'Get the pen moving ideas' by Steve Way

 

I used to visit schools to do writing workshops with children, naturally of course that hasn’t been possible for a while. Before we began the children often asked some interesting questions. Sometimes they would ask me if I was famous. It was difficult for me not to ironically reply, ‘well if you have to ask that question… ?” or wonder if the children would get the joke, given my surname, if I said, ‘well I’m definitely on the W List’. However, I usually replied, ‘well my mum thinks I am so please don’t tell her otherwise’. Once a boy was bitterly disappointed when I informed him that no I didn’t actually live in a castle but a normal terraced house. Apparently before I visited another school one of the children asked if I had a butler. I was cautious about relating this question back to my wife as I thought she might have something acerbic to say about that idea!

I was interested to read Nick Garlick’s latest blog (May 29^th) regarding the tip from Steinbeck to encourage writers. I like the idea of essentially only focusing on the day’s writing and ‘forgetting’ about the rest of the project in order not to be overwhelmed by the task of working on and finishing a long project. It reminded me of a children’s story by Tolstoy in which the beleaguered hero is set impossible tasks to complete, such as sweeping the leaves from the grounds of a palace, but is advised by his magical advocate to only concentrate on the section he’s working on at any one time – and thus at the end of the day the task is completed.

When conducting the workshops with children I did something not dissimilar, which had originally sprung from exercises I created to help me get writing. I called them ‘get the pen moving’ exercises having, no doubt like you at times, found a black page or a blank screen so intimidating that I couldn’t get started. Presuming that the children, most of course weren’t aiming for a career in writing, often faced the same challenge, the ideas were aimed at helping the children to get their creative juices flowing before moving onto the main task. I wanted to share some of them with you in case they were helpful in a similar situation.

Sometimes I would ask the children if they would like to rule the world. You may not be surprised to learn that many of them enthusiastically volunteered! I suggested that I wouldn't be very keen on the idea given that everyone who had tried to do so had made a terrible mess of it. Nevertheless, I put forward my obviously daft rules that I would impose if I were to rule the world and then invited the children to do the same.

My rules (if I ruled the world) were;

1.     All people whose name begins with ‘S’ are to be in charge and everyone has to buy them Magnums all the time or make them cups of tea all the time.

2.     Only ostriches can be employed as teachers, not people. The pupils have to do everything the ostriches tell them to do, but apart from that they can do what they want.

3.     People have to say ‘Mushroom’ to each other when they meet instead of ‘Hello’. Anyone who disobeys this order has to have a bath in tomato soup.

4.     Being a goat will be completely illegal. All goats will have to become sheep instead of goats, otherwise they will have to go to prison for two and a half seconds.

5.     People can only drive cars that are completely made out of ice-cream.

6.     From now on Sundays can only occur on Saturdays. If they don’t, everyone has to completely ignore them and take a day off after every Saturday.

7.     Space is not allowed. From now on the universe must end at Scunthorpe.

8.     Anyone who makes up more than eight completely stupid rules must be arrested and covered in elephants immediately.

9.     It is… AAAAGH! Get those elephants out of here!

If I didn’t have the children’s attention before when I suddenly screamed and began running out of the classroom (‘exits pursued by several elephants’) I certainly did by then. It was also always interesting to see how many of the children got the joke about the ostrich teachers.

An alternative was to ask the children to make up sets of rules, for example, for parents, sisters, brothers etc. These were mine for teachers;

1.     Teachers will be allowed to use pupils who don’t do their homework to build their houses with. They can stick them together to make walls with instead of bricks. (The children can also let the teachers know if they have visitors.)

2.     Teachers can have carpets made out of pupils who don’t do as they are told, or learn their tables, by sewing their uniforms together. (The carpets make a funny squeaking noise when the teachers walk on them.)

3.     Teachers only have to work on 30^th February, and they can have the rest of the year off.

4.     Every night teachers can give their pupils four-years’ worth of homework.

5.     Every day pupils should wash the teachers’ cars, polish their shoes and make them cups of tea all the time.

6.     Teachers should be paid at the rate of three million pounds per second.

7.     Teachers should only have to teach classes of 0 pupils or less.

8.     Teachers should be forced to go on a ten-year long training course… where they learn how to sunbathe on Caribbean beaches.

Especially as the children generally anticipated that the rules would be arduous for the teachers, rather than possibly themselves, this was usually fun to share. As with the ostrich joke it was interesting to discuss their reaction to rule no. 3.

One other idea was to ask them to create a list of lies about some group or category, such as sausage rolls, lampshades, phones, teachers (again), elephants etc. Here are mine about crabs;

Crabs can really walk forwards and backwards but walk sideways because they think it’ll make anyone who’s watching them so dizzy, they won’t be able to catch them.

Crabs are brilliant at making spaghetti, but no one has ever asked them to.

Crabs turn into dustbins at night-time but of course no one knows this as they can’t see the dustbins in the dark.

Crabs can fly but they never do because they are so bad at it and always crash into something.

Every single crab has the same name – Martin – even the lady crabs. It’s a bit silly but they never forget each other’s name.

Crabs can see into the future, but they can only see one minute into the future, which isn’t very useful.

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I hope you may find some of these ideas useful. In any case do bear in mind that these days home delivery of Magnums is possible.