Welcome to the new Creative Writing blog. This is a forum for showcasing work by group members on a regular basis and is also a place we can explore different aspects of writing in all its forms and share information and advice.
To start us off, Creative Writing tutor, Paula Currie explains a bit about our group and how it works. Creative Writing takes place every Wednesday from 12.30-2.00 at the Spider office, 22 Pilgrim Street and is open to writers of all abilities or those who think they may be interested in the group and would like to get involved.
I’ve been asked to do a blog to chart the progress of the Spider writing group and to discuss the work that’s currently being submitted. This is just a quick account of last week’s session and to tell you a little bit about what goes on in the group. For those of you that don’t know – the Spider writing group meets every Wednesday from 12.30 to 2.00pm and during that time we read out a variety of work; poems, short stories, novels in progress and fragments of work or ideas. Then we give a bit of feedback. It’s that simple.
The thing I like most about the group is that you never know who is going to walk in through the door. We get all types of people; people who’ve written all their lives and people who are picking up a pen for the first time. This makes for an interesting, challenging and creative group. Because it’s a cross-section of creative types, you get a real cross-section of work and the group is breath-taking in its variety. Utterly different types of work are read out one after the other with little attention paid to the current literary fashions of the day.
Another thing that I like about the group is that I, (as the group tutor) also have to submit work. I’m not really a teacher – I don’t ‘teach’ anybody anything. I just discuss what’s been read. But usually in these types of group, the tutor doesn’t submit their own work for analysis, just pontificates on everybody else’s. Which is a lovely safe position to find yourself in! But here, I have to read out work that I’m unsure of – that isn’t really working. Just like everyone else.
This is a good thing to do. (Although sometimes I’d rather not do it). I am not an ‘expert’. I’m just trying to work out the best way to say what it is that I’m trying to say, just like everyone else in the group. I discuss other people’s work and they’re free to discuss mine. Some people will think that it’s rubbish – and that’s fine! And sometimes that frees them up to bring their own work in. It’s quite good to see someone who ‘leads’ a group bring in rubbish work. It can be quite useful to show your failed attempts. Sometimes you have to write a load of rubbish before you get down to the good stuff. Your work hasn’t got to be good all the time. And I think it helps other writers in the group if they see other writers struggling with their work. So that’s my lovely, benevolent reason for bringing in shite.
I did bring in shite this week. A novel that I’m working on which was read out to what I can only describe as a ‘crescendo of silence’. Although in my defence it didn’t really work as an excerpt – you had to read the preceding chapter for it to work. (Five minutes into my blog and I’m already making excuses. Get used to it! You’ll be hearing a lot of this kind of whining from me.)
Luckily some other people brought in some good stuff. Liam who, last week had us almost weeping with his tale of how he lost ALL his work from his computer hard drive and hasn’t been able to write since. We encouraged him to stop grieving and get cracking on some new stuff. This week he brought in some old stuff that had luckily survived on paper. It was startling. I don’t know what kind of work I expected from Liam. A young feller – in his twenties – but it wasn’t what I got. Which was, very traditional, beautiful, uplifting poetry. Which, as regular, Denis Joe pointed out – was reminiscent of Kipling.
Denis read out another two poems from his series of ‘Liverpool Soap Operas’.
He has been writing these for a good while now and is up to (I think) number 86.
Denis is a constant inspiration to me – his sheer output is staggering. There is a theory that excellence in anything is achieved after roughly ten thousand hours of practise. Denis has surely put that in and his moving, technically assured poems are proof of that.
Robbie read out a piece from his autobiography which was very interesting. The novel cuts between past and present but what I found most interesting was the narrator’s voice. In the ‘present’ sections, when the narrator is looking back on his life and regretting his mistakes – he completely avoids the ‘older and wiser’ viewpoint. The narrator is not claiming to be wise now at all. Though he realises he made mistakes and that his life was chaotic in the past he is still struggling to make sense of the present and the future – still wondering which way to go. This feels very truthful to me. Often the narrator ‘looking back’ is very sure about things – ‘If I’d only done this instead of this – life would have worked out’. Robbie avoids this entirely and is still uncertain.
This is not an ‘unreliable narrator’ in the classical sense. He is not wilfully misleading us – or believing (mistakenly) what he says to be the truth. He is changing his mind as he writes. Trying to work out what he thinks as he is writing. In his essay on ‘John Gardner the writer as teacher – Raymond Carver says that the writer finds out what he is trying to say through the ongoing process of seeing what he has written. It seems to me that Robbie is doing just that.
Finally we heard from Ged – who has been away from the group for a few weeks. He was writing a series of monologues about the seven deadly sins but has said that he’s been finding it difficult and hasn’t written anything for a while. He brought a piece in which was about his struggle to write. I was really impressed with him for doing this – every week I tell everyone that writer’s block doesn’t exist. If you feel that you ‘can’t’ write, then you should just WRITE. Anything. Even if it’s about why you can’t write. It’s the only way out of it. And I’m really chuffed that he did just that. Good on yer Ged!
We also discussed Adrian Bailey’s ‘Hope Street’ project. Adrian runs the history group and is piecing together a collage of stories and memories based around Hope Street – past and present. What is particularly interesting, is that Adrian is making a point of NOT telling us what he wants. He is giving us free rein to write whatever inspires us. He wants us to offer up work to the project and to see what emerges.
I like that approach. I’ll be handing my offering in this week. (Honest Adrian!)
That’s all for now – I’ll get back to the novel that I’m putting off writing by writing this.
You’ll hear more from me in a couple of weeks. Come along to the group if you fancy it and experience it first-hand rather than just reading about it.
Paula
