classes for writers

My creative writing class will run again at Oldham Lifelong Learning Centre in Oldham. It starts again on Friday 1st May (10am - 12noon) and finishes on Friday 6th June. It's six weeks only with a break in the middle for half term. 
A variety of topics will be looked at with the aim of getting pieces written and using them to learn from.
Enrol at the central library in Oldham. Costs depend on income. Phone 0161 770 8029 and ask.


Writing and selling short stories for women's magazines. Saturday 26th September 2015 at Waterside Arts, Waterside Road, Sale, Manchester M33. £35 for a day long workshop - 10 - 3. A focussed look at what magazine fiction editors want for their readers.


Creative Writing in business situations. Two hour sessions or day long workshops in which creative writing is used to aid fresh approaches to situations in workplaces. Designed to address the requirements of participants and organisations. Ask me for details.

email me at carmen_walton@hotmail.com   

Time to write plays

The last time I posted I was extolling the virtues of the pint sized play. Since then I have discovered that my own competition entry to The Irlam Fringe Festival has been selected for production, along with five other plays. It's called Large White Loaf and a Tin of Rice and is about a fragile love triangle. I'll tell you more about the process as it happens.

This is a pleasing result for me as for a while I've only been able to write and sell short pieces. A fifteen minute play is fifteen pages long, so while it's not huge it's still an advance in  terms of developing plot and characters. 

Time has been an issue for me and is for a number of writers. I'm in the middle of everything and I only get writing time if I'm careful with my time in general. Here are some of the ways that I have created time to write.

• Get up earlier than everyone else in your house in order to have peace in which to write.
• Go to bed later than everyone else ....
• Reduce or cut your tv viewing / computer game playing / surfing.
• Improve the way your writing is organised so that if you get some unexpected free time you don't waste it looking for your work or trying to remember where you were up to.
• Reduce your involvement with high maintenance situations. These are different for everyone but for me they have been people who talk about themselves/family/colleagues all the time and people who are chaotic, People who offload or stay on the phone too long / outstay their welcome. This makes me sound anti-social and I'm not. A little often is fine and I like to meet up with people for lunch or coffee. Sometimes. 
• Too many possessions can be high maintenance as they have to be stored, used, washed, kept in good repair. All things that take up time you could spend writing.
• Don't put pressure on yourself to keep your house sparkling and your washing gleaming. Good enough is good enough.
• Keep cooking simple unless there's a special occasion.
• Gardening, if you have a garden. Keep it simple and realistic. Keep on top of it.
• Keep paper and pens with you so that you can write in down time such as waiting in your car to pick someone up, having a haircut, waiting to be seen for appointments, lunch hours at work, bus or train journeys.
• Be organised. Have places for things that can get lost such as keys and phones. Looking for them wastes time, is stressful and can make you late for your plans for the day. Go shopping with a list so that nothing is forgotten and you don't have to make several journeys. Keep a diary so that you can see where you are and what opportunities to carry out your business exist in that area. Don't visit somewhere twice when once will do.
• Delegate some jobs if you can and accept the offerings of others rather than expecting them to do things to your standards.

And then, with the ten minutes here and half an hour there that you've saved....get writing. 


Why not try one - or both - of these quick fire, time based writing exercises?

1. Set your clock for one minute and use those sixty seconds to write a stream of consciousness on the subject of time passing.

2. Write a list of all the things that have wasted your time. Can you see the makings of a poem in this list?

fantastic short plays

My good friend Jenny Roche  jennyroche.co.uk is a mine of extrememly useful information. She has reminded me that the JB Shorts event is almost upon us. It's the 13th season for this event and I would recommend it.

You get to watch about six short plays that have been written by people with television experience and are performed by superb actors. The whole night with a pint of lager and a packet of nuts isn't much more that a tenner. Money well spent.

Shorts and short plays are terms now used to describe what was once known as a one act play. They are often shown in a group and set in pubs and bars in front of non- traditional theatre audiences. It's live entertainment that doesn't cost too much and is accessible.  

If you can't get to the JB Shorts night in Manchester which is on from 14th-25th April then go to something similar.

To get tickets go to wegottickets.com/jbshorts

To see some fantastic short plays that are 10-15 minutes long read the book published by the pint-sized play initiative.  pintsizedplays.org.uk   It's full of sharply written stuff. Better still go onto their website and have a look at the competition they are running until May 2015.

If you're good with dialogue and can stretch your imagination to make a pub bar feel like an Elizabethan street (for example)  with no props then you'll love the challenge.

stereotypes

What's a stereotype? Are you stereotypical? Is it a derogatory term or a useful one?

I don't think I am easy to stereotype but I was chatting to a man once who nudged me into a stereotypical position by asking me if I was going shopping. I am female and in some quarters people believe that women enjoy recreational shopping. I don't.
Scottish and Yorkshire stereotypes include frugal and dour sorts. Aren't black people supposed to be good at sports and singing? And accountants of any origin are likely to be boring.
While I don't dismiss stereotypes I think it's useful to consider how a character is portrayed. It might not work to have a nursery nurse with an abrupt manner, a dark side and no patience but you might be able to create a vicar who is free of the tea and cake, church fetes and overt politeness without her losing her integrity.

I've identified a group of people who are often stereotyped. Try identifying those attitudes and characteristics that are used to typify them and then create a character who doesn't fit the template.
When adjusting the stereotype don't head for the polar opposite. Look for subtle characteristics somewhere between opposite ends of a spectrum.

Have a go.

School teacher.

Drummer.

Social worker.

Confectioner.

Plastic surgeon.

Actor.

Hairdresser.

Dinner lady.

Prisoner

Office worker.

You might find that you are liberated by tweaking stereotypical expectations or you might come to the conclusion that they exist for a reason. It depends on what type you are.

Diary writing

I've just finished reading Any Human Heart by William Boyd. (Thank you Roy for loaning this book to me. I finally got around to it and enjoyed every page).
The book takes the form of the diary of Logan Mountstuart from boyhood to old age. It is meticulously thought out so that it is clear to see how events in one part of his life have an impact on what happens to him at another stage. As in all lives. It is the story of a life that has contained tremendous high points - he meets Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemmingway - and terrible lows - his experiences in WWII were bleak.

It's a big book, as a lifetime diary would be, divided into phases of life. Boyd seamlessly grows and ages a man in front of our reading eyes so that each phase of his life and his means of expressing it rings true.

Using the form of a diary enables characters from different times to communicate their story in one book, it allows for times when nothing happens and in the case of Any Human Heart it gives readers a view of someone's un-edited thoughts. A diary can juxtapose two or more different voices and can provide insight into real thoughts and opinions that contrast with what a person says and portrays.

Could you write your life story or anyone else's in the form of a diary?
Can you identify some other amazing works of fiction that have been written in the form of a diary?
Write a food or mood diary for yourself this week.
write a diary entry that sets out what you did on a particular day. Make sure you include your inner thoughts and motivations. It is the anomalies and flaws in characters that make readers bond with them. Reveal yours to show the different sides of your nature.

Animal Voices

I'm reading War Horse by Michael Morpurgo at the moment. It's one of those books described as a crossover book because of its appeal to younger readers as well as adult readers. I'm enjoying the book and find it full of emotional detail as well as factual and historical information. Every once in a while I have to brush aside the little question mark that, for me, hangs over stories told in animal voices.
There are other famous examples of animal voices such as in Watership Down, which is also an emotionally vivid story, and also a crossover book. A look in the bookshop or library would reveal dozens of books written for children, using an animal protagonist. And there's the film Babe, whose pig protagonist has put some people off bacon butties forever.
If you look at the writing requirements for various women's magazines they don't want stories told in the voice of an animal. Perhaps they believe that finding out the protagonist was Snowy the owl all along weakens the potential and the integrity of the ending. Perhaps for them animal endings have been overdone.
Where do you stand on animals as protagonists? Animals who recognise makes of car and military uniforms? Animals with opinions?

As an exercise, write two or three opening paragraphs of a novel about a family from a rural community in the voice of an animal that they own.

Write the same piece again from the point of view of a human being that is close to the animal and can judge the motives for its behaviour.

Is it something you could get used to?

Art as a writing prompt

I'm running a writing group at Oldham Lifelong Learning Centre at the moment. It's a fantastic building that contains a library, theatre, IT suites, gift shop, cafe, classrooms and several galleries with permanent and visiting exhibits.

I will be going into the galleries with the group in search of inspiration. This is something I've done many times in many galleries and the results have always been fantastic.

Why not try it. I went with some writers to the LS Lowry gallery in Salford. The day was good and the gallery was filled with people of all ages sprawling and writing and drawing as they looked at the paintings by L S Lowry.

We used a prompt to create some pieces. We found a painting or exhibit we liked - an outdoor scene. We wrote about how the scene appeared at various times of the day. For example if we looked at a picture of a woman pushing a pram in daylight, we imagined why she might push it at night in the dark, how she would feel. Some paintings were of night time scenes and we imagined what the area would be like in the day.

Have a go at this. Look for images on line or call in to your local gallery.

Write a story, a poem or a monologue. 


galleryoldham.org.uk

thelowry.com