First Aid and First Goals - A New Writing Course

A Funny Old Week

Well, this has been a funny old week, as we say in London. I'm determined to get creative.  I'd like to take a class but at present, time and finances forbid. So I get a course in a book.

Beehives in the Park

The Course comes as a big fat tome and a download for my Kindle. I lap it up on the London Underground, in the park with the bees humming around the hives, in the cafe under London Bridge Station (a bit similar to working whilst bricked up in an Egyptian mummy's tomb). I'm a great believer in taking classes no matter how experienced you are - in the same way I still take yoga classes after decades of practice, I trust I'll never be too proud to take a writing class.

When I'm not making jottings I'm busy stretching every nerve, brain cell and joint to pass my First Aid Certificate. In one sense, taking a course from a book isn't the same as going at it live. With an instructor from the St John Ambulance shouting,'two rescue breaths, thirty pumps on the heart', I make very fast progress on my First Aid. Still, I'm determined to make a success of my writing course too. I remind myself that in the past, writers wrote, they didn't spend hours on Facebook or have the luxury of even, necessarily, attending school so very much, never mind attending college.

Thirty Rescue Pumps

Chris Sykes' course has loads of exercises and begins, in the introduction, with asking the student to think about how and where they write. Then, tease out their reasons for wanting to write, and finally to write down three short-term and three long-term goals for their writing self this year.

I jot down a few things about myself, and note a couple of modest successes.

'Lives in the mad, bad beautiful city of London,' I begin. 'Dredges the events of the past for stories, head firmly in the now. Writes on the tube, in the park or best of all, at the zoo. Rather fond of prawns. And ginger nuts. Winner of Coast to Coast Writing Competition ('I Remember Very Well'); Winner of Writer's Village Flash Fiction Competition ('Past Times'). Articles published in Prediction Magazine, Astrology Now, Aquarist & Pondkeeper; titbits read out on BBC Radio 2 by Zoe Ball, and by Anneka Rice.

Writes at the Zoo

Now for some goals to give my course bite:

Three short-term goals:

1. To champ away on my blog and Facebook page weekly for the next three months (5 June 2016)

2. To finish my W.I.P. 'Face The Champion' by 5 September 2016

3. To have completed a basic outline for 'Keep Them Safe' by 5 September 2016

Three long-term goals:

1. To submit 'Face The Champion' to every possible publishing opportunity by 5 March 2017
2. To have my website functional by 5 December 2016
3. To save for and attend the Historical Novel Society's conference in September 2016.

Rather Fond of Gingernuts

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. 

E L Doctorow 1931-2015

Creative Writing Workshop Beats Black Dog

A Toilet of a Year

This has been a W.C. of a year. Battling with the anguish of bereavement and supporting my father through two operations, I find it tough to get back to writing.

People tell me to 'pull myself together' but have bugger all idea how I might go about it. Still, there is a gem of truth in those old wives' tales.

This week I pull myself together in three ways; 1) sign up for a creative writing workshop 2) start a fresh, new course and 3) win a prize for a piece of flash fiction. In a literary city like London there are loads of workshops available; large and noisy, intimate and searching, cosy and hilarious, stretching and expensive.  I choose one called 'Less Thinking More Writing'. It's run by JoJo Thomas on Sunday mornings. The atmosphere's creative and beautifully prepared, with fab fab home-made cakes and coffee.

Delicious Homemade Cakes

There is little critique. The extended a.m. session (4 hours for £40) is targeted towards creativity. Packed with exercises and perfect for a Sunday, the 'round the table' set-up with discussion and lots of funny, insightful reflection means that we all leave feeling positive yet gloriously stretched. 'I'll never view haddock in quite the same way,' says Huw, as we say goodbye. And neither will the rest of us.

Set in Torbay

 Last time I attended JoJo's workshop I turned one of the exercises into a teensy story which, to my delight, won first prize in a Flash Fiction competition. The judge describes it as 'beguiling', which was great. I can live with 'beguiling'.

 The flash fiction story is set in Torbay and I use the raw grief of my mother's death for this piece - better than boring everyone on the bus. The prize of £50 is a huge boost to my morale. This week's results may, according to JoJo, have produced a deliciously new, darker beginning to one of my novels in progress. Watch this space.

A Darker Beginning

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

Somerset Maughan 1874-1965 

Workshops by JoJo Thomas