Storytime

Last weekend (when I wasn't working) I went to 'From Text to Texture' a great workshop run by Writer's Victoria for the Casey Writers Project over at Bunjil Place. This was a great day, spent with like minded folks, most of us with the same trials and tribulations of wrangling a piece of work into some sort of sanity, the workshop led by Toni Jordan. Toni was inspiring and enthusiastic. We looked at character and how to use minimal dialogue tags. We talked about adverbs (the devil's own in Toni's opinion) and setting. We were given writing exercises - which for some is so easy....others find it very daunting to write cold, without research and data at your side. I came away with some new insight, and eager to get back into the WIP. One thing that really got me thinking was when Toni said 'why does your scene have to be set here?' She made us think about our settings we have chosen. Are they vital to the story, move it on, do they add detai...

A few days ago I ran a writing workshop for children. Once again I was amazed at how creative and funny kids are. They love EVERYTHING  and think that ANYTHING can happen. I gave them a quick exercise to get their brains ticking in the right direction and then we were plotting and planning. We talked about the boring real life compared to the adventures found in stories. How you can escape life for a moment or thirty, how you can pretend to be anyone. We looked at a photo (an elderly gentleman with the most amazing lived in face) and they all got to write about him. His life, his family. They created jobs and homes, created his character. We did another exercise which involved two characters, a setting, two lines of dialogue and an ending. It was a fun game with many giggles as characters such as Chicken Nugget- out to get those that dare turn chickens into such things...were created. Then they began to write their stories. I gave them some things to think about. T...

Last week I ventured to another library and ran a memoir writing workshop for Seniors Week. It was a lot of fun (and boy was I nervous!) and I'm glad to say not only was there a good turn out but I received some very good comments. In fact one lovely bunch of women would love me to come back each week and help them step by step through their writing. I did make them write and the majority were more than eager to share their work. It was so interesting to discover that while most people know exactly  what they 'want' to write about, when it is said out loud it does sometime lose it's glamour. It becomes a bit humdrum. What we discovered during these two hours was the glory of the aside. People would say 'I''m writing a story about this time when this happened and this happened and I remember vividly this happening". All nice, all great social commentary...but then they would say something like 'and that's when she got the gun out and trie...

Once a year my writing group, The Lazy River Writers with help from the Victorian Writers Centre , hosts a writing workshop. This year we featured writing for young adults with author Penni Russon. Penni has over 9 novels published and teaches at Melbourne University (not to mention juggling the jobs of wife and mother to three young children). She had a wealth of experience to share, and share she did. It was a great afternoon. Penni offered not only good advice and some great ideas to use as jumping off points for our writing - but she gave us writing exercises. The one that most intrigued me was putting an experience - and for this exercise we used a 'first time' experience - into a haiku. Yes a haiku. There were no words to hide behind, no waffling, it had to be condensed and concise. A very interesting exercise and one I totally recommend. I think what I got most from this workshop was confidence. That yes there are mountains of books out there... -and ...