to write for 10-15 minutes. You can leave it as freewriting or direct further as to fiction (story, character, dialogue...), feature, whatever.

My favourite solution to the moanie ones who hate the word or feel stuck -- MUST stay with your drawn slip, but instead write:

why you hate it/feel stuck, what bothers you
about the opposite
about anything it makes you think of, any tangent

Try to get those word slips re-deposited in the jar and this makes an ever re-cyclable exercise, that bit of stimulus in your tutor bag of tricks to use whenever needed.

What is the meaning of lifelong learning?

2009-02-19T19:44:00.011Z

The above question headed a Guardian article on September 9th 2008 and I'm very sorry I didn't tell you about it at the time. If you want to keep teaching in adult education you need to keep at least a bit au fait with the (drastic) things happening in that sector. Spending, budgets et cetera... not very creative but it does affect us teachers of creativity.

That article announced the formation of the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (Call), a banding together of bodies (stakeholders, if you use that kind of language) to lobby and pressure politicians re lifelong learning. It could be that U3A (University of the 3rd Age) is what/who we all come to rely on for providing what's called informal adult educaton.

If you are that way inclined, for an update see http://www.callcampaign.org.uk/

For a more recent Guardian article on further education for older adults, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/20/furthereducation-longtermcare

These nifty shortcuts to news-right-up-our-alley come to me via the Instititute for Learning http://www.ifl.ac.uk They send a quarterly e-newsletter with news digest links; IfL is also 'our' body for official registration as a teacher in further education.

Frankly (my dear) politicking is not my thing, so if you want even more directly writers-who-teach-creatively news and conferences etc don't forget the National Association for Writers in Education http://www.nawe.co.uk You can even list yourself on offer to go into schools etc. NAWE addresses creative writing teachers going into schools, universities and community (which includes further education).

End of commercial. I see my private writing coachee tomorrow. Next week I will be more creative, less administrative.

Senstive Flowers & Other Pitfalls

2009-02-13T00:12:00.005Z

Sensitive flowers & Other Pitfalls, that was my alternative pitch for the Winchester Writers Conference session giving support to teachers of creative writing. Along with Pitching Your Creative Writing Course.

What do I mean by Sensitive Flowers? For the main thing, students whom you must be tuned to, those you quickly discern (or I do, anyway) who have had a bumpy mental or emotional ride. This may show in the subject matter of their writing, or in the quality of their writing or attitude towards writing. Unless you are trained in counselling and running a writing-as-therapy class, be gentle and tolerant, and don't go too deep in helping or criticising.

Others in the flower bed include the blocked student, the fearful gadfly, the introverts... what they are and what to do? To be continued...

Pitching Your Creative Writing Course?

2009-02-05T14:00:00.004Z

What do creative writing tutors want? I have just finagled a chance at a slot at the Winchester Writers Conference in July 2009 in support of my Matrix book. Here's your chance to tell me what you'd like to spend a 2 hour session on. The market is lots and lots of wannabe and currently published writers -- if you don't know the Conference, it is a festival of loads of workshops, plus chances to meet agents and name authors. So... some of them might want to teach, and some already are teaching.

I'm thinking of: Pitching Your Creative Writing Course. Does that appeal as a title? Now must drum up 25 word blurb.

New topic: here's a lead if you have a degree and want to do one-to-one teaching. This topclass outfit has need for tutors in all subjects, all over the UK. The students are mainly secondary school age; some degree level too. Have a look http://www.fleet-tutors.co.uk

Got to dash now -- off to improve my knowledge of Chiswick House where I am a volunteer guide. Hello, Palladio.

Share the goodies

2009-01-29T18:59:00.006Z

Tis the season... to turn your students on to the joys of the residential writing experience.

Arvon and Ty Newydd are the two main organisations (that I know of -- please tell me of others!) that run weekend or 5-day courses, deep in the countryside. They've recently released their 2009 programmes: inspiring reading.

Of course YOU've probably been on and/or know of these. I'm always surprised when an aspiring writer has never heard of them. But then... once it was new to me too. My first go was Arvon in Lumb Bank, near Heptonstall -- ah yes, the pilgrimage to Sylvia Plath's grave, the chill and the rain, and most of all -- the company of poets! And leadership of real published poets -- Anne Stevenson and Fred D'Aguiar it was.

What a confirmation of being 'a real writer' the residential is. I also tell students that it is an excellent way to get to know the real world of getting published, and to make contacts in that world. And I do caution them -- though you'll have an inspiring time, don't expect to get a lot of writing done. It's more for stimulation than retreat.
http://www.arvon.org
http://www.tynewydd.org

The Glastig and what she did

2009-01-23T15:15:00.009Z

I substituted for my over-committted (a film script meeting!) teaching buddy again. Decided to KISS (keep it simple, stupid) after my last ad hoc was too complex for me to get across quickly. (see blog of 11/05/08)

Monsters and Fabulous Creatures was the subject. Using definitions from the Wordsworth Word Finder, a reference book I've had for years, a treasure trove of unusual and technically precise words arranged under categories.

Within an hour we had tall tales, a bizarre news report, strange experiences and -- transposing the stimulus -- a character sketch. The 'sharing the journey' issue came up (see blog of 11/12/08), so, yes, when asked, I read out what I'd done, and here it is. Just in time for Burns' Night.

The Glastig
How did I get here?
Winding roads, wrong turns,
my arthritis playing up and then
– the right way! She was so kind
and Celtic. That porcelain skin,
the dusting of freckles,
the lilt in her soft voice, och ay!

How did I get here?
Bloody hell, ten miles wrong,
my rucksack strap broken, blister
on my heel. She was so kind,
dressed in green, a local for sure.
When I looked back I saw her leap
up to a rock. Her laughter bleated.

Teaching aids

2009-01-12T11:11:00.007Z

Happy New Term. Some started last week, some this, some next... and this time of year we all need new juice. So stock up on art postcards for class materials! There's time to catch exhibitions that close mid-January... and to recce the new openings due late Jan/early Feb. Some I've just seen in London:

The National Gallery's Renaissance Faces -- so many character beginnings you can make from a good face. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/renaissancefaces/default.htm

The Royal Academy's Byzantium -- it has numerous fantastical animals; I have one exercise where I get people to make up a beast's name and invent its habits, history and lore. This can turn into a poem or a tale. http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/byzantium/

I have just discovered the Pangolin Gallery at the new King's Place, near King's Cross -- its current small sterling silver sculptures are rife with story if you set an exercise with that end in mind. http://www.pangolinlondon.com/

So build up your collection of inspiring postcards and treat yourself and your students to some new stimulus. If you are a truly free freelance tutor, some of the purchase expenses may be tax deductable (check this with your accountant or tax inspector). As well as buying art postcards you can cut out pics from brochures and paste them on index cards. (Or from websites, but it is more soul-and-creative feeding to go out to galleries). Happy new writing!

Sharing the journey with students

2008-12-11T15:58:00.011Z

Do you write along with your students when you set exercises? I do sometimes. Rather than stay aloof and teachery I plunge in. Obviously, it shows students that I'm on the writing journey with them. Even better -- sometimes the exercises actually help me on current writing.

Example: I have just completed teaching a Novel in a Month course and joined students in the 45 mins daily uncritical writing that makes the process work. Delighted to say that I ended up with 27,000 words. The goal was 50,000 so it was a demo that it's okay to miss goals. Also, I shared my agonies over the first 2 days of horrible blank-page rubbish with my fellow writers. No one made it to 50K, but several produced bigger wordcounts than mine. It's not a competition, I remind us. The course is based on the principles of http://www.nanowrimo.org a website of international madness-of-noveling.

Other example: Also just finished teaching Writer's Journey/Hero's Journey, and used two of the exercises to explore and deepen the protagonist who presented herself in the above-mentioned Niamo course. Synergy!

Ending the term with a flourish -- former long-time student Mike Gordon came to class to talk a bit about his handsomely self-published novel, Tracks. It's a techno-thriller, action-packed, with loads of characters. See http://www.trackksthebook.com Good for him, good for me, good for the class of new writers to see. And off to the pub afterwards for cheers.

That's it from me for this term... tune in 2nd week of January 2009 when education wakes up again.

Why do we write?

2008-12-03T23:35:00.008Z

Pleased to say that InTuition, the quarterly magazine of the Institute for Learning, has run my response in its Ask the Experts feature. In the autumn edition a college art lecturer said students asked 'why do we draw?' And thinking of our own students I was moved to respond:

...my creative writing students don't ask 'why do we write?' except when groaning over procastination. But I know that they write for the same reason students draw. To draw, to write, to make, is to capture something. It is about process, not end product -- except for commercial art or copywriting or journalism.

This art-making may express some aspect of the inner self the artist didn't even know was there. The satisfaction is in the process of discovery. The result displays the maker's voice, a unique angle on the world.

Another reason people make art is to assuage the essential loneliness of being human -- if I reach out in paint or words and you respond to my work, we have shared something, we have communicated, even if we never meet. Maybe only the artists themselves know why they create, and that knowledge can't be put into words. Why do we draw? Never mind. If we are impelled, we just do it.

Thanks to IfL for airing my views. It is the organisation all FE teachers have to register with these days as part of required professionalization (word??!!) of our kind of teaching. See my other IfL blog entries (gov't tutor registration) for more info and links. The current query asks how 'value added' works...

Writing students demand homework

2008-11-26T16:41:00.005Z

Back to the present, as it were, my new pc, new server, new email address settling in. I hope. As I was saying, surprise, delight and demand came to me from students last week, in the form of requests for homework.

Maybe writing students have changed, or maybe I'm doing something differently. When I began teaching creative writing and asked students to bring in something done at home for the following class -- and planned a good 15 minutes to hear these and give feedback -- I was sorely disappointed. And left with an embarassing gap in my planned 2 hours.

I've learned since then how to fill sudden gaps (pairs talk on latest writing need etc; or a spot of reflective writing). Still learning: how to give homework on demand.

One class has a lot of new-to-creative writers, new to classes too. Very shy of reading out. So I devised a takeaway sheet with a dozen or so possible scenes, situations or monologues to choose from. These jump off from information and exercises covered so far in class.

For my other class, more advanced and deep into their own pieces, I created '8 Days a Week' -- an envelope for each writer containing 8 slips of paper. Each slip has a starting phrase or a situation, very simple and sketchy because the writers are in completely individual worlds and stages of their work in hand. Instructions: to be used Only for Stuckness. They should really endure and overcome the blank page freeze syndrome for themselves... but I've softened and provided an emergency escape.

If anyone out there wants to know the Homework Sheet Choices or Stuckness Prompts, contact me via comments.

Writing students demand homework!

2008-11-20T00:17:00.008Z

argh! Blogging, internet wobblies and changing email address has done me in. See you next week.

The size & timing of creative writing

2008-11-12T17:15:00.004Z

Wow. Started my 5-week Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey course last week, enrolled to the max of 19, with 3 others who turned up. First of all there's Health & Safety, and more than that: rather a lot to teach such a subjective, experiential discipline. But then, I asked for it.

I ran the same course in spring in the afternoons and it drew only 6 people; worse, the summer school repeat had not enough to run. So I proposed to Team Leader that we try evenings. And there you have it, with wings. So much of adult ed is the right time for the right subject for the right market. To bear in mind when pitching your ideas and slots.

These days, too, I think short courses are the way to go -- less commitment for new and/or busy people, and less costly. Of course less money for you; but then more time for your writing.

How to handle such a big group? The course is not planned for workshopping so no one is expecting to read out and get feedback. My plan in any case was to do several exercises per session, some very reflective or brainstormy, thus not suitable for reading out. However, it is nice to hear some work, pour encourager les autres. And, interestingly, the majority are beginners, new to creative writing classes.

So: I will put them in pairs to share some writing done in the session; or even just to talk about it. This gentles newbies into reading out and, just as important, creates supportive bonds of friendliness.

But I will ask for volunteers and hope I get one or two next time, when we advance to Obstacles & Allies.

KISS in substituting

2008-11-05T16:54:00.004Z

Recently I substitute taught a general creative writing and workshopping class for a mate. I used some of the Present Tense material I'd successfully used (see recent past blogs). The session went fine... or fine enough. It was satisfactory, and what more should you expect, coming in cold to an existing formed class? But I love the feel of a really good session, and I missed that feeling. So I have come up with two lessons learned for myself when substituting.

1) Keep It Simple, Stupid. The class was of mixed experience and level and my exercise was multi-staged, designed for my group of known experienced writers. It worked for some of these unknown students, but left others flat. It was too complex. So: don't be tricky. When subsituting, do a simple inspiration stimulus, a word, phrase or story question. Or rely on the treat of writing from picture postcards or from objects from a Serendipity Bag.

2) Always write out a lesson plan and a sheet of tutor prompts for each stage of the session. I was a bit blithe about planning, thinking I'd remember all the stages of that exercise. I'd brought my Matrix book to use as prompt to the stages, but then didn't pick it up and use it -- it feels unnatural to teach direct from a book, even when it is my own! Instead, I should have done what I always do: scrawl on A4 sheets the steps and prompts when prepping each session.

By prepping in writing, my psychic energy, passion and voice go from me, to my pen, to the page of session plan and notes and then out to the students with confidence, authority, conviction and fun, because the lesson has become part of me. I have become the message. The opposite of this is flabby, lazy, didactic or droning teaching. From me, anyway.

Glitch

2008-10-16T16:34:00.004+01:00

Sorry, my pc has completely died, and access to my blog dashboard is via the husband's mac, unfamiliar to me. So watch this space next week: I'll be back.

Meanwhile, you will find a complete exercise and a tutor tip on my website. They are extracts from The Matrix book, and I change these termly. Link to Paxton Publishing to the right.

'Champagne Method' of writing

2008-10-08T15:57:00.010+01:00

I'm hooked on reading the lives and letters of artists and writers, finding inspiration and comfort in their struggles and strategies. Also, sometimes, quotes and exercise ideas for my students.

Letters of Ted Hughes, selected and edited by Christopher Reid (Faber and Faber, 2007), is a fascinating read and includes some useful support for aspiring writers. See the book for yourself; by way of review, and to tempt you, here's a bit of his 'Champagne Method' (pp 314-5).

It seems that back in 1971 he and a friend devised for mutual friend Irish poet Richard Murphy a list of exercises as a stimulus to his writing. Penalties and rewards were to be paid in champagne. Murphy recounts this in his memoir, The Kick (Granta, 1993). There are 15 items on the list; here are 5, and the instructions from Hughes:

All considered only as starting points--Also, each exercise to cover 3 pages in order to make a habit of flow & release. Also, under Beethoven's dictum to pupils: "Never mind the wrong notes--go through to the end." Very good dictum as dicta go.

A congregation of gulls, storm petrels, seals -- the text, the service
The voice in the well
The Saint's curse on desecrators
Fifty metaphors of High Island [choose some other place you & your students all know]
High Island considered as a woman

So give it a go! Up to you to devise the rewards and penalties -- and to lay in the champagne (or maybe cava, these days).

Techno ups & professional bodies

2008-10-01T12:57:00.006+01:00

The good news: I updated the Paxton website, providing, as I have promised, a new exercise and a new tutor tip for this term. Have a peek, they're on the 'Sample Inside' page. Well, my version of sample inside. http://www.paxtonpublishing.co.uk

Professional bodies --

If you teach in LSC-funded further and community education remember that you should (have to?) become a member of the Institute for Learning (IfL). This is all about government initiative to improve standards of teaching in the long overlooked FE sector. See my January blogs about it (though membership deadlines have changed since then), and go to http://www.ifl.ac.uk There's a nifty quarterly magazine that comes with membership.

And you must see/join NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education) http://nawe.co.uk It is directly up our street: writing and teaching writing. As usual, lots for schools primary and secondary. For HE too, somewhat. And there is attention to community and adult teaching of creative writing too. There's a big Resources Database listing, and well set-out announcements of events, such as the recent day of seminars for teachers wanting creative writing input, with Fay Weldon as keynote speaker. It was at Brunel University, organised by Celia Brayfield.

In mid-November NAWE's conference in Manchester offers fascinating multiple choices of seminars, among them The Pulling Power of Poetry, Guerilla Writing in Academia, Teaching Storytelling in Uganda's Refugee Camps, Teaching the Short Story...

Techno ups continued: On the Paxton site I changed the final page to be clearer about how to buy the book, now that it is selling via the website. I am even getting orders from bookshops; they have to order through Nielsen. But it means the customer has to pay £14 instead of the direct-from-author £10.
Tehno downs: just plugged in a new monitor and am going cross-eyed -- how do I get the resolution right!!!!?

Present tense

2008-09-23T17:23:00.009+01:00

Is v Was... fascinating session with my advanced class on using present tense in fiction. I began with brief readings out from a selection of books written in present tense that I'd recently read, with discussion of various points along the way:

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (Peter Hoeg)
The Resurrectionist (James Bradley)
When I Lived in Modern Times (Linda Grant)
The Sportswriter (Richard Ford)
And one in traditional past tense, Burning Bright (Tracy Chevalier)

It quickly became apparent that the challenge is how to get the past of the story told while being in the present on-going story. Gap-on-the-page or new chapter and shift into past tense are trad methods. Interwoven past and present is masterful and technically tricky, and effective.

I chose two small 'shift' sections from The Sportswriter and we modelled these, sticking to the sentence structures and tenses, but swapping in our own invented characters, actions, places, feelings. We surprised ourselves with the power of our little pieces -- nothing like walking in the shoes of a master, thank you Richard Ford.

The general conclusion was that past tense is best for good old storytelling, and present tense is edgey, tricky and sometimes downright annoying to read. Now on tense-alert, I've had two quotes along these lines sent by students:

Philip Pullman: 'the common mistake of thinking that using a present-tense narration conveys immediacy. It doesn't; it converys arty self-consciousness. It is a clanking, thumping, steaming cliche. There is far too much of it about...' (source unknown)
Philip Hensher: 'the odd and general belief that writing in the present, rather than the past, tense is somehow more vivid... Writing as vivid and localized as Motion's doesn't require this journalistic twist.' (Telegraph 20/09/08)

Don't want you to get tense about it, but what do you think?

Name games

2008-09-17T14:59:00.010+01:00

[I'm back now from a week's travel in the splendid peaks and dales of England; returned to plunge into bowels of my computer due to connectivity problems. Apologies for delay, and thanks for the book orders.]

Of course you started your course by getting people to get to know each other, simply by pairing, or pairing with a mini-interview task or a discussion focus.

Here's another idea, not in the Matrix book: name mesostics. That's right, not acrostics (every first letter), but a puzzle poem made from words that pattern the name letters randomly. Like:

seriouS
fUn
proceSs
creAtive
writiNg

I learned about this word form via Alex Finlay on a visit to the Baltic art centre in Gateshead. It's not as easy as it looks!

For beginners, a straighforward acrostic, possibly only giving descriptions of themselves (even silly ones) would be the way to go. Getting to my mesostic took a bit of a think, a rough go, a break for a broody stage of dissatisfaction leading to an eventual mild eureka moment (eg class coffee break), and then revision. Caution your students who might lose confidence if it doesn't come perfect all at once -- it's an experience in the creative writing process.

Here in blogland, the arrangement is wobbly; in reality the letters of the name or key word line up in one vertical column. See http://www.alecfinlay.com/ for more on what the master is up to with the mesostic form.

Second session & still warming

2008-09-06T20:21:00.006+01:00

[Preamble: Met some lovely teachers of creative writing at a Brunel conference Saturday; apologies to all trying to purchase the Matrix book this week -- I'm away in Peak District & York, will answer queries on my return 15 Sept -- Susan. Meanwhile, on with tutor tips blog...]

One week later, and the class still won't have fully gelled -- especially because, in adult education, newcomers continue to join in week 2 or even week 3. Unsettling to you and the class, but hey, that's adult ed for you.

So you did a questionnaire to keep 'em busy and suss 'em out last week. Here's a summary of one of my classes, which I incorporated into the content of the second session. Students themselves like to know about the group and it helps in the bonding process. Out of a class of about 12 (remembering that they could give 3 choices each, see last week's blog), the kinds of writing they wanted to work on were

Novels - 7
Short stories - 6
Memoir - 5
Feature articles - 3
Poetry - 2 (and those were as 2nd & 3rd choices)

So guess what's not going to feature very much in this course. There was also some demand for info on synopsis and letter-to-agent. You can tell that this is a pretty grown-up group. For beginners I'd take a sampling, but also set an agenda to guide them through a range of disciplines.

More on how I shaped the course to these needs as I go along. As for which exercises for these first few classes -- aha. See my book the Matrix? Or... one exercise per term for free on the http://www.paxtonpublishing.co.uk

Start of term

2008-09-02T23:34:00.007+01:00

Welcome to Creative Writing class! Tutor _________ (your name).

It's always good to settle the first-day nerviness of your students by letting them know they are in the right classroom for the right class. Settles your nerves, too!

Besides writing a welcome note on the board I provide some busywork to fill up that awkward silence as you wait... and wait... for the stragglers to arrive. Soon you'll all know each other well, but meanwhile, I give out index cards to collect my own set of name-address-email and, much more interesting, a questionnaire.

More than mere busywork, a questionnaire starts the writers thinking about their individual pathways AND gives me information on how to tailor the course to this particular batch of writers. Bonus: I feed a summary back to the students (next class) so they know who they are, too. So here are some of the questions I put on an A4 handout questionnaire:

1. In order of priority, list the kinds of writing you prefer to do and would like to work on this year (for example: short story, novel, poetry, drama, memoire, feature articles etc). If you have equal priorities, adjust the list!

2. How long have you been writing, and how do you feel about your progress? Or, if you are brand new to creative writing, what prompts you to join the class?

3. Describe some of your writing needs and goals. How can this course help you?

4. Do you want to submit work for publication? Do you know where to submit?

5. List 2-3 favourite books or films you like.

Answers next week.
P.S. There still will be late-late arrivals to make the first session a bit bumpy.

Summer break for writing tutors

2008-07-01T18:16:00.004+01:00

End of term, just about. Next week I'm among the guest speakers at my college's Creative Writing Event. I've been a screening judge of the student and local creative writing competition, and the main feature is the awarding of the prizes. Winners will read from their submissions in General Fiction, Poetry and Writing for Children. The dear college provides the pleasant venue and welcome glass of wine.

Guest panellists include local author (and tutor and writing coach), novelist Jacqui Lofthouse, and a Guardian journalist and writer. In my few minutes in the spotlight I'll praise all the writing students I've ever had -- how much energy and spirit we get from them, as well as give to them. They want to know about my Creative Writing: the Matrix book; and I might say a little about self (or small) publishing.

Then it is blog-holiday time until Tuesday 2nd September -- just as you are rousing yourself for the new term I'll be back with the blog for this tutoring-writing life. I will be furthering this novel-in-a- month I have been steaming through. And I'll use my cybertime to improve this blogspot with links to useful sites, and to create a slideshow on my more general-creativity susankerr blogspot of my trip to Nepal and India. See you in September!

PS I have just joined National Association of Writers in Education http://www.nawe.co.uk/ Suggest you have a look and do the same.

Setting goals for writers

2008-06-25T19:32:00.004+01:00

After tackling the Inner Critic in last week's class -- we each even interviewed our own, Jeremy Paxman style -- we ended with that Waterstone's story-on-a-(large)-postcard competition. Some felt pleased enough to read out; I hope they entered them!

Of course these in-class quickies do not suit all writing students, and can't be counted on to produce anything useable. But sometimes the rush is just the trick for a nearly-finished little piece. Or the results are worth further development.

Speaking of competitions, don't forget the Bridport Prize, deadline 30th June. Not for the slap-dash entry, encourage all writers to polish, polish, polish their up-to 5000 words (or 42 lines of poetry). This has major prizes (1st = £5000), major judges (Helen Simpson, David Harsent) and gets serious publishing attention. http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/

You can make a whole lesson, or series, out of competitions, analyzing their anthologies, determining the differences between 2000 word limits and 5000 word limits etc.

I usually issue a handout each term listing top competitions, heading it 'Set Your Goals'. Time to update it... watch this space.

Meanwhile, by the end of our Critic interviews most of us managed to get a grudging compliment from the monster.

Grrrrr: the critic within

2008-06-17T16:16:00.005+01:00

Teaching tomorrow, the great gang of writers who have kept their own workshop going for two years. I'm doing 'Dealing with the Critic Within' this time; most of these writers have had that session, but hey, it was years ago. Besides, aren't we all, all the time, parrying our foe, the Inner Critic -- and he/she/it keeps cropping up in sneaky disguises. As a private class of long-time writers we have the luxury of time and experience, so I plan to take us right into the dialogue with the Critic, once identified. (Plug: it's in my book.)

H.A. Klauser's book, Writing on Both Sides of the Brain, (listed in last week's blog) is where I turned on to this amazingly helpful approach.

We'll also do a short bit of freewheeling writing from a prompt. And yesterday I spotted Waterstone's Tell Us Your Story competition, so I plucked a bunch of their postcard forms and with the help of two stimuli (character & setting) we'll have a go. Nothing like a deadline for spurring us on: it's the next day! For those who don't fancy flash fiction it'll just be a character-exploring exercise.

I'm having a whale of a time with Write a Novel in a Month -- complete and utter rubbish is spewing from my 3 x 15 minutes slabs per day. But at least it is spewing: oh, the joy of permission to write rubbish. Take THAT you 'ol Critic, you.

How-to-write books as sources

2008-06-11T17:44:00.004+01:00

Here are some of my favourite books for writers which I recommend to students. I've been inspired by them for myself, and adapted from them for class exercises -- and gained permissions and given thanks for this in my book of exercises for tutors. So if you want to grow your shelf, and yourself, have you seen:

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, Shambhala, Boston, 1986.
Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser, HarperCollins, New York 1986.
Writing for Your Life by Deena Metzger, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1992.
Fiction Writer's Workshop by Josip Novakovich, F+W Publications, Cincinnati, 1998.
The Weekend Novelist by Robert J Ray and Bret Norris, A&C Black, London 2005.

There are lots of other sources, including books, authors, poets and more in the bibliography at the back of Creative Writing: the Matrix.

I would like to add a links page to this blogspot, full of useful sites to creative teachers. If YOU have favourite creativity & creativity-teaching books or websites to share, do let me know by post-comment.

Writing a novel, writing poetry

2008-06-03T10:28:00.003+01:00

What to do when you're not teaching? Write, of course. Or get some juice by becoming a writing student -- that's what I'm doing this week.

Write-a-novel-in-a-month course -- well, not really, but we can dream, and generate lots of rubbish writing to then edit into something. This is a jump in and swim class a colleague has been teaching for a while. I don't have a laptop though, and prefer creating in longhand anyway, so I expect writer's cramp will be a main result of the five session course.

The other is a Sunday afternoon poetry workshop taught by an established poet. I love mucking about with words and shaping them.

Don't forget the Bridport competition deadline 30 June http://www.bridportprize.org.uk

Helpless without pc... my email decided not to send anymore, so off we go to my little computer shop. I hope it won't take long, it is such a big part of everyday life.

Tutors together online

2008-05-28T16:47:00.007+01:00

News, news of the network sort! Society of Authors Educational Writers Group features a whole week of Susan Lee Kerr in their May Blog-of-the-Month. Not this blog content directly, more of a round-up of a typical week of a teacher-writer-publisher-person. If you are an SoA member, once in the Members section you can go to EWG to see this, or previous month-blogs, from full-time educational books writers, editors and publishers (and some teach). Some are looking for writers -- interested?

Also: Keith Burnett, who teaches maths in an FE College, has publicized my weekly blog in his own http://bodmas.org/blog He provides learning material samples at no charge on his site from time to time. He's also very keen on IT in teaching, and had an article Blogging about teaching in In Tuition, the magazine of the Institute for Learning. The idea is to encourage FE colleagues to use IT, including blogging -- especially about teaching their subject. Of course I contacted him and now we've done a titfer.

So if you have maths-IT colleagues, spread the word -- by internet, I guess. In Keith's article he lists several other post-16s teacher blogs. The one most relevant to our interests here is Chris Jackson's Skills for Life blog http://chris-sfl.blogspot.com/ Definitely worth a look if this is your area; has lots of links. If you want to know more, do contact Keith at bodmas.

Brinkmanship, fell off the edge: alas Creative Non-Fiction enrolment is not enough to run the course. So that's 5 free Wednesday evenings from next week; at least I won't miss out on the final episodes of The Apprentice.

Writing endings

2008-05-21T19:27:00.003+01:00

Yes, I know endings was last week with the advanced writers, but tomorrow is endings again, for my Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey crew, and the end of the 5-week course as well. I discovered I do have some further endings exercises and this will be fun.

First exercise: writing The End in the middle of the page. There, doesn't that feel good? Then we'll write an ending to a given (published) fiction beginning. Then move on to their own main characters developed during the course. We'll talk a bit about the difficulty writers can have in finishing a piece, not so much craft as reluctance to let go. Then it's good bye and good luck.

Just before that I'll give the antidote pep talk: I try to say often that 'writing by numbers' is not the point. They are to put all this in the back of their minds, not to try to slavishly follow the heroic archetype characters and narrative. Bear it in mind for stimulation or rewriting, but -- sorry folks -- there's no secret recipe or map. Just get on and write.

Admirably, my writing coach client is getting on and writing; we met today over our usual cappuccino amid the lovely May. So encouraging for both of us (the writing I mean; May too).

Turning points & tying threads

2008-05-13T20:15:00.005+01:00

Special moments or turning points, plus which threads need tying up/which don't at the end of the novel -- this is the challenge from my bespoke advanced writers group, to teach tomorrow.

Moments, now that's a good one. I've thought through and come up with Pinnacle, Earthquake, Clarification Moments, plus Historical Moments (less personal) and Triggers (not necessarily moment-experiences... but related). It's quite philosophical or fateful. What is a special moment, how do we recognise it, how create/find it? And then, how to use and place it in a work? Then of course, writing it.

I think we'll read out Ian McEwan's car crash near-miss from A Child in Time. And Stephen King has a snippet of good advice in his On Writing. We'll do some life-listing, some intense sense recall, some writing. And plenty of discussion.

As for endings -- anybody out there have good endings exercises to share? I have a few, but it's hard really... because you need all the stuff before in order to play with endings. So we will talk over 4 writers' comments on endings (Marshall, Gardner, McKee, Ray) and see what we all think. So much depends on the particular work in hand. Might play with Ray's 'chain of events' end-check and Cinderella to exercise ourselves re tying up threads.

As for Hero's Journey, episode 4 this week, Transformation of the Hero. They mostly have not seen Star Wars and my fav Disneys, but have seen Titanic, so I rewatched it on Saturday night. Okay, it's corny, cliched and spectacular, but it certainly is good story-telling. And loads of archetypal elements... does even Shakespeare use these? one student asked. Yes, m'am, have a look.

Teaching commitment

2008-05-06T15:54:00.004+01:00

Laid low by a vicious chesty bug, I managed to teach two classes last week, but I’m sorry to have missed the blog.

The Tuesday was a simple 2-hour introduction to creative writing – one of a series in the route this institution is taking to attract new student-clients: it was FREE. Such is the state of ‘leisure’ adult education; a good ploy, I think – come and taste our wares. I wonder if it costs less/more than advertising and brochure distributions; and how do they measure effectiveness? Over to marketing.

Meanwhile, the maximum signed up, but fewer turned up. If they’d paid, would it have been the same? Nevertheless it was fun to be in a roomful of entirely new to creative writing adults. I had assumed the challenge that it could be a range of interests – short story, novel, non-fiction, children’s, not-really-sure, poetry – and I was right (nil poetry, however; nor plays, scripts, lyrics). Therefore I stuck to four of my basic writing process tools; did NOT ask them to read aloud to the group, but by the end had them share in pairs, 5 minutes each, and by this point they could choose from 3 little paras written during the session. I love that lively chatter of pair work. On leaving all seemed happy and interested in more... if they can fit it into their lives. Bon voyage!

Hero’s Journey/Writer’s Journey continues on Thursdays and guess what? My team leader asked me to do two runs of this for year 2008/9. Heavens! A year from now, talk about commitment. But commit I did. Repeating the course in November and post-Easter.

The hero wins

2008-04-22T19:33:00.006+01:00

Yes! Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey short course will run, starting in two days, which means tomorrow will be full of sketching out the 5-week plan and detailing the outline for the first 2-hour class.

My main source book, by the way, is Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters (Boxtree 1996). It's very approachable and clear, though more film oriented than applies to my reading-on-the-page territory. I get back-up from loads of other myth-y books on my shelves including Jung and, of course, Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The trick, always, is to make up the exercises that get people not just learning 'about' archetypal characters and structure but also actually processing it -- by thinking and writing in class.

The brinkmanship of adult ed

2008-04-16T16:03:00.003+01:00

Five working days to go and I'm several people below the minimum required to run my Hero's Journey/Writer's Journey short course. I love teaching this course as it hits all my personal buttons. I've devised both craft skills exercises and process-of-writing exercises using the full hero's quest framework. Touches a lot on Jungian archetypes so it is wonderfully, quickly, deep.

I've run it as a monthly full-day course, therefore have all the content plus useful feedback on what works well and what I could drop or tweak. But I need to have a detailed think re putting it into 5 weeks, 2 hours each class.

However, I will now put off the think session until the penultimate day when I hear from the college if the numbers allow. As writers-who-teach-creative-writing we have this dilemma: will I have five weeks of creative heroic questing or will I have five weeks of extra time to get on with my own writing.... ? (See column to right to link to course details.)

An established poet as guest tutor, free?

2008-04-08T18:12:00.004+01:00

How about Monica Ali or Andrew Motion talking about poetry, or even Sylvia Plath, reading her own in your class? For free, and you don't have to book them?

I have just discovered (thanks to Society of Authors, The Author) http://www.poetryarchive.org Dozens of poets recorded reading their own work, and some, like Ali, Motion, Ted Hughes, exploring poetry, giving personal responses to poems, 'teaching' poetry. You'd need to have online facility in your teaching situation to use the sound aspect.

It's more poetry appreciation than writing it. But the 'For Teachers' section offers whole lesson plans and of course can be adapted. Inside this section I found a link to http://www.teachit.co.uk which is chock full of English teaching ideas, resources and online interactive 'Whizzy things'.

As usual these teaching sites are aimed at schools-teaching, not adults. However, materials at A-level and even GCSEs -- heck, even children! -- easily adaptable, or spring-boardable for us who teach adults.