Eight brave souls from the Vale Royal Writers Group took to St. Deniol's Libray in Hawarden for a full day of creative writing antics. This is at least the third such day and they remain a popular event. The group hire a room at the Library and set the contents of the five sessions themselves.
This time Bob started the day off with an exercise where we had to use just dialogue to get across the drama and tension between a couple buying a bed! Some interesting outcomes from this one.
Tom gave us an interesting exercise where he literally gave us permission to talk to ourselves. We were sent off around the grounds to spend 40 minutes jsut telling ourselves stories. This is harder than you think as in our normal lives when left to our own devices we think about anything but our writing. Everyone thought this was a great way to give ourselves the time to think about our writing.
After lunch, Liz led off with a variation on Desert Islands Discs but instead of music we had to come up with our seven favourite books to take with us.
Polly used a Scrabble board for the group to generate their own key words to drive their writing. Write about anythign so long as it includes the words. The first two words were "pox" and "void", so we all thanked Tom and Bob for those!
I finished off the day with a variation on an exercise mentioned earlier in the blog. Everyone was given a book and had to link the first and last sentences of page 123 with their own words. After 10 minutes the first line of the book had to be the starting point to take you to the previous text and finally after another 10 minutes link the whole lot to the last line of the book! It was amazing how many of the readings appeared to be seamless texts.
A rather long day and quite intensive on the old brain but from all reports enjoyed by all. It certainly gets the creative stem cells working! We all look forward to the next one.
We then took a few photos of the group with the cheques for the GOES charity. Tom, we look forward to hearing about the good works.
For those unaware, St Deniol's is a residential library and conference centre in Hawarden, Flintshire.
It was founded in 1889 by Gladstone. It offers a fabulous retreat for thought, study and relaxation.
I've put the website in my links and put scans of the brochure in the pictures.
More pictures at the link below:
2 comments:
Great write-up Chris!
It was indeed an excellent day, and it was fabulous to share, listen and be inspired by everyone. But most of all being with friends and listening to the fabulous writing everyone produced.
All the writing exercises were diverse and gave rein to different styles of writing. Brilliant work.
Tom - I thoroughly enjoyed your exercise, it gave a completely different edge to begin a psychological romantic thriller, a science fiction slot, quaint destinations on places to visit - it lendered itself to any genre with the ability to use our imaginations. To wonder around such tranquillic surroundings and be motivated by everything from the village's stunning architecture, their beautiful little shops, with friendly locals - a select host of activity in a peaceful and pretty setting.
When a place brings out an array of emotion - it is doing what it is intended to do - 'Inspire' a writer to write!!
"Oh! What a Perfect Day!"
I forgot to mention- although the tasks were challenging - we all laughed loads and had FUN! It was awsome! :-))
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