Writing School Leicester short story course, Weeks 2 and 3

Yes, I know. I missed a week. It's been busy. To recap:
The homework got done and handed in, albeit I had flashbacks to school when I left everything to the last minute and had to hastily re-write it during the break thanks to not having a printer. In the end I continued my imaginings from the group discussion in class and sort of grafted a description of my nan's front room onto a character called Barbara Morris, who was loosely based on the idea of that woman who insulted Gordon Brown that time. The piece had an MP - with an appropriate sounding name, as learned in the lesson - visiting The Morris woman's bungalow to heal the breach. If I get round to typing it up I'll post it. it was good practice in just DOING some thing and then handing it in, rather than my usual doing it then hiding it away becausse I fear it's not good enough.
To my complete and utter surprise and delight, week two of the course started well with good feedback from Bead - hooray! - and an opportunity to do some free writing in class which I was brave enough to read out to good response. I hope this does not sound like boasting, but it is so great to finally get some encouragement after what feels like forever writing into the wind.
enthusiasm suitably increased, boldness mustered up, I left week two abounding with ideas and...promptly did not do my homework. life conspires against me yet again. or is it just laziness?
still, week three has offered another twist in the road - poor Bead has a problem with her eyesight and has had to withdraw from the rest of the course. Her replacement, Rachel, is completely different and has a very different style. she's lovely quite quick-moving which I like and very open to discussion. she encouraged us to share and work in groups as she doesn't take homework home and give personal feedback. I have to say this is disappointing as surely that's the main thing new writers need? But it motivated us as a group to share our work, so I have set up a forum for us to do just that. my fellow course members are turning out to be a lovely bunch and there s a lovely sense of camaraderie by the end of the leson which I really hope continues.

homework this week is mixed, nothing that really inspires me so I'm going to return to something I started for Bead but didn't finish. It's the story of a dystopian future middle England, where the financial crash has landed society in post war conditions, with rationing, shops shut down, electricity turned off, disease rife. we pick up the story from the viewpoint of a little girl, queueing to get some medicine for her sick father, who we learn was once a government scientist. Like the idea of a child caring for a parent and at the same time coping with extreme adversity with stoic, childlike acceptance. but of course, and I already feel sorry for the poor little thing, something has to go wrong.

It's actually good because in the class this week we discussed short story structure and the used of conflict to move a story along. I really needed this because this idea I feel has potential but when I first wrote it there was no conflict, no idea of where the climax or resolution would come. I discovered from the group work in class that unlike some of my fellow students I struggle to find the resolution in plot planning. Rachel suggested that maybe I'm the kind of person who can't Decide in advance and just needs to keep writing and see where it takes me. I like this idea although I've always thought it's not very productive. but she has given me confidence to give it a go, so I will see where it takes me.

Until next time, then.

P.s. Sorry about poor spelling, punctuation etc. In this post! It pains me not to amend it but I'm using a borrowed iPad and it's a nightmare! Can't work out how to edit! so will have to amend another day! SO much for 21st century gadgets......

Writing School Leicester short story course, Week 1

The plan is backfiring.

This morning was the first session of six with the lovely Bead Roberts at Writing School Leicester. We’re writing a short story. Or few. And already I’m floundering in a sea of unimaginative excuses as to why I have writers’ block, even when the other nine individuals in the room can come up with SOMETHING, upon request. Whereas I can’t. Or won’t. I’m still not sure which.

It’s like Scrabble. All my friends and family have always assumed I’m great at Scrabble. And crosswords! “Oh Tash, she’s into books, she MUST be brilliant at Scrabble.”

Couldn’t be further from the truth.

I’ve always thought it’s the reporter instinct – give me a happening, an event, or whatever, and I’ll re-tell it. I’ll make it sound better or more pithy or more entertaining or just straight if that’s what you want. But ask me to INVENT something, for no reason at all, other than for the purpose of inventing, and I just draw blanks. Which as dedicated Scrabble players will tell you, score nothing.

The other students in the class are a varied bunch, some brave, others shy but everyone, every single one of them, when prompted, came up with something they weren’t so embarrassed not to share with the group.

Still, it was fun, and everyone was nice, and Bead, the tutor, is lovely in a sort of no-nonsense Radio 4 play writing sensible shoe wearing good humoured academic kind of way. Which is a good thing – as already covered on this blog, I’m a big R4 fan.

So I want to please her, I really do. Impress her, even. But I won’t do it unless I get over this stupid “I can’t think of anything” phase. A phase which has lasted ooh, YEARS now! Ridiculous. I listen to radio. I read newspapers. I speak to people, real people, all of the time. I have been places and seen things and observed and commented and memorised just like everyone else. So why can’t I recall any of these things and use them creatively when prompted?

Hopefully this course will help me find the missing link. If nothing else, the sheer brutal experience of being asked to come up with something in minutes then speak it to the whole group without chance to self edit or prevaricate or equivocate or any of those lovely words, and this week after week, should bludgeon my reluctant brain into something approaching obedience.

So then, what better place to start than homework?! Which, if you're reading this to see if you want to do the course, I should point out is optional and given in the kindest and most constructive terms possible, with a promise from Bead to give personal feedback which is actually the single most terrifying and yet desired outcome of this whole exercise. What does someone else, a professional storyteller, THINK of my writing?

Gulp.

The homework is to imagine a familiar setting, then have an unexpected character (for whom we have to get the name right, see earlier post) walk into the setting, notice three things, and react. Additionally, we need to write a paragraph or so in that person’s voice, first person, explaining what they want and what’s standing in their way.

Simple you may say. Endless possibilities!

That’s what I’m struggling with.

I may post the results, and Bead’s comments, here. Seems only fair.

Wish me luck.

Short story course starts tomorrow!

The bullet has finally been bitten. Tomorrow I start a course with Writing School Leicester in 'How to Write a Short Story'. I'm mainly interested in getting some feedback and tips on how to define my personal style of writing, and hoping I'll meet at least one like-minded individual to share the ups and downs of writing with! Well, I can hope.

In the meantime, although this blog hasn't been updated, I have been working on the first short story from a collection I hope to write based around little stories about people I've picked up in recent times. I'm calling it 'Nomads', as these are people in that weird middle ground between 'normal' and 'freak', not necessarily in the depths of despair or bizarre lifestyles but people who are lost, for whatever reason, and have a story to tell that deserves to be told.

I'm hoping I'll be able to develop some of these ideas at the writing class.

Well that's progress, isn't it?

The Battered Suitcase - Winter 2010

The Battered Suitcase - Winter 2010

In the never-ending quest to find like minded souls in this lonely world of 'secret scribbling', I've found this. Might be worth a pop...

New stuff #1: The Day I Donated My Body To Science (I Got It Back) [semi-autobiographical]

Nervous med students prod two chunky legs of raw meat on the slab next to me. I gulp. “What’re they…?”

“Catheter training,” interrupts my trusty expert. “Don’t worry, we only use dead meat for that.”

Is that what a joke sounds like in this mysterious quasi-sci-fi academic universe?

“They’re remarkably life like,” I comment, screaming: “I may not be clever but I am am proud to be the interested sort, suitably fascinated in your worthy - yet baffling to a layman! Ho ho, silly me - pursuits.”

Trusty Expert doesn’t seem to hear. He’s fiddling with an ultrasound monitor.

“Lie back.”

Terse commands. To be a feature of the day.

Over in the communal area I hear my mates laughing. They haven’t been called to their station yet. When I go back at mid morning break (apparently even the quasi-sci-fi-academics haven’t invented an appropriate substitute for coffee) I will entertain them with my experiences, as any self-respecting ‘Nam veteran would – with an air of martyr-like matter-of-fact grace.

“Well, Martin says I have a below-average size heart for the size of my ribcage.”

Sympathetic gasps.

“But the good news is I’m not pregnant. Hahahhahaha.” Pause for reluctant laughter.

“Really though, it’s pretty uncomfortable. The bed’s really hard and half of them don’t seem to know what they’re doing with the probe. One guy fair pierced between my ribs. One of the nurses said I’d have bruising for days…”

Nic bustles up.

“Thanks so much everyone, all OK? OK? Great. Help yourself to teas and coffees. Are you warm enough? We have more gowns if you need one. Oh is that the bell? OK back to your stations. You need to be back at your stations. BACK AT YOUR STATIONS. Dr Heidenfelder? Of course! Mwah.” And off she goes, German doctor trailing his hand luggage behind him across the conference floor.

“Duty calls,” I sigh with a brave, self sacrificing smile.

‘Please move to your next station for the next stage of the Pan-European Ultrasound in Anaesthesia Conference 2011. Please try to stick to the timetable to ensure the day moves….FEEDBACK…Sorry. Please…are we on? Ahem. All delegates please move to your next station.’

Back on the gurney. Or is that just something off ER?

“Can anyone identify kidney? Anyone? OK, you. Yes, you. Here you go.”

Another blob of freezing gel is squidged onto my exposed abdomen, which is creamy white in the fluoro conference light and vaguely heaving with each intake of breath. I think of the last time I lay exposed like this…no. Focus. Fat doctors with coffee breath are looming over you for important medical research purposes. Do not muddy the lines of professional lump of meat, I mean, specimen – no, what do they call us? Volunteers. Do not muddy the waters of professional volunteer for medical science with lewd references.

“There!”

Amateur. Even I can tell Trusty Expert is slightly fatigued by these so called colleagues.

“Not quite. What else might we find in the left upper quadrant? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, you.”

“…spl….spleen?”

“YES!”

Everyone jumps.

 “OK so it’s not kidney. If you...” he takes matters into his own hands, reaching across my chest dangerously close to my heaving ribcage and I politely look the other way so as not to embarrass him.  So as not to embarrass HIM?! I’m the one half naked on a bench in a floodlit arena of medical nitwits. I draw breath.

“If Natalie could just stop breathing for a moment, so we can get a clear view…”

I stop.

“Ah! That’s it. Thank you. There we go. Left kidney.”

Mild ripples of appreciation.

I’m still not breathing.

“So you can see…” he rotates the cold metal probe and gently but firmly explores my left anterior ribcage. “Spleen…diaphragm…kidney. Who’s next?”

“Can she breathe yet?” Top marks to the nurse with the bedside manner.

More ripples – this time laughter.

“Of course. Sorry Natalie.”

Exhale. Relief. This is tougher than I expected. I’m Natasha though. But anyway.

‘Five minute warning!’

Rock’n’roll jobsworth is back with her feedback.

Trusty Expert looks irritated. His lecture is cut short.

“OK we better skip to any questions?”

Bedside Manner has her hand up. “What if the injuries are too severe to perform ultrasound techniques?”

Six pairs of expectant eyes focus on Trusty Expert and I assume this is quite a good question. WhaddoIknow?

“Let’s put this in perspective. You’re in ER. You’ve got a level one trauma, severe bleeding, unconscious, air bag, surgeon breathing down your neck, wants to send him for an MRI. If you send that patient to MRI you lose what, ten? Fifteen? How about you want to convince this surgeon you don’t need that? The patient has internal bleeding and needs  to go straight to OT. Ultrasound lets you do that. Next question.”

Silence.

‘PLEASE MOVE TO YOUR NEXT STATIONS.’

They shuffle on, put in their place. I am proud. “Is that true?” I feel I can talk to Trusty Expert.

He nods. No words wasted.

“Cool.”

He kind of smiles. “Yes. Yes I suppose it is ‘cool’.”

Later on, de-gowned, I bump into him coming out of the toilets.

“Hi!” I beam.

Nothing. He doesn’t recognise my clothed body. Just the heaving lump of meat.

I don’t care. These people…they’re like…something from a sci-fi novel.

One of my mates bumbles up, drawstrings on his scrubs trailing behind him, face all red from where he’s been suspended half upside down for gluteus maximus inspection.

“Coming to the pub? We’re going to blow the earnings?” He triumphantly waves a fifty in my face.

“Nah. I’m gonna stick around. Nic says we can check out the evening lectures. Might be interesting.”

He snorts and patters off to don his everyday uniform.

Rock’n’roll feedback pipes up.

‘WILL ALL DELEGATES PLEASE REPORT TO THE BUFFET…SCREECH…SORRY. WILL EVERYONE PLEASE MOVE TO THE BUFFET AREA. THANK YOOOOU.’

I slope off at a modest distance behind the Intelligent Ones and snatch a line or two of conversation.

“…of course the problem with that is the training budget was slashed again this year, so I pretty much funded the trip myself…luckily my aunt lives over in the road…”

“Really? No. Honestly? I’ve never had that. The worst I had was the guy with the Lego brick stuck in his….yep. No really! Well he was about 30 but of course he blamed the kids…”

Into a phone…It’s me…Hope you’re OK. Sorry about the mess. Had to dash off to this conference. Catch you back at the hotel. We’re going to dinner now. Buffet. Your fave. OK, well. Catch you later…

Gurneys lie bare of paper roll on the half lit carpet tiled floor, suspended in stillness. Ultrasound machines sleep, awaiting more specimens…more volunteers to prove their worth. Scrubs are piled in Bags for Life, ready for washing. Domestic bliss meets medical research. Life saving techniques meet lacklustre lifers in the public health prison of inefficiency and neverending change.

I walk away on my own two legs, freestanding, thankful.

Another one from the vaults

I don't do poetry. I never have. I don't have a reason, just that prose always seemed more...precise. The young me thought that poetry, with it's limitless imagery and apparent lack of form or rules or quality control (!) was a lazy way of expressing things. Like text speak - short form for what you really mean.

Now I know that some poetry has as many, if not more, rules than prose, and is by no means lazy expression. It might even be the only way of truly capturing some states of emotion. But I don't really know anything about it so I've never tried.

The only thing I've written that's approaching poetic in terms of form and style, is what I am about to post here.

I wrote it - or rather, it forced it's way out of me onto the page, against my will - just before I got married about a year and a half ago. My mum died three years ago and her absence seemed heightened by the approaching nuptials to the point where I  was worried it would be the elephant in the room and would stop people enjoying themselves....So I decided that if anyone should tackle the problem head on, it should be me, thereby getting it out of the way so that the other people who made speeches didn't have to worry about it. My dear husband agreed to read it out, as I knew I wouldn't get through it.

Although it's hardly Keats, and probably doesn't follow any poetic rules, it sort of said what I needed to say at the time and for that I am proud of it.

It's called: What did I miss?

I can see her now, awaking from sleep,

And the first words on her lips, “What did I miss?”

I’ll say “Not much really,” but she won’t believe me.

Because the years will have passed, but it might go like this:

Well mum, I married the man of my dreams.

“Oh I knew that would happen,” she would say, “What else?”

Dad moved to Cyprus, “Without me?! How dare he?!”

Jase had a baby, “Wow that was a first!” With a poke in the ribs.

Haha mum, you’re so funny. “What else? What else?”

Well, we watched this old system buckle and groan,

We did our best not to falter, although we missed you so,

We laughed and drank, and cried some too,

And so much love was shown for you, and because of you.

And although on my wedding day, I knew you would have looked the best,

I was content just knowing you were at rest.

Because safe with my Nicholas I knew the days would fly by,

Until you could wake up and say, with a smile on your lips,

“Tell me, tell me – what did I miss?”

Getting over it...

Thanks to a good chat with a good friend, I have reminded myself that:
1. I can't expect to not write anything for years, then suddenly write something perfect.
2. Most authors say they write a lot of dross before they write something they are happy with.
3. Being undecided about what I want to write is not a good reason not to write.

These are really three aspects of the same problem I suppose. And while I still don't feel massively motivated about this whole writing lark, I think I can maybe write a bit more dross without getting *too* frustrated and hanging up my proverbial writing hat forever.

Argh. Stand by - some more dross coming this way soon. You might want to duck.