Planning forward

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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...