Monday 6 October 2014

spaces at oldham writing group

A new course has started at Oldham Library for creative writing. Five fab people turned up but a few more needed to get a solid creative writing group going again in the area. 

Friday mornings, 10-12, upstairs in the main library building.

The class I was teaching last term has enrolled 21 people. 

The well thumbed cliche famine or feast comes to mind.

Buried treasure


                               The site soon to be known as The Rock Garden.





I was digging my garden at the weekend. It was a family affair, a mass digging, each of us throwing muck around and making a right old mess. I have a confession to make about digging....I always wonder if there is anything in my garden worth digging up. People in my classes might remember a piece of pottery I found with a beautiful face on it. Possibly an Edwardian commemorative cup.
My house is built on the site of an old single track railway whose trains took workers to and from the mills in the area. According to local myths the passengers were notoriously bad at paying their fares. I'd like to find something that belonged to one of them, tossed from a window or lost in a scuffle. 
As a child, fond of digging then too, I found a jaw bone with teeth in it. It probably belonged to a dog - that house was built on farmland. But what if, as in my fantasies, my digging revealed something more sinister/worrying/dark/frightening.


There's something to write about in this idea. In fact I have a story on this theme now that I come to think of it.

Write a story of any length about a person revealing an item buried somewhere. It can be a story for anyone and it can be funny, sad, serious or magical.

Think about why people bury things and what they bury. Make it a physical rather than metaphorical dig. You can write freely and see where the idea takes you or you can plan.