Homework from last week: revise your own and one other person's work from the session. We will be spending the first 15 minutes or so comparing our efforts this week.
I was delighted to start, last week with a tray of items, and ask the class to identify them and their uses, and to find that they did not have a clue what some of them were! We had fun reading out their ideas and even more fun explaining what they were, as if to someone who had no idea and little or no cultural connection for reference, and discussing the results.
Choosing a different, more familiar object as stimulus we wrote a final piece (we will be discussing the revisions briefly this week) and also had a go at revising a piece provided for everyone to work on and compared ideas.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Possible new Writing Group in Puerto del Carmen
A new group has been proposed in Puerto del Carmen. It will only be initiated if enough people want to try it so please let me know if evenings would suit you and if you would be interested in joining a group in Puerto del Carmen.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Good Start
The first two sessions of the 2013 have been great fun, very satisfying and fruitful.
In the first session we talked about books that we had read over the holidays and then read and discussed a handout, 'Improve your word power,' which includes some of the ways in which reading can do just that.
Members were asked to look at a wine glass which was placed on the table, in silence, for a couple of minutes, allowing their minds to drift around whatever thoughts it stimulated.. They all then wrote for about 15 minutes before we shared and discussed responses, thinking about the thrust of each piece, fact, information, opinions and observations that were included and focusing on the differences or similarities in content and style.
We followed this in week two with a second page from 'Improve your word power' and a short quiz on the etymology of words. Then we did a similar writing exercise but with a choice of three objects. We looked at a short extract from Douglas Kennedy: 'The Moment' in which he describes his main character, a travel writer, revising an essay. A discussion followed in which we thought about what we mean by correcting, revising, editing, proof-reading, before we each spent a short time revising what we had written.
It was such a lovely day that we elected to sit outside, which was very pleasant.
I have finally produced a calendar, using old fashioned cut and paste, ie involving scissors and glue, as I have had no success with any computer programmes to which I have had access! It reveals that we will only manage another five sessions before my next enforced break; apologies as I did say that this would be an eight week term. We will go for quality rather than quantity and to that end we have made a great start.
In the first session we talked about books that we had read over the holidays and then read and discussed a handout, 'Improve your word power,' which includes some of the ways in which reading can do just that.
Members were asked to look at a wine glass which was placed on the table, in silence, for a couple of minutes, allowing their minds to drift around whatever thoughts it stimulated.. They all then wrote for about 15 minutes before we shared and discussed responses, thinking about the thrust of each piece, fact, information, opinions and observations that were included and focusing on the differences or similarities in content and style.
We followed this in week two with a second page from 'Improve your word power' and a short quiz on the etymology of words. Then we did a similar writing exercise but with a choice of three objects. We looked at a short extract from Douglas Kennedy: 'The Moment' in which he describes his main character, a travel writer, revising an essay. A discussion followed in which we thought about what we mean by correcting, revising, editing, proof-reading, before we each spent a short time revising what we had written.
It was such a lovely day that we elected to sit outside, which was very pleasant.
I have finally produced a calendar, using old fashioned cut and paste, ie involving scissors and glue, as I have had no success with any computer programmes to which I have had access! It reveals that we will only manage another five sessions before my next enforced break; apologies as I did say that this would be an eight week term. We will go for quality rather than quantity and to that end we have made a great start.
Monday, January 7, 2013
New Year, New Term
Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the festive season.
I am looking forward to seeing members back to start Creative Writing Sessions on Friday 11 January 2013 and hope to fit in eight sessions before my next trip to UK for my routine monitoring in March.
I am planning to get you all doing a bit more actual writing this term.
We are going to start working from visual stimuli and then discuss what I am sure will be our varied responses, the styles we have chosen and the relationship between the stimulus, the style/genre/mood and other factors which influence our writing.
We will be doing some descriptive writing but hopefully describing mood and action rather than just appearance or a visual object/scene and using language other than adjectives effectively to enhance good description.
I plan to try writing about the same topic in different ways and different styles, keeping the original topic headings simple and brief to allow maximum personal choice and free association.
We will also be looking at adverbs. The received wisdom is that we should keep them to a minimum. Like many things, the are more effective and have more impact, when not overused.
If you have read and enjoyed something over the holidays, or have a favourite book that you would like to share please feel free to bring along your recommendation and if possible bookmark/highlight a passage that exemplifies the style or gives a flavour of the story; half a page to a page in length should be enough. Recommending a book should be about explaining the style and peaking curiosity and interest, not about giving away too much of the plot!
I am looking forward to seeing members back to start Creative Writing Sessions on Friday 11 January 2013 and hope to fit in eight sessions before my next trip to UK for my routine monitoring in March.
I am planning to get you all doing a bit more actual writing this term.
We are going to start working from visual stimuli and then discuss what I am sure will be our varied responses, the styles we have chosen and the relationship between the stimulus, the style/genre/mood and other factors which influence our writing.
We will be doing some descriptive writing but hopefully describing mood and action rather than just appearance or a visual object/scene and using language other than adjectives effectively to enhance good description.
I plan to try writing about the same topic in different ways and different styles, keeping the original topic headings simple and brief to allow maximum personal choice and free association.
We will also be looking at adverbs. The received wisdom is that we should keep them to a minimum. Like many things, the are more effective and have more impact, when not overused.
If you have read and enjoyed something over the holidays, or have a favourite book that you would like to share please feel free to bring along your recommendation and if possible bookmark/highlight a passage that exemplifies the style or gives a flavour of the story; half a page to a page in length should be enough. Recommending a book should be about explaining the style and peaking curiosity and interest, not about giving away too much of the plot!
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