Out of my Comfort Zone -- and Having Fun by Sheena Wilkinson

My helpers 

I don't really 'do' small children. Never having had any children of my own, or any nieces or nephews, I've had little to do with them. When I do primary school visits, I insist that the minimum age I'll work with is nine. Which makes sense -- I've written books for middle grade, teen, young adult and adult, but nothing for smaller kids. 

But this post comes to you after a full day of reading to Very Small Children Indeed, including babies in prams. Reader, I am shattered! But what fun it was, and I've decided to tell you about it, partly because those of you who are writers might also find you're asked to do something you didn't think you could, and end up rather enjoying. And in the current financial and intellectual climate, we could all do with maximising our chance to earn money. 

One of my main roles over the last ten years has been as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. The RLF is the world's oldest literary charity, founded in 1790 with a remit to support writers. Their ethos is simple: writers matter because writing matters. And they put their money where their mouth is in various ways: giving grants to writers in need, but also giving writers work in a wide range of educational and community settings. I like to see them as a matchmaker: matching up the writers' skills with people who would benefit from them. I started off in 2015 as a Writing Fellow in a university, helping students with their essays, and since then have delivered various kinds of workshops in universities, schools, workplaces, mental healthcare settings and more. 

What has this to do with reading 'Piglet Meets a Heffalump' to Very Small Children Indeed?

Well, the RLF derives most of its income from authors' estates (mine won't be worth much, but I'm going to make sure I give them something) and one of their most high-profile donors was A.A. Milne, most famous, of course, as the writer of Winnie-the-Pooh. Next year is the centenary of the publication of the first WTP book, and  there will be celebrations in lots of places, starting off in my very own Northern Ireland. 

Disney, Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Literary Fund have got together to transform part of the grounds of Hillsborough Castle in County Down into a storybook wonderland: Winnie-the-Pooh's Hunny Hunt. Every Saturday a different RLF author will bring the world of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood to life. My remit -- being local I was the first of the authors to give it a go -- was to read from WTP as well as from my own work. 

I was well looked after by everyone -- by the RLF (as always!) and by representatives of Disney and the staff at Hillsborough, but the biggest thanks must go to my own old toys, pictured at the top. I wasn't sure who would turn up to Owl's Storytelling Corner, but I was pretty sure they would be Too Young for my own books. And so it proved. The children ranged from eleven-ish down to nought-ish, with the average being about four. They had never heard of me or my books; they just wanted a story. Luckily I had chosen 'Piglet Meets a Heffalump' which is a Very Satisfying Story Indeed. 

I had brought Betjeman Bear, Blue and Scottish Toby along simply to look cute, along with a 'hunny' jar but very soon I pressed them into service to act it all out. After all, long before Disney, the original Pooh characters were based on real toys owned by Milne's son Christopher, so perhaps it was fitting that my scruffy old toys* played their part. Betjeman made a dignified Christopher Robin; Blue, who has sat on my bed for 56 years, did not deserve to have his head jammed into a hunny pot for the entertainment of small children, but he has survived worse over the years, and Scottish Toby made a surprisingly convincing Piglet. 

I learned a lot today. I learned that if you let one child hold one bear, you have to let her tiny sister hold the other one, even if the latter's nose is dripping snot which she is cheerfully rubbing with the same hands she is holding out for the bear. I learned that small children love being asked to give 'a loud roar of sadness and despair' in Heffalumpish style, even if they do not know what all the words mean. And I learned that sometimes, doing something outside your comfort zone can be Jolly Good Fun.

*Betjeman Bear requests that I point out that he is neither old nor scruffy, but is in fact a beautiful handmade bear sewn by my friend Elizabeth and is no more than twenty years old and therefore Very Young Indeed. 

How to make your brain solve a problem while you're away ... by Sophia Bennett

I've just booked our summer holiday. Yes! We're going to Devon for a few days, to the kind of place the Famous Five would have recognised - an area redolent of wreckers, sublimely beautiful with a hint of historic danger. I'm practically there already.

But first I have to work, to earn the price of a few nights of fish and chips, and maybe the odd massage if I'm very lucky ...

And on Thursday I'm running a workshop for research students at my local university hospital. They're working on life-saving ideas to treat cancer, and neonatal diseases and MRSA. I know I wouldn't be able to understand their research in detail, but I can help them write. I can also help them think about writing. And I thought today I'd share the exercise I most enjoyed doing when it was given to me, and I was a participant. It was given by Heather Dyer, at an event I did with the Royal Literary Fund. Of everything we did that day, it was the simplest and easiest to reproduce.

It goes like this.

We're going to do some free writing. You're going to spend a minute or two thinking of a problem that's on your mind at the moment. It might be something in your work in progress, or something in real life (that life that seems to fade into the background when the WIP is going really well). There. Are you thinking about it?

Great. Now we're going to write for three minutes. And the rule is simply this: you have to keep writing that whole time. We're after quantity, not quality. No pausing for thought, no pausing full stop. If you can't think what say then just write the last word you wrote down before your brain dried up and keep writing it until the thoughts come flowing back again. OK? Three minutes. And I want you to write about ...

What the solution to the problem isn't.

Got that? Three minutes. Go.

...
...
...

Done? Lovely.

Did your brain fight back? Mine did, when I did the exercise. It started off magnificently explaining a couple of solutions that would never work and then after about a minute it deliberately, mischievously decided to ignore the clear instruction and start to tell me what the solution to the problem was.

What to do? To obey the instruction to keep writing, which didn't give me time to work out how to tell my brain to behave, or to follow what it was telling me to write instead?

How you choose to write is up to you.

I loved that exercise. But that was just part one. Heather then told us to look through what we'd written and find two words that stood out, then spend a few seconds thinking about those words, then ... three more minutes of free-writing - whatever came to us, this time. And in those two exercises combined I solved three major stumbling blocks (can you solve a block? you know what I mean) about how to tackle the narration of my latest story idea.

It's a simple premise: our brains often like to solve problems subconsciously, when we're thinking about something else. Sometimes we just have to give them room to do that work, and grab onto the results and go with them when they come. I'm hoping that my days in Devon will give my brain a similar opportunity to go off and have fun while I stare out towards Burgh Island, so beloved of Agatha Christie, then come back to me with a series of problems solved.

We'll see what happens. And if it doesn't work this time, there's always the fish and chips.

Vocare & Pascho - Malaika Rose Stanley

A couple of months into my RLF Fellowship at the London College of Fashion, I mentioned to a friend how much I was enjoying it. It reminded me of how much I love teaching – the chance to make a difference in a pupil or student’s life, to share in their learning and help them reach their full potential. Teaching, I declared, was my vocation. She was surprised. To be honest, I surprised myself. Where does my writing fit into this? Is it just a job; another career I’ve moved into or is it something else entirely? I’ve been thinking about the answer to this question – a lot.

As a bossy little girl, press-ganging my friends into an audience to listen to the poems and stories I’d written, I was often told by adults that I would probably grow up to be a teacher. There was certainly never any mention that I might grow up to be a writer. I don’t think that early ‘encouragement’ pushed me towards a teaching career, but I did train and work as a teacher for many years. The genuine encouragement came from a careers advice teacher at the FE college where I was hurtling towards a job as a shorthand-typist or, at best, a private secretary. She stood over me while I filled in the university clearing house forms and – by happy accident – found my vocation as well as a fulfilling and relatively well-paid career with great holidays. She was everything a good teacher should be – inspiring, challenging, supportive – and she made a huge impact on my life. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude, although to my sadness and shame, I no longer remember her name.

At the risk of sounding conceited, I believe I was a good teacher too. I honed my bossiness into the ability to encourage – OK, push – my students to be the best they could be and I hope some of them remember me positively.  I remained in education until I was eventually promoted to a job for which I was not suited and which I loathed. Budget management just wasn’t my thing – and I bolted.

Although I had always written in my spare time, I came to writing for children as the result of another great teacher and another happy accident. I was enrolling for an adult education class in French when I saw a noticeboard covered with the cover proofs of the books published by authors and illustrators who had attended Elizabeth Hawkins’ Writing for Children course. I enrolled for both classes, but ditched French by half-term. Over the next two years, first in the class and then in the follow-up workshop, I wrote my first published children’s book, Man Hunt. I love writing – I love inventing and spending time with my imaginary friends, the heart-pounding unpredictability and sense of surprise, the independence and freedom to do anything and go anywhere, all while I’m still in my pyjamas.

Gradually though, despite all these attractions, I found myself drawn back to the ‘classroom’ – tutoring, training, special needs support – until serious problems with my health eventually forced me out again. Since then, I believe I have established the ideal balance for me. I write full-time but I still teach when I can – through school visits, workshops, etc – and yes, most recently, that RLF gig...

So – back to my original question – if teaching is my vocation, where does that leave writing?

The words vocation and passion both have religious connotations. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, meaning ‘to call’ and refers to an occupation to which a person is drawn or for which they are particularly suited, trained or qualified. Passion comes from the Ancient Greek verb πάσχω (pascho/pas'-kho) meaning ‘to suffer’ and is the term for a very strong feeling or affinity towards someone or something – an intense emotion of enthusiasm and desire.

I certainly have huge enthusiasm and a strong desire and I feel incredibly fortunate to have found such a rewarding second career – but I still wonder if it’s that element of ‘suffering’ that clarifies what writing means for me. I barely scrape a living, so it’s definitely all about the love rather than the money and the writing I’m most proud of has often been fuelled by past wounds and tragedies and emotional pain. Even on a practical, day-to-day level, I am sometimes so fearful and obsessed with whether I’m doing it right or doing it well enough or with just getting something down on the page that I forget to eat or take a walk and I neglect my relationships. It’s a glorious cliché, but I suffer for my art like every other writer, perhaps – maybe like you – and l still feel compelled to keep on doing it.

Spike and Ali in Space will be published in September 2012 by Tamarind and Dance Dreams will follow in February 2013.