Monthly Archives: January 2016

Conkers, catkins, acorns, adders…

notebookThis week’s prompt by Jude

“Words omitted from the 2007 Oxford Junior dictionary included acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, cygnet, dandelion, fern, hazel, heather, heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, pasture and willow. The words taking their places in the new edition included attachment, block-graph, blog, broadband, bullet-point, celebrity, chatroom, committee, cut-and-paste, MP3 player and voice-mail.” Robert MacFarlane

An experiment:  Take a notebook and pen and write a short piece with your non-dominant hand from the  point of view of a child. Use one or more of the  words omitted from the Oxford Junior dictionary.

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Spring Creative Writing group

Thursdays 10.30am-12.30pm.  Cost: £90. Venue: Bath Central Library.

5 Sessions  – April 14th, 21st, 28th, a weeks break then, 12th and 19th May.

422px-Alfred_Stevens_-_The_Letter SOLD OUT.  More groups coming soon. Contact us to join our email list or subscribe to get the latest news.

The sessions are designed to get you writing and keep you going. Using prompts and exercises, Alex and Jude hope to inspire and motivate you. The workshops are suitable for beginners and experienced writers and  are informal, friendly and fun. Here are a couple of comments from  participants.  “Just wanted to email you to say how much I love your classes. Can’t believe how much potential comes from each exercise, and how much confidence can arise on seeing what’s produced.  Thank you both so much.” NJ 

“Your courses help me to keep writing so I wouldn’t miss them!” AH

Read more testimonials from a variety of courses here.

Alex and Jude look forward to meeting you.

The End of The Affair

Tip 25 from 63 Writing Tips: The End of The Affair

Prompt from Alex:  No one said that you have to start at the beginning. If you find endings difficult, write the ending first.  It will give you a focus to work towards and you can always change it when you get there.

Write a love story in 500 words from the first person point of view.heart

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What’s Your Story Palette?

This week’s prompt by Jude.

Colour pallette

Sketch by Jeanette Sheppard @JinnySketches

 

Are your stories generally dark and dystopian or always bright and cheerful? Write a short fiction up to 500 words trying out a different palette from usual. Introduce colour details.  This short example from Flannery 0’Connor’s story  “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, about a son’s relationship with his mother, shows how the use of colour enhances the mood of the story.

“…He opened the door himself and started down the walk to get her going. The sky was a dying violet and the houses stood out darkly against it, bulbous liver-coloured monstrosities of a uniform ugliness, although no two were alike. Since this had been a fashionable neighborhood forty years ago, his mother persisted in thinking they did well to have an apartment in it.”

(If you want to write a memoir this year our workshop on the subject in April  is open for booking – just six places left)