Day school

I went to my tutor groups A215 day school today.  It was well worth the discomfort of sitting in strange chairs as I met some wonderful people who are all really talented.  These tutorial schools are very handy for meeting up with other people who are in the same predicament as you, and spending some time chatting helps to get the creative 'juices' flowing.
It was also nice that there were four tutor groups together.  I got to meet people who aren't in my tutor group but who are on the same course so we all got to help each other a bit in mixed up groups for the morning session which was a nice idea.  Lunch time too was a great time for mingling and chatting - to be fair another hour of that would have been welcome as it was pleasant getting other writer's views on different genre's.
I think that the most important lesson learned today though was that we are not alone.  Also that every action, occurrence and passing scene can be written about in a way that involves the reader by using the senses in the writing.  Whether its the sound of a scratching pen, the feeling of a woolly jumper or the smell of freshly mown grass, they can all be appreciated by someone reading them as it's more than likely that they will have had these sensations at some point in their lives and can relate.

Enough blathering by me for now.  It's been a long day so time for a break.  I will hopefully be putting up some more writing of some form soon!

My First (Very) Short Story

Here is my very first blog of a very short story.  It involves a (mostly) fictional version of myself as I try to write.  I hope that you like it, but even if you don't, I would appreciate any and all constructive comments and criticism's. Cheers.

Hell and high writing

I feel a nervous energy flowing about me when I am not writing, yet when I sit to put pen to paper I feel that I am stifled - that the words are there, hiding just out of sight mocking my ineffectual musings and procrastinations. If I could, I would just mind dump the whole lot onto the paper in one continuous stream, turning the tap of my brain on and emptying it down this drain of paper. I heard that there is a technique called 'freewriting' which does exactly that: throwing words at the paper in a relentless onslaught, an unending barrage of verbs and nouns, consonants and vowels – the ultimate game of 'countdown' all in one round.

Sadly this hasn't worked for me as of yet. The words have put up barricades in my head, dug trenches and set up traps in my mind. I feel like I am a soldier in the trenches fighting these words to the death, or at least a wrestling match where I am not allowed to use my hands yet they can fight me in packs with bats. It's a sad sorry state that I find myself in, all tongue tied and useless. They say that this is called 'writers block', well I think it's more like a brick wall covering the doors and windows of my creative soul. I am not sure if I have been evicted or just boarded over and forgotten about but that is how it stands.

Another option that I heard works is something called 'clustering'. Apparently this is where you pick a word or phrase to start with, and then spider off one word or phrase at a time that you can associate with your starter or 'key' word or phrase. Hmpf! Trying to think of a starter word is hard enough, let alone word association! I managed to write one word the other day! Then I crossed it out, then blocked it out with permanent marker, and then I went looking for some correction fluid to remove it from the page entirely. After that, I made a cup of tea, had a biscuit and went back to the page, scrunched it up, threw it at the bin, then spent ten minutes playing 'bin basketball'.

I repeated this sad sorry state for a week solid! My God it's awful this block, this worrying nagging energy buzzing about with no outlet. I feel like the words that I want to write are a swarm of angry bees buzzing about inside my head. If they don't get a release soon, they are going to sting my brain to pieces. This way, madness lies! OK, lets try again...