Ghost stories....what is a ghost?

I've read my book of ghost stories - a mixed bunch of tales. I enjoyed them but thought most were tenuously connected to ghosts and could have been included in several categories. Some were funny, others surreal and one or two were mysterious.

Ghost is an expression that seems to cover a range of mental as well as physical anomalies and sometimes the fantastic is just that...a bit fantastic.

I'm going to be looking at ghost stories in the September term so I'll have to read a few more, study the form and write a couple. 

The fact that none of them gave me a decent attack of the creeps was disappointing...was I asking for too much? 

What is a ghost?
Have you ever been in the presence of anything you could describe as a ghost? Write about it.
Do you think ghosts exist or that a state of mind creates them?
Are there any ghost stories in your family? Tell them!
Why do you think people like ghost stories and want to be scared?

What could you write about buttons?

Do you like buttons? I love them and know lots of people who love them too. Some of the buttons above were sold to me at a car boot sale. The woman I bought them from held them to her chest for a few moments, told me they belonged to her grandma, wrestled with some guilt I expect and then sold them to me. I've cherished them. 

When I say that I love buttons I don't mean dull things from ordinary coats or workaday trousers. I mean gorgeous buttons. Shiny, blingy, jewelled, expensive, rare, art deco, surprising, complicated and desirable.

As a tutor of textile based and craft subjects I've met people who detest buttons and feel sick at the sight of them. They can't handle buttons and choose clothing with zips, velcro, ties, hooks, press studs ....anything but buttons.

In creative writing I've used buttons to stimulate stories - what fantastic stories. I've invited people to take a button from my collection and imagine where it came from and on a few occasions people have asked to keep a button or have taken it!!
In my experience men like buttons as much as women, sometimes for different reasons.

What d'you think about buttons? 

Write a few lines about where some of the buttons in the picture came from.

Do you know the word that describes a button phobia?

If there's a button jar/box/tin in your house, have a look at it. Write a story about the person who owns it. If it's been passed down write about who it belonged to and the people who inherited it. Are the buttons workaday or fabulous? What clothes do they come from?

Stories in a tiled floor.

I can't resist tiled floors. The jazzier the better. My favourite tiled floor was black orange and cream coloured shapes that looked like many variations on a church building. It was so jolly I would liked to have rolled it up and taken it home. The junk shop where those tiles were laid was never open when I passed so I never got a good photo.

The tiles in the above picture are laid in a long room; a granny flat at the side of a house. The room has whitewashed walls, dark beams and an elaborate fireplace made of rose granite. An older lady lived in this room, alone but next to her family, for the last years of her life. The room was furnished and adorned with family photos and ornaments.

This floor looks different depending on the weather and where you stand on it. Sometimes it's a mosaic and other times a woven cloth.

Write a list of factual words that describe the floor.

Write what the floor makes you think of, or reminds you of.

Write a few phrases about the woman who lived there - it's entirely up to you who you imagine.

Once you've gathered your ideas see if you can write a poem made up of couplets with the first word of each couplet being because.

for example

Because the yellow squares

remind her of his youthful hair

Because the grey squares

remind her of her own.....

You could try to tell a story in the poem, or be descriptive, or go where the subject matter takes you.    

Let me know how you go on?

What floor coverings are interesting to you....floor coverings...interesting? You know the sort of thing...home made rugs, plush hotel carpets with fabulous patterns running along them...floorboards...

Ghost Stories

Have just started to read an anthology of ghost stories and am looking forward to being a little bit terrified by them. The collection has been compiled by Everyman in their Pocket Classic series and the writers included are on the whole from the early and mid 20th century.

I won't be able to leave it at that. I'll then have to gather ghost stories from modern writers and then look into the psychology of enjoying fear at a distance via stories and films. There's no doubt that I'll ruffle through the pages of Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories for his take on the pleasure and purpose of creepy stories. Then I'll be compelled to write my own ghost story.

Recently I did begin a story about a haunting and set it in a very modern urban environment but it ran out of steam as I wrestled with the source of the ghostliness. Imagined or actual? Ahhh, the pleasures of writing. Who could possibly succumb to the pleasures of chocolate biscuits or the lure of crime with so much to do?

Have you seen a ghost or something unsettling that can't be easily explained?

Seeing the Familiar For the First Time

Look at this gorgeous photo. I look at it every day as it's in my bedroom. When I bought it from a junk shop in Dorset I used to wonder about the woman whose picture has been taken. What's her name? She has long straight limbs and dark hair that must sit at her waist when she stands. What colour is her dress and what is it made of? Is it a dress or a piece of fabric artfully tied? The pose is interesting. I wondered what she was expressing and what her relationship was to the photographer.

In the photo, which might be from the 1920's or 1930's, she's young. I used to wonder about her; an older woman with older limbs who had wonderful memories of the day and perhaps wondered where the photo went to. I liked to think that there were several photographs like this of different women in different poses. I'd love to see them!

The photo has the name FABERGE written underneath it and the details N.L. FABERGE, 11 Avenue Studios, 76, Fulham Road, SW3. written on the back. Who is that? Who works from his or her shop now? Are they related to the famous fabulous egg Faberge's?

I've seen this photo so many times I fail to be curious about it now. This can happen when writing a poem or story. Or a play or novel. Looking at it time and time again can make details vanish. That's the time to turn away from it. Put it on a bookshelf and leave it alone for long enough to forget it a little. Returning to work after an absence allows writers to have another brief chance at a first impression. After such absences it's possible to pick out flaws more readily, edit more finely or be pleased that the work is saying what it was meant to say.

Yesterday I walked through an area I usually drive through. I couldn't believe the details I usually miss. A house with five cactus plants in the porch that were taller than the door. A row of houses that were so well maintained and scrubbed clean they sparkled. An alleyway with elaborate gates to keep vandals at bay. It's not necessary to go to great lengths to find a new perspective in writing. Have a break of some sort or read a book that you wouldn't normally choose. Read some short stories or poems for a quick burst of energy. Better still get your friends to pose artfully like the woman above and write about that. Should keep you out of jail a while longer! 

Do you have a photograph that reminds you of an event or is a source of wonder? Could you write about it?

Smells can inspire writing streams of consciousness

 I used the following prompts to encourage people in my class to write a stream of consciousness. 

• a bottle of expensive aftershave
• a bottle of lemon verbena essential oil
• a bottle of geranium essential oil

The olfactory system is another world and topic. Our sense of smell guides us and is bound with memory and judgement.  Members of my writing group were asked to sniff and immediately begin to write their responses.

Writing followed quickly. Someone looked at the amount of words she had written with incredulity and another expressed the response 'it takes you to some weird places'.

Couldn't agree more.

Next time we're going to look at the results of this exercise and see what's in the writing. Is it for example a piece of work in its own right or is there a poem lurking there, waiting to be lifted out? Are there new ideas that might be the basis of a play or a novel or have people expressed something that made them feel better.

Is there a smell that takes you back to childhood or reminds you of an event?
What smell has unpleasant associations for you and why?

Have a look around and find two or three things with a distinct smell. Write your response in a stream of consciousness. Leave the piece of work for a couple of days and then go back to it to see if it works  or if you could see a poem in there or the makings of a story.

Can you see how someone's response to a smell could help a writer create a story?

Guy de Maupassant as inspiration.

The short stories of Guy de Maupassant were considered by many of the literary critics of his time as morose and cynical. His work is still selling and relevant however and much of it is powerful and memorable, reflecting upon ordinary lives and disappointments and the ways in which people respond to what happens to them. 
His story The Priest is a story I use in creative writing sessions because it has emotional impact and can be read in a short time. After hearing it, I ask people to write about an ordinary event, bearing his style in mind. The aim of exercises like this is not to imitate. It's to think about what devices a writer has used and try them. Maupassant often situates ordinary people in ordinary settings and then gives them a situation to deal with.  Before I set this task for others I tried it myself... my story, As the Crow Flies, is on the Examples of Work page.

What writers inspire you?