Hello and
welcome to the Creative Writing edition of #Daneyblogs. I’m going to turn this
blank blog page into a creative space for sharing with you what I learned from
the inspiring, ideas-stirring, ‘I didn’t want it to end’ creative writing
course.
The Creative
Changes course was hosted by the lovely Joanna Tindall, an experienced English
teacher, on behalf of health & well-being focussed organisation, Changes
Musselburgh. It was an absolute gem and I’m so glad I attended.
So, just what did I get out of attending
Creative Changes?
·
Firstly and foremost, I faced one of my
biggest fears…. Seeing a blank piece of white paper…and a question attached..
In the past
I’ve been prone to panic at the sight of blank paper, I’ve been left with that
knot in my stomach and watched the perfectionist side of me running wild with a
million thoughts at once on what I can creatively do for the task at hand, then
discounting all of the ideas, thinking ‘this isn’t good enough’ and then
leaving myself feeling deflated.
Thankfully,
as the years have gone on, I’ve got much better at taking control of this
perfectionist side in me and the course helped me realise that my approach of
not thinking, and just freestyling at first to get my thoughts flowing, really
works. I also took comfort in the fact that I’m not the only one intimidated by
a blank piece of paper, and that we, once we’re kinder to ourselves and get
going, we can create magic!
·
Secondly, there is no right or wrong
way to be creative in writing, however, you CAN get really creative with words
A lot of us
get intimated, and put off creative writing as we think 1) ‘I don’t know what
to write’ and 2) ‘What I write won’t be good enough’
Firstly, you
(like me) need to sit down, stop thinking and write down all the thoughts that
come to mind, then from there, pull out the really good points and develop from
there.
Secondly, you
(like me) need to be kinder to yourself and tell yourself that you’ve done
great work before and you can do it again! I find now more than ever that every
piece I write, whether for myself or an organisation, I learn something each
time I do it. So, this course really taught me that I should just keep going
for it, keep writing and see what exciting things come out from it.
So the course then had us look at
words themselves…
Jo walked us
through the words which are ‘go-to’, safe, overused words such as;
Got/get
Said
Bad
Good
Nice
And then
encouraged us to pro-actively create a word bank, other words we could use to
replace these words, and make our pieces more imaginative and interesting. The
examples we conjured up collaboratively were excellent.
·
Thirdly, (and back to my 3 key points)
I was challenged to show, not tell.
Instead of factually reporting an
event, I had a go at showing my reader how the event unfolds instead of just
telling it…
I had a go at doing this in the
following piece:
“It stares at me from
afar, its shiny, bright, ribbed wrapper. It feels cold, and firm and I stop
myself from ripping it open. I can no longer wait… the anticipation is too
much.. so I grab it and tear the packaging off… it smells so sugary and its
sweet scent lingers under my nose. I take a bite… it’s like an explosion of
sugary, sweet, sticky caramel and the roof of my mouth is covered. I feel no
guilt for putting two pieces of the delicious, caramel, old friend of mine
chocolate in my mouth at once. Caramel chocolate fills me with joy and puts a
smile firmly on my face.”
I also created a haiku about a
snowman…. See below:
A snowman is there
With the buttons neatly
placed
His hat also is white
Now, yes,
this haiku looks pretty basic, however, I was following the style of it which is
words with 5 beats on the first line, 7 on the second and 5 on the third and
last.. so it’s:
|A |snow|man|is|there
|with|the|but|tons|neat|ly|placed
|his|hat|al|so|white
Another great
part of the course, involved me being re-acquainted with key writing terms I
hadn’t come across in years! (well, since the English exams at school days)
such as simile, hyperbole etc.
We actively looked out for examples of them
being used through reading an excellent piece called ‘The Trick is keep
breathing’ written by the fabulous Janice Galloway. What I really enjoyed most
is discussing our interpretation of what the writer was getting at. It was
almost like a mini-book club. It was really enjoyable.
So, I’m
bringing this blog to a close, and I’m going to end it on the 6 words I was
asked to summarise my day, today 15/10/15 (at the time of writing) …. COME DANE
WITH ME GOT PUBLISHED
I’m so happy
to see that the East Lothian Courier published an article on my #ComeDaneWithMe
event and that they mentioned Changes Musselburgh too. I think Changes are a
fantastic organisation and I’m really looking forward to further volunteering
with them.
Over and out
for now,
Daney
No comments:
Post a Comment