Managing student expectations

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...

Back-to-school

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

Creative unblocking

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.

Writing exercises that work!

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

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.

Promoting your courses

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.

Frabjous day and an extra for you

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

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...

Hero's Journey, the first steps

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

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.

How'm I doing?

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.

Quart into pint pot challenge

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

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.

Stone Writing

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.

Sharing the journey with students

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.

Writing endings

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

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

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

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

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.)