Gale Barker

Back in the Saddle - Getting Back to a Writing Routine

2010-09-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

Are you about to start something? Thinking of going back to something? Putting off going to a class or a group because it's a long time since you've been and it seems too much of an effort to get leave the house and get started again?

It's the time of year when we traditionally get back in the saddle, return to classes, resume hobbies that we stopped for the summer. My adult education students will be returning to their creative writing classes this week, and that got me round to thinking about how much harder it is to get started again than it is to simply keep going.

A couple of years ago, I was physically very active as I went to several dance classes a week, as well as swimming regularly and using my rebounder at home every day. All that went by the board this past year as I had a very heavy schedule of work commitments that clashed with my usual classes and often kept me at work on the computer till nearly midnight.

When I was in a regular routine, I automatically took part in my various activities without giving them a second thought. But having had a break, I am surprised at how difficult I am finding it to get myself back in the groove.

Take my salsa classes, for example. Every week, I say to myself, 'I must go back to salsa this week,' yet I always seem to find some excuse to put off going. Yet if I am to get fit again, I know that good intentions are not enough. I actually have to go to the class, put on my dancing shoes and get dancing.

I have come across lots of writers who have this sort of problem. They are going to write a novel one day. They really are. They have a really fantastic idea, but they just haven't got round to putting it on paper yet.

The trouble is that the vast majority of them never will. Being a writer is not just about having talent or imagination. It's about getting down to it. Putting pen to paper. Starting to write and keeping going till you reach the end of the novel. And then going back to the beginning and reworking it all until your book is in its final form.

It's a lonely business being a writer. Many people find it really difficult to shut themselves away and sustain a long project to the very end.

That's where writing classes and writing groups are invaluable. Once you have made the initial effort to go along and get involved in one, you look forward to going back, week by week or month by month, spending time with your fellow writers and hearing what they've written. It also spurs you on to make progress with your own writing so that you have something to share.

So if you've always wanted to write that novel, but never got round to it, why not join a writing class? Did I mention that I have room for a few more students in my Advanced Class? It's on Thursday evenings from 7 - 9 at The Manse Adult Education Centre in the centre of Huddersfield. Give the Centre a ring - (01484) 437150. Ask for Gale's Thursday writing class.

Meanwhile, I'll just go and dig out my salsa shoes...

Freeing the Writer Within

2009-07-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across some rather ancient cassettes about creative writing that I'd bought way back in the late 1980s and I've begun to use them with my classes. The one I've been using this week is Natalie Goldberg's Freeing the Writer Within, which is a recording of a workshop she led back in 1988 based on principles about timed writing which she explained in her legendary book, Writing Down the Bones.

I had read Writing Down the Bones many years ago and it was one of the books that influenced me the most when I began to write. Basically, it's about how to let your mind have free reign when you're writing, so that what emerges is powerful, authentic and real. I find her approach refreshing compared with lots of creative writing advice, which can become formulaic.

If you haven't read Writing Down the Bones, do give it a try. And if you come across the CD version of Freeing the Writer Within, do listen to that too. There's nothing like hearing someone's voice when you have only read their words on the page. And another thing that my students really enjoyed was being able to join in the timed writing exercise, read out their own work and discuss it, then listen to what the workshop students in America had written. It was very interesting to compare our responses to the pieces of writing with theirs, and to hear the advice that Natalie gave.

DH Lawrence Revisited

2009-05-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

In October, I introduced my most advanced Creative Writing class to a short story by DH Lawrence entitled A Sick Collier. This week I'm going to read it with one of my beginners' classes, so I revisited my resources to see what I could use with them.

I was able to get them to print out a copy of the short story for free using a site called www.online-literature.com/dh_lawrence/prussian-officer/10/. The website is jam-packed with adverts and rather annoying pop-ups, but at least it is a quick and easy way for my students to access the story without waiting for me to print out numerous photocopies for them. If you fancy reading the story, it's a very easy way for you to get hold of it too...

But don't go just yet! I had written in this blog about A Sick Collier and how there were many useful resources to be found on the internet about DH Lawrence and his writing. You can read that posting on http://galebarker.blogspot.com/2008/10/research-on-internet-dh-lawrence.html.

But while checking out the resources I'd mentioned in that entry, I discovered a beautiful little film about DH Lawrence and his background. It consists of photographs of him and the area he came from and the museum and tourist attractions that deal with his life and work, but it is accompanied by a rather atmospheric brass band rendition of the overture to The Force of Destiny played by Newstead Welfare Band.

If you have five minutes to spare and would like to sample the world of this great writer, type into Google "dh lawrence birthplace museum". From the list of websites, select the Braxtowe Borough Council D.H. Lawrence Heritage entry, then once you're there, click onto "DH Lawrence Video" at the right hand side of the page.

Happy viewing - and happy reading too!

My New Favourite Crime Writer - John Harvey

2009-04-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

John Harvey was a writer I felt I ought to have read. It all started a couple of years ago when I used to go to Manchester on the train every week. Huddersfield Station seemed to be full of posters advertising his latest book and proclaiming what a fantastic writer he was. But the publishers would say that, wouldn't they?

Well, the advertising obviously worked on me, because when I was choosing books from Borders at Christmas I spotted the latest John Harvey on the 3 for 2 offer and added it to my selection.

Now that I've finally got round to reading the book, Cold in Hand, my only regret is that I didn't read it sooner. It's an extremely well written police procedural featuring DI Charlie Resnick who lives with his lover, DI Lynn Kellog and it's set mainly in Nottingham, with occasional excursions to London.

What really impressed me about the book was the fact that it didn't just reflect modern day society and crime, it didn't just unravel a puzzle, it dealt beautifully with real emotions and complicated relationships. Oh, and it made me cry... I can't think of any other work of crime fiction that has had that effect on me.

If Stuart MacBride is Ian Rankin with a sense of humour, then surely John Harvey is Ian Rankin with soul. One thing's for sure. Cold in Hand may have been the first book of his that I've read, but it certainly won't be the last!

The Cull

2009-04-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally gone and done it! It took me a few days to psyche myself up to do it, but in the end I steeled myself to get rid of them. No matter that they'd been sharing my house for years. They were surplus to requirements. They had to go.

Yes, I have finally managed to give away some books. Two big charity bags have been filled with books and videos and are sitting by the front door ready for the charity van to come and collect them tomorrow.

'Oh, I couldn't bear to get rid of any of my books,' someone once said to me. All I can say is, that person must have a massive house or own far fewer books than I do.

I've tried all sorts of strategies over the years to keep my book collection in order - double stacking (possible with our more solid G-Plan bookcases, but not really feasible with cheap MFI versions), storing them in the attic (from where my husband had to retrieve them for me because I'm scared of heights). I even took to selling a few bags at a time till the second hand book shop begged me to stop bringing them in because their shelves were overstocked.

When every possible bookshelf is double stacked, the attic is full and books are piled up higgledy-piggledy on stools, chairs and even the spare bed, you know the time has come to take action. Especially when your brother-in-law about to visit and will need to sleep in the aforesaid spare bed.

The cull went quite smoothly except for my husband rescuing three large books and a video from the pile before the items had even managed to reach the charity bags. You're onto a hiding for nothing when you're a hoarder married to a fellow hoarder!

The good news is that by removing a few books, I discovered several others that I'd been looking for or that I'd forgotten I had. It was a happy reunion. Maybe it will spur me into action to give away another two bags full when there is another charity collection due.

Feel the Space

2009-04-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

I've had a strange feeling this week. Since I completed my massive tidy up I've been experiencing a feeling of space in my house.

When there were piles of papers in every room and carrier bags of stuff in the hallway and on the landing, the house felt claustrophobic. Now, after my reorganisation, I can once again see the dining room table, the sitting room cabinet, the hall carpet. My living space seems bigger and I feel less hemmed in.

When you think about it, most people like space. When people go to buy a house, they usually want it to feel spacious and they are often put off a particular property if it is cramped or cluttered.

It's the same when you're faced with a page of print. A sheet of paper covered edge to edge with words, with no white space, is not inviting to the reader. It's far more comfortable to read something that has a larger percentage of white space - in other words, emptiness.

Most of us will be familiar with the discomfort of having to squash ourselves into a bus or a train that is jam-packed with too many people. We endure it if we have to, but isn't it so much nicer to be on one where there is plenty of room, a choice of seats, a bit of space between you and the next person?

Having our lives too crowded with appointments and demands can be very stressful. That feeling of wall-to-wall activity makes us feel we have no breathing space, no time to sit back and take stock. No time to simply enjoy our life.

How are you at the moment? Take a look at the room you're sitting in. Is it a space that you can breathe in? Do you find it conducive to working in or relaxing in?

Get out your diary and have a look at how your week pans out. Do you have space to think or are you trying to cram in so many activities that you've no time to think?

Take a look out of your window. Is there space for you to relax and roam freely? If there isn't, maybe you'd benefit from a weekend in the country or by the sea.

Give yourself a mini Space Break right now. Stand up and let yourself spread out as much as you can. Lift up your arms, stand on your tiptoes, have a good stretch and a yawn. Feeling better?

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

2009-04-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

There's nothing to beat reading a good book, except perhaps having a good book read to you by an imaginative and talented actor.

On long journeys to and from Scotland, my family enjoys listening to talking books. Initially, we'd borrow some from the children's library to keep my son occupied - children's books that we parents would find entertaining too.

Then gradually we branched out into the adult section of the Sound and Vision Library. Unfortunately, our library charges for cassettes and CDs so the cost could mount up if we borrowed a few items - it's always good to have a standby in case you find one of your choices is a dud.

Recently I was lucky enough to find a few audio books on CD in our local discount store for only £2 each - almost as cheap as it would cost to hire them. The one that gave us the most pleasure this Easter holiday was Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency which was beautifully read by Adjoa Andoh, who has appeared in Casualty and Eastenders and has been a member of The Royal Shakespeare Company.

Much as I have enjoyed the television dramatisations of the Alexander McCall Smith books, I found I enjoyed hearing the book read even more. Hearing Precious Ramotswe's back story and the sadnesses she has endured makes the book less sickly than the happy-happy television adaptation.

If you come across any of the audio versions read by Adjoa Andoh, I heartily recommend them, whether they are on sale at £2 each or at the full price.

Until It's Over by Nicci French

2009-04-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

In and amongst the tidying and filing, I managed to read another crime novel this weekend, to keep myself sane. It was Until It's Over by the husband and wife writing team, Nicci French. The fact that I managed to read it so quickly is a testimony to its power as a page-turner, given that it was 377 pages long. I had got it in a nice big book club paperback edition from one of my local book discount shops for £2.50, so it was a real bargain.

Until It's Over is a psychological thriller that really does play games with your head. It makes you feel as if one of the main characters is going mad when murders mysteriously happen around her. Why and how are they happening that way? Is she really involved in the killing spree? Does she herself even know whether she is or isn't?

I found the book gripping and the ensemble cast of characters interesting. I'm not quite so sure that the second half worked as well as the first half - I can't go into any more detail without giving away the plot. However I did find the final chapter genuinely moving and, all in all, the book was a satisfying read.

Full Circle

2009-04-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

The big clean up continues apace. I've done loads more filing today and the two drawers of the filing cabinet which belong to me are filling up nicely with green suspended files, each neatly labelled. It has been quite a novel experience today to come across piles of handouts and to think, 'Ah, yes, I've seen some like these - they're in the filing cabinet,' and to be able to reunite them instantly with their lost companions.

I've also discovered I have far more resources and handouts than I thought, especially for Modern Languages (as French is another of my specialities). I had obviously spent quite a lot of time surfing the net and printing out useful items. The one that surprised me most was a thirty-two page printout of French tongue twisters (virelangues), as I had no recollection at all of having found such a thing on the internet. I dare say they will come in useful some day. Here's one to whet your appetite:

L'assassin sur son sein sucait son sang sans cesse.

That translates roughly as 'The assassin on her breast sucked her blood without a rest.' A strange thing to say, but at least it will get you to move your lips.

I also found some stuff from my days on the Core Group (management committee) of Huddersfield Community Radio, a group which campaigned for Huddersfield to get a licence to have its own radio station. I had been very involved in it, and had devised and run training courses on interviewing and presenting as well as producing and presenting hundreds of shows in the Restricted Licence Broadcasts that we would run for a month at a time, twice a year.

One strange thing I found today was some feedback from a Listeners Panel on my presenting. At one stage those of us who already presented shows or who wanted to present were asked to submit a showtape. These were played to a selection of volunteers who gave us points for professionalism, clarity, radio voice and personality and made comments about our performance. What I found most surprising about my feedback was that someone had said I was 'Perhaps a little reminiscent of Hi-de-Hi's Gladys'. Someone else had written 'Makes me want to shout Hi-de-Hi!' Two Hi-de-Hi comments out of a sample of fifteen! Should I have been worried?

Fortunately, I wasn't traumatised for life by the Gladys comparison, although you might find a rather gaudy yellow blazer tucked away in the back of my wardrobe. I shall have to ask my students whether I remind them of Hi-de-Hi. Fortunately, many of them weren't even born when the show was on TV, so they won't know what the heck I'm talking about.

Strangely enough, this bout of Huddersfield Community Radio nostalgia took place just a day after Pennine FM has apparently gone bust. Pennine FM was Huddersfield's commercial radio station, a successor to Huddersfield FM, which got its licence through our campaigning. I haven't really had any dealings with the full time Huddersfield commercial radio stations, partly because when the licence was awarded, I had my hands full looking after my baby son, partly because I cared deeply about the community aspect and the speech content and had no wish to be involved in just another commercial station.

Still, I do feel sorry for the staff who have lost their jobs and for those members of the community who enjoyed listening to the station. It seems as if what we began all those years ago has now gone full circle. With or without Gladys at the microphone!

The Big Clean Up!

2009-04-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, the big clean up has started today in the Barker household...

No, we haven't been victims of fire or flood (thank God!) although we did have a bit of a leak under the bath before we went away on holiday.

The big clean up is all about filing. Restoring order into a house which was being turned into chaos by thousands of bits of paper. Lesson plans, handouts, photocopies, magazine clippings, books...

Everyone has their own particular Achilles' Heel. Mine happens to be filing. I've hated filing for most of my life and done my best to ignore it.

I was exactly the same even when I was a student at Cambridge. Every day I'd come back from lectures and dump my notes in a pile in the corner of the room. They'd still be there at the end of term, only by then the pile would be huge and deranged - and I'd end up deranged trying to sort out which sheets of paper belonged together and which subject folder each set of notes ought to end up in.

Anyway, today I decided that enough was enough. Either I tackled the filing crisis or else there would be no room for any of us in the house. There would be absolutely no chance of me opening the door to visitors - though to be honest, any visitors might be hard-pressed to find us amid the piles of paperwork.

I must say that I've surprised myself by how well I've done. My half of the four-drawer filing cabinet no longer houses bank statements and car insurance documents from 1988. It now has folders full of handouts and writing and, what's more, everything is labelled!

There's still a lot to do, but the task doesn't seem so bad now that I've freed up some space to put things. I've already managed to clear the piano duet stool and I'm looking forward to seeing my dining room table again sometime soon.

Holiday Reading

2009-04-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been absent for another couple of weeks, this time because of the Easter holidays. I spent most of the school holidays in Dundee with my family and really enjoyed the chance to relax completely and forget about work and all the demands on our time and attention that we all experience in everyday life.

We deliberately avoided scheduling too many visits and appointments so that we would have time to just chill and have a complete change. It was bliss to be able to sit in cafes and read as long as we wanted. And there were plenty of bookshops to browse, so we were never short of reading material.

As usual, I'd taken a pile of books with me, just in case, but I discovered lots of books to buy while I was in Scotland. I find that when I'm in Scotland, I like to read books by Scottish authors. I may have books with me that are perfectly enjoyable, but if they are set in England, reading them would destroy the holiday mood and the feeling of being in a different country.

For example, before we set off on holiday, I had begun to read Stuart Maconcie's Pies and Prejudice: In search of the North, and I was really enjoying it. But somehow it seemed disloyal to read about the North of England while I was in Scotland, so that was abandoned. While browsing in Waterstones, I discovered some new books set in Scotland by some of my favourite authors, so I couldn't resist them, especially as they were on a 3 for 2 offer.

I began by reading Glasgow Kiss by Alex Gray. I had read one or two of her books a while ago and this, her latest offering, appealed to me for two reasons : it was a generously sized book club edition, rather than a tiny paperback, and it was set in a school in Glasgow. Some of the action was set in the centre of Glasgow, outside Borders Bookshop, an area which is one of my usual holiday haunts, so I particularly enjoyed being able to imagine the places which were mentioned.

I found the dialogue convincing and the plot compulsive reading - in fact, I had read all the 353 pages within 24 hours. I can heartily recommend the book to crime lovers. Alex Gray really makes us identify with her characters and shows how crimes can affect the lives, not just of the victims, but of other innocent people. In this her fifth book, she has really mastered crime writing and has set herself up as a serious contender in the genre.

The second book I read was Easy Kill by Linn Anderson. This was also set in Glasgow, in the Necropolis, the sprawling hillside graveyard which has been compared to Paris's Pere Lachaise Cemetery (where I had filmed many years ago with the BBC). I had spent some time exploring the Necropolis with my family on my last stay in Glasgow, which is probably just as well. After some of the gory things which happened in it in the novel, I'd have thought twice about venturing there, especially after dark!

Linn Anderson had caught my attention a few years ago when I bought her second novel, Torch. Like Torch, Easy Kill features the intrepid forensic scientist, Rhona MacLeod. It's a dark book, which pulls no punches. This is far from the Happy Ever After scenario you find in some crime writing - people are deeply affected by their experiences, and that goes for Rhona and her colleagues too.

What was the third book I bought in my 3 for 2 offer, then? It was by another Scottish crime writer, Val McDermid and it's her latest paperback, A Darker Domain. But after reading two crime novels back to back, I fancied a change, so I ended up reading a couple of non-fiction books - so if you want to know what the Val McDermid is like, you'll have to wait, or else read it yourself...

'There's Been a Murder...'

2009-03-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

We've been having a crime spree in our adult education centres. Not a rash of graffiti and muggings, I hasten to add, but several weeks dedicated to the art of crime writing. And jolly good fun it's been too.

Of course, someone had to sow the seeds of violence and in this case it was the Huddersfield Literature Festival, organised by the lively and imaginative playwright and university lecturer, Michael Stewart. I had been meaning for some time to introduce my students to crime writing and as the Literature Festival had included in its schedule an evening performance on the subject, entitled Bloody Brits, this seemed like the perfect trigger.

After they'd spent weeks analysing crime novels and reading about post-mortems, murders and grisly discoveries, I decided that my students were now ready to unleash their violent tendencies and put their shady plans into action, so I announced that each of the three classes would have their own crime writing competition. The best two stories from each class would receive a prize - a crime novel.

I've already received the first lot of entries. The prospect of a prize has spurred most of the students into action, even though I gave them a very tight deadline. (Well, the cops don't get to choose when they dash out to look at a dead body, do they?)

Who will win? I haven't finished reading all the entries yet, so I don't know, but suffice it to say, there could be some surprises. It probably won't be a case of the prizes just going to the usual suspects.

I only hope it won't be my blood that's spilt when I have to announce the results...

Shamed by my Students!

2009-03-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right, I've been shamed by my creative writing students. It isn't as if they've done anything embarrasssing like putting a car on the roof of the Adult Education building or telling the powers-that-be that my whiteboard handwriting's a mess. No, they've been paragons of virtue - having things published, winning competitions, and even writing 100 words a day for an internet challenge.

That's what really got to me. Here are my students undertaking to write 100 words a day on the internet and how many words have I written for my blogs over the past few months? Have I been setting them a good example? Should I have 'Could Try Harder' on my termly report card?

It isn't as if I dislike writing my blog entries. In fact, I find them very relaxing and I get a real sense of achievement when I see them on the internet, especially if someone actually reads them and sends me a nice comment. I had got into rather a good routine of doing them late in the evening when I was chilled out after a day's work, and I found this rather a good way of winding down and putting the day to bed.

The trouble was, of course, that the day's work had started to end later and later. Was I going to sit down and write a blog when I finished my lesson preparation or my PGCE assignment at midnight?

Then there were all the other things that I ought to be doing every day as well, things which regularly jostled with the blog-writing in my mental time-table. Like getting some exercise. (Sadly, the MacAlpine Stadium, once my second home, is now but a distant memory as I haven't been to swimming or aquafit for months.) Or practising my clarinet and saxophone, especially now that I'm in a clarinet trio/quartet that actually plays in public from time to time. Or giving Reiki treatments to myself and my family, now that I've had my first attunement.

There are so many things I could feel guilty about not doing. But that would be a waste of the precious time that I do have. So I forgive myself for being human, being tired, not always being the most organised person in the world. I hope you will forgive me too.

And if you're still beating yourself up about something you haven't got round to doing, maybe you could try forgiving yourself too. Maybe if you do, instead of squandering your life on regrets, you'll release some vital energy to do something positive.

Namaste!

To Travel Safely is Better than to Arrive

2008-12-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

Like many parts of the country, Huddersfield had snow this morning. Not that unusual, you may say, although for the past few years we've become more used to torrential rain in the winter rather than snow and ice.

You'd think by now we'd have mastered simple things like how to get our car out of the drive and onto the main road, but there was still a sense of danger as I struggled to drive my car down the hill out of my cul-de-sac in first gear, stopping every few yards, just to make sure I could.

When I eventually made it to the Springwood Car Park, a large long-stay car park at the top of a hill on the outer edge of the Ring Road, new hazards awaited me. For a start, the car park hadn't been gritted and so driving along looking for an empty slot became a perilous experience. Even driving extremely slowly and carefully, I was still skidding, much to the consternation of a group of students who were merrily walking down the middle of the car park, apparently unaware of just how much danger they were putting themselves in.

Trying to manoeuvre the car ninety degrees to position it in an empty slot was an act of faith in itself, but I made it. But new, unforeseen problems awaited me. I got my handbag out of the boot and was fastening my anorak, ready for my expedition to the ticket machine, when it suddenly dawned on me that my car appeared to be moving. I got back in, drove a little bit further forward and engaged first gear as well as using my handbrake, which seemed to do the trick.

There I was standing next to my car, making sure it was safe and stationary, when I felt something big and solid and heavy press against my bottom. It was the car next to mine, which was sliding backwards into me! Once I'd got myself out of its way, I studied it and it became apparent that this innocent-looking vehicle was on the run! Slowly, but surely, the driverless car was making its way out of the slot and down the hill. I stood by, aghast but helpless.

In the end, I decided my only option was to report it to the police, so I dialled 999 and reported it, giving them the registration number of the car and its location. Then I went off to college, hoping that when I returned to my car, I wouldn't be faced with a scene of carnage and twisted metal.

By lunchtime, when I revisited my car, the runaway had gone and the cars opposite it didn't have any visible dents, but the nifty little sports car on the other side was halfway out of its slot. But at least it didn't seem to be moving any further as by then the snow had thawed. Looking along the car park, I could see a zig-zag line of cars which had tried to make a break for it and were poking out of their slots. It was most bizarre and a phenomenon I had never come across before.

It just goes to show that when you think you've seen everything, there's still something new for you to see. And arriving safely at your destination isn't the only difficulty that you face when you're driving in wintry weather. Staying put is quite a challenge too!

Making Time to Write

2008-12-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

If you've been checking this blog and wondering why it suddenly came to an end, I can finally tell you.

There's no big secret. I didn't win the lottery and jack it all in for a life of luxury in the Bahamas. I didn't meet a sugar daddy who whisked me off to Monte Carlo for some retail therapy. (I expect my husband's quite glad about that - though he might have been happy for me to win the lottery!) I didn't see the light and decide to spend the rest of my life meditating in a cave in the Himalayas.

No, I'm afraid my excuse for not writing is probably fairly similar to yours. I've just been too busy! Too many classes to prepare, too much work to mark, too many books to read for my PGCE. Throw in a touch of flu, give it all a good stir, and you end up with the perfect mix for sabotaging writing.

I must admit, I didn't realise I'd neglected my blogs for quite so long. I was shocked to log on today and realise that my last blog was posted on 7th October. I certainly didn't realise I'd been away for so long, and I'm suitably chastened by this discovery. I need to take myself in hand. Not so much a matter of 'Physician, heal thyself!' as 'Creative writing teacher - set a better example!'

So what have been the highlights of the last couple of months, writing-wise? I'd have to say the best thing about this time has been getting to know my new students and being very pleasantly surprised at the progress they've made in such a short time. I've been amazed at the fantastic work I have seen, even from students who claim they've never done any writing before. It's quite a humbling experience to come face to face with so much talent, and quite a privilege to be asked to nurture it.

The University of Huddersfield has been running a competition called 'Grist', and several of my students have entered it, from all three of my classes. It's been very exciting to see them polishing up their short stories, presenting them so beautifully, then sending them off - a bit like seeing your child go off to school for the first time, I expect. Good luck to everyone who has entered. All I can say is that I'm glad I don't have to judge the competition, as it will be a tough job to have to choose from so many excellent entries.

If you've missed the deadline for this one, don't worry - there will be plenty more competitions to enter in the New Year.

Research on the Internet - D.H. Lawrence

2008-10-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

I spent a very pleasant morning at the University of Huddersfield having my library induction. Not only are the newly refurbished facilities top-notch, but it's also amazing how much we can use the library's wonderful resources without even setting foot in the place!

Today I'm going to share with you one of the resources that the librarian told us about - one that you too can use on the internet without having to be a member of the university library. It's Intute.

When you search for something on Google, you may end up with lots of references which aren't what you're looking for. For example, if you were to type in 'hairdressing', you wouldn't just get articles about how to do hairdressing - you'd get hundreds of adverts as well for hairdressing salons and products.

Intute is a site that has been put together by university librarians and academics, so if you use it to search for something, you know that somebody reliable from the world of education has already filtered the sites it leads to and checked that what you find should be useful.

I decided to use Intute when I got home to find some more information on D.H. Lawrence, whose short story, A Sick Collier, my Thursday night class had been studying. Intute directed me to a website run by Nottingham University, which has a famous archive of works by and about D.H. Lawrence.

Particularly interesting was the D.H. Lawrence Portal which you can access by typing in www.dh-lawrence.org.uk/ This provides a wealth of information about the author, his works, and his links with the East Midlands. It's a great place to look if you want to find out about his life or to see some of the collieries that provide the backdrop to his writings.

Another useful site which I found was www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/dhl-00.htm.

It's possible to read lots of DH Lawrence's works straight from the internet, including A Sick Collier, which was originally published in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914). If you type the name of the collection into Google, you should eventually find the text of the stories.

Finally, if you'd like to read about some of the greatest short story writers, there is a very informative article on the mantex site: www.mantex.co.uk/ou/resource/story-00.htm.

Happy browsing!

Be Specific!

2008-10-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

When we're writing, it's easy to grab at the first word that comes into our head. Take, for example, the sentence:

The fortune-teller wrapped her Tarot cards in a cloth.

How about being more specific about what type of fabric the cloth was made of?

The fortune-teller wrapped her Tarot cards in a square of silk.

Or:

The fortune-teller wrapped her Tarot cards in her damask cloth.

You could also give a fuller description of the cloth, by naming the colour, but again, a little attention to detail goes a long way. Compare this sentence:

The fortune-teller wrapped her Tarot cards in a red silk cloth.

with this one:

The fortune-teller wrapped her Tarot cards in a crimson silk cloth.

You can also play with the word order to add greater emphasis:

The fortune-teller wrapped her Tarot cards in a cloth of crimson silk.

Doesn't that sound more poetic?

Try making simple changes like these to your writing and see how they bring it to life.

My Fiction Feast This Weekend

2008-10-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I felt like taking things easy after a very busy week and so I decided to catch up with some fiction from TV, a DVD, and a novel - consuming them, that is, not writing them!

The TV was tonight's instalment, the final one, of the BBC adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I did find it very moving, but all the way through the adaptation, I wasn't sure whether I found the girl tragic or just plain stupid. I don't know whether the book would be more convincing and whether some of the mentality of the central character is lost in the transfer to the small screen.

Then again, I suppose as a liberated, educated, 21st century woman, it's hard for me to really get inside the mind of a character from such a different society. I suppose we were meant to admire her idealism and her loyalty to Angel Clare, but some of the time I did feel she was making life needlessly difficult for herself.

The DVD I watched was one I had been given for my birthday back in February but not got round to watching. It was still sitting on the shelf in its sellophane, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at it last night, especially as I'm making a point of watching French films regularly these days.

It was La Vie en Rose, the acclaimed film about the life of Edith Piaf. It was a fantastic film and the actress who played Piaf did an incredible job. I must admit I managed to soak with my tears all the mansized tissues I had in my pocket and I didn't want to break the spell by getting up to look for some more, so watching it was rather a soggy experience. In fact, I can't remember when I cried so much at a film. If you haven't seen it, I can thoroughly recommend it.

The novel I carved out time to read was a Medieval romance, A Knight's Vow, by my friend and fellow creative writing tutor, Lindsay Townsend. Again, it had been sitting on my shelf since last term and it was only when our mutual friend, Kimm, told us last week that she was in the middle of reading it that I thought I'd better get on and read my copy too.

I wasn't sure at the very beginning whether I was going to like it, but by the second or third chapter I was really caught up in the feelings of the central characters and then I found it very hard to put down - I began reading it on Friday and finished it on Saturday. Lindsay certainly knows her history (she studied medieval history at university), and the details she includes are fascinating. If you would like to read an extract, log on to Lindsay's website, which I designed. It's at www.lindsaytownsend.co.uk.

If you don't normally read fiction, why not make it your goal for the month to read a novel. You'll find it makes a refreshing change from sitting in front of the telly all evening.

'Christmas Comes But Once a Year!'

2008-09-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

When I was young, the run-up to the Christmas season used to last about a month. Santa would arrive in the big shops, and we children would get excited about our annual visit to see him. The silver Christmas trees would appear on the canopy of McGills, the department store opposite my flat, just as they had the year before and the year before that - in those thrifty days it didn't seem necessary to change the Christmas decorations annually.

But over the years, shops have gradually extended their Christmas shopping season. When my son was small, I used to think it began at half term, in the last week of October. That was when the shops were beginning to stock up with Christmas cards and gifts.

But this year, I was rather shocked to discover that my favourite local garden centre was already setting up its Christmas displays before the kids had even gone back to school after their summer holidays! Lots of other shops seem to be getting in on the act, too - even Lidl!

It seems a bit of a shame to me, as it's hard to stay excited about Christmas when you're thinking about it for a third of the year, instead of just a month. But on the other hand, what about those people for whom Christmas doesn't come just once a year? People who may be having their Christmas celebration at an unseasonal time?

It might be because the family can't get together at Christmas, so they're rescheduling it to fit in with them. Perhaps someone isn't sure that they'll still be alive and well enough to celebrate Christmas in December, so they're making the most of the time they have left. I have even heard of someone who is so mad about Christmas that they celebrate it every day of the year! I don't think I could cope with that much Christmas pudding though!

Why not use this as a trigger for your writing? You could write an opinion piece about how we've lost the spirit of Christmas by having the shops full of Christmas tat for months on end.

Or maybe you'd prefer a short story about someone who is celebrating Christmas in an unusual setting or at an unusual time of year. You might have a central character who is obsessed with Christmas or one who hates it and can't wait till it's over for another year. What would happen if they were thrown together?

One thing is sure - if you want to submit your Christmas story to a magazine, you'd better get a move on. Magazines really do start planning early for Christmas.

'You Shall Go to the Class!'

2008-09-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

One of the most frustrating aspects of teaching in adult education is that for part-timers like me, who are paid by the hour for the classes we actually teach, our teaching hours and our income depend on getting enough students to enrol for our courses.

One of my courses had particularly low numbers this year, and we spent the last fortnight fearing that we might not be able to continue as the powers that be had told us our course would be cancelled unless we got more students. It was very frustrating both for me and for the students not knowing whether we would only last two lessons instead of twelve.

Fortunately, we have been given a reprieve and allowed to continue until the end of term, which is a great relief. We'll now be able to settle down and get on with the work we want to do without worrying about numbers and fretting over people who've not turned up to the class.

It's a bitter-sweet victory as we know that our survival probably means that another course will have been cancelled instead of ours and one of the other tutors will have lost some of her income. But we're glad the decision went our way.

Apparently, one of the factors which swayed the powers that be was the fact that the students were prepared to put an advert in the local paper at their own expense to try to attract more class members. It was regarded as proof of their commitment.

As far as I'm concerned, it's an indication that you should never say never - miracles do happen! Sometimes it does pay to take the initiative, even though you may feel like a small cog in a big wheel.

Settling In

2008-09-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

We've had two weeks of adult education classes now and I'm starting to settle in and get to know my students. We're gradually sorting out the awkward admin work that eats into lesson time, making sure that everyone has filled in an enrolment form properly and paid their fees.

Practical niggles are being resolved too, like the fact that one classroom I teach in at a local secondary school has no board rubber. I have endured two lessons where I had to wipe the whiteboard with tissues, a laborious and messy process. But now I have managed to get a board rubber of my own from the adult education centre. I shall keep in my briefcase, on permanent standby.

It's really exciting to hear my students read out their writing to the class, especially if they are new to the course. I'm constantly surprised at how inventive they can be and how different everybody's writing is.

Already we are getting used to working together and all my classrooms are filled with the sound of laughter. In my view, a class that is relaxed enough to laugh is a class that is relaxed enough to learn.

I'm getting used to my PGCE class too - to being a student as well as a teacher - and I'm finding it useful. Not only do I have the support of my tutor and fellow students - it's also a handy place to find a well-qualified plumber or electrician if you need one!

The belly dancing enrichment classes have also restarted so I'm getting a physical workout at college every week as well as a mental one. I look forward to the return of my waistline.

I hope that you too are settling into the new term, as a student, a teacher, a parent. Education is a precious resource. Let's cherish it and make the most of it, whatever our age.

Strong Writing - Find a more Effective Word

2008-09-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

One way you can make your writing stronger is to choose a powerful, interesting word, rather than a weak or overused one. Yesterday we looked at how we can improve our writing by choosing our verbs carefully. Today we're going to see how we can use a thesaurus to find just the right adjective.

A thesaurus is a book, rather like a dictionary, which helps you find words which have similar meanings. I'm currently using the big Collins Thesaurus A-Z which has a RRP of £25, but was on sale in WH Smith recently for £6.25. Let's use it to find alternative words for strong.

Under strong, we find fifteen basic meanings listed: powerful, fit, self-confident, durable, forceful, extreme, decisive, persuasive, pungent, highly-flavoured, keen, intense, staunch, distinct, and bright. The Collins Thesaurus lists several alternative words for each of these definitions of strong, and also includes opposites for several of them.

In this posting, I'm using strong to describe writing, so the best synonym, or equivalent word, from that list of basic meanings is forceful. Its given alternatives are powerful, intense, vigorous. So instead of saying,

You can use a thesaurus to make your writing stronger.

I could write,

You can use a thesaurus to make your writing more vigorous.

But if I was describing after-shave instead of writing, I might want to use a word that is listed under the pungent option, as these are more appropriate for smells and liquids: powerful, concentrated, pure, undiluted.

If, on the other hand, I wanted to describe a person who had a strong character, I might look at the self-confident option, where I would find determined, tough, brave, aggressive, courageous, high-powered, forceful, resilient, feisty, resolute, resourceful, tenacious, plucky, hard-nosed, steadfast, unyielding, hard as nails, self-assertive, stouthearted, firm in spirit.

So you can see that by looking up just one simple word, you can find numerous others which may give you the exact nuance you are looking for. Using more telling words (another one I found in the Thesaurus) will also make your writing more engaging and memorable.

Strong Writing - Choose Powerful Verbs!

2008-09-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's the adjectives you choose, the words that describe things, that makes your writing vivid. But sometimes you can make your writing a lot stronger by choosing verbs that are powerful and descriptive.

Take these two sentences for example:

The cheerful man walked down the street.

The man sauntered down the street.

Which sentence do you think is stronger? Although the second sentence doesn't even have an adjective and it's one word longer than the first, it's much more effective. Not only does the word sauntered describe the way in which the man walked - it also suggests something about his mood.

Compare these two:

The man walked home unsteadily.

The man stumbled home.

The second version is more economical. It expresses the same idea as the first sentence but in more neatly, without having to use the adverb unsteadily. (Remember, an adverb is a word that describes a verb.)

So when you next sit down to write, make your writing strong - choose powerful verbs!

Free Writing Booklets in The Guardian and Observer

2008-09-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year when the newspapers are giving away freebies to try to get people to buy them regularly. It's been particularly useful for me and my class this week because The Guardian and The Observer have been giving away booklets every day about creative writing. They contain many handy hints, food for thought and writing exercises.

On Saturday 27th, The Guardian is also giving away a 110-page guide to English - another very useful free gift for my students. From time to time we discuss grammar and punctuation. There are always a few things that catch a lot of them out, so it's useful to do some revision.

Let's hope that all this talk of creative writing will inspire more people to put pen to paper and try it for themselves - or sign up for creative writing courses and discover the joy of discovering writing in the company of other like-minded people.

So do buy The Guardian this week or if you know someone who's a regular Guardian reader, ask them to let you have the creative writing guides. Happy reading!

After the Milestone - The Post-100 Posts Post-mortem

2008-09-22T09:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's post was actually a milestone, and even I didn't notice! It was actually my hundredth blog on Blogspot.

I feel as if I should have done something to mark the occasion, like giving away a Renault or blowing out the candles on a cake. No doubt if I scoured the internet I would be able to find an animation of a cake with a hundred candles on it, but I'll make do with giving myself a pat on the back.

To have sat and blogged for a hundred days (even with holidays and a few gaps in between) is quite an achievement. It shows commitment, stickability, ingenuity, which are all qualities that a writer needs.

Anyone can claim to be a writer. Anyone can claim to have a book in them. But it's applying the bottom to the seat and knuckling down to write, day after day, that gets the work done.

I hope you're managing to apply that sort of stickability to your own career as a writer. Keep going, even when you don't feel like it. Turn your writing into a habit and soon you won't have to force yourself to sit down and write - it will become your pleasure, your daily fix of creativity.

Expect the Unexpected!

2008-09-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

First of all, to those readers who have been logging on this past week expecting to see my daily blog, an apology! I've had a really busy week with PGCE tests, my new writing classes beginning, and a job interview, all in the same three days! By the time it came to write my blog, I was either still preparing lessons or absolutely exhausted.

But things are now back on an even keel, I hope. I've met and settled in my new students and welcomed back my existing ones, so the classes are starting to gel and I'm getting back into the swing of teaching. I should know by the end of the week how numbers are shaping up and how many students I am going to have in each class.

We've already had some very enjoyable lessons and it's been interesting for me to put some of the new ideas from my teacher training into practice, like an icebreaker exercise that my tutor used with us. I've adapted it to suit creative writing students and made it lead into another activity in which my learners assess where they are so far in their quest to learn to write and where they would like to get to in the course of the year.

I really like my PGCE tutor, Fran Valentine, and she has already been very supportive to me when I was preparing for my job interview. My referee, Gabriele, who used to teach me German, has also been a great help. I also feel much more at home in the college now, and not so much the new girl on the block.

Other than that two things happened this week that were unexpected. The first was the arrival on my mat of a crime writing magazine, Crimewave. I had subscribed to it quite some time ago, received one or two editions and then nothing for ages. I resigned myself to the fact that it must have gone bust, as that is not unusual in the world of specialist publications.

But it has returned, even glossier than ever. I shall look forward to reading it and I am especially pleased because the very first story in it is an extremely short one that I can use with all my students.

The second surprise came today. We'd had a family trip to Holmfirth to enjoy the sunshine and have a latte in our favourite cafe there. Browsing in one of the charity shops, I found a very solid-looking mahogany CD rack, which seemed the perfect solution to our storage needs. My husband thought we didn't have enough room to fit it in, but I assured him that we would.

I was right. There was the perfect spot for it in our living room, between the fireplace and the existing, overstuffed and rather rickety CD rack. I proudly manouevred it into position and prepared to load it up with CDs only to find that they wouldn't fit on. It was actually a cassette rack! A very handsome cassette rack, but no good for CDs or DVDs.

So if you live in the Huddersfield area and you need a cassette rack, e-mail me on gale.barker@tesco.net and you can pick up a bargain. Otherwise, it will be going to another charity shop next weekend.

Thomas Hardy

2008-09-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

This has been a good week for lovers of Thomas Hardy. Earlier in the week, there was an excellent documentary about his life and work on TV and today the BBC started its three part adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. The BBC, as usual, has done an excellent job.

Interestingly, Thomas Hardy first wrote novels like Tess as serials for magazines, and the editors would omit some of his writing because it was considered too scandalous. This was especially true of Tess, and of Jude the Obscure which dealt with subjects that were taboo in Victorian England. He did, however, reinstate some of the censored material when he published the stories as novels.

In his attitudes to sexuality and morality, he was probably out of kilter with his age. But he stayed true to his vision, in spite of the public outcry. It would have been easier to take the easy path and go along with what his publishers wanted, but he wasn't prepared to do that.

Would his books have been so powerful if he had only written what the establishment was prepared to hear?

Writing is Like Love

2008-09-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

When they discover they are expecting another child, parents sometimes wonder how they could possibly love it as much as they love their existing offspring. They worry that there won't be enough to go round more than one child, but when the new baby arrives, they usually find that their love quotient per child hasn't been reduced - they have even more love to give.

Writing is like that. Your ability to write increases the more you do it. It isn't as if you have a set number of words inside you, 100,000 say, and once you've used them all up you'll have nothing left to say. You write more, you get more to write about.

Of course, it's a good idea to keep feeding your creativity so that the ideas you have to work on are good quality ones. But commit yourself to writing and the ideas you have to write about will automatically multiply.

Confessions of a Creative Writing Teacher - Why I Love Marking

2008-09-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

A lot of teachers regard marking as a necessary evil, something that goes with the job but which encroaches on their precious free time. But I love it!

Marking my students' writing is one of the best things about the job. Being with them at their classes and teaching them face-to-face is pretty terrific too, but as I can't teach seven days a week, marking is the next best thing.

I think creative writing must be one of the very best subjects to mark as every piece of work is unique and every student has their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses and their own unpredicable learning curve.

Even if I set everyone the same task with the same stimulus material, I end up with stories that are totally different from one another and all fascinating in their own right.

Of course, you get to know people through their writing, more than you would through their maths or their IT homework. You get to know their interests, their preoccupations, their attitudes to life, their past. And it's all fascinating.

I used to wonder how my friend used to always remember the names of all her creative writing class members, because when I'd been a member of a class or group I might still not know everybody's name even though I'd known them for years! But once you've read and marked a student's writing, you not only remember their name, but you build up your own unique understanding of them as a person.

That's why, when I begin teaching again next week, I can't wait to get on with some marking. Bring it on!

Progressing in Fits and Starts

2008-09-09T14:34:00.000-07:00

It's a well-known educational truth that people's learning doesn't follow a nice, even, upward line. We often progress in fits and starts. Sometimes we'll seem to be making really good, fast progress, then suddenly we'll appear to get stuck at a certain level for a while, then again we'll start to progress rapidly.

It's a bit like the way children grow. Any parent will know that sometimes a child's clothes will seem to last for ages, then all of a sudden they outgrow everything. I see that when I compare my son with his contemporaries. For ages, my son will be the tall one in the group, a good half-head taller than his friends. Then I'll see them all again a couple of months later, and they'll have nearly caught up with him.

Progressing in fits and starts can be a little bit disconcerting when you're trying to master a new skill. It's all very well when you feel as if you're making rapid progress, but it can be really frustrating when you hit a patch when you appear to be stuck or, even worse, when you appear to be sliding backwards. It's especially worrying when you don't understand why you've ended up in this stuck patch.

This is something that affects creative people too, both when we're learning our new craft and when we're practising it professionally. It would be lovely if everything were predictable and we were so in control of our creativity that we could maintain a steady output, nicely spread over the year, with spaces for holidays.

But in real life, it just doesn't happen like that. All we can do is be grateful when things are going well, when we are full of ideas, when we are working fast and delighting ourselves by our output. And when we hit a plateau and things aren't going too well, the best thing to do is not to worry about it.

Remember that change is one of the constants of life. Our mantra for the tough times must be 'This too will pass.' We will become more productive; the barriers to our understanding will be lifted; eventually, we will be on an upward trajectory once again.

Have faith - and trust in your creativity!

Off the Beaten Track

2008-09-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting writing this at five past four in the afternoon, which is unusual for me. Writing my blog entries is usually something I do in the evening, often at ten or eleven o'clock at night. It's a sort of winding down activity for me, a chance to reflect on the day when I'm in that hazy half-awake state before I get ready for bed.

Today my routine will be different because by the time I get back from my salsa classes at ten o'clock Andy Murray, the Scottish tennis player, will be playing the final of the Grand Slam and I shall want to watch that. So here I am, at least six hours too early, feeling a little bit uncomfortable because I've stepped outside my usual routine.

But I know that in this case, the change will do me good. It will be exciting to watch such a momentous tennis match, even if Murray doesn't manage to beat Federer. It's interesting for me to sit down and write a blog in the middle of the day and see how I cope with it and what the result will be.

Going off the beaten track in any aspect of our lives throws up new challenges and new possibilities. We let forego the safety net of our familiar routine and leap into the unknown. It might be a big leap, like jacking in our job and going to work in a lumberjack colony in North Borneo. It might be a little leap like buying a vegetarian lunch instead of our usual burger.

The big leaps, like the move to North Borneo, may be too much for us to cope with, so it's often better to begin with a smaller jump, like taking a different route to work, reading a different newspaper or signing up for an evening class in a subject we've never tried before.

We can gradually expand our comfort zone and become more flexible in our attitudes and our activities. Flexibility is a useful attribute to work on as the only thing that's certain in this world is that change happens. The more comfortable we become with it, the easier it will be to cope with it when it is forced upon us unexpectedly, if we face a bereavement or if we suddenly lose our job.

Flexibility is also an extremely useful quality for a writer to have. A person who is flexible and can adapt to different circumstances and settings will probably find it easier to be imaginative because he will be used to seeing things from different angles. Being able to accept new people and new situations also helps us to see them for who they really are instead of falling into the trap of making an assumption about them and making our view of them fit in with our pre-conceived notions.

There! I've taken my small leap for the day by writing my blog in the afternoon. Tomorrow I take a slightly bigger one by beginning my PGCE (teacher traing course). Wish me luck!

Do Clothes Make the Man?

2008-09-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

My son's new school term begins tomorrow and he's going back with a new suit, even though he's only 14. The school reviewed its uniform policy last term and decided to ditch the familiar blue blazers and grey or black school trousers or skirts in favour of black suits to be worn with an orange and black school tie (to match the school's new orange logo).

It struck me that it must feel slightly odd for a teacher to be confronted with a class full of young teenagers who are sitting in black business suits. But then it must feel even more odd for the staff at Eton whose pupils wear frock coats and wing collars.

That got me thinking about the clothes that people wear and the sort of judgement we make about them because of the way they dress. I remember one lady I knew in Buckinghamshire who was a farmer's wife, salt of the earth, but she dressed a bit like a bag lady.

She once went to look at a show house and the estate agent was very snooty to her, as if to say, 'There's no point in showing you our houses as you wouldn't be able to afford them.' Little did the estate agent know that this middle-aged lady with scruffy hair and no make-up owned a farm that was worth ten times the cost of the most expensive show house!

Some actors say that if they want to get inside a character they are going to play and really understand them, then they need to wear the character's shoes. Once they get used to the feel of the shoes, they know what the character's walk will be like and then everything else falls into place.

How could you use some of these ideas when you're creating your own fictional characters? Could you make a person look and dress contrary to their type, so that they are an enigma to the people they meet? Could the character have a particular item of clothing or a particular accessory that is the key to understanding them?

What is it about them you need to know or imagine for them to really come to life in your mind?

Enjoy Your Talent, However Small

2008-09-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

This morning I was back at Music Centre to play in two bands, along with a dozen or so adults and several hundred children - not to mention the parents and grandparents who had brought their children along and who sat and listened to them play for an hour and a half.

I have some musical talent, but it's relatively modest. I didn't start learning clarinet and saxophone till I was in my forties. I don't pick things up as quickly as I used to and my fingers are clumsy, but I have a fairly good ear. I know I would be better if I practised for an hour a day on each of my instruments, but I can't see that happening in the near future.

So I'm happy to sit in Junior Band with my saxophone next to a ten-year old and a twelve-year old, knowing that although I may be better than they are at writing university essays about music and I have a Dip. Mus. after my name, I don't have their natural talent. And I know I'll never play as well as their dad who is a very gifted professional saxophonist and composer.

But to me, it's still a great thing to be able to make music with other people. It's thrilling to sit and play as part of a large band and hear the wonderful sound we make together and realise that I'm part of that too. It's great to have something to work towards and people to share my interest with. It's fascinating to discover new music and revel in the sheer delight of it - and I can't wait to play the 'Pirates of the Carribean' medley again in Intermediate Band!

If you're just starting to write or you're beginning writing classes or workshops, maybe you doubt your talent as a writer. There are so many fantastic books that have been published, so much wonderful poetry, powerful plays for stage or television. Where you are seems a long way off from the achievements of these marvellous writers. How can you ever hope to bridge the gap?

It's easy to think it's all too difficult and you're too ordinary. You don't have that magic something that all these famous writers have. You'll never have books in the bestseller lists or write plays like Shakespeare.

But think of yourself as joining in the music. Think of yourself as a small part of a big band in which everyone is playing different instruments. Alone, you may feel feeble and inadequate, but when you join forces with others the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

When you write, even in a small way, you are part of the symphony of words and creativity that is formed by writers everywhere. You are adding your own unique sounds, your signature flourishes to it, and your contribution helps to increase the total creativity of the universe.

So when you sit down with your pen and paper and worry that you may not have what it takes to be a writer, don't worry. Be happy! Enjoy your talent, however small! You may not know it, but really, we're all playing the same tune.

Rain - Reasons to be Cheerful

2008-09-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

Today in Yorkshire we've had torrential rain for most of the day, and I gather it has been even worse in some parts of the country. I spent the afternoon trailing round town with my son, looking for the last few bits and pieces he needed to take back to school with him and getting very wet in the process. Even with an umbrella, it wasn't very pleasant to be outdoors.

But it looks as if this extremely wet weather is set to continue for the foreseeable future, so we might as well put it to good use. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as they say. Let's think about some reasons why we should be cheerful about this rainy weather and grateful for it. Doing so will certainly stretch our imagination, so let's treat it as a warm-up exercise to increase our creativity.

I'll get you started with a couple of fairly obvious reasons:

We can be grateful for the rain because...

...plants need water to grow
...it will keep the reservoirs topped up.

It's your turn now. Try to come up with ten reasons why we should be grateful for the rain. Not only will the activity develop your creativity, it should also make you feel a bit more cheerful and happy to be alive, rather than miserable and fed-up.

How My Death Saved My Life

2008-09-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Now that's an interesting title, isn't it? Fortunately, it doesn't refer to me and my life - it's the title of an autobiography by the American speaker, author and visionary, Denise Linn.

I encountered Denise Linn through listening to broadcasts on the internet from Hay House Radio. Denise has a regular radio show which I really enjoy listening to on my podcasts and she's one of my favourite broadcasters, lovely and warm and empathic and full of joy.

I did know a little bit about her life as she'd talked on air about the incident which provided the title for her book. When she was younger she was shot by a sniper and suffered horrendous injuries as a result. The medics thought that she wouldn't survive the attack and had to fight to save her life.

What I knew nothing about was her extraorinary childhood in which she had to cope with a mother who was a paranoid schizophrenic. It makes riveting reading, hearing about her turbulent early years. It's a real miracle that someone who endured an upbringing like hers could manage to turn into someone so calm and cheerful, who could help and inspire so many other people.

If you like biographies, or if you are interested in spirituality, healing or mysticism, I heartily recommend this fascinating book.

Creating New Writing Classes

2008-09-03T14:13:00.000-07:00

Some creative writing lecturers drift on from year to year with basically the same class full of basically the same people, shedding one or two students from time to time, picking up a couple of new ones. I might be in that position tomorrow night when the enrolment takes place for the course, 'Continuing to Develop in Creative Writing', which is a follow-on class for my last year's Open College of the North West students. Most of them are keen to return, although I'm very pleased that I already know of a few new people with some writing experience who are going to join us.

But today has been the day for forming completely new classes, two brand new classes, both on 'An Introduction to Creative Writing', but one a daytime class, the other an evening class, and in two different centres. It was a fascinating experience to meet so many new students all in the one day and to hear about their reasons for wanting to write and their writing aspirations.

There are the makings of two very nice classes. I hope we manage to recruit a few more students to ensure that the classes will be big enough to run, but we've certainly got a really good core of very interesting people. It's been really useful for me to be able to meet them all and talk to them before the first class so that I will be able to tailor my teaching to their needs and preferences, even at Week 1.

Meanwhile, I've been continuing to market my courses. It's a curious development that institutions can no longer afford to publicise their adult education by sending out a prospectus to every household in the locality - if we tutors want to make sure we have students, we need to be pro-active and do some marketing for ourselves.

I spent part of Monday morning getting my son to help me design a poster using the Word Processor so that I would have something that I could give to libraries and shops to spread the word about my courses. I gave out some of them on Monday and Tuesday to various venues.

I happen to have sent a copy to one of my students, a graphic designer, who very kindly produced a much more professional-looking flyer for me to use, based on the information I'd provided. Thank you, Mark. Your word has been much admired in the Adult Education Department and my boss is now encouraging the other tutors do do their own marketing too! I'm a trend-setter!

So I spent this wet and windy afternoon driving round Huddersfield, exploring parts of Almondbury which I'd never been to before, taking even more of the new, super-duper improved posters to other venues. I hope the flyers will prompt a few more people to enquire about the courses and enrol for them. Time is running out, in that my last enrolment session is tomorrow evening, but it will still be possible to enrol after that by ringing The Manse Adult Education Centre.

I was delighted when one of this morning's new students produced one of my posters from her bag and told me that the librarian at the Central Library had given her it when she asked if there were any creative writing classes available. That one obviously did what it was meant to do - and I'd only handed it in to the library less than 24 hours beforehand!

To all my students, returning and newly enrolled, and to all those of you around the globe who are starting or continuing with writing courses this term, may you have a very happy and rewarding learning experience and develop in your craft!

Autumnal Images for Writing

2008-09-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here in the north of England, it's just starting to turn autumnal. The darkness is falling earlier; we're finding the mornings darker too; and the leaves are starting to turn to their familiar seasonal shades of red and gold. It's the time of year when we may remember the line, 'Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness' and feel like writing a poem of our own.

To write a poem about autumn, why not go for a little walk in a park or a tree lined street and observe your natural surroundings. Pay attention to the little details like which trees are starting to turn first. In my garden, it's usually our Norway Maple that's the first to blush red and shed its leaves.

Listen to autumnal sounds like the crackle of feet on dry leaves (or with the weather we've had, it might be the swish of windscreen wipers as cars drive through flooded roads!) Most of our local children will have gone back to school by the end of this week. We saw a couple of children running round a shop this afternoon, giggling non-stop. What sounds do you hear from a school playground the first week when the children go back to school?

Jot down some words or phrases that come to mind and see if you can come up with words that reflect the sounds of autumn. 'Crisp' is one that comes to mind - it conjures up the crunchy sound and texture of dry leaves on pavements and also ties in with idea that apples are ripe for picking.

Good luck with your autumn poem - e-mail me your finished work to gale.barker@tesco.net and I'll display the best ones on this blog.

Word Games for Everyday Life

2008-09-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

I was driving along the other day with my family when we spotted a driving school car which had the school's name on the top of the vehicle. It was 'Pass with Pete'.

'It's a good job he wasn't called Fred,' said my husband, 'or else the driving school might have been "Fail with Fred"'.

At this point we all came up with more and more outrageous names for a driving school based on people's names. We got as far as 'Carnage with Colin' and 'Massacre with Miranda.' It's amazing what you can do with alliterations!

We all had a good laugh anyway, so it brightened up what might have been a rather routine journey home.

When you're driving or walking around this week, see if you can spot any signs with alliterations like 'Pass with Pete' and set yourself the challenge of coming up with some unorthodox variations. You never know, the game might even spark off some ideas for a short story.

Have fun!

Do Something Different This Autumn - See a Play

2008-08-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again when theatre and concert brochures are landing on the doormat as establishments send out their new programmes for the Autumn Winter season.

I used to often have a season ticket for a couple of theatres and I always enjoy seeing what's going to be on, although I don't have quite so many free evenings these days to go to a play or a concert. It's certainly difficult for us to find a time when the whole family is free to go to something unless we're on holiday.

But I know that when I do manage to see live theatre, it's usually an enjoyable and memorable performance.

If you've never been to see a play or haven't been to one for a long time, why not have a good look at the brochures you receive and make a point of booking for one? It's very likely that you'll wonder why you don't go to the theatre more often.

Make Room for Your Creativity

2008-08-29T13:24:00.001-07:00

Even in this so-called 'paperless' age, writers seem to collect more bits of paper than anybody - books (which take up huge amounts of space, especially if they're hardbacks), notebooks, print-outs of their own writing, notes, scraps of paper with interesting web addresses written on them, leaflets, newspapers and magazines collected for research.

The trouble is that it all very quickly accumulates and before you know it you can hardly find space to sit at your computer because of the room that all the bits of paper are taking up. And you can't easily go through and chuck out the oldest bits because they're hidden behind the newer ones. So the problem gets bigger and bigger.

The most frustrating thing is if you want to put your hands on something you've written or some notes you've kept, but you can't possibly find them in the morass of material. It means that it was a waste of time to keep the stuff in the first place.

Do you detect the note of frustration here? Do I sound as if I'm taking more than an academic interest in this subject?

Yes, as you may have gathered over the past few weeks, I have been having an almightly de-clutter and file-in. I have so much stuff that the job has taken me several weeks, time when I could have been doing other useful things like sending stories off to magazines or writing articles for Triond.

But I knew the job needed to be done and if I didn't do it now over the summer holidays, it would be a long time before I had the time to tackle it again. So I have stuck at it.

A lot of the time the situation seemed to be getting worse rather than better. I'd done quite a good job of acquiring box files and sorting out lots of my papers into them, but the trouble was that I still had nowhere to put them.

Today I started to empty some more bookshelves to clear some space for them and for a while I seemed to be surrounded by so many tottering piles that every time I turned round I was in danger of starting an avalanche.

However, some of the stuff that's going to go is now sorted out - books for the charity shop in a box, singing books for my son to try to sell at school in a nice strong carrier bag, at least one bin bag of junk in the wheelie bin. I'm getting there, gradually.

I know I have to press on for these last few days as time is running out. The first of my college staff meetings is tomorrow morning (yes, I know it's a Saturday!). Then next week I have three sessions of enrolling students for my new classes and the week after that my In-service PGCE (teaching qualification) begins, so it will be all go!

I'm determined that I start of the term with a place for everything and everything in its place. Not only will it mean that I have a better chance of finding what I need for my classes, but I will also know where all my ongoing pieces of writing are, so it will be easier to carry on with it, or tackle new pieces.

Psychologically, too, it will be much easier to work in an orderly, tidy room, and it will be better for my asthma too if I don't have so many dusty old papers around me. You will appreciate how much of a hoarder I am if I tell you that I still had photocopies of music we used for school concerts when I was at grammar school back in 1975!! There's no way I'm ever going to need those again, and you can carry sentimentality too far!

Maybe you're better than me at keeping your workspace orderly. Maybe you live in a bigger house with lots of cupboards where you can stash away all your bits and pieces. Maybe you just don't accumulate stuff the way I do.

But why not spend a few minutes thinking about whether you could make a bit more physical space for yourself to be creative? A little bit of time spent having a de-clutter could give you more mental space and energy in the long run.

Bonus Features of the Collins English Dictionary

2008-08-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

The dictionary I mentioned yesterday has some interesting bonus features. If you buy the dictionary, you are given a special 4-digit serial number with which you can access the online version of the dictionary and thesaurus or get downloads for your desktop.

So not only do you get a splendid and very useful dictionary, but you also get online resources with it too.

I've had great fun with the dictionary already. Yesterday, in my Writing Wizard blog, I included a word quiz based on words that can be found in the dictionary. Do log on to Bloglines to have a go at the quiz. You can find it at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/GaleBarker. It's the entry for 26th August 2008. The answers to the questions can be found in the entry for 27th August 2008.

Get to Love Words - Buy a Dictionary

2008-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

Do you remember a few months ago I wrote about how I'd bought a fantastic huge Thesaurus in a sale at a bargain price? Well, today I bought the dictionary to go with it. It's called Collins English Dictionary and it was on sale in WH Smith for £6.25, which is fantastic value as the original recommended price was £25. That makes a saving of 75%.

There are 1040 pages of definitions plus a further 47 pages of other information - everything from British and Canadian Prime Ministers to Member States of the EU and even several pages about music. I love it! I could sit and read it all day!

It reminds me of the time when I got my first school dictionary back in the 1960s. My primary school class had learned to read sufficiently well to be issued with a dictionary as well as a reading book.

What we were given was an etymological dictionary - one which gives the sources from which the words were derived. I loved reading about these, especially the Latin and Greek words and I was delighted when I was eventually able to learn these languages for myself.

Meanwhile, at the tender age of 6 or 7, I'd read the dictionary every night the way other kids read comics - two or three entire pages at a time! I was fascinated by all these marvellous words, and I still am to this day.

Here are some of the words I've enjoyed reading about today. Perhaps you'd like to look them up in your own dictionary or in one of the online dictionaries you can find on the internet.

mojo - zucchetto - Chiltern Hundreds - percipient - sloop - lubricious - raddled

Creativity in Action

2008-08-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I've been at some concerts at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester. They're part of Chetham's International Summer School and Festival for Pianists. It's a fantastic event which attracts pianists from all over the world and the daily recitals are given by top-class concert pianists such as Peter Donohoe.

Last night, I happened to be sitting next to the Festival's artist-in-residence, Brian Dunce, who was sketching the pianists as they played. It was fascinating to be able to watch a professional artist at work, and I felt it gave me a different insight into the creative process.

Non-artists like myself would be tempted to go for what we consider to be the essential details: the shape of the head, the nose, eyes (almond shaped, of course!), mouth, teeth, the way a child does when drawing a person.

But the professional artist starts with something that is quite amorphous and gradually refines it, altering the contours, marking in the eye sockets, taking into account the bone structure. He examines his subject to see how the various parts are proportioned. Slowly, bit-by-bit, the portrait takes shape.

Another thing that interested me is that the artist experiments. He makes sketches of the face, the body, the pianist's hands on the keyboard. He jots down notes for himself of little details he wants to remember, like the colour of the person's tie, or the way the pianist holds his hands. Sometimes, he will sketch the same thing several times, trying each time to get closer to the essence of his subject.

Then he goes away and reflects on what he has done, and works on a painting which he bases on all of his drawings. It is as if he has been exploring the person he is going to paint, getting to know them, working out how best he can represent him. When he's at the sketching stage, nothing is fixed - it's all trial and error. He's going to have a go and see if something works, but he won't be too upset if it doesn't.

That seems to me to be something that we writers could incorporate into our creative process. Give ourselves time and space to experiment, to try things out. Don't feel we have to jump in at page one of our grand novel and keep writing till we get to the end. Get the feel of what we are writing about.

Let ourselves gradually get to know our characters, explore our settings and the emotions we want to convey, try things out till we discover what will work for us in this particular creation. Eventually, like the artist, we will put it all together and end up with a finished piece of work.

Write to Music

2008-08-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

Some people like to have something playing in the background all the time when they are working, writing, or studying - the TV, radio, music. I prefer silence, as a rule, as I am so fond of music that if it were playing, I would be tempted to stop what I'm doing and concentrate on what I'm hearing instead.

But music can play an important part in your writing routine by helping you to relax, by putting you into an inspired, creative frame of mind, or by getting you into a particular mood.

Why not try writing to music this week? Put on a different type of music each day you sit down to write and see what effect it has on your creativity. Don't forget to make a note of what you listened to and how it affected your writing. Does it make any difference whether you are listening to the music through headphones?

Here are some suggestions to get you going:

Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto (especially the end section which is less familiar to most people)
The Magic Flute by Mozart
The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky
Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet
Anything by Abba
Traditional or folk music, such as Scottish country dancing music, Irish jigs
New Age ambient music
Brass band marches
Gregorian chant

If you find a piece of music that particularly affects your writing or which you enjoy writing to, write a comment at the foot of this blog and share it with me and my readers.

Happy listening!

'To Boldly Go...'

2008-08-23T03:29:00.000-07:00

There are times when only a split infinitive will do. 'Boldly to go' doesn't have the same ring to it; neither does 'To go boldly'. But 'To boldly go...!' Now you're talking!

There's no place in writing for timidity. Writing is where you take risks, try things out. If something doesn't work, it doesn't really matter. No one ever died from bad writing!

You can always edit what you've written afterwards if you really think you went too far, pull yourself back in. But if you don't take the risk in the first place to breathe life and fire into your writing, it will be much harder to put right.

Timid writing is bland. Timid writing does nothing for the reader. Timid writing does nothing for you either, because inside of you is a powerful man or woman with fantastic ideas that are bursting to get out, if only you'd stop sucking in your stomach, crossing your legs, and trying to keep them all safely inside.

Give yourself a break. Be a free spirit for once. Let your imagination, your pen, your computer keyboard take you to voyage in unexplored realms, to feel powerful emotions. Set off on your journey with nothing like Dick Whittington with your imaginary bundle on your back and hope in your heart, and see whether the streets of the imagination really are paved with gold.

There's a whole big world out there.... inside of you... waiting for you to explore it. Go boldly, my friend!

Clearing a Path to Be Creative

2008-08-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

You know how there are some days when you feel as if you are surrounded by muddle and chaos but you just can't summon up the strength to do anything about it and other days when you set to and get on with sorting it all out.

Today was one of the days I felt like sorting it all out. I felt I'd been given some bonus hours as I was meant to be going swimming with my son, but he didn't feel well enough to go. By that time, I'd made an excellent start of clearing out my In Tray and Pending Tray which had both been full to overflowing for months. In fact, I found some useful things in there which I didn't know I had.

I was delighted to see empty space there for a change, and now that I've bought several more box files, I actually have somewhere to put the things I need to keep.

I also managed to deal with most of our shredding mountain, another job that nobody seemed to want to tackle. Heartened by these two small victories, I feel better able to get back to sorting out my study, which has been my big holiday task. I'm starting to identify things I can get rid of to make way for the things I really do need to keep and want to keep.

All this might sound like a purely physical pursuit, but I happened to be listening to a CD by Sonia Choquette today which talked about the need to get rid of what you don't need or love or find beautiful to make way for all the new things that are going to come into your life, whether they be relationships or job opportunities or objects. Clearing out is also a spiritual activity and one that relates to our creativity.

We sometimes talk about being 'stifled'. We can be stifled creatively if we don't leave ourselves they physical and mental space in our lives to exercise our imagination and our creativity. Cramming every moment of our lives with work and activities, leaving no space or silence to listen to our inner voices stifles our self-expression. How can we express ourselves if we haven't ever listened to what it is we need to express?

So I am happy to persevere with my mission to clear a pathway to be creative. Perhaps you could take a step towards this too, whether it's deleting hundreds of e-mails from your in-box, getting rid of some old newspapers, or forging ten minutes to sit and be silent with your thoughts.

Summer Writing - Go with the Flow

2008-08-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Summer Down Time

One of the nice things about summer, even when the weather is atrocious as it has been this year, is that for most of us the pace slows down. Students and teachers are on holiday and lots of people find their work changes pace because so many of the people they normally interact with are away on holiday.

Since I got back from my holidays, I've been feeling quite chilled out and laid back. I'd done most of the things on my To Do list before I went away, so there isn't anything really urgent that will make me feel guilty if I don't rush and get it done. It will be another couple of weeks before things start to hot up again.

So how am I reacting to not being under pressure? Normally I enjoy having a deadline and really put a spurt on, but this week I'm enjoying going with the flow. There are things I could be writing or sending out, there is more de-cluttering I could be doing, but there's no rush.

Time to Be Creative

One of the things I've enjoyed is the chance to use my creativity in a slightly different way. I've always enjoyed words, languages, writing, but never really been one for craft work or art. But since I began having Reiki treatments, I've become a lot more passionate about colour and a lot more interested in using it. So I've been using my hands and being creative.

Making My Wish Box

The first thing I turned my hand to was a Wish Box of my own. It was something I'd read about in a sprirituality/self-help book. The idea is that you get a box, decorate it, and fill it with lots of things that express what you wish for yourself in the future.

I'd been collecting bits and pieces for it since last Autumn, but they'd been sitting in a big carrier bag in my study doing nothing for months. But this month I finally got round to doing something with them.

I took an ordinary brown box and used coloured card and paper to cover most of it, then embellished it with lots of paper stickers and epoxy stickers, the sort you can buy for making greetings cards or scrapbooks. I decided to make the outside of my box express my wishes too, so I used stickers of things I want in my life such as cats, musical instruments, butterflies, musical notes and even words such as 'Reiki' and 'salsa'.

Once the outside of the box was as I wanted it, I set about filling the box with all sorts of things that had meaning for me, like a little dancing shoe to show that I want to keep on dancing, angel Christmas tree ornaments to symbolise spirituality, and special cards I'd received that show how much I'm appreciated. I even added rose and lavender scented pot pourri to enhance the overall effect and little silver cut-out angels, stars, and hearts.

It will be interesting to open the box in ten or twenty years time and see how many of my wishes have come to fulfilment. Meanwhile, I have it sitting in my study and I can look at it every so often and remember all the special things and people I have in my life and all the things I still want to accomplish and experience.

Creating Boxes for my Instant Writing Exercises

Having done that, I decided to decorate some other cardboard boxes so that I can use them with my students for instant writing exercises. If you've been following my blogs for some time, you may remember me writing about my Box of Delights, a lovely brown suede box which I filled with lots of objects for an instant writing exercise then tied up with a big shocking pink bow.

I thought that there are lots of other prompts I would like to use for writing exercises this coming year, and it would be fun to make colourful, inspirational boxes to put them in, so I've decorated boxes of various sizes with paper and stickers, so that the containers will be a source of inspiration as well as the contents.

I know I could have used the boxes as they are, but what fun is there in a Nike trainers box? I'd much rather look at my decorated version. The task has tested my ingenuity too, as I've had to work out ways to cover up the labels and the Nike symbols. I've certainly enjoyed the exercise and I hope my students will find the boxes fun too, and they will give them even more pleasure when I produce them for instant writing exercises, filled with all sorts of stimulating things - objects, pictures, cards...

Find Your Own Way to Be Creative

If you've got a bit more time on your hands than usual, maybe you could try being creative in a way that's new to you and see what effect it has on you. You've nothing to lose, and you may surprise yourself by how much you enjoy a new activity. Your new-found creative imagination will provide a boost for your writing as well, when you eventually return to it.

So go on! Be creative! And have fun!

An Inspirational Non-Fiction Classic - The Monk who Sold his Ferrari

2008-08-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

I love books with intriguing titles and this one certainly has one - The Monk who Sold his Ferrari. It's by Robin S. Sharma and it's subtitled 'A Spiritual Fable about Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny'.

It's ideal reading for anyone who feels oppressed by the relentless demands of the rat race but hasn't yet figured out how they can stop being a rat. It tells the tale of a hard-nosed, driven trial lawyer who has a health crisis and goes off to find himself and recreate his life by studying the traditions of the East.

It's a fascinating, thought-provoking, and inspiring book, which packs a lot of wisdom into a charming and captivating story. If you feel jaded with life and resent the fact that it is passing you by, this is definitely the book you need to read to set yourself on a more positive track.

Even if you don't have a Ferrari to sell, it will help you to identify what is really important in your life and how you can work out a balance for yourself which will help you find enlightenment, health and true satisfaction.

The Boleyn Inheritance

2008-08-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

You might remember that I wrote a couple of months ago about how I'd been reading Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl for our Writers' Novel Reading Group and how I'd really enjoyed it, even though I didn't expect to.

I took advantage of some down time on holiday to read the sequel to it, The Boleyn Inheritance, which continues the story of Henry VIII and his wives after the death of wife number three, Jane Seymour. It's told from the point of view of three characters. One of them, Jane Boleyn, appears in The Other Boleyn Girl, as she is the unappealing wife of George Boleyn and the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn. The other two are new to us - Anne of Cleves and Katharine Howard.

It's very interesting to see how the author switches viewpoint between the three and how our views of them and our sympathies change as the story progresses. Our attitude to Henry VIII also alters throughout the book - although for anyone who has read The Boleyn Inheritance, we don't start off with a very good opinion of him in the first place.

I found this book gripping and managed to read it very quickly. I think I probably enjoyed it all the more for having read about the events that happened before it. It would be interesting to hear how it would come across to someone who begins with The Boleyn Inheritance instead of The Other Boleyn Girl.

Reading both books has certainly given me a totally different understanding of the history of Henry VIII. I think I can probably even manage to name the queens in order now, as well as identify what happened to each of them. In fact, my knowledge of English history has increased incredibly quickly, a very useful by-product of a couple of very entertaining and absorbing reads.

A Pause for Thought

2008-08-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

Remember what I said yesterday about how you sometimes need a break? Well, I'm taking a few days off to relax with the family and gather my strength for the coming term.

I'm looking forward to getting on with some more writing when I get back - I have lots of ideas for articles - but I'm very relieved to be escaping the grand de-clutter for a few days!

I've made a lot of progress, but there's still quite a lot to do and I'm getting to the stage where I'm started to lose things that I had right under my nose a couple of days ago. I think that means I need a break. I need to say 'Stop! Breathe! Rest! Clear your head!'

If you're short of things to read, you could log on to Triond.com and call up my Profile page which will link you to lots of other pieces that I've written. Of course, there is quite a sizeable back catalogue on Blogger too, so do read some pieces I wrote earlier, if you haven't already done so.

Normal blogging service will be resumed on Monday 18th August. Till then, goodbye and take care...

Gale

Do You Need a Rest from Your Writing?

2008-08-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

It's something that often happens when we've been working intensively on a project or struggling to meet a dealine - once the pressure's off, we slump, our brain seems to close down, and we feel as if we're incapable of doing anything. How can we manage to write books, create poems, finish a thesis ever again? Even the thought of it makes us feel exhausted.

The truth is that sometimes we just deplete our energy reserves and we need to have a rest and build them up again before we attempt anything else. This applies especially if we've been involved in a creative endeavour in which we have been digging deep and giving of ourselves, not just going through the motions of showing up at work every day and putting in a set number of hours.

So what are we to do if we find ourselves in that position, feeling we ought to be writing, but not having the physical, emotional and mental energy to do it? Listen to our bodies, give ourselves time and space to recover. Do something undemanding, reduce the amount of stimulation we are exposed to or do something which is a complete change.

Today I watched a one-off drama I'd recorded some months ago called The Good Samaritan. It was light-hearted, entertaining, undemanding, and very, very funny. It was just what I needed after a hard week of de-cluttering and filing papers.

You might like to go for a walk or a swim or do some yoga. Go and visit some friends you haven't seen for a while. Do something with your hands, like making cards or jewellery. Anything to help your body and mind make the shift from the high octane gear that you've been operating in to a more gentle, restorative frame of mind.

So if you feel you need it, have a rest - you'll be glad you did.

Develop as a Writer - Become Curious

2008-08-06T14:26:00.001-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that it's good to be curious when you meet people and helpful to ask them about their work. But actually, it's good for writers to be curious about all sorts of things. That's surely one of the defining attributes of a writer, curiosity, nosiness, a desire to know about things and find out about how people think.

You can be curious in any situation at any time. Take, for instance, a simple walk round the streets where you live. There are all sorts of things to notice and observe, from the flowers in the gardens to ladybirds on leaves, people's various sort of cars, alterations or extensions they have made to their houses, their style of furnishing, whether their houses and gardens are well cared for.

Observe and ask yourself why things are so. For example, if you are on a street of beautiful gardens and there is one house which looks really out of place because the paintwork is scruffy and the garden is overgrown, ask yourself why it might be. Who lives in a house like that?

Could it be someone who is elderly, no longer up to the physical tasks required in looking after a home? Could it be someone who has had to leave the country in a hurry and hasn't been able to sell their house? Could it be a young single parent struggling to look after sickly, premature triplets?

When you finish your walk, make notes about what you have seen and what thoughts you have had. Keep them in a safe place as a resource to inspire your writing.

Give Your Characters an Interesting Job

2008-08-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

As well as providing a locale for your characters and a suitable name, another thing you can do to add interest and depth to your writing is to provide them with a suitable occupation. It's all too easy to plump for obvious jobs for your characters - doctor, nurse, teacher, waitress. But there are many other jobs you could choose for them which have not been so overused in fiction.

How about a nail technician? A pharmacist? A dog handler? A court stenographer? A website designer? A graphic designer? A surveyor? Remember, you can always give your character a job that's unusual for their gender too to make them even more intriguing. What's to stop your surveyor from being female or your nail technician from being male?

There are lots of websites you can look on which advertise job vacancies. You could look in the appointments pages of your local newspaper to find some more. Or spend an hour or so browsing round the offices of a careers adviser - you'll find enough jobs to last your characters years! You'll also pick up some real life facts which will make them seem more realistic too.

Another thing you can do is be curious about people that you meet. If you get chatting to someone on a bus or at a party, ask them what they do, and if it's a job you don't know much about, ask them questions about it. People love to talk about themselves. Make notes afterwards about what you've found out, and perhaps get their contact details.

Or you can seek out people and ask for their expertise. I was once doing some research about how dentists train and what it's like to be a dentist, and my own dental surgeon gave up his lunch hour to chat with me. He gave me some marvellous anecdotes that I'd never have thought up myself. I also rang someone at one of the university dental hospitals, which resulted in a very interesting visit to the department - more interesting things to spot - and he even rang back the following week with lots more information for me.

These days it's even easier with e-mail. It's a cheap way of communicating experts and if someone doesn't want to answer questions, he can ignore your request without you having to suffer the embarrassment of being knocked back on the phone.

So why not give it a go? Find your characters an interesting job. It will make your job as a writer that bit more rewarding too.

Finding a Place for Your Characters

2008-08-03T14:47:00.000-07:00

I talked in an earlier blog about how you can find names for your characters by using internet baby name sites, random name generators, and telephone directories. But this week one of my students said she has trouble finding place names for her stories and asked if I had any advice about how to go about this. So here goes...

The most obvious sources of place names are an atlas, a guide book, or an internet site which deals with geography. But the range of places available is vast, so it might be useful to find some ways to narrow it down. Here are some questions you could ask yourself:

Is my story set in a rural area, in a large city or in a medium-sized town?
What sort of landscape do I envisage for the story? Is it lush? Tropical? Arid desert? Heavily built-up and industrialised?
Is a sense of tradition going to be important for my characters? If so, what sort of place would have the traditions that will affect them?
What sort of character traits will my main character(s) have? Are they traits that are particularly associated with certain nationalities?

If you still feel stuck, you could try the old trick of opening the atlas at a suitable country or continent and sticking a pin in it.

Sometimes there is something in your character's description that leads you to give them a certain home town. In a play I was writing with my partner, Kimm, we had a character who wasn't interesting enough, a young woman who had fallen into prostitution in London. Kimm wanted her to come from a middle-class family and to make peace with her parents at the end, but I was against this.

It seemed we had come to an impasse, but the solution came very unexpectedly when I was at a writers' workshop one evening. The task we were given was to list some items a character would have in his or her bag or pockets and then work out what that told us about their character.

A couple of items gave us a new insight into our character and led us to give her a completely new identity, name, and place of origin, and also added a totally new dimension to the drama. The items were a brightly coloured embroidered belt and a pair of sandals (even though the play was set on a snowy Christmas Day in London).

From those two clues, our character became an educated girl from an Eastern European country who found herself working as a prostitute in London because she had been tricked into going there to find a new life by some human traffickers.

To find a town and a name for the girl we did some research on the internet into the phenomenon of human trafficking, found out where lots of girls in that position came from, then researched to find a country which was in the European Community as we wanted her to have the chance to make a new life in Britain once the play was resolved.

So if you're feeling stuck in a rut with your characters, try doing some little exercises or playing some games to discover more about them, then do some research to give them an appropriate identity. If all else fails, try conversing with them. Ask them who they are and what their life is like where they come from. You'll be surprised at what you might discover!

Write Your Future Life Story

2008-08-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

I was de-cluttering my study this afternoon and came across some papers from more than a decade ago. They were from some discussions and tests I'd had with a university careers counsellor about what would be a good career for me when I went back to work after spending time with my baby son.

The careers service did the usual sort of thing - analyse your strengths your preferences and your qualifications, and then come up with some suggestions to suit you. It was very interesting looking back to see whether I had changed, whether my hopes and ambitions had altered, and whether I still wanted the same thing now as I did then.

To cut a long story short, I didn't end up in the career that was suggested as the best fit for me, which was a citizens' advice adviser, but I did end up with two careers that were also a highly scoring fit - FE teaching and writing - both of which I'd been involved in before.

The really intriguing thing is that lots of people believe that the way to make things happen is to write them down. If you want to create or manifest something for the future, what you do is write about it as if you have it or are doing it, and imagine very strongly the emotions that you will feel.

It's an appealing thought and possibly worth a try. Whether or not you actually manage to bring this future into existence by doing this, it will surely clarify your preferences and your intentions, which can be no bad thing.

So instead of writing the life story of your past, try writing about your future. Imagine what you'd like your life to be like in ten years' time and write about it, feeling the associated emotions as strongly as you can. Don't worry about whether your future life is feasible or try to figure out how you could possibly bring it about. Just imagine it and feel the emotions you would have if you were living that life.

Then put your life story away somewhere safe. Don't forget to look at it when the ten years are up and see if your life has turned out the way you imagined it would.

Writers Just Want to Have Fun!

2008-08-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

We writers have been partying! Our severely disabled, but seriously fun-loving class member is 40 today, and we arranged a surprise class party for her last night at the house of one of her fellow students.

She arrived with her carer, who had told her they were going out for a drink at the pub, to find several of us already gathered and the house festooned with banners and balloons. There were sausage rolls, quiches and pizzas heating in the oven, biscuits and traybakes on plates, wine uncorked, and a birthday cake secreted in the kitchen - it had been specially designed for the occasion by another class member who is very talented at cake-making.

Our guest of honour was delighted and we all settled down to eat, drink, chat and laugh uproariously. There were enough funny real-life stories trotted out to fill a dozen magazines, about everything from cats and dogs to how we met our partners and encounters people have had with the college ghost!

We distributed presents and cards, toasted the birthday girl with bubbly, and chatted about class. A good time was had by all.

We await with eager anticipation our next opportunity for a class knees-up! Meanwhile, everyone has gone home with copies of the college prospectus so they can sign up for next term's class. If you live or work in West Yorkshire and would like to come to one of my classes, you can download the adult education prospectus online from www.huddcoll.ac.uk.

You'll be very welcome at any of the three courses I'm teaching next term, especially if you've a big birthday coming up! In between writing fantastic pieces, winning awards, and having work published, writers just want to have fun!

Going Too Far - Exaggerate in your Writing

2008-07-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

You want your writing to be memorable, so how are you going to make it so? Are you going to stick really closely to real life or are you going to make your writing larger than life? What sort of a character do you think your readers will be intrigued by, one who is mousy, quiet, careful, or one who is over the top, melodramatic, wild?

To illustrate this point, I'd like you to think of five characters from literature that stand out in your mind. List them and jot down why you think you remember each of them. Then take a piece of your own work that isn't quite working. Think of a character that you could exaggerate in some way and make them much bigger and more exciting. Go really over the top - think of what would be reasonable then multiply it by five. Be bold and brave!

If you have someone sympathetic who reads your stories, you could let them read the before and after versions and see which one they prefer.

Using Music and Memories in Your Writing

2008-07-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to see the film, Mamma Mia! which is based around the music of Abba. I really enjoyed it and was very impressed at the way they managed to weave a story round the music, or weave the music into a story.

It reminded me of another way in which music is woven into the fabric of our lives. The music of Abba played a significant part in a momentous day in my life, the day I got my final degree results at Durham University. It was a strange sort of day, one full of normal routine, yet in another sense not at all normal, because we knew that the results would be posted on a board in County Hall that evening.

The countdown began earlier. We'd been told to check a board outside our department at lunchtime to see if we were going to be given a Viva Voce - an exam in which you are questioned in person about your subject and the answers you gave in the exam. No one wanted a viva - by that stage, we'd relaxed and forgotten most of what we'd written in our finals papers.

There were two reasons students might sit a viva. There were those who were on the borderline between failing and passing their degree. If they did well in their viva, they could tip the scales in their favour and secure a pass.

The other group consisted of those who were on the borderline between two classifications, for example, they might have a high 2:1, but their viva could push them up into a first class degree.
I didn't think I was in danger of failing, but I did think I might be on the borderline between classifications.

Eventually our lecturers filed out and the list was pinned on the board. My name wasn't on it. But I was amazed to see my philosophy lecturer give me a big smile and a thumbs up as she passed me by. What did that mean?

I reckoned she must be letting me know I'd done well, but exactly how well? Did she mean I'd got a first? Or was it just a good 2:1? The agonising thing was that I had a few more hours to wait to find out which it was.

I went home to wait for results time, but I was full of nervous energy, even more so now after that enigmatic thumbs up! I was starting to hope I might have got a first, but I didn't want to count on it and end up disappointed.

To burn up some of my nervous energy, I put on my favourite Abba LP and danced along to it, all the while wondering what the next few hours would bring. I knew that if I got a first I'd be able to study for a Ph.D. so there was a lot riding on that result.

Eventually we headed for County Hall to check the results boards. At first there was nothing up for my subject, so that meant more hanging around. When the long-awaited sheet of paper was finally pinned to the board, I could finally breathe. There was just one first class honours degree awarded in my subject and there at the top of the list was my name. I'd done it! I'd got my first and come top of my year as well!

Whenever I think about that day, that wonderful day, the music of Abba always comes to mind. The two are inextricably linked in my memory.

How about you? Is there a particular song or singer that is linked to a memorable moment in your life? Your first kiss, perhaps? Or a marriage proposal? Moving away from home?

If there is, dig out the music now and have a listen to it. Then write down your own story using the music to anchor your memories.

Contrasting Emotions in Your Writing

2008-07-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

I was thinking today about a couple of real life experiences which gave me a jolt because of the way in which strong emotions were contrasted.

One was my memory of Princess Diana's funeral. Like many other people, I was deeply affected by her sudden death and was really upset in the run-up to her funeral. I found the day of her funeral very emotional, heart-breaking, something I knew I would remember for the rest of my life.

On that day, there was a huge outpouring of grief in London. It seemed as if the whole country had gone into mourning for her.

So it came as a shock to me to see wedding cars arriving at the house of one of my neighbours up the road. I realised that for many people this was a desperately sad day, a day of mourning, but my neighbours were celebrating the wedding of their only daughter.

I found it very hard to reconcile the two. How could they possibly go and enjoy themselves at a wedding when The People's Princess was being buried?

When the bride set off in her wedding finery in a posh limousine, I knew that the family must have been planning this special occasion for months, years even. It was due to a quirk of fate that it coincided with the funeral of The Princess of Wales. No one could have possibly foreseen her untimely death.

Another occasion which was also full of mixed emotions was the day my best friend gave birth to her first child. As promised, her husband rang to tell me the news and give me details of the baby, her name, birth weight and so on.

I was surprised to hear he didn't sound at all happy considering he'd just become a father, so I asked him if he'd been up all night at the hospital. It was then that he told me his mother had just died. She had been seriously ill in hospital for quite some time, but had held on just long enough to see her new grandchild come into the world.

So my friend and her husband found themselves preparing to bring home their newborn baby and arrange a family funeral at the same time.

This is the way things turn out sometimes. It is very difficult to reconcile mixed emotions like these at the time, but can you see how for a writer they could add depth and complexity to a plot?

Life isn't all ha, ha, hee, hee. Let our writing reflect that.

Using Contrasts in Your Writing

2008-07-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Today has been a day of contrasts, weatherwise. This evening it was very warm, dry and close, uncomfortably so. I've been flinging windows open all over the house, but even that didn't really help to cool the place down.

Then about half an hour ago, the heavens opened. We had a torrential rain-storm, so loud you could hear the rain battering on the ground. It was a complete contrast, but obviously what we needed to cool down. We suddenly went from warm and humid to torrential rain in a heartbeat.

You can use striking contrasts like this in your writing too. You can lull the reader into a false sense of security or a state of torpor, then BANG! Everything changes! Suddenly there is a threat or a crisis or danger.

You can use this contrast technique in lots of different ways. You can have a sudden change in the weather; an unexpected incident; even someone suddenly falling in love.

In the Latin work by Virgil, The Aeneid, you get these combined. There is a thunderstorm during which Aeneas and Queen Dido take shelter in a cave and suddenly become a whole lot closer!

The main thing is that all of a sudden, everything has changed, everything is different.

Your characters will be thrown into turmoil by the sudden change and it will also unsettle your readers and make them curious to find out what it going to happen next.

Spend a few minutes thinking about a piece you're in the process of writing, about to write, or one that you've been working on. Think about how you could introduce a startling contrast to really things up. Then write or rewrite your piece using this contrast.

Keep your original idea or draft so that you can compare your versions and see what a difference it has made introducing a contrast.

A Summer Story or Poem

2008-07-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

Let's stick with the holiday theme and think about a story or a poem you could write on the theme of summer.

Begin by thinking of some words you associate with summer and make a list of them. Here are a few to start you off: sand, sunshine, sunglasses, aeroplanes, holidays.

Think of a setting - it could be by the sea, in the country, in a city, abroad, travelling.

Think of what the weather is like - is it hot and sunny? Rainy?

Think of the characters that you can see? What age are they? Are they adults? Children? Are there any adults in the scene?

Think of a sound you hear.

Think of a movement.

You should now have enough ideas to start you off writing a poem or a story. Happy writing!

What Your Character's Suitcase Reveals about Him?

2008-07-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

It's the time of year when many of us are packing our suitcases and heading off on holiday. So I thought it would be fun to think about what our characters will be putting in their suitcases.

The contents of a character's suitcase can reveal a lot about their personality, both to your readers and to you yourself. An interesting exercise you can do if you've got a character that hasn't quite come to life is to describe their suitcase or handbag and its contents.

The first thing that will tell us something about them is what sort of bag they have in the first place. Is it an expensive Louis Vuitton piece of luggage? A backpack? A poacher's bag? A battered leather briefcase? A shocking pink vanity case?

Then the actual contents will give you even more clues as to their personality, their situation, their likes and dislikes, their preoccupations. If you list them, you'll be surprised at what you discover about them.

I did an exercise like this about a character from a play I was writing, after I realised the character didn't quite work. It yielded all sorts of information about her background - as a result of that exercise, she even acquired a new nationality, a perilous situation, and an entire family!

So if you have a character that isn't quite fully-formed, try the suitcase exercise and let your character surprise you.

Six Things to Think About When You're Revising Your Writing

2008-07-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

So far, we've been concentrating on first drafts, getting the words and the ideas out of your head and onto paper. But the time will come when you have distanced yourself enough from your writing to be able to look at it with fresh eyes, and that's when it will be time for revising.

So what do you need to do when you're revising a piece of your own work?

Read it out loud so you can hear if it uses rhythm well or whether there are any sentences which need to be rejigged to make them flow better.
Make sure that the piece has a good structure, a proper beginning, middle and end.
Check that it all makes sense.
Look to see if there are any sections that could be strengthened, for example, by using more colourful vocabulary, by adding details, by introducing the senses of smell, taste, and touch.
Ask yourself if your characters are compelling and convincing. If not, what could you do to make them stronger?
Make sure your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are accurate.

Lists! Lists! Lists!

2008-07-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

People are always interested in lists. In fact, you can buy books which consist entirely of lists, such as The Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information by Amy And Wallechinsky and David Wallace, The Top Ten of Everything: The Ultimate Book of Lists by Russell Ash; Ultimate Book of Lists by Michael Cader.

I used to have letters printed in magazines which were based on lists, and there is a website called listverse which contains lots of lists of odd things. One of my favourites in RJ Evans' article Top Ten Bizarre Coffins. They really live up to their name. The pictures are incredible.

When I'm searching for some books to buy on Amazon, I enjoy the lists of books that readers have compiled on Listmania! I often come across books I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

Making lists is a fun thing to do as a warm-up or to fill in spare moments while you're waiting for a bus or for the kettle to boil. We played this game in my writing class recently and really enjoyed it.

It was particularly interesting when people wrote about 'Ten things I would rescue if my house were on fire'. Most people chose things that were irreplaceable like their insurance policies, their wedding photographs and items of sentimental value.

But one of the students was intent on saving the contents of his kitchen, including the washing machine, the fridge, the freezer, and even the bacon and eggs he had in his fridge!

Have fun! Read a few lists. Then maybe write some of your own.

Explore the BBC Writers Room

2008-07-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

There are many resources for writers on the internet these days, but one of the most useful is the BBC Writers Room.

It provided tons of invaluable information: what the BBC is looking for from its writers; how to submit work to the BBC; interviews with famous television writers; scripts from BBC dramas, comedies, children's drama, radio drama, and radio comedy; you can even download special software for writing television drama called Script Smart.

You can read about various competitions and initiatives which are about to take place and keep up to date with the latest opportunities for new writers.

It's well worth a look and you may find it so absorbing that you linger there a lot longer than you thought you would.

Writing with Rhythm

2008-07-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

You'll be aware that rhythm is important in music, but did you know it's important in writing too? Poetry, whether or not it rhymes, is dependent on rhythm. The words need to flow freely, not trip each other up, unless you want to create that effect for a special reason.

But in prose, short stories, novels, even articles, rhythm is important too. If someone were to read the piece out loud the sounds must move in an attractive way. Of course, it's even more important for a piece of drama to have rhythm too as it's designed to be spoken. Actors will find it very difficult to perform if the words trip them up instead of tripping off their tongues.

So how can you make sure your writing has rhythm? The easiest way is to read your piece out loud, putting a mark against any words or phrases that don't work. Often all you will need to do is rejig a sentence very slightly to improve the rhythm.

If you aren't musical and you don't feel you have an ear for rhythm, you can acquire one by reading poetry out loud to yourself. Even reading one poem a day will help you to hone your sense of rhythm.

So go with the flow - add rhythm to your writing and hear it swing!

Writing from Whose Point of View?

2008-07-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

One of the things you will need to decide before you write a short story or a novel is whose point of view it will be told from? Who is the narrator?

Some stories are told as if the narrator is speaking. 'I woke up and found I'd turned into a frog.' This is a first person narrative. The difficulty with this is that you can only write what the narrator would actually know or see.

An omniscient third person narrator is more common. This is it is told from the point of view of someone looking on at what is happening, but (like God) this narrator knows everything so can explain what various characters are thinking and feeling.

A third person narrator with a limited point of view is quite useful, even with a more restricted knowledge and understanding compared with that of an omniscient narrator.

It's also possible to have a second person narrator, where the narrator speaks directly to someone all the time. 'You were standing at the market stall sniffing the mangos when I first saw you. You looked so exotic in your red and gold robes...' This is very unusual though and would be extremely difficult to carry off unless you were quite an experienced writer.

The next time you look at a short story or a novel, spend a few minutes figuring out whose point of view the story is told from, and whether it uses a first person, second person, third person omniscient or third person limited point of view narrator.

Writing to Music

2008-07-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

Sitting here writing, I can hear my exceptionally talented son practising the Mozart clarinet concerto in his bedroom, which is very relaxing - a bonus I don't normally get when, as he's usually away at school.

I must admit I don't normally listen to music while I'm writing, although it would be an easy enough thing to do as my computer has a CD player built in.

There's also a radio gathering dust on the window sill. I can't remember whether I put it there or whether it's a left-over from when my husband used to share the study with me in the days before we became a two PC family. All I know is that although I love listening to the radio, I never use do it while I'm writing.

Because I'm really interested in music and I play musical instruments, I'm always afraid that music might distract me from my writing because I'd have my attention on what was being played rather than on what I'm supposed to be writing.

Other writers find it essential to have music playing while they work as they feel it helps them relax and become more creative. I might cope with a soothing instrumental, but anything with words would really divide my attention too much - I couldn't juggle words in my head and words in my ear.

But my friend, David Darling, who is a science writer, will happily work with rock music on full blast, and there are many other writers who have their own favourite type of music to help them write - be it Baroque, jazz, classical.... I don't think anyone would choose to write to 20th century twelve-tone serialism, but you never know!

Some writers choose their music to suit the mood they want to evoke in their writing, a stirring Beethoven symphony for something grand and momentous, delicate Debussy for lattice-work poetry, jazz if they want to write about smoky bars.

Sometimes writers even experiment with music in writing workshops, to see what sort of an effect writing to music will have on the participants.

That's something you could try. If you always write to music, try one session where you write in complete silence or at least play a different type of music from usual. If you never write to music, put some on and see how it affects your writing.

At the very least, it will stop your writing sessions from getting into a rut, and you may even find that the change in your listening habits leads to some sort of creative breakthrough.

Why Do You Write?

2008-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone writes for different reasons. Some write for the money; others because they have a burning message they want to share; others to get to know themselves and find out what they are really thinking.

Perhaps the same person writes for a whole lot of different reasons, depending on how they are feeling at the time. They might start off wanting to write for money, but become so fascinated by the whole process that they end up writing for the sheer joy of it.

There's no one correct reason for wanting to write. You write for your own reasons, and it doesn't matter what anyone else says. It's you who sets the agenda.

But the one person who really needs to know why you write is you yourself. You set your own agenda, make your own rules.

Why not spare a few minutes to write about why you write? You never know, you might learn something about yourself.

Where Do You Read?

2008-07-18T14:00:00.001-07:00

I always used to read in bed, but I've changed my routine recently so that I listen to podcasts instead of reading. My favourite place to read is now in a cafe - I like to take along a library book or something I've bought recently. Today I was in a cafe at lunchtime having a baguette and reading a book about money by Alvin Hall called 'You and Your Money. Creating a Prosperous Relationship'.

I also like to read when I'm waiting for an appointment at the doctor's or the dentist's and if I'm not too busy I enjoy reading in the morning or before I go to bed. It's a good way of winding down instead of watching TV, which can make the brain too agitated instead of creating a feeling of restfulness.

I used to travel by train every week and that was a good place to read too as I could fit in about an hour of uninterrupted reading on the way there, though on the return journey the trains would be crowded so I couldn't always manage to read for the whole of that journey.

Mind you, it's a lot harder to enjoy reading on a train these days now that so many people have mobile phones and iPods. When I was a student and had very long train journeys from Scotland to Cambridge, I always knew I'd be able to get some serious reading done.

Sometimes I'd make notes for my course or even write an essay. It's not always so easy to concentrate when there are other people's phones ringing, loud telephone conversations and tinkly personal stereos playing all around.

But where ever you manage to read, the important thing is to do it, and, if possible, try to establish a habit of reading fairly regularly. That way it will become part of your everyday life and you'll miss it if you don't do it.

Regular reading will nourish you as a writer in a way that nothing else will.

'The Street' by Jimmy McGovern

2008-07-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Catching up on the TV Dramas

Now that it's the summer holidays and I've got a bit more spare time than usual, I've been enjoying catching up on some of the television dramas I recorded ages ago but hadn't got round to watching.

One of them is the drama series, 'The Street' which was the brainchild of Jimmy McGovern, the brilliant Liverpool writer who honed his craft on the Channel 4 soap, 'Brookside'.

I was fortunate enough to meet Jimmy many, many years ago when he came to run a workshop in Sheffield on writing for television. He was a very interesting man, very passionate about his writing and about the place he came from. He reminded me a lot of one of his characters, Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside as he had that same type of down-to-earth, ordinary working class bloke quality.

Dark, Thought-Provoking Stories

In creating 'The Street', Jimmy was able to put on the sort of serious dramas that used appear on Play for Today, but which no longer find a place in the television schedules among the glitz and froth of US imports. He managed to do this by creating a set of self-contained stories but having them linked into series format by virtue of the fact that all the characters live on the same street.

He deals with some very dark subject matter - a working class builder's labourer who unexpectedly begins a homosexual relationship with one of his colleagues while he's away on a job; a young man who beats up a taxi driver but leaves his innocent cousin to take the blame; a young man who is consumed by guilt because of something terrible that he did when he was twelve, something that he can't forgive himself for.

They aren't the sort of programmes you'd watch if you were interested in an escapist romp. They're not full of actors who were hired for their looks, and you won't find any posh frocks or swish sets. But they're brilliantly written and acted and they're the sort of dramas you will remember for years to come.

The series is available to buy on DVD, so if you're at all interested in serious drama, I'd urge you to buy it.

Build Your Writing Career from Small Beginnings

2008-07-16T08:43:00.001-07:00

Would You Go Straight from a Moped to a Ferrari?

Sometimes writers get discouraged early on in their writing career because they expect to achieve too much too soon. They think that their very first short stories or articles will be snapped up by national magazines and they'll be raking in the money.

Some people might be very lucky and have their work accepted by the big boys very quickly, but most of us need to work our way up. Would you expect to go straight from riding a moped to driving a powerful Ferrari? Expecting to have sizeable pieces published or commissioned by one of the nationals is just as unrealistic.

A few people might be lucky and hit the big time straight off, but for most of us it's better to progress slowly and surely. Not so much moped to Ferrari, but moped to motor bike to mini to hatchback to family car to Ferrari.

Readers' Letters and Tips - a Good Place to Start

One of the easiest ways to start seeing your work and your name in print is to write letters to newspapers and magazines. It doesn't take long to write a piece and you may even be able to submit them by e-mail to some publications, so it wouldn't even cost you the price of a stamp.

Useful Market Study

Studying a publication and trying to figure out what sort of letters it usually chooses to publish is a very good way of learning to study your prospective markets. You can put the knowledge you acquire to good use later when you eventually start submitting fiction or articles. Your name will start to become familiar to the editors, which will be very useful when you want to stand out from the thousand other writers whose work is in the magazine's pile of unsolicited manuscripts.

Publication Means Prizes or Payment

It will really give you a boost to see your name and your words in print, and often there are quite good rewards for readers' letters, tips, and photos. Some magazines will pay £50 just for a tip which lasts one or two sentences, which means you'd be getting an excellent rate of pay per word! Others offer prizes for letters published or the letter of the week.

I remember getting all sorts of things when I was starting out, including a caddy of tea and a very handsome Schaeffer pen, which I still use today. I had all sorts of things published, anecdotes from my family or odd things that I overheard when I was out and about.

You don't even need to buy the publications regularly to check whether your letter is in. I used to spend a little while browsing in a big newsagent's and look at the letters pages of the magazines I'd sent things off to. Then I'd buy the magazine if my contribution had been published that week.

How to Work Out What Gets Published

The important thing is to study three or four recent copies of each publication you are targetting so that you can identify the readership of the magazine and the sort of things they like to publish. Some magazines love little anecdotes and pictures of children and grandchildren. Others like to publish letters in which the reader says how much she identified with an article in a previous issue because they'd had a similar experience.

One more thing to remember is that you mustn't send the same letter to more than one publication at a time as editors hate it if they publish something which ends up in another magazine around the same time.

But if several months have passed and your letter still hasn't been printed, you'll be safe to send it somewhere else, possibly adapting it slightly for your new target publication.

So get writing - and good luck!

Writing Your Life Story

2008-07-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

So You Want to Write Your Life Story?

Have you had lots of interesting things happen in your life that you'd like to share? Do you want to hand on memories about your parents and your childhood to your own children and grandchildren? Do you want to share your life story with other people, even if it's only with your closest friends and relatives?

Wanting to tell one's life story is what motivates many people to begin writing. I've heard many hours of autobiographical writing over the last twenty or so years since I began to write and to go to writing classes and groups. It's been a fascinating experience.

The immediacy of the experience and the detail that the writer is able to include can really bring this sort of writing to life. If you're writing about your own life, then you obviously care about your subject and that shows. It makes it compelling.

Pitfalls of Writing Autobiographically

There are a few pitfalls that people can fall into though when writing about their own experiences. One of these is trying to stick rigidly to the truth. Things don't happen tidily in real life. In a story, what you want to hear are the main events that have a bearing on the plot in a way that grabs the reader and makes for good reading.

But in real life, there are often digressions, delays, complications. It's easy to become so hung up about sticking to the letter of the truth that the story gets lost in and amongst the morass of detail. Sometimes a writer will defend what they've written, by saying, 'But that's what happened!' That may be, but there's no point in telling it like that if you're going to lose your readers.

Another thing that happens in real life is that there are often more people involved than you would choose to include in a story. Too many characters, real or fictitious, can be confusing for the reader. This is a particular problem when a real life story is being dramatised for film or television. As one dramatist wrote, 'People always have too many sisters'.

A solution to this problem is to conflate a few characters into one - take some people who have minor roles in the story and combine their actions and functions in one character. Of course, how you square this with the cousins and aunties that you're leaving out is your problem!

But probably the biggest problem that affects the readability of autobiographical writing is that writers feel they need to start at the beginning and keep on going. But really, what you're trying to do is tell a story, so you need a hook for the start of your autobiography just as you would for the start of a novel.

Write to Make Your Readers Want to Read

That might mean you will have to start with one of the big moments in the story rather than with your birth - after all, everyone gets born. It's hardly a unique occurrence! In my biography of Cliff Richard, I began the story, not at his birth or even in his childhood but at the big Wembley concert to celebrate his thirty years in show business. It meant I could start the story at a high spot, then go back and trace how he came from his early life to his long and illustrious career in pop music.

So when you're writing about your life, tell it like it is. But don't forget that people have got to want to read it, so tell it like a story too.

Time or Money? Can Writers Have Both?

2008-07-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

Two Stages in the Writing Life

It's a well known fact that there are two sorts of writers:

those writers who are just starting out and don't have any big projects commissioned or anybody beating at their door demanding material for a deadline
those writers who are earning money from having big projects commissioned and people banging on their door demanding material for a deadline

The one who don't have commissions and deadlines think that their life would be perfect if only they could have something commissioned and some deadlines to meet. Then they wouldn't have to mess around sending things off and trying to get them accepted.

The writers who are earning a decent living look back to the halcyon days when they were starting out when they could sit and write whatever they wanted, with no one to answer to, and no deadlines piling up. To them, being able to sit down and write what you feel like writing rather than what you have to write is a luxury they can no longer afford.

I suppose what would be perfect is to have plenty of money to live off - perhaps a large, guaranteed writing income but complete freedom to write whatever you feel like.

How to Be Happy as a Writer

So who's happiest? Who should we aspire to be like?

There's no easy answer to this one. All we can do is change our attitude so that whatever position we're in as a writer, no matter how far we have or haven't managed to travel along the road, we're grateful for where we are and what we've achieved.

Enjoy the Journey

The thing is, writing is about the journey, not the destination. Once the journey is complete, then another one comes along to take its place. Finish one book and you're desperate for a second book deal. Write one Oscar-winning screenplay and the following year you'll be eager for another commission so that you can prove that your success wasn't a fluke.

Think about your writing as an adventure, whatever stage you're at in your development. Be grateful for the time you have available to spend on it and for the sheer joy of writing. If you're trying to earn a living through your writing and you're getting stressed because you keep getting knock-backs, take the pressure off yourself by finding a part-time job.

Above all, if you do have the luxury of time, but not money, make the most of it. The day may come quite soon when you'll wish you could still sit down and say, 'I wonder what I shall write about today.'

Food for Your Writing Soul

2008-07-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

Presumably you're interested in writing if you've chosen to read this writing blog, but are you interested in the other arts as well? I don't mean are you any good with a paint brush or can you dance a nifty battement tendu. I mean, do you take the time to look at artwork, go to exhibitions, study sculptures, listen to Liszt, watch ballet by Balanchine?

If you're producing work in one of the arts on a regular basis, it's important to feed your creativity by taking in inspiration from other art forms. This is the reason why Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way advocates having a weekly artist's date - a time you spend alone doing something that will feed your creativity, like going to an art gallery or an opera or even spending time in a flower shop just taking in the colours, shapes, textures, scents of the blooms.

If you give, give, give of your creativity all the time, but never top up your reserves, your creative reservoir will soon run dry. See what you can do this week to feed your writing soul.

Ideas for Writing - Unexpected Meetings

2008-07-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

If you need some more writing inspiration, here are another couple of real-life anecdotes that could spark off some writing for you. Today's topic is 'unexpected meetings'.

The first unexpected meeting was my brother-in-law's encounter with a very famous person on a short flight from Gatwick to Manchester. My brother-in-law, Nigel, lives in California, but often spends time in Toulouse in France on business. This weekend he decided to fly up to Manchester to spend the day with us before jetting back home to the States.

He must have been fated to get involved with famous people and big events today because it all started at quarter to five in the morning in Toulouse when he tried to drive from his hotel to the airport. The Tour de France was due to pass right outside his hotel and, even at that ungodly hour, staff were already out in the streets putting up barriers and getting the course ready. It took him a bit of time to negotiate the side streets and the one-way system to avoid the race route, but he eventually made it to the airport.

One plane journey later, he was getting ready to board his shuttle flight at Gatwick when he spotted a passenger who looked very familiar. 'Is that who I think it is?' he asked his friend.
'Yes, I'm pretty sure it is,' his friend replied.

As more and more people approached the famous-looking lady with autograph books, cameras, and microphones, the pair of them began to realise that she was indeed the real deal. And they already knew she wasn't just famous - she was a superstar!

And so it came about that my brother-in-law found himself sitting on a plane only one seat away from the legendary singer, Diana Ross. It certainly wasn't a meeting he'd expected to have that day, but it will give him something to tell the folks when he gets back home!

I had several unexpected meetings on my birthday this year when my husband and I went to Sheffield for the weekend to watch the stage show of Strictly Come Dancing, the British television show which became Dancing with the Stars in the U.S.A.

We were in a little gift shop just round the corner from our hotel and were waiting for a very slow credit card machine to make its connection so we got chatting to the shop assistant about how we'd come to Sheffield for the show. 'The stars are all staying in that hotel there,' she said, pointing to the one where we had our room. 'And you're something to do with the show, aren't you?' she said to the tall lady who was standing beside me in the queue.

'Yes,' she replied.

'You're Zoe Ball, aren't you?' said the assistant.

So that's how I came to be chatting to Zoe Ball, the television presenter and one of the celebrity dancers from the show. She was extremely nice. She talked to us for a little while, shook my hand, and said she hoped we would enjoy the show.

It was only the first of many close encounters we had with the stars and the professional ballroom dancers that weekend. There was our journey in the lift up to our room after the show in the company of Olympic heptathlon gold medallist, Denise Lewis, who was clutching a drink in a plastic glass in one hand and a polystyrene fast food carton in the other. I was dying to ask her if it contained a healthy salad or a fat-filled burger, but I restrained myself!

The next day, I literally bumped into Len, the judge, on my way out of the health club the following morning.

'I'm terribly sorry, madam,' he said, very politely.

'That's quite all right, Len,' I replied, as you do.

We had another journey in the lift with two of the top dancers, this time. Then after breakfast we saw nearly everyone from the show checking out and preparing to leave for the next step of their tour - more famous people than I can mention!

In fact, we encountered so many celebrities that weekend, we were getting really quite used to it. It seemed very strange that evening when we got back to Huddersfield and found that there wasn't a single famous person hanging around our street!

How about using unexpected meetings as the focus for a story or an article? You could write about a meeting with someone famous, dead or alive. Bumping into someone who turned out to be extremely significant, like the narrator's future partner. An ill-fated meeting that leads to someone's ruin. An encounter with an old flame who jilted you or with someone you hated with a passion.

Think not only about the meeting itself, but the emotions it evoked in all the people concerned. Show us vividly how they reacted, how they felt, what their hopes and fears were. Make us feel as if we were there too.

Good luck - and may you meet with success in your writing!

Ideas for Writing from Real Life

2008-07-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

As you know, whenever I'm out and about, I'm usually on the lookout for anything slightly out of the ordinary that might inspire some writing. Today I'd just pulled off the Ring Road and was heading to my usual car park in town, when I spotted something in a quiet side street that made me really curious.

Right in the middle of the road stood a pair of old-fashioned, gentlemen's carpet slippers. When I say, 'stood', that's exactly what I mean. They were standing there side by side in the middle of the road, almost as if the owner had vanished into thin air, leaving only his slippers.

How had the pair of slippers got there? Who did they belong to? Could there be a fantasy or sci-fi story behind the mysterious items?

Or had someone found them lying near a wheelie-bin and put arranged them like that? But if so, why put them in the middle of the road? Why had they not been knocked over or kicked about? Surely there must have been some traffic in that street? Did the cars drive around them?

See if the slippers in the road inspire you to write something.

What do I think? Why, it's magic, of course!

Being a 'Professional' Writer

2008-07-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Lots of people write but would hesitate to describe themselves as writers. They think that the term 'writer' can only be used by professional writers, those who write full-time and depend on it to earn their living. But is there such a clear-cut divide between those who write for a living and those who earn their keep from some other job and write for pleasure or pin money?

Perhaps we can find the answer to this if we reflect on what both types of writers are aiming to do. Both are aiming to be creative with words, whether it is by educating or informing through non-fiction writing or by creating new characters, new worlds and new settings as fiction writers.

Both categories of writer want their words to be read, whether it is by their family, friends and fellow class members or by thousands of strangers. I imagine both groups would be pleased to be paid or rewarded for their labours, though full-time writers would feel more pressure to make money from their writing so that they can support themselves and pay their bills.

Showing 'professionalism', the desire to be businesslike, efficient, and reliable in their work is another area where the full-time writer may appear to have the edge, but really, it's a good idea for all writers to demonstrate that they are serious about their writing and that they take the sort of care that editors and agents will be looking for.

Being accurate, editing one's work to eliminate errors and sloppy writing, thinking of how the needs of the target publication and its readers should be the concerns of everyone who aspires to write, at whatever level.

So whether you're a 'professional' writer or someone writing for the joy of it, do your best, show you mean business, and make sure that your writing shines. As you develop in your writing, you'll start to feel that you deserve the title 'professional writer', even if you do have a different day job.

Don't Write Alone- Get Yourself a Support Network

2008-07-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

One of the hardest things about being a writer is that it can be a very solitary experience. Reporters get to meet colleagues in the office and go out and about where the news stories are. But if you're a freelancer working from home, as I do, you can quite easily feel as if the walls as closing in on you and the only sensible conversation you've had that day is with next door's cat.

It isn't just full-time professional writers who feel this way. If you're just starting out and writing in your spare time, you can feel as if you're working in a vacuum. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody to share your concerns with? Someone who can tell you if you're on the right road or getting hopelessly lost?

I think for most writers a good support network can be a lifesaver. But how are you going to get one? How can you meet other writers?

Fortunately, there are lots of ways of doing this. Creative writing classes, like the ones I teach, are a marvellous way of getting advice and encouragement from an experienced professional writer and stimulation and support from your fellow students.

The money you spend on them will be a good investment. If you have a good tutor, you'll be shown not just how to write, but how to market your writing, so you'll have a chance of earning back your fees in competition winnings or commissions.

But more important than the money is the chance to share your writing with fellow writers who will be sympathetic and offer constructive criticism. Writing is a means of communication and it really comes to life when it's shared, even if all you do is read it out loud to the other members of the class once a week.

Lots of towns have writers' groups or authors' circles where people who write regularly can meet up to discuss their work, have competitions and workshops, and run competitions. These can be a good way of meeting someone who's a bit further on than you in getting published.

Groups differ in their entry requirements - for example, one of the ones that I belong to, Huddersfield Authors' Circle, will ask you to come along for one or two meetings to see how you get on. Then if they think you might be suitable, we will ask to see some samples of your writing. It isn't because we're elitist - it's purely because we're not a group for complete beginners who would be able to find more help and support at a writing class.

There are groups for people who have specific writing interests too, like Script Yorkshire, which is for people who write drama. And, of course, there are professional organisations such as The Romantic Novelists' Association, The Society of Authors, The Crime Writers' Association, and The Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

For those writers who are unable to get to a class or a group regularly, writers' conferences or holidays, like the ones at Swanwick or Caerleon, can be very exciting and stimulating, a great place to meet experts and to make friends with other writers from all over the country.

The Arvon Foundation also runs courses on specific themes, like Writing for Children or Television Scriptwriting. These are more intensive and more intimate than the big writers' conventions.

Don't forget that your own friends and family can also be a source of support and encouragement. But be careful who you share your work with. There's not a lot of point in showing it to someone who says that everything you write is absolutely marvellous, even if it's a load of rubbish. There's even less point in sharing it with someone who's going to tell you that it's a load of twaddle and suggest that you grow parsnips instead.

Why not sit down now and make your own 'Support Audit'? Work out what support you are able to receive as a writer and what steps you could take to get more, if you feel that's what you need. Then write down what your first step is going to be and a date when you'll have taken it.

Writing in the Zone

2008-07-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of writing is the ability to lose yourself in your work, so that you lose track of time because you're so immersed in what you're doing. Some people call this experience 'flow', others 'being in the zone'.

It's not an experience that is unique to writing. Other people have it too - sportsmen, performers, artists. The feeling that, just for the moment, nothing else exists but you and what you are doing.

It's one of the ways in which we manage to bend time in an almost mystical way, by making it appear to fly by at a much faster speed than usual. One minute it's three o'clock and you're just sitting down to write, the next it's six o'clock and you think, 'Good heavens! Is it that time already?'

This afternoon, for the first time in a week or so, I had a whole afternoon where I could just sit down and get on with my writing without having to go anywhere or do anything. I decided to write an article for Triond about how to save money. I enjoyed doing it as it's a topic I haven't written about before and so I found it a refreshing change.

Spending the afternoon creating an entire article from start to finish was a very pleasurable experience. It was very satisfying to get to teatime with my three-page article not only finished but submitted at the click of a button.

I also like the fact that I'll probably hear tomorrow whether my piece has been published and be able to see it on the internet. I'm confident that it will be published as the eight items that I've submitted since I started writing for Triond a couple of weeks ago have all been accepted.

So I look forward to being able to tell you the web address tomorrow. Watch this space!

Why not set yourself the challenge of completing a piece of work in a specific period of time - a morning, an afternoon or an evening? It doesn't have to be as long as my article. It could be a poem or a 60-word story.

Look on it as a challenge. That way you'll enjoy the sense of achievement you get when you manage to achieve it. And once you set your mind to it and focus on the task, you'll be amazed to find yourself in the zone too.

Ideas for Writing from Everyday Life

2008-07-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

While I was out and about this weekend, keeping my eyes and ears open for things to write about, a couple of buses caught my eye.

The first was a modern bus which appeared to have no passengers. What particularly captured my attention was the LCD display on the front of the bus which usually shows the route number and destination.

It contained only one word followed by a comma:

Sorry,

I assume that there should have been another screen to follow which would explain why the bus company was sorry. Sorry, bus driver in training. Sorry out of service. Sorry, contract only.

But instead there was just that hiccupping apology and we could only use our imagination to fill in the reasons for it.

It struck me as a great hook for a story. You could do all sorts of things with that one word as part of an unfinished message.

What could it be from? A 'Dear John' farewell letter? A letter to an estranged friend? A suicide note? The possibilities are intriguing, but it's the very incompleteness of the message that makes it so tantalizing.

The other bus I saw was a very old one, a vintage one, possibly - I'm sure you know the sort I mean, with a separate cab for the driver and a platform open to the elements. How many of us used to jump on and off a platform like that when we were in a hurry to get to school?

This bus had something on it that you don't usually see on public transport - two white ribbons adorned the front, like the ones you get on wedding cars.

That opens up lots of possibilities for a story too. Could the story be about a couple who met on a bus or worked on buses? Was the bus taking the happy couple to the church? If so, then they must be quite unconventional characters? Or was it taking them off on their honeymoon? Perhaps it could have a 'Just married' sign and and a pair of old boots trailing from the back?

See what you can do with either of these buses. And don't forget to tell me if you manage to write something fantastic based on this exercise.

Another Day in the Life of a Writer

2008-07-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a different sort of day today. There hasn't been a lot of writing going on because I've been tied up most of the day making music with my two wind bands.

It's been the last morning of rehearsals at music centre for this academic year. For me it brought some mixed emotions. I'm always a little bit sad at the end of the year because there won't be any music centre for over two months and I'll miss playing with everyone and seeing all my friends there.

However, there's a sense of completion and satisfaction because we've made it through the whole year, we've definitely improved as musicians, and we've mastered our pieces.

Everyone's excited because it's our big concert at Huddersfield Town Hall on Monday and we've been getting our programmes ready for that.

Lots of the youngsters are being promoted to the next level next term, from Junior Band into Intermediates, or from Intermediates into Seniors, so the lucky ones who got given slips of paper with their new rehearsal details were really on a high.

Junior Wind Band was excited because we were due to perform this afternoon at the summer fair of a nearby infants' school. Not only were we playing our tunes - for weeks we'd been practising marching as well. The aim was to process through the school grounds, playing as we marched.

Marching is not something that we usually do in our music centre, so it had involved the children buying lyres to fix their music onto their instruments, at £14 a time. We had numerous marching rehearsals over the past half a term. Marching while playing, marching without playing, playing and marching on the spot. One of the dads who is a military musician gave us advice on how to march together in our rows, keeping an eye on the central person of the row of five, the anchor person. This was meant to help us keep in step, stay in our rows, and keep reasonably well spaced out. It sounded easy when he said it!

We practised marching on the paths around the outside of the music centre and even on the tennis courts (minus the nets)! We'd done just about everything we could think of to get the marching off to a T.

Of course, the one thing you can't plan for is the British weather. When we arrived for our rehearsal this morning, it was absolutely bucketing with rain, so we didn't do any marching practice.

But when we got to the infants' school in the afternoon, there was a temporary lull in the rain so we made an attempt at marching. The music centre parents and infants' school parents had turned out in full force to watch this spectacle.

Our formation stayed in place for about thirty seconds, but by the time we got halfway through our march, one of the dads, who was the anchor man for the second row, had managed to get so far behind that he ended up in the middle of the third row next to me, dragging two of his row with him. The three children who should have been in my row had been pushed out of their positions and shunted back into a makeshift row, row three and a half.

All a bit of a shambles really! I wouldn't have minded only this dad who caused the mayhem is a strapping chap over six foot tall who really shouldn't have had any trouble keeping up with a load of ten year olds! I'm only five foot two and I was marching in four inch heels (don't ask!), but I managed to keep up better than he did!

The next bit of the proceedings, playing sitting down, should have been a doddle by comparison, but by the time we'd waited for the little kids to dance around the Maypole (OK, so it's July, but they were cute!), the looming clouds had started pelting down huge droplets of rain.

'It's only rain,' insisted our conductor, despite our pleas to be allowed to go inside. 'Just get on and play.' So we sat there performing our tunes in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm, getting absolutely drenched, with a few hardy parents standing watching us, huddled under umbrellas.

By the time we finished our four tunes, our sheet music was so wet you could have used it for papier mache and the cardboard folders that we usually keep the music in had all but disintegrated. In fact, I'll be very surprised if any of the music ever survives long enough to make it back to the music centre library.

When I got home, I thought I'd check how my Triond pieces were doing, and to my amazement I discovered that one of my articles is on the Most Popular Articles list in one of the Writerhood categories - Style.

That was a big boost. Hopefully it will get my name known a bit better on the site and attract more readers to my pieces.

I've also dashed off a haiku poem this evening and submitted that, so I'll have to wait and see how that does.

So there we are! Thrills, spills, drips, and a bit of a lift, all in one day. I hope you enjoyed your day. Have a good weekend!

The Creative Process - the Joy of Procrastination

2008-07-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

How many of us have great pieces we are planning to write, but we just haven't got round to doing them yet? Procrastination, the 'thief of time', affects writers just as much as it affects the rest of the population. Perhaps more so for those of us who have to set our own agenda rather than following a schedule determined for us by an employer or an editor.

Procrastination is generally seen as a bad thing, as something which gets between us and our creativity and minimises our output. Would we not have a great body of published work behind us, a list of top ten books, or a world-wide reputation if only we didn't put off doing all the things we needed to do and intended to do?

Yes, it's a great excuse, isn't it? I'd be successful if only......

But is procrastination really such a bad thing? Let's look at it from another angle and ask what benefits it can bring us.

Another, more positive, name for procrastination might be thinking time. Time to mull over ideas and plans in our mind and come to a more informed decision about them. Time to let an idea seep into our bones or our bones seep into our idea. Would you prefer an end product that had been simmered for hours in the flesh and bones of real life or one that had been given the quick 'stock cube' fix of instant decisions?

Can you taste the difference, feel the higher quality or does a longer thinking time and more careful writing only make a minimal difference? Indeed, could it take away some of the freshness and immediacy of the writing?

On the other hand, does procrastination not sometimes save us from hasty, ill-considered actions, badly chosen words, unwise choices?

What's your opinion? Would you prefer to jump right in with both feet while you still have the impetus and the enthusiasm to complete a project? Or would you rather take your time and make sure everything about it is just right and your work is the very best it could be?

I'm sure a case can be made for both sides, but I'd love to know how what sort of impact procrastinating or not procrastinating has had on you?

Addictive Reading - 'The Other Boleyn Girl'

2008-07-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

I said yesterday that I didn't know whether I would manage to read Philippa Gregory's historical novel, The Other Boleyn Girl, in time for our reading group meeting on Monday.

But I can now confidently predict that I will finish it in time. In fact, there's a chance that I might even get it finished tonight. I've been glued to it today, small print or no small print. I've found it absolutely fascinating in a horrible sort of way, and it certainly makes me feel glad to an ordinary British woman living in the 21st century rather than a courtier at the time of King Henry VIII.

My son is now home from school for the summer holidays - nine and a half weeks - so I've also been taking advantage of that by getting him to do all the little jobs that I usually get stuck on, like transferring podcasts to my MP3 player. He's a real technical whizz kid. I have a new MP3 player which makes it much easier for me to listen to my favourite podcasts from Hay House Radio.

It's been a day when lots of newsletters have started arriving in my mail box too. I've already recommended a great website for writers, http://www.writing-world.com/, but I'll mention it again. The latest edition of their free newsletter is now out and has some very interesting articles in it as well as information about publications and competitions. I particularly liked the feature on 'How to Read "How to Write" Books'.

I won't spend long talking to you tonight as I'm on tenterhooks to find out what happens to the two Boleyn girls. I've a vague inking of what happens to one. (Let's just put it this way - I don't think she lives happily ever after!) But I'm dying to know what happens to her sister. I think I'm a Philippa Gregory convert.

Reading for Writing - 'The Other Boleyn Girl'

2008-07-02T03:05:00.001-07:00

I've been having a very busy time recently with lots of things happening at once. It was the Gang of Five meeting at my house yesterday - a whole evening devoted to discussing writing of mine that I'd sent them to read.

My fellow writers managed to read three of my short stories - four, if you take into account that I'd sent them two versions of one of them - and they came up with some very useful comments and observations about them.

I think that I'll be able to make the changes to two of the stories very soon and get them sent off. However, the third one (the one with two versions) will take a bit more time to finalise as they liked different aspects of each of the versions. My challenge will be to work out how to combine the best of both of them as one is from the viewpoint of the younger sister and the other is from the viewpoint of the older girl.

So today I took a look at my diary and my 'to do' list and realised that to my alarm that I have another deadline looming. I'll really have to get my skates on if I'm to meet this one.

We've got another 'Reading for Writing' book group meeting in Holmfirth Library on Monday afternoon, but I hadn't even started reading the novel we're meant to be discussing. I eventually made a start on it this morning. It's called The Other Boleyn Girl and it's by the best-selling historical novelist, Philippa Gregory.

I think I'd been putting off reading this book for a couple of reasons. One is because it's a historical novel set in a period I know very little about - the court of Henry VIII. Having been brought up in Scotland, I had studied Mary, Queen of Scots and not really learnt anything about Henry.

Unlike some of my contemporaries who were brought up in England, I didn't grow up able to list all the wives of Henry VIII in order. I know he had a lot of them, but I'm not even sure which ones were divorced, which ones died and which were executed.

The other reason I haven't been keen to read this book is that it's a very big book to read - 529 pages of extremely small print. (I do wish publishers wouldn't use small print. Even if it does save paper and cut costs, it's very tiring to read for any length of time, even for someone like me who doesn't usually have to wear glasses for reading.)

Having said that, I've been pleasantly surprised so far. I'm finding the novel very entertaining and there's plenty of emotion, suspense, and intrigue to carry me along. The main characters are pretty interesting too. I do find it very odd though to find Henry VIII being described as an object of desire. For most of my life, I've thought of him as than the chap on the pictures with jowels and a huge belly from feasting on too many stuffed pheasants and boars' heads.

So I've got off to a good start. Will I be able to finish reading the book by Monday, though? Will I have any eyesight left after reading all that small print? Will I need to resort to using reading glasses or a magnifyer?

Watch this space to see if I have enough staying power to reach the end of the novel. Reading it is certainly an experience.

My New Writing Tool - a Beautiful Thesaurus

2008-07-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

I was just talking the other day in one of my blogs about using a Thesaurus to extend the range of words you use in your writing. I mentioned Roget's Thesaurus and I got my copy off the shelf to find an example to talk about.

I was looking at it and thinking, 'This smells of old libraries'. Then I thought I'd check and see when it was published - 1972! I've had it more than thirty years!

I decided it would be a good idea to get myself one that was a bit more up-to-date and a bit less smelly, and - lo and behold! - when I was in WH Smith's today I spotted a beautiful, big hardback book called Collins Thesaurus A-Z. And what's more, it was reduced from £25 to £6.25.

I had a look at the book there and then and instantly fell in love with it. It's so clear and easy to use with all the words being in alphabetical order - I felt with Roget you needed a Ph.D. just to figure out how to find the word you were after.

The Collins version also has loads of extra articles full of fascinating information. It's the sort of book I could quite happily sit down and read for a week. For example, the page I'm looking at now has a list which covers two-thirds of the page of different types of mania. You've probably heard of one or two: kleptomanai - a mania for stealing; nymphomania - a mania for sex.

But did you know that timbromania is a mania for stamps? Or that cremnomania is a mania for cliffs? Or that ichthyomania is a mania for fish?

It has lists of characters from literature and from mythology, swords and other weapons with blades, and fifty-seven words for different shades of brown. I'd have been hard-pressed to come up with more than half a dozen by myself.

You can also find many hints about correct ways of using English grammar, very neatly and clearly explained.

All in all, an extremely useful and comprehensive book which is bound to add richness to your writing.

If you don't want to stretch to £6.25, they are also selling smaller paperback versions of it for less than a pound and Collins dictionaries, also for under a quid. So this could be a timely moment to start building up a little collection of reference books for yourself.

I'd better go. I've just spotted a handy list of different types of gas.....

Succeed as a Writer through Bounce-back-ability

2008-06-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Learning a Lesson from Andy Murray

I don't always bother watching the tennis from Wimbledon, but this year I decided to follow the progress of my fellow Scot, Andy Murray, the British number one tennis player. This evening he was playing in the fourth round against the Frenchman, Richard Gasquet. I should have been at salsa, but I watched the start of the match and it turned out to be so fascinating, I never set foot out of the house.

Andy Murray pulled off the most spectacular turn-around. He'd lost the first two sets, 5-7, 3-6 and when the third set got to 6-6, it looked as if he was just about to lose the third set (and the match). But he suddenly found his fighting spirit and wouldn't give up. Time and time again it went to deuce, advantage Gasquet, but he carried on pulling it back to deuce, staying in the match by sheer willpower. The crowd went absolutely mad and really got behind him.

Against all odds, he did it - he managed to win the third set on a tie-breaker, then it was a matter of whether he would manage to win the fourth set and have a chance of staying in the match. If I say he won the final two sets, 6-2, 6-4, it makes it sound too easy and gives no indication of the number of times things were going against him - lots more battles around deuce. His determination really won over the British people and made him the new-found darling of the crowds.

Bounce-back-ability - the Key to Success on and off the Court

So what has all this to do with writing? Quite a lot. The bounce-back-ability that Andy Murray showed he had tonight is one of the most important character traits a writer can develop.

Our path to success may be slower and less dramatic, but like him, we will probably experience a great deal of frustration and thwarted hopes along the way. Like him, we will need every ounce of determination, every ounce of resilience to keep on going when the going gets tough.

Tennis players have their duff shots, poor decisions, and badly judged decisions. They lose points, lose matches, fail to reach the finals, fail to win the trophy.

Writers produce poor work from time to time, find that people hate a piece of writing that they were really proud of, find rejection letters on the doormat instead of nice big cheques. We jump over hoops to second guess editors, meet the demands of editors or agents, nearly get that piece of work commissioned then find that the contract falls through at the last minute.

In short, we face a lot of the same pressures and disappointments that tennis players do, only we don't usually have thousands of people cheering us on. The tennis player may get that 'me alone against the world' feeling when he's out on the court and the match seems to be slipping away from him. It can be a pretty lonely business being a writer too and you've got no crowd behind you cheering you on - you don't even get the consolation of room-service!

Just as the top tennis player has to dig deep to find the strength of character, the mental, emotional and physical reserves that will carry him to victory, so we writers also have to dig deep to find a way to bounce back from setbacks and rejections and keep on till we get the result we want - and then we have start it all over again another time with our next project.

If you're dissatisfied with a piece of work or you're feeling battered and bruised after you've had a rejection, just think of Andy Murray and how he kept on slogging away until his luck changed, until he proved that it aint over till it's over.

Develop that winning mentality and you'll soon be enjoying a winning streak of your own.

Shall I Write a Fiction Book or a Non-Fiction Book?

2008-06-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

Is it Easier to Write a Novel or a Non-Fiction Book?

I am a writer who has had non-fiction books published but my friends mainly write novels. So which is the best bet for someone at the start of their writing career?

It's very much a matter of horses for courses. Trying to get a novel published these days is extremely difficult and many novelists earn very little for a great deal of work, unless they are in the higher echelons of the profession.

What are Your Strengths?

So writing non-fiction might appear to be an easier route to success. But really, it's a matter of what you enjoy writing and what your strengths are, both writing and otherwise.

Why I Chose Non-Fiction?

In my case, I had been an academic researcher and a BBC television researcher. I enjoyed doing research, I knew how to do it, and I could find my way around libraries, including academic libraries and The British Library. Doing research was something that I enjoyed and something I felt very confident about. I had already been involved in writing for education and training, so writing non-fiction was a relatively simple sideways step.

It was still exciting to see my name on the cover of a book for the first time, and my non-fiction book credits coupled with some commissions from the BBC gave me enough professional contracts to earn me membership of The Writers' Guild of Great Britain, one of the organisations for professional writers.

It was good to have a contract and an advance instead of sending things off piecemeal and keeping my fingers crossed that somebody would publish them. Having a contract also meant that I had a deadline to adhere to, which was a great motivating factor for me.

If you have a special skill or specialist knowledge, it is possible to capitalise on that, which is what I did in a way. I wrote biographies for a religious publisher. As a professional researcher, I knew I could cope with the research, and as I had spent many years at university studying religion, I also felt confident that I could understand the religious views of the people I was writing about.

It's possible to write about just about anything - fishing, crafts, local history, health topics. Non-fiction covers a huge range of subjects, so if you have a particular hobby or specialist knowledge because of your job, you will probably be able to think of something you could write a non-fiction book about.

Start Small

Of course, if you're not sure whether you know enough about your subject to write a whole book, you could always dip your toe in the waters by writing some articles about it first, perhaps for newspapers or magazines. This would also help you gain confidence and give you some credentials and a track record that you could mention when you eventually approach a book publisher.

The Joy of Fiction

Other people really live to write fiction and that's what they want to do even if they have to write books for years and years with no contract and no guarantee that any of them will ever get published. The joy of being able to use their imagination and to spend time with characters they have created outweighs the inconvenience of having to send submissions packages out to publisher after publisher at considerable expense and possibly receiving a string of rejections.

Is This What You Really, Really Want?

Ultimately, you'll probably be more successful if you are doing what you enjoy and what you are naturally suited to, so it's important to think about what you really want to achieve. Then go for it, no matter what the current fashions are or what your friends are writing.

There is a niche waiting for you somewhere. It's just a matter of finding it - and having fun along the way.

Write from a Different Viewpoint

2008-06-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

Today I've been working on a short story I wrote some time ago. I thought it worked and it was quite a good story, and other writers I trust liked it too, but after it was rejected by a magazine I had another look at it and thought about what I could do to make it work better. What I chose to do was to alter the viewpoint.

Viewpoint in fiction writing refers to whose eyes you see the story through. The same events will seem very different when experienced by the various people involved. Adopting a particular character's viewpoint can allow us access to what that character knew and how they felt, but it can also be limiting - how can we write about events to which the character did not witness and had no knowledge of?

The story I was working on today was written from the point of view of a ten-year old girl, which was useful in that it allowed me to really show how passionate she was about what she wanted - she was desperate to learn the clarinet. But I felt that maybe my characterisation of her and her father wasn't strong enough and it was quite limiting to see everything from her viewpoint especially as she was very young.

So I had the idea of re-writing the story from the point of view of her big sister. She can let us see some of the same events happening, but being that bit older she has a more sophisticated understanding of them. Writing from her point of view also allows me to add a touch of humour to the story and to explore the family dynamics a bit more.

The writers' self-help group that is going to meet on Tuesday is going to read both versions, so hopefully I will find out then if my strategy has worked.

Meanwhile it's worth bearing in mind this approach - if you have a piece of writing that isn't quite working, try writing it from another viewpoint and see what effect it has on the story. It's worth a try. Keep your original version safe too, in case you decide it was better after all.

Writing for Profit or Writing for its own Sake?

2008-06-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

Having begun to publish on the internet has made me focus on the financial rewards of writing. Of course, everyone needs to earn a living and the workman is worthy of his hire, but that isn't the only reason why I write.

In fact, it isn't even the reason why I've been so delighted at having my work accepted by Triond this past week.

I've been enjoying the buzz of writing what I feel like writing and seeing it accepted and put out into the ether for everyone to read. It makes me feel as if I have a sense of purpose. I'm doing what I love to do and there is a prospect of being paid for it too. How lucky is that!

That's more important than any amount of money, as far as I'm concerned. There are lots of jobs I could do that would guarantee more money in the short term, but enjoying what you do and feeling passionate about it is priceless.

This week I've had the satisfaction of seeing my work in print . I've also had the thrill of seeing my writing class reach the end of their certificate course, to great acclaim. Teaching them to write isn't just my bread and butter - it's my soul food. Verily my cup runneth over.

Yes, it's been a great week.

I hope you are as happy in your vocation as I am in mine.

By the way, if you would like to read my latest article, you can find it on www.telewatcher.com/Reality/Big-Brother/Why-I-No-Longer-Watch-Big-Brother.150309

Writing in the Rain

2008-06-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

Writing as the Rain Pours

As I'm sitting here writing, I can hear the constant patter of drizzle as my garden is subjected to torrential rain. It's actually very pleasant to be able to enjoy the rain without having to be outside getting soaked by it, though I must admit that when I was in town at lunchtime and the rain came on, I didn't put my brolly up because I enjoyed the freshness of the rain on my face after feeling overheated and stuffy for so long. There's a pleasant cooling breeze coming through my window now, just enough to make me feel alive.

Too Hot to Work

Actually, I prefer this sort of weather for writing. The worst sort is the overbearing muggy heat that makes you want to sleep all day because it's just too warm to do anything, then keeps you awake at night because it's too hot to sleep - so you start the same old cycle again the next day, progressively becoming less and less able to function effectively.

We invested in a couple of oscillating fans when we had a hot spell about three years ago, but they're not really a lot of good when you're writing because they tend to waft your papers about. For the same reason, I've never really been one to enjoy writing out of doors in the summer, as it's a constant battle to stop your notebook blowing shut and to see what you've written in the glare of the sun.

Writing Outdoors

And as for sand, well, I enjoy a leisurely stroll along the esplanade when I'm in Broughty Ferrry, but I certainly wouldn't sit on a sandy beach and attempt to write. In fact, I'm not a fan of outdoor writing, though I used to enjoy sitting writing on the slow train to Manchester Victoria. I love reading and marking work in cafes and occasionally write in them, though there are usually too many distractions, like newspapers and slices of delicious coffee cake.

I really enjoyed myself on Friday though preparing for the university writing workshop. I set off for a little walk through the woods and really loved being in the little snicket that led from my street to the woods. It was warm and sunny, but quiet and still and there was a handy little wall to sit on.

Being Fully in the Moment

I don't know if I would enjoy it quite as much a second time, though, as the whole point of going there was to record my impressions of the setting - what I saw, heard, smelt, felt and tasted. I enjoyed being in that place and giving my full attention to the experience of simply being there - being fully in the moment.

That's one of the joys of being a writer, that you are free to experience being in the moment and also free to travel in your imagination to be anywhere you want at any time - like Dr Who but with more control over the process!

Why not take a moment or two to think about where you are right now, to reflect on your surroundings, and to notice what is going on around you. Be grateful for the chance to focus your thoughts and experience life fully - then to share your experience with others.

Another Day in the Life of a Writer

2008-06-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

I didn't get quite as far with my next short story as I was hoping. I couldn't find it on my hard drive, so I ended up retyping it all from the print-out, editing it as I went. I think, on reflection, it was quite a good way to work. It's easier to make radical changes if you're typing than if you're tinkering.

I took most of the afternoon off to go to Aquafit with my friend and fellow writing tutor, Lindsay. Neither of us had been to Aquafit for a few months, so we approached the class with trepidation as our instructor works us pretty hard. We survived the class, but by the time we met up again this evening at the Authors' Circle, we were both starting to pay the price, Lindsay with sore shoulders and me with knees that didn't want to work.

We had an excellent workshop at the Authors' Circle tonight. Kate led an exercise where we had to write about either our beds or about things we have hated. There were actually three tasks we had to perform, but I don't want to talk about them in detail here in case I decide to use the exercise with my students next term. Suffice it to say that everybody produced some fascinating material and we ended up having a fascinating discussion as well about incidents from our childhood and from family life.

Something that surprised us was that all the women chose to write about their beds and all the men chose to write about things they hated. I wonder if I'll find the same male-female divide when I repeat the exercise in my class.

So it's been a busy old day, both physically and mentally. I hope you've enjoyed your day and that you've managed to get some writing done. You can reflect on our workshop when you tuck yourself up in your bed tonight. Sweet dreams!

Writing in Progress

2008-06-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm dying to submit more writing to Triond, but meanwhile there are some other things I have to do first. I'm a member of a self-help group of experienced writers which we call the Gang of Five. We get together every couple of months to discuss in detail a piece of work by one of the group members.

As the other four are all writing novels, we usually read about fifty pages of their latest work in progress and spend the evening analysing what works, what doesn't, and how it could be fixed.

On Tuesday it will be my turn, so I must sort out what I would like them to read. I think I'm going to send them two or three short stories that I've been working on, but I need to do a bit more work on them first.

Today I've been finishing off one of the short stories. It was one I started writing about three years ago and never finished. It was still hand-written and buried away in one of my many notebooks somewhere. I had been wondering where it had got to for ages, and I only rediscovered it at the weekend when I was looking for pieces to send to Trion.

I managed to finish it this afternoon, so I shall e-mail it this evening to my colleagues and see what they think of it. I always feel a bit nervous at this point. I think it's turned out quite well and my husband likes it, but you never know what reaction you're going to get from other people.

What I do know, though, is that whatever they think of it, they won't leave me feeling hopeless. As a group we are very good at coming up with solutions to things that don't work in each other's writing. It will be interesting to see how they deal with a short story though, as the main problems we encounter in each other's novels are usually structural.

I'd better go and get my e-mails done now. Hopefully, by the time I speak to you tomorrow, I'll have polished up at least one of the other short stories as well. It's so good to have the time and energy to devote to my own writing, though. It does rather take a back seat during term time when I have a lot of marking and preparation to do for my students.

Read All About It! My Adventures in Internet Publishing

2008-06-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

I'm still very excited today about having my work published by Triond. I've now got two poems in Authspot and two articles in Writinghood and I've earned my first cent - so that's me on my way to my first internet million pounds!

It's inspired me to dig out my old files of work that I'd finished but not submitted and things that I'd left half done, so I'm working my way through those at the moment, getting short stories fit for publication.

I was also delighted to hear that one of my students has followed my example and has had his first article published on Triond too. I've started a trend. I hope they'll give me commission for getting them new recruits.

Why not have a look at the pieces I've had published there? Here are the links:

www.authspot.com/Poetry/Evensong-at-Kings-College-Cambridge.144909

www.authspot.com/Poetry/My-House-is-Five.145677

http://www.writinghood.com/Writing-Business/Opportunities/How-to-Write-a-Review.144107

http://www.writinghood.com/Style/How-To/How-to-Write-an-Acrostic%20Poem.144101

It's a fantastic opportunity for writers to share their work with other like-minded people and to earn money at the same time.

Happy surfing!

A Day in the Life of a Writer - Beginnings and Endings

2008-06-22T03:14:00.000-07:00

The Story Continues

Yesterday was quite an exciting day, writingwise.

Beginning to Publish on Triond

As I mentioned yesterday, I began to submit pieces to the online publishing site, Triond - just a couple of short 'how to' articles about writing and a poem of mine.

I was astonished to find that my two articles were up and running on their site within about an hour of me submitting them. Talk about instant publishing!

And I was even more astonished today to find that someone had clicked 'I like it' on one of my articles and a couple of complete strangers had left comments. I think one of them was a teacher from America. The internet is such an amazing resource for making contact with like-minded people from all over the world and sharing your knowledge and passions.

I'm very pleased to have discovered this new outlet for my writing and am looking forward to submitting many more items this week. Do go on to Triond and check out my work there - and leave a comment.

Creative Writing Workshop at the University of Huddersfield

The other exciting writing event yesterday was the writing workshop at the university with our guest writer, Char March. It had attracted an excellent turnout - fifteen enthusiastic and very talented writers of all ages.

As I told you in my last posting, we'd been given some preparation to do for it and I had managed to do mine, but unfortunately there were only a handful who had, so we weren't able to get off at quite the gallop that Char had intended. But we were soon all up to speed and had a fascinating workshop exploring how to convey different moods when describing a setting.

Char had brought along several extracts from published short stories for us to examine. We worked in small groups to compare how the writers had used the five senses in their descriptions of the setting.

We later discovered that one of the extracts was from a short story that Char had written herself. She confessed that she didn't usually use examples from her own work and had been quite nervous about it.

As promised, she did make us work hard. We covered a lot of ground and by the end of the workshop we had all written something of our own and read it out to the group, been applauded and generally had a fantastic time.

A Sad Ending

Which brings me to the 'endings'. Unfortunately, Rommi Smith, who has organised and run the series of workshops as part of an eighteen-month project, has been told that the project will finish at the end of July and there are no plans to extend her contract.

It's a great pity as it has been a marvellous opportunity for writers of all abilities and levels of expertise to come together from time to time and enjoy learning about writing at a very reasonable cost. The project also included regular workshops for parents and their children to come to together, which I gather were very popular and great fun.

It's been marvellous that the University has provided these opportunities for the general public to discover writing. I'm sure that it will have enhanced its reputation as an institution which fosters creativity, as well as getting lots of people inside its doors who would never have ventured in there otherwise.

We'll miss the chance to come and be part of the university and enjoy its marvellous facilities, if only for two hours a month.

Pastures New for Rommi Smith

We'll also miss Rommi Smith, whose workshops are legendary and who never fails to inspire us with her knowledge of and enthusiasm for new writing.

So thank you, Rommi. We've all learnt a lot from you over the past year or so. Let's hope it won't be the last we see of you.

My New Publishing Opportunity

2008-06-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

I've got a new business venture today. I've just started submitting writing to a company called Triond which publishes people's work on internet sites. So far I've submitted two 'how to' articles and a poem, so I'll have to see how they get on and how much money they make me.

The exciting bit is that you can log on whenever you want and see how much your writing is earning. That's better then having to wait for twice-yearly royalty statements.

I've got another article almost ready to submit, but I just need to find one of my sixty-word short stories to include as an example. I'm sure I saw copies of them all in a folder recently, but can I find them when I need them? It's so frustrating!

I've been all through my computer files too and I can't find them there either. I hope they turn up soon or else I shall have to write another example.

But meanwhile, I'm off to the University this afternoon for a creative writing workshop. It's being run by a guest writer called Char March. She has given us some interesting work to do beforehand and has said she is going to work us all very hard.

I'll let you know how it goes when I speak to you next - and also whether I found my stories.

Writing to Communicate - Message in a Library

2008-06-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

I was in the library yesterday and as I walked from the entrance to the Returns desk, I passed a little shelf which had leaflets on it and paused to see if there was anything of interest.

I'd seen all the leaflets before, but there was something that caught my eye. It was just an A4 sheet of lined paper with a message scrawled on it in in scruffy block capital letters with a blue biro.

The message was very short and to the point. There was a heading, 'OIL'.

Then underneath it read, 'Farewell, my old friend.'

Five short words, but more memorable than an editorial in any broadsheet!

That's what I call communicating.

Playing it Safe as a Writer

2008-06-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'd gone to the Oak Rooms for lunch today, and straightaway I spotted something really nice on the specials board - a halibut dish with a herb mashed potato and a fancy sauce flavoured with capers. It sounded really nice and I nearly ordered it, but then I sat down and looked at the menu and before I knew it, the waitress had come over and I'd plumped for one of my usual favourites - beef lasagne with salad and chips.

The lasagne was very nice and I did enjoy it, but I have had it rather often recently, whereas the fish special was something that might not be on the menu again for weeks. So I ended up kicking myself for missing a chance to liven up my lunch and tickle my tastebuds with something new.

So why didn't I take the chance to try something new? Why did I end up playing safe and going for the 'tried and tested'? Am I just a boring person? Have I no sense of adventure?

I don't think so. I often try out new activities. Only this past few months I've added belly dancing and jewellery making to my schedule. I like to have a go at something I've never done before.

It could be that I've just got into the habit of eating certain dishes, and once you've got a habit established, it takes more effort to deviate from it than it does to stick with it.

I think we writers can get like that with our writing too. We always write horror stories because that's what we like to read. We always write rhyming verse because that's what we were brought up on. We wouldn't think of writing a literary short story because we're used to writing for magazines, and that's what we know.

That was one of the things that I enjoyed most about teaching my class this year. At the start of the year, everyone made a note of what sort of things they wanted to write. It was interesting to see at the end of the year what everyone had actually written and what they had particularly excelled at.

One girl who seemed to only want to write poems and adventure stories for teenagers turned out to be an excellent article writer and also wrote some very moving love stories. Someone who was into poetry and short stories made an excellent first attempt at a television script. And another chap who said he'd come on the course because he never finished anything and needed motivation was turning out high quality work faster than I could mark it! And he won £100 in a writing competition to boot.

Yes, there's a saying which goes, 'If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always got.' So if you're feeling a bit stuck with your writing and wondering why you're not managing to finish things or why you seem to keep getting rejections, why not try writing something completely different, something you'd never have thought of writing?

Tell yourself it's just an experiment. Allow yourself to have a go at it without putting any pressure on yourself to be absolutely brilliant at it. Just go along for the ride and see what happens.

You may end up surprising yourself. And if you don't like what you end up with, there's always your regular writing menu to fall back on.

But give the specials board a chance - just this once!

Finding Ideas for Writing - Here, There and Everywhere

2008-06-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

I was sitting having lunch in the bistro today, and I couldn't help overhearing a couple of ladies chatting at the next table. One of them was telling the other how she had met a man on a train and got chatting to him.

She'd said to him, 'Do you believe that some people are psychic because I'm getting all sorts of information about you?' Then she proceded to amaze him by telling him lots of facts about himself, all of them true.

In fact, she was just playing a trick on him. Someone she knew had told him that a friend of hers was going to be travelling on the train, and the description fitted him so perfectly that she guessed it must be him.

It got me thinking though. That was just a normal lunchtime, but what a great story! Just think of how you could incorporate some of that true life tale into a fictional piece!

It could focus on the conversation between the woman and the man - maybe with a supernatural twist for Hallowe'en. It could lead on to a love story in which the two people do have some sort of close, almost telepathic bond. Or it could lead you to write a story about someone who deceives someone else, either from the point of view of the person doing the deceiving or from the point of view of the person who's duped.

You could write an article about people playing tricks on other people. Or you could do some research on paranormal activity to see whether some people do have psychic information about strangers and how they get it. You could write a crime story where the woman uses her knowledge to win the man's trust, start a relationship, and then con him.

All these ideas, just from a lunchtime conversation!

Now do you see why writers should carry a notebook at all times?

Just for the record, I think she did eventually tell the man that she wasn't actually psychic; they just had a mutual friend.

Demob Happy!

2008-06-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

Today's been a bit of a pottering-around-and-catching-up day. It's been the first day that I haven't had to do any marking or lesson preparation for my teaching job.

My creative writing class met on 5th June for the last time this academic year. Since then, I've been extremely busy marking their second assignments and portfolios for their qualification, ready for Internal Verification by my boss this week and moderation by someone from the Examining Board next week.

Given that my students are extremely keen and prolific writers, going through their massive portfolios has been time-consuming, exhausting and eye-boggling - at one point I was actually starting to see double!

But at the same time, it has been an entertaining, fascinating and exhilerating process. It's been a real joy to see how much my students have progressed since they started studying with me in September. And the quality of their work and the amount of time, thought, and effort they have put into getting their portfolios just right is astonishing!

Today I've enjoyed having the time to save some podcasts (Hay House Radio - their Listen Again archive is a treasure trove of programmes about self-development and spirituality), e-mail friends, and even wash the bath mat! There are still lots of things on my to-do list for the week - music practice, yoga, swimming, belly dancing, hairdresser, dentist, to name but a few.

And tomorrow I go along to the college clutching my own certificates in my sweaty hands. This time, I'm the one who'll be the student, as it's the induction morning for my two-year in-service PGCE course. I'm looking forward to studying again and finding out all the things I should have been doing this year! Perhaps I'll learn how to use the projector without having to rely on two of my technically-minded students!

So I definitely won't be bored over the next couple of months. I'll be glad to have a break and a bit of a rest. But there's part of me that will be thinking, 'Wouldn't be nice to have some writing to mark?' I think I may be having withdrawal symptoms by the time the summer vacation is over.

But, you never know, perhaps I'll get a few e-mails in my inbox before then saying, 'Gale, I've written another story - I wonder if you'd mind just having a look at it for me...'

There's hope for me yet!