Igniting the Creative Spark by Emma Pass

It's been a busy year. I've completed the new draft of a novel which is now with my agent, and it's been fun, but a lot of work. However, writing is not what I've spent most of my time doing this year – probably not even 50%.

I used to have a day job in a library, which I loved, but 4 years ago, it all got a bit much. The pressures of trying to fit almost full-time work around writing and everything that goes with it were making me stressed and ill. Something had to give… so I decided to resign my permanent hours, and start running workshops instead.

I facilitate two creative writing groups, one for adults at a local community centre, and one at a local library for young people aged 4-14, which is supported by writer development agency Writing East Midlands. The latter group has been going in various guises for over 6 years now, and I'm lucky enough to work with a brilliant shadow writer who helps me plan and run the sessions. Recently, went on a trip to a tram museum where the group looked at archive objects, dressed up as tram conductors, rode old trams and wrote stories about it. It was a fantastic day. I couldn’t quite believe that it even counted as "work" – but it did!

Riding on top of an open-top tram

 I get asked to go into schools, too. I've been a Patron of Reading where I not only ran creative writing and literacy workshops, but accompanied a group of students on a weekend away where we made films in the middle of the Yorkshire countryside, and I've done a stint as a First Story writer-in-residence. I also run one-off creative writing workshops for writers of all ages, and have been part of a scheme mentoring other writers wanting to run their own workshops.

But I don't just run workshops on my own. My husband is a painter and printmaker who builds his own printing presses. The biggest, which has a 6-foot wheel, is made out of RSJ girders – the sort you use to build houses! But he's built several smaller ones, too, out of Victorian washing mangles, which are on trolleys so they can be moved around. He does workshops too; in March, we applied for a joint author/artist residency with Inspire Nottinghamshire Libraries – and we got it!

Mangle printing press

The residency was three months long and based around the summer reading challenge which takes place in libraries nationwide every summer. 2018's theme was comics, so it started with us going into two primary schools, where we helped four different classes write and make printing plates for their own giant comic strips which went on display at Worksop library. Then, in July and August, we did a "grand mangle tour" of 12 libraries, running family workshops where participants could write and print their own comics to take home with them.

Mischief Makers exhibition at Worksop Library - artwork by Y5 and Y6 students at St Anne's and Worksop Priory schools

We've also run sessions for a dementia group, and next year we're doing more work with people who have additional needs, as well as family workshops and wellbeing days.

It's been slow to build up (I still have a relief contract with the library), and if you'd told me seven years ago, before I got my first book deal, that all this is what I'd be doing for a living, I'd've looked at you "gone out", as they say round here. That sounds exhausting! I'd've said. Not to mention intimidating!

But it's not. It's wonderful. And the reason it's wonderful is because of the people who come to the workshops. Writing (and art) can be a lonely business – you're there in your office (or studio) day after day, on your own. Getting out there and helping other people to realise that the arts are not elitist but can, and should, be accessed by anyone, is not only fun, but incredibly rewarding. Igniting the creative spark in other people is one of the most important things we, as authors and artists (and musicians and actors and makers and…) can do.

Emma Pass lives in the north east Midlands. Her YA novels ACID and The Fearless are published by Corgi Children’s Books/Penguin Random House. You can find more details about her writing and workshops on her website at www.emmapassauthor.wordpress.com.

A weekend retreat on writing about climate change – by David Thorpe

Incredible as it may seem it's still possible for children to go through school and come out the other end and hardly be aware of the existence of climate change, because it is barely touched upon in the curriculum.

It seems like a pretty vital topic, then, for writers to choose to include in their stories – to bring the reality of this topic into a children's imaginations!

That's why, this March, I'm running a weekend retreat for writers at the Welsh writing centre Ty Newydd, set in the stunningly beautiful Lleyn Peninsula.

Helping me to do this will be the poet, dramatist, climate change campaigner and performer Emily Hinshelwood.

We will be challenging writers to think about ways to expose and write about the often hidden connection between our profligate use of fossil fuels and the loss of habitat, life and lifestyle – that many in the world are already experiencing.

In our everyday lives we often don't have the opportunity or space to consider the emotions that arise in us as a response to such a nebulous and all encompassing threat as catastrophic climate change.

This threat seems both remote and near, far away in time, and yet touching the every day weather and the behaviour of plants and wildlife around us even now – as if they are early warning sensors.

We don't know how to interpret these portents and the very uncertainty around climate change and the sheer size of the fact makes us feel powerless and afraid.

Some of us go into denial, some of us are paralysed with shock and some of us are galvanised into action.

In writing for children, they mustn't be made to feel frightened or scared into shock and powerlessness, they must be helped to feel that the future does contain hope and that it is possible to do something. But there is so much to know. Where can writers start?

There is already no shortage of novels for children with the theme of climate change. Three years ago I took part in a session at the Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival where, with the author of the Carbon Diaries, Saci Lloyd, we touched on some of them.

For our pains we were accused of poisoning children's minds by the right-wing press and online trolls!

I've written something about the history of writing and climate change here.

In another project I've been involved with, Weatherfronts, an anthology of writing about climate change, some writers have addressed the question with a story set at a domestic scale rather than apocalyptic science-fiction.

Darragh Martin wrote a hilarious story for young children about fighting off a nasty polluter called 'Thumbelina Jellyfizz and the Elephant in the Bathroom'.

And what about picturing a bright future where we have solved the problems of climate change but maybe we have other problems instead?

To build a bright future we first have to envision it. Children, with their unfettered imaginations, unconstrained by preconceptions, are well able to contribute their own ideas. Writers can stimulate them to do this.

So our weekend course will discuss the many facets of climate change and the ways in which its impact is felt both by participants on the course and people throughout the world.

We will experiment with a variety of different approaches and investigate ways of tapping our emotional reactions, of using research, imagining possible scenarios, and generating meaningful stories.

We will also be using the cycle of recovery from shock and grief because we think it is directly relevant here.

We have seen people move through these psychological stages:

1. shock & denial when they first hear about climate change; 
2. pain & guilt about the suffering that humanity has caused and is causing by the use of fossil fuels; 
3. anger and blame-laying; 
4. depression, powerlessness, reflection; 
5. an upward turn as one realises that life could still continue; 
6. reconstruction of one's life in a new way that is more sustainable, perhaps making connections with like-minded people; 
7. and finally acceptance and hope as they learn to deal with the new situation.

This almost sounds like a 'voyage and return' scenario or perhaps a 'conquering the monster' type of story, doesn't it?

It's going to be exciting to see what people come up with. Emily and I can't wait to see you there!

Find out more here: http://www.tynewydd.wales/course/writing-climate-change/

[I am the writer of Marvel's Captain Britain, the sci-fi YA novels Hybrids, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect and the cli-fi fantasy Stormteller. I also run a regular writing course, called 'Making Readers Care' that can be taken online. Contact me if interested.]

School Visit Season Looms

It’s four years since my first author visit, but I remember the afternoon very well. I was terrified. I’d stood in front of conferences of adults, but the idea of children, that get bored easily, was on another scale. I practised my spiel on my own kids. The feedback was vanilla. I did it with the mirror as my audience, noticed how wrinkly I am when I smile. Didn't sleep the night before. To my credit, I was prepared. Overly. I started my one-hour session at half-past one, ran seamlessly through the three different sections - introduction and warm-up (ideally with laughter), making up characters together (using flipchart), putting them in a story (using props I'd brought.) Perfect, apart from the sweaty armpit mark on my dress and the fact I had no watch, and there was no clock in the room. I galloped through the afternoon like it was the Grand National. My mouth was so dry I had to tear my tongue off the roof. I daredn't stop, even to ask the time, in case I lost a child's attention. Eventually the bell rang. Oh joy! I'd run a two-hour marathon. It was over. I went home and someone else had to make tea.

So, am I any better now?

Yes.

I wear a watch.
If I forget I choose a child and ask them to tell me when it's whatever o'clock. The downside of this is that the child ends up staring at its watch and can't participate but hey.

 I don't pack so much in.
Simply putting on a wig does the warm-up job. I have large and curly, bright blue and Barbie wigs.

I occasionally stop talking.
As my confidence has grown I get the children to do more and me less. They write on the flipchart, they choose the props. If I get some proper little stars in the group I've even had an impromptu singing session, karate demos and a playfight (that got a little less playful.)

I get them off their chairs.
I know now to ask for the kids to be on the carpet, hall floor, anywhere but at their desks. That way they can't fiddle so easily and there's no barrier between us.

I take my props in a large dustbin and change them all the time.
Skulls are marvellous. What school event can't go swimmingly if you have a light-up skull?

I don't get them too excited.
In the early days I just wanted the children to look interested so I did pretty much anything that would keep them laughing. That's fine, until you actually want them to listen. I have found the brakes. I also now appoint a child to be on my side and use them as a policeman. Marvellous tactic. But I don't know what happens to them in the playground afterwards.

I spot the lively ones.
And give them jobs. There are any number of ad hoc positions available for children who like to talk.

I try not to catch the eye of any member of staff.
I can be a bit noisy, and I wear wigs, and dance and make faces, and shout sudden alarming things. The presence of the adults can make me feel self-conscious, so I pretend they're not there. When I find myself saying something that a teacher might not like I close down all peripheral vision and that works a treat.

If I lose my thread, I tell them.

I used to think I had to perform like an actress - know my words, never stutter or show any nerves. It was a revelatory moment when I started to just be myself (wigs, dancing, shouting). Now, if the workshop takes a dive I explain how it's mirroring the writing process. Up, down, sprinting, stopped dead, wrong, irretrievable. The children particularly like anything I say that exposes the truth of how often adults also have no idea what they're doing.

Talking of truth, it's 8.03am on my blog day. This week I've been writing, writing, writing, trying to finish the nth draft of my latest book to send it to my agent. And I forgot to prepare the blog. Sorry. So any of you who looked early - I was dreaming of moving house. And any of you reading now - this is an unedited flow of stuff from my head.

 So before I make porridge I'll share my favourite piece of feedback (from a child, of course.)

'I liked it when you was a goose.'

p.s. Please excuse the formatting. Beyond me . . .

Back To School - by Emma Barnes

7th March 2013 was World Book Day. As usual, the requests came in: “Would you like to visit our school for Book Week...the children would love to meet a real, live author”. This year I visited primaries in Sheffield, Leeds, North Yorkshire and Edinburgh and, now that all the rushing about is over, I’ve time to reflect a bit about what authors can bring to schools.

When I visit a school, part of it is “the talk” – often to an assembly group. In this session I’m trying to do a few things: share my excitement about books and reading, get across that reading is not a “worthy” activity but something that can take you into new worlds and generate real, edge-of –the-seat excitement; and convey that my job is fundamentally about STORY – creating narratives that people want to read, and where all the time they are demanding “what happens next?”

 It’s important for primary children to realise that this is an entirely different skill to handwriting, spelling or punctuation (which they may be bad at, and heartily dislike.) It’s not necessarily got much to do with adverbs, “openers”, “connectives” or “wow words” either. These are just parts of the tool-kit, that can be brought out when required. The aim is to create the world – the characters within it – and their story.

As well as talking to the children, I do workshops. I spend a lot of time preparing these, and asking myself the question – what extra thing can I, as a writer, bring to the children? What can I provide, that a teacher, however well-trained and inspired, might not?

....What if your mother was a witch?
Illustrator: Emma Chichester Clark

Increasingly, I focus on story. A lot of the writing that children do in class is not based around creating stories – yet for me, that is the key part of being a writer. And it’s hard, incredibly hard, to come up with a gripping story – one that holds attention, suspends disbelief and both surprises and satisfies.

Imagine Jessica's problem....

So most of my workshops are about finding different ways into a story. Whether it’s about inventing a surprising character (a mermaid who can’t swim, a dragon that can’t breathe fire), looking at a place you know and searching out the things that happen there, or thinking about a “What If...” situation...What if your mother was a witch? (Jessica Haggerthwaite: Witch Dispatcher). What if your new dog turned out to be a wolf? (Wolfie).

Some of the most fun I’ve had in schools recently has been creating stories in groups. I start the ball rolling...”What is your character’s name?” “How old are they?” And in a surprisingly short time we will develop a story...sometimes an amazing story, in which I will be astonished by the creativity and imagination all around me. “I think I’ll steal this one for my next book” I tell them (actually quite tempted!)

Best of all are the comments from teachers, about the children who have taken their stories home, or gone on working at them at playtime or in class. Sometimes I’m sent copies of the finished versions!

Emma Barnes's web-site
Emma's latest book is Wolfie - available from Amazon
 Wolfie: "funny, clever and satisfying" - Book of the Week, Books for Keeps

I'm thinking, not writing...... Miriam Halahmy

When I run writing workshops I tell the students that all the words they are going to write are already inside them...rather like your teeth.

Finding those precious words is an act of mining; digging deep into the seams that run through our subconscious and bringing the words and thoughts and images to the surface. One of the most effective ways of mining is simply thinking. Meg Rossoff recently wrote in a blog that writing is only 20% of the work of forming a novel. The other 80% is thinking. I absolutely agree with her.

The problem in our high tech, race around world, is allowing ourselves the space to think. When I was young ( i.e. before marriage and kids and sharing all my space with other human beings) I spent an awful lot of time just lying on my bed dreaming into space, thinking and thinking and thinking. Today with all the distractions in our lives this seems to be so much more elusive, that magical thinking time when you let your mind wander and follow the thought all the way to Mars and back...you know what I mean.

But without deep thinking the novel remains on the surface, unlayered, undeveloped, the characters never truly reveal those hidden characteristics which will make them so memorable long after the last page is read. Yes, some of that comes as a gift, leaping onto the page as we write. But a great deal of those deep and important details sift up to the surface through the seams and seams of words and thoughts, during the hours of simply – thinking.

As working writers maybe we find it difficult to give ourselves permission to sit and think, or walk about and think. We might feel that we have to have an excuse, like, ‘Just off to the gym’ or ‘Must take the dog for a walk’ and yes, those might be the best ways for someone to do their thinking.

But thinking is such an important part of the work of writing that we should not feel we need to make any excuse at all – if ‘they’ come upon us, sitting on a chair, staring silently into space. We should be able to say, I’m thinking. And that should be seen as work as much as walking the dog or bashing away on our laptops.

So the next time you see me sitting without speaking, eyes glazed over, you will know exactly what I’m doing..... won’t you?

www.miriamhalahmy.com