Covid19's silver lining: online writing masterclasses - by Rowena House

Life, family & other commitment ate the time I’d set aside to write my ABBA post this month, so instead of waffling on about the WIP (again) I thought I’d use this opportunity to extol the wonders of online writing masterclasses that have sprung up since this weird plague season began.

First up, the writing charity, Arvon. I’d urge anybody who’s feeling the slighted bit jaded about their craft to Google ‘Arvon at Home Masterclasses’ and take a look at what’s coming up, alternatively see if this link works:

https://www.arvon.org/arvon-at-home/

Their emailed info seems to be updated often, so it might be worth subscribing to that, too; it’s where I found all four of the super sessions I’ve attended. Highlights over the summer were Will Self on place, Hisham Matar on not letting pre-determined intentions get in the way of creativity, and Chris Cleaver on harnessing the psychology of transference and anxieties as part of one’s creative life.

This upcoming one on October 1, with Roger Robinson already caught my eye:

“Join Roger as he discusses the making of, and decisions behind his award winning book, A Portable Paradise. A workshop peppered with literary and aesthetic rationales behind the book from inception to print. The craft talk will also reference his personal writing practices and how you can replicate them within your own process with writing prompts. Poetry readers will leave with a greater appreciation of what goes into the making of a book of poems; writers will leave with tools to improve their craft.”

They last two hours, cost £35, and all you’ve got to do is settle in on the day at 1100 am via Zoom for advice, practical exercises, smart questions from fellow attendees, and a wonderful sense that the global writing community is a haven in our mad, mad world.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction's evenings with their short listed authors were brilliant, too. It was like having Maggie O’Farrell, Hilary Mantel and Bernadine Evaristo et al chatting with Kate Moss in your kitchen. Writers don’t seem to worry about faking a posh backdrop so it was all v homely and relaxed, and an absolute bargain at £10. I really, really hope they do it again next year. And maybe other prizes will imitate the Women’s Prize. Hint, hint Booker.

Infuriatingly, I’ve not managed to make a Words Away’s Zoom Salon yet but they look fab. The next one is on October 12, with author and poet, Caoilinn Hughes. Here’s a link and the blurb:

https://www.wordsaway.info/zalon-events

“Experimenting with character, voice and dialogue can open up your writing practice and lead to exciting possibilities. But what do we mean when we talk about ‘voice’? How can dialogue work to add vibrancy and colour to our writing? Caoilinn’s debut novel, Orchid & the Wasp (2018) won the Collyer Bristow Prize and was a finalist for four other prizes. Her second novel, The Wild Laughter, was published in June 2020.”

Lastly, The Guardian’s back-to-school masterclasses have proved too much of a temptation for the autumn, so September and October will find me propped up on the dog’s sofa (the best Wifi spot) with the cat trying to get onto my lap, a coffee going cold, and notebook & pen at the ready for neuroscience and creativity, the philosophy of identity and more!

Here’s their link, which sadly is cluttered with all sorts of stuff. As a subscriber, I find their emails way easier to use to track down the best bits. If you've found any similar gems, I'd love to hear about them. Happy Zooming!  

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/series/back-to-school

Twitter: @HouseRowena

Website: rowenahouse.com

 

 

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.

We don't need no education... Kelly McCaughrain

Kids hate school, that’s a given. Even the ones who love it, will publicly swear it’s hell on toast. Which makes me wonder why writing workshops for kids are based on a classroom model: A nice middle-aged lady sits at the front, talks a bit, sets an exercise and then judges your work. (It’s probably more friendly and less psychologically scaring than school, but still, that’s the gist usually.)

I’m not saying I have a genius alternative to this, before you get excited, but I work with a teen writing group that I think is brilliant, so this post is about why I think it works and some stuff you could maybe try. It’s a writing group rather than a workshop so obviously it won’t work for every situation, and I’m not saying there’s no value in workshops (I love workshops) but if you feel like setting up a teen writing group, here are my thoughts.

For the last couple of years I’ve been a volunteer mentor for a group called Write Club. This is part of the Fighting Words project.

Write Club differs from writing workshops in several ways which I think are definite advantages:

• It’s a free, drop-in club for 2 hours a week, so they don’t have to commit to anything, which can be off-putting when you’re as busy as a GCSE-facing 16 year old with a new boyfriend, piano lessons, weekend hockey and a babysitting empire. They tell me that when they’re at home they never write because there are too many distractions. Write Club is space and time devoted purely to writing, and any writer will tell you that is invaluable.
• They can work on whatever they like. It’s completely self-directed. The kids bring along their own stuff and get on with it, and the mentors are there for when they’d like advice or feedback. I always avoided workshops when I was younger because as soon as I was told to write about a particular thing, my brain went blank. Some people just don’t respond well to prompts. And even if the workshop leader says it’s OK to go off-piste, they’re kids – they’re trained to look around them and go ‘Am I doing this right? Am I doing what everyone else is doing?’
• It’s not like school. The Write Clubbers told me that their school librarian set up a lunchtime writing club but they didn’t like it. I think this librarian is a star for even trying, but when I asked why they didn’t like it, they said, ‘She makes you do stuff.’ Much as I would have loved a writing group at my school, I can understand why they wouldn’t want to spend their only break during a long school day at something that felt like another class, with someone who felt like another teacher. And make no mistake, they can smell a teacher from 50 yards. Even retired teachers just can’t help themselves, they’re programmed to squeeze some work out of reluctant kids, and the kids bristle instantly.
• The volunteers at Write Club don’t teach, they write. Or read. We bring our own stuff to work on and we all sit around a big table so that we’re all working together. I think it is hugely important for the kids to have this example of adults who value writing and reading and make time in their lives for it. When you think about it, the only contact they usually have with adult writers is those shiny books on the shelves at Waterstones, and that’s what they’re comparing their own writing to. It can come as a real surprise to them to see an adult writer, maybe even a published writer, sit back at the end of the session and say, ‘Well, I wrote 200 words, and then I deleted 150 of them.’
• It’s regular. I’ve done writing workshops where no one is willing to read their work aloud. I completely understand not wanting to read your first draft aloud to complete strangers. But at Write Club the kids have become friends and they are so supportive. They’re full of praise, and always desperate to hear the next chapter of a WIP. Teen writing can be very personal and they need that safe space. There are also kids who never read, and that’s OK too, no one is put under any pressure.
• It’s social. Just like they need their lunch break to dissect the latest ‘Stranger Things’ and plan their weekend, they need that first half hour after school to decompress and exhale all the conversation they’ve been suppressing since 9am. In writing workshops they’re usually pushed for time and don’t even get to speak to each other before work begins (which, again, won’t help when it comes to reading aloud). Write Club is their club, and if they want to spend it talking, they can. They usually spend the first half hour eating snacks and chatting, and there’s intermittent talk all the way through, but we never shush them and actually, it’s surprising how much work they actually do. I think if we tried to keep them quiet they’d do a lot less. In a way, it emulates a real writing life a lot more closely than a workshop – there’s a lot of Facebooking, procrastinating and snacks but the work somehow gets done anyway.

Having said that, it can help to provide some direction for those who want it, making sure they know it’s all optional, so here are some things we do that have worked well:

• The Little Box of Inspiration – this is a biscuit tin which I filled with tiny envelopes, each containing a writing prompt or exercise. The not-very-strongly-enforced ‘rule’ is that they only take one a week. They don’t have to use the prompt if they don’t like it, but they should take five minutes to think about it before giving up because they’re often surprised with what they come up with. (If there was an option to just go through the envelopes until they find a ‘good one’, they’d do exactly that and miss a lot of great ideas.) They also write their names on the envelopes they’ve opened, so they know they’ve had that one.
• Bring books they can borrow. I have stacks of YA books at home so I bring them to the club and they borrow them. This is another bonus of it being a regular thing. It’s fantastic to see what enthusiastic readers they are, and they’ve started bringing their own books to lend to me and we discuss them in an informal way, which I enjoy as much as anyone.
• Have a box of postcards – This was inspired by my friend, Jan Carson’s book Postcard Stories, which were stories she wrote on the back of postcards and sent off to friends every day for a year. We’ve made a thing of it; if anyone writes something short enough to fit, they can take a postcard and write it on the back and put it in the box. This has the added advantage that if someone only manages to write a paragraph or a haiku they still feel they’ve achieved something. We’ve got quite a collection of them now, which we could potentially do something with, such as publish them on the website, or in a pamphlet and have a book launch, which the kids would love. A lot of their writing gets ‘filed’ in the bottom of their school bags and instantly lost so this is a nice way to preserve it.
• Never tell them to shut up but if things are getting wild you can say, ‘OK let’s do a 20 minute intense writing spurt and then we’ll share what we’ve written.’ It feels like a mini-challenge, which is enough to keep them interested. 20 minutes is about the maximum you’ll get away with, but this does work well. I think often they’re happy to sit quietly and write, it’s just that they’re very distractible so if one person says something, they’ll all stop working and listen, so a group effort at ‘intense writing’ for a short time can be enough to get them settled.
• Trust them to write in their own way, even if it’s not the way you’d write. You’re used to sitting silently at your desk for hours on end because this is work for you and you’re adulting the hell out of it. I usually assume there’s no way they could be writing with all the noise going on, because I couldn’t, but actually they’re used to working in noisy classrooms and by the end of the session I’m always surprised by how much they’ve produced. In fact, some people NEED a bit of noise or they can't concentrate, and if it's too silent they'll talk because they're uncomfortable. I find some laid back background music is good for this. If someone feels they want quiet, they know each other well enough to say shut it you lot, or go off somewhere quieter to work. Don’t insist that everyone sit together around a table. If there are other seating areas, use them, and designate one a quiet zone. But get everyone together at the start and end so they feel like a group.
• If the mood is unassailably chatty, then chat, but maybe try to introduce book related topics.
• Read work aloud at the end and encourage them to give feedback, but don’t force anyone to do anything.
• In the middle of the session, stop at a random point and have a round of ‘Read the last sentence you wrote’ where everyone just reads the last full sentence they wrote. This is always funny because, out of context, the sentences can sound really mad, and no one feels nervous about reading because everyone’s sounds weird. I’ve found that even the kids who NEVER read aloud always happily participate in this. Which could be a way to give them confidence in reading aloud in the future. I always read the last sentence I wrote too during this game, which is a good way to show you’re working too, though I wouldn’t take up their time with reading longer pieces of my own.
• Make sure they know that, if they don’t want to read aloud, there is the option of having a mentor read their work and give feedback one to one. Or having the mentor read their work aloud to the group instead of them doing it.

I really believe the kids get a lot out of this but actually, I get just as much. I get to hang out with some absolutely brilliant kids (and when you’re writing about teens, this is so useful, as well as fun!), and I swear, nothing has ever made me want to up my writing game like hanging out with book-loving teenagers!

I know a lot of us make our living out of paid workshops etc but if you ever felt like setting something like this up that would be free and staffed by bookish volunteers, it’s so worth it for everyone involved. Think how much it would have meant to you as a writing teen!

Kelly McCaughrain is the author of the YA novel Flying Tips for Flightless Birds. 

She blogs about Writing, Gardening and VW Campervanning at weewideworld.blogspot.co.uk 

@KMcCaughrain 

Event Report: Performance Skills Workshop with Cat Weatherill, by Claire Fayers

Thank you for booking the Society of Author’s Performance Skills Workshop. Please bring a short piece to read and a clean pair of socks.

Socks? Were we going to make sock puppets? Play sock-based storytelling games? Mystified, I packed my cleanest pair and set off to London.

That was my introduction to the performance skills workshop, run by storyteller and author Cat Weatherill. Of the eleven authors present, I wasn’t too surprised to find that many were children’s authors. Maybe it’s because we’re expected to get up and perform more often. As we puzzled over our neatly folded socks, we all agreed that performing doesn’t come naturally and we were all needed help. The workshop proved so helpful, in fact, that I decided to share the main points here.

EXERCISE 1 - VISUALISE

Before we did anything else, Cat asked us to imagine our perfect performance. What could we see, hear, taste, feel? We so often imagine all the things that might go wrong. Taking some time to picture everything going right made a nice change. It's a useful exercise before a performance and can put us in the right frame of mind for success. It also helped us focus on what we wanted to get out of an event.

We all wanted similar things, it turned out. To feel relaxed, confident, in control; to connect with the audience so that we held their attention.

HOW TO BE CONFIDENT

It’s all very well to say ‘be confident’, but how do you do it? There are ways of building your confidence, Cat told us. Confidence comes with experience, from belief in your content, from planning, from audience expectation (a good audience can work wonders), and most of all, from being in control.

So, take control of as much as possible. Make sure you’re fully prepared, find out as much as you can about the venue and audience. Of course there are some things we can never fully control – the technology, or the audience Q&A – but there is a lot that we can control.

SPEAK, DON’T SHOUT

This one came as a surprise to me. I have a naturally quiet voice and my biggest worry is that people won't hear me, so I tend to compensate by shouting at an audience. But, when we took in it turns to read in pairs, we found that speaking quietly and clearly carried just as well, if not better, than bellowing. It helps to use a mic, of course, and we all got to practice, taking it in turns to read while the rest of the group threw socks at us. (Yes, that’s what the sock were for!) If you can keep your head while all about you are hurling socks, then you can probably stay focussed through anything.

THE EGG OF ENCHANTMENT AND THE FIVE GOLDEN LANTERNS

Once the socks were back in the bag, we moved on to thinking about engaging the audience. Their attention, it turns out, is bit like an egg.

We want to draw the audience into the centre of the egg where they’re fully immersed in the performance and time seems to fly. But all the time we are battling distractions - background noise, people talking and fidgeting and simply drifting off into their own thoughts. Keeping them engaged takes work - and this is where the five golden lanterns come in. 

When we write, it’s natural to think about how we engage our reader’s emotions, but I’d never thought about performances in the same way. When I've prepared events in the past, I've focussed on the information I need to get across - appealling to the audience's minds, maybe. But there's far more to a person than that, Cat explained, as the golden lanterns demonstrate. Above the head is the appeal to spirituality, then the mind, the heart, the belly (which is inspiration), and the groin (which we don’t really need to worry about for a children’s audience.)

The trick is to try and light up the different lanterns throughout our performance. I’ve just started preparing for my next book tour and I’m finding it very helpful to consider how I can appeal to different ‘lanterns.’ Something to make the audience think, something to make them laugh, something to make them believe in power of their own stories.

YOU ARE NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK!

As an author, you are a unique and fascinating individual. You are the person that other people want to be. You have something special to offer.

I came away from the day almost believing that was true, and certainly believing I was a lot better at this than I’d previously imagined. There was so much information to absorb and practise, and it was fantastic to spend the day with other authors. If you ever get a chance to go on one of Cat's workshops, I thoroughly recommend it - she mentioned the possibility of a workshop specifically for picture book writers, so keep an eye out for that. Don’t forget your socks!

World Book Day 2016: It's Almost Here... by Emma Barnes

World Book Day 2016 will soon be upon us! The official date is Thursday, 3^rd March, but like many other children's authors, my World Book Day tends to spread out over more than a week. I get invited to lots of schools, and perform tasks as diverse as opening new libraries or judging fancy dress competitions (impossible!). But always, always I'm spreading the word about love of books and reading.

Talking about books

There's been a few new books since

signing for pupils

Enjoying the new library

Travelling has its compensations

Another school library!

Somebody's listening

An unfortunately placed arrow

This school were prepared!

Reading aloud is vital

Here's just some of the things I try to do:

- talk about my own favourite books and why they got me writing
- help kids see books can be an escape into another world
- show that love of reading is a life-long gift
- read aloud to the kids, and get them engrossed in an exciting, funny or dramatic passage
- explain that being a good writer is not mainly about punctuation and spelling: it's about imagination and being able to make a reader feel “What happens next?”
- ask the kids about their own favourite books
- acknowledge that not everyone likes reading – but sometimes its just a matter of finding that special book that gets you excited and into that reading habit.

I often do writing workshops with the kids, and I've got aims for those too. I try and do activities that reflect the way I work as a writer, and which will either complement what the children do in school, or else show them an entirely new way of doing things. The National Curriculum can be extremely prescriptive, and its exciting and liberating for children to find that they don't always need to plan a story a particular way (or at all) – and that “real” writers work in different ways, and so can they. Some of my principles are:

- reading aloud gets the imagination working

- it's about the process, not the result (children shouldn't feel afraid to fail)

- all writers have different methods

- there's a time to worry about spelling and a time to go with the flow

- everyone should be able to join in

- writing can be fun and playful

- let's celebrate the (funny, moving, scary, atmospheric, always imaginative) results.

And finally here's some of the things I will try not to do:

- get lost on the way to school

- take the wrong exit on the motorway

- forget my Sat Nav

- forget my memory stick or “clicker”

- forget my lunch

- get locked into the school car park
- trip over a cable or crash into a whiteboard

- eat too many biscuits or (horror of horrors!) use somebody's favourite mug in the staffroom.

It's going to be a full-on, fun, exhausting, time. I'm looking forward to it – and I'm looking forward to coming out the other side too.

Happy World Book Day (in two weeks from now) to you!

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Emma's Website
Emma’s Facebook Fanpage
Emma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite
Emma's Wild Thing series for 8+ about the naughtiest little sister ever. (Cover - Jamie Littler)
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is a story of wolves, magic and snowy woods...
(Cover: Emma Chichester Clark)
"Funny, clever and satisfying..." Books for Keeps

Training the 21st Century Authors - Ruth Hatfield

A while ago, I was asked if I’d like to do some author training. Author training? I already knew how to be an author (Step one: boil kettle…) But this was training to do author events. I’m pretty terrified of doing author events, and glad of any help to soothe those nerves. So I attended the 21stCentury Authors programme, run by the National Literacy Trust in partnership with Author Profile and Arts Council England.

The idea was to equip us with some basic skills that authors (particularly children’s authors) might find useful when doing events for their readership. As with the rest of the writing career stuff, I’d sort of assumed that I’d have to make this up as I went along. The idea of getting formal training to talk about my book seemed a bit bizarre, but when we got down to it, I was surprised that this sort of course doesn’t seem to be more widely available to authors. It gave me a huge amount of useful, practical advice, that I think most authors would find both helpful and confidence-boosting.

The first workshop was about creating an event – we were asked to think about why we might like to do events, and what an audience member might hope for from us. We had to consider the idealistic, educational and business aspects of events, then we had to think about which ideas from our books we might like to discuss, and pick a single one to stand and enthuse about. We had to plan the phases of our event, down to the minute. While this might not suit the author who is a natural at giving entertaining speeches completely ad hoc, it’s very useful for those of us who prefer something to lean on if we’re standing in front of a room of restless but eager kids. The idea was that tight planning gives you a structure from which you can deviate if you want to, but which helps you keep the basic core of an event clear and easy to follow.

The second workshop was on performance techniques. That was something I’d never given any thought to – nobody had ever pointed out to me that if you put your book between you and your audience, it actually gets in the way (I think I tend to do this purposefully, in order that I can hide behind the book). But put the book lower down and turn sideways, and your audience gets the story, straight from you. Prepare. Gargle. Warm up your voice. Make eye contact with your audience when you enter – it’s all stage stuff, for actors. But it makes a huge difference to how well your audience connects with you, so whatever you’re talking about – books or astrology or the ingredients of a fidget pie – if you’re warm, relaxed and confident, they’ll probably find you more engaging.

The last workshop was about how to manage your events – how to negotiate with the people who are hiring you, how to work with groups of different sizes, how to structure your visits, legal stuff, etc etc... All very technical, but to be taken step by step through the whole process – what bliss!

Equipped with our new skills, we were given the opportunity to do a gig – I was lucky enough to be sent to Leicester City FC, to do one of their ‘stadium days’, where groups from local schools come in for author talks and tours round the stadium. It was my first insight into the work of the brilliant Premier League Reading Stars programme. I wanted to do writing workshops slightly based on my first book – in my head I just assumed that the kids would find this fun (who wouldn’t find writing fun?), and it would show them that not all writing was work. Was I right? The majority of the kids took pity on me and gave it a go. And they came up with some great stuff – llamas fell down chimneys, people fell down toilets, and a couple of the teachers came up to me afterwards and said that they’d done the exercises and enjoyed them too.

The whole author training experience was overwhelmingly positive for me – they were effectively saying, if you are an author nowadays, a good way to make a career is also to think of yourself as a performer. But they recognise that people who want to sit and write books aren’t always naturals at getting up in front of dozens of people and proclaiming how great their books are, hence the idea of specialised author training.

I wonder why it hasn't been more widely available before. Probably because this is a new world for authors, in which they need new skills to survive. And although that sounds a bit doom-laden – it’s actually, I think, a wonderful thing that authors are being pushed out of their turrets and into the hands of their readership. I find it terrifying to contemplate doing events, but as I make my characters face terror and walk through fire all the time – it’s probably a good thing to keep reminding myself what fear feels like!

Rainbow Moments by Karen King

When I attended the Patron of Reading Conference in February this year the lovely Helena Pielichaty, the first ever Patron of Reading, gave a moving speech about her experience of being a Patron of Reading. She finished by saying ‘This is the thing of which I’m most proud’. Helena is a talented and profilic author who has had numerous books published including the popular Girls FC series but the thing she is most proud of is inspiring children to read through her POR work. This made me think. What made me proud? What were my rainbow moments, the things that brighten my day?

When I get a new book published I’m always pleased when I finally hold the printed copy in my hands, but proud? No. I’m too besieged with doubts; what if no one likes it? What if there are some typos (and yes, that’s happened a few times), what it if doesn’t sell? I’m fully aware that while my books pay the bills they aren’t literary masterpieces.

My rainbow moments are when a teacher at a school I’m visiting tells me that a pupil who has listened engrossed to my story has never sat still to listen to a story before, or that a pupil who has filled a page in one of my workshops has never before written more than a sentence, when a former creative writing student gets an agent or a book deal, a social media student starts their first blog or makes their first tweet. I feel proud when I’ve helped someone to achieve something.

Earlier this year a lady attended one of my writing class. She had never written anything before, never used a computer, but wanted to write a children’s story for her grandchildren. She worked hard on this story throughout the course. Then one week she told us she’d bought a second-hand computer and was taking IT lessons. On the final week she brought in a neatly typed copy of her story. She was so pleased and proud.  Helping that lady write her story is my brightest rainbow moment this year.

What are your rainbow moments?

 Karen King writes all sorts of books. Check out her website at www.karenking.net

The Unknown Unknown – Anna Wilson

At Christmas I was browsing in a bookshop for ideas for a present for my husband, and I came across a pamphlet entitled The Unknown Unknown by Mark Forsyth. I, of course, read it before I gave it to my husband – what is the point of buying books for people for Christmas if you can’t enjoy reading them yourself before wrapping them?

Forsyth’s essay is based on the premise famously set by Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense during George W Bush’s administration. He stated that:

“There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say that there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”

Forsyth goes on to say that this applies perfectly to reading:

“I know that I’ve read Great Expectations: it’s a known known. I know that I haven’t read War and Peace: it is a known unknown to me [. . .] But there are also books that I’ve never heard of; and, because I’ve never heard of them, I’ve no idea that I haven’t read them.”

It was while running workshops in schools last week that I saw that writing, too, is an unknown unknown, because writing is, of course, an exploration, a foray into the unknown: an expedition without a map. We write stories we had no idea existed until we come to write them.

This is particularly true, I feel, when working with children who believe they are not natural storytellers. This might be because they have not had much success in writing stories in school, or because they don’t enjoy writing, or perhaps because they feel hindered by language barriers, for example. They panic at the sight of the blank page: this is where workshops can be so beneficial in unlocking stories, in demystifying the unknown unknown.

Last week I was leading workshops with children of all ages, nationalities and language abilities in schools in Istanbul. We were exploring such ideas as “how to build a character” and “how to get started on a story”. The children all came with a blank sheet of paper, knowing nothing about how they would spend the next 40 minutes. As I waited for everyone to settle down, some children told me that they were not good at stories and that they had no ideas. I told them not to worry and assured them that with a couple of prompts, they would soon be fizzing with stories. But really, I too had no idea what would happen. Maybe the children would go away with their paper still blank. Maybe they would be paralyzed by nerves or fear or a simple lack of vocabulary, as many of them had English as a second, third or even fourth language.

We started one workshop by looking at a collection of random objects I had brought with me, which included, amongst other things, a badger’s skull, a necklace, a set of old keys, an asthma inhaler and an iPhone box. I encouraged the children to choose a couple of objects and think who might own them, what they might do with them, where they might have found them or from whom they might have received them. Within minutes I had children telling me stories about evil mermaids who used the inhaler to make humans breathe underwater so that they could be lured to the mermaids’ cave; people who were drawn into an iPhone app and transported to another world; an old professor who collected skulls and who discovered that one skull, when he touched it, allowed him to travel in time. Soon the children were scribbling away, either having a go at forming sentences or making mind-maps or drawing comic strips of their stories.

Not one single child knew they had those ideas in them before they came to the workshop, just as I have never truly known how any of my books is going to work out until I sit down to write it. I have encountered characters that have reared up from the darkest corners of my imagination and often wondered, ‘Where did you spring from?’ and have found ways of resolving plots that I did not have in mind when I first sat down to write.

Writing is a series of unknown unknowns; it is, as Joseph Conrad says about a blank space on a map, “a white patch for a boy [girl] to dream gloriously over”.

The blank page can of course instill fear, and conjures up that dreaded phrase, “writer’s block”, but for as long as I can see it as that “white patch”, it will continue to hold sway with its magic over me.

www.annawilson.co.uk