Still learning... by Eloise Williams

This, I think, is the most important and exciting part of creativity.

I am always learning.

For me, this is also one of the best things about growing older. As I get older, I get better at my craft. It makes the wrinkles / laughter lines easy to deal with!

I got side-tracked as a Young Adult / Middle Aged Adult into all sorts of things. Shop work, bar work, acting, bingo calling, food packing, teaching, the list goes on. But now I have found what I want to do with my life at the tender age of *cough, cough* and it is the beginning of learning something new.

With an absolute heart full of joy, I am learning my craft bit by bit, every day.

There is so much freedom in admitting that you are still learning.

I can make as many mistakes as I want to! Yippee!

And another MASSIVE plus is that I can actually call reading - which is my favourite pastime - WORK! Hurrah!

I wanted to share with you three books I have read very recently that have been absolutely invaluable not only as gripping stories but as pieces of craft from which I have learned so much about the art of story-telling and the power of words. They are in no particular order other than the order in which I read them.


First up is the utterly stunning 'Eden Summer' by Liz Flanagan (David Fickling Books)

'Shy, gothy Jess and stunning and popular Eden are best friends. They've supported each other through some of the hardest things you can go through – death, bullying, love, heartbreak. They know everything about each other.

But then Eden goes missing and Jess knows she has to find her, and fast, because the longer someone is missing, the more likely it is they won't be found. So Jess starts exploring her memories, things Eden said and did in the last few months and she starts to realise that maybe they don't know each other as well as she thought.

Set in the beautifully described stunning countryside of West Yorkshire, an incredibly pacy page turner as the clock runs down on the likelihood of finding Eden alive.'

Gripping. Utterly gripping. I couldn’t put it down. Exquisite writing and description. Such brilliant story-telling. You care so much about the characters. You want to know what happened as if it is really happening to you personally. So much so I didn’t get out of bed until I finished it. Spent most of the day in my PJs. (Am not usually a slob).


Secondly is the scintillating ‘Strange Star’ by Emma Carroll (Faber & Faber)

'They were coming tonight to tell ghost stories. 'A tale to freeze the blood,' was the only rule.
Switzerland, 1816. On a stormy summer night, Lord Byron and his guests are gathered round the fire. Felix, their serving boy, can't wait to hear their creepy tales. Yet real life is about to take a chilling turn- more chilling than any tale. Frantic pounding at the front door reveals a stranger, a girl covered in the most unusual scars. She claims to be looking for her sister, supposedly snatched from England by a woman called Mary Shelley. Someone else has followed her here too, she says. And the girl is terrified...'

Atmospheric. Gothic. A ripping good yarn with hugely creepy elements and plenty of EEK moments but also a story of depth and relevance and such terrible sadness. I read it in the sunshine and felt I was at the centre of a storm.

Thirdly is the luscious ‘A Library of Lemons' by Jo Cotterill (Piccadilly Press)

'A poignant story about dealing with grief through the magic of reading and friendship. Calypso's mum died a few years ago and her emotionally incompetent Dad can't, or won't, talk about Mum at all. Instead he throws himself into writing his book A History of the Lemon. Meanwhile the house is dusty, there's never any food in the fridge, and Calypso retreats into her own world of books and fiction. When a new girl, Mae, arrives at school, the girls' shared love of reading and writing stories draws them together. Mae's friendship and her lively and chaotic home - where people argue and hug each other - make Calypso feel more normal than she has for a long time. But when Calypso finally plucks up the courage to invite Mae over to her own house, the girls discover the truth about her dad and his magnum opus - and Calypso's happiness starts to unravel.'

Poignant. Moving. Lots of young people I know NEED to read this book to understand they are not alone. The characters are so beautifully drawn and the subject matter is so tenderly dealt with. Expect weeping. Expect laughter. Expect to be charmed.

I just wanted to share these three with you because they all touched my heart and inspired me to be a better writer.



And whilst I am in no way a reviewer and have only managed a few vaguely coherent words by way of review, if you are a newbie writer like me, I highly recommend getting your hands on these three beauties and marvelling at the very different ways these three authors write and at the squillions of things you can learn from them!


I'll be reading them all again very, very, very soon.

Back to the Classroom -- NOT about school visits

It was 2011. I was a full-time teacher with one novel published and prize-winning, and another due the following year. I had just signed up for an Arvon YA course with Celia Rees and Linda Newbery, and I was so excited that I shared the information with an acquaintance who was an aspiring writer. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t like that, being told what to do. I would never go to something like that.’ She remains unpublished. (And by the way, the course was amazing, and many of us are still friends, with several now published or well on the way.)

all will be revealed...

This isn’t a contribution to the Can Writing be Taught debate: it’s my experience as both learner and teacher that talent can’t be influenced by a teacher or mentor or contact with others, but that many elements of craft and language-awareness can.

I love learning. I was a swot at school and I worked and played hard at university (four degrees at two universities). When writing became a big part of my life, it was natural to me to seek out places where I could learn about that too.

Back in 2001, I signed up for a course called Novel Writing at the local FE college. I had, then, a very rough unfinished first draft of an unpublishable novel, whose progress was erratic because back in those days I used to write ‘when I felt like it’ or ‘when I was inspired’. (Shrieks of silent mirth.) The very first thing the tutor gave us was an exercise in the correct use of the semi-colon. I had a PhD in English and to be honest, I was a bit offended. Surely, I thought, people on a novel writing course don’t need basic punctuation lessons? (OK, more shrieks of silent mirth: I was young and naïve.)

Despite the bad beginning, the course was useful, if for no other reason than that it gave me an incentive to make weekly progress, and introduced me to the importance of giving and receiving feedback. Now, when I meet and mentor aspiring writers I always encourage them to seek out something similar, and I often feel annoyed at their (not infrequent) reluctance. Don’t they know how lucky they are, I fume, to have access to so many courses? I give them Arvon brochures and tell them honestly how my first Arvon course taught me more about writing than a subsequent M.A. in Creative Writing.

Recently I was interviewed as part of an initiative of the NI Arts Council to identify areas of need for arts professionals, and the main thing I could think of was the need for professional development for published writers. There are plenty of courses and mentoring opportunities for aspiring and emerging writers, but anything beyond that tends to be generated by writers themselves, often informally. Of course there must be writers who feel they don’t need professional development, and good luck to them, but I’m sure there are many like me, with a few successful books under our books but no idea how things will work out in the future, who would love to be able to keep on learning. After all, professional ballet dancers take daily classes; athletes train. Yes, of course I learn on my own. Every book I read – and write –  teaches me something. But there is something magical about being in a class, with a wise guide, and other learners to share experiences with.

Books are wonderful, but sometimes you need people. I’m teaching myself the guitar: I’ve always sung but this is my first attempt at learning to accompany myself. I have a reasonable ear, so I wince and try again when it sounds horrible, and I have made progress. After six weeks, when I could play a song all the way through at normal speed without embarrassing gaps while I fumbled for the next chord, I let my stepfather (a brilliant guitarist) hear me. My chord changes were grand, he assured me – but my strumming was wrong. I had been so focussed on the more difficult thing that I hadn’t realised how badly I was doing something equally important. If he hadn’t shown me, I would never have known – even with a lifetime of watching other people play. Even with a good Teach Yourself Guitar book. Sometimes you need people.

sometimes you need people 

That’s why I was so thrilled when, last week, Arvon announced a course especially for its own tutors. I signed up immediately and, given that it’s in January, I’m just praying not to be snowed in, so that I can go and be a student again.