writer’s workshop | Sleep is for the Weak

Writing Workshop – Object Stories

Posted by Josie on Mar 10, 2011 in Writing, Writing Workshop | 0 comments

I haven’t done this for a while but I’m having to use my ‘Get Out of Workshop Free’ card today and not post an entry myself. I’m running a couple of dozen hours behind sleep this week (literally) and barely fit to write a shopping list let alone a coherent post.

Thanks everyone for taking part – I hope you enjoy reading and sharing your object stories.

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the Linky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and show your support to other participants by reading and commenting on at least two other entries.

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve got another whole week to take part and enter your link so there’s plenty of time. Don’t forget that anyone can take part! Our next workshop will be in two week’s time, so I hope to see you back soon.

Writing Workshop Prompts – Object Stories

Posted by Josie on Mar 7, 2011 in Creative Writing, Writing, Writing Prompts | 1 comment

As someone with a fascination for stories, I’ve always loved the idea of psychometry, that is, people who claim to be able to tell the ‘story’ of an object just by touching it.

Whether you believe in the validity of such claims or not, nobody could deny that most objects do carry with them a history, whether we know it or not. In our melamine, plastic, disposable culture it can sometimes feel like objects with real history are hard to find now, but we all them: a piece of furniture, an item of jewellery, a plate or ornament or picture etc. Not always showy or fancy, but something that has a past.

This week I want you to look around your home and pick an object that you own, or an object owned by someone in your family perhaps, a relative or a friend’s house, and tell us the story of that object. I’m giving you two options:

1. Either pick something you know the history of, and use it to tell us something about you or your ancestors.

or 2. Pick something that you have no idea where it came from or who might previously have owned it. Put on your psychic hat and pretend that you too can read the story of the object. Be as creative as you like. (Or, if you really CAN read objects, who am I to say you can’t, then no need to pretend!)

For any newcomers to our Workshop, here’s how it works: each workshop I’ll give you a bunch of writing/blogging prompts, something to get you thinking. How you respond to them is entirely up to – there are absolutely no rules and it is open to anyone who’d like to take part. The aim is to provide you with a touch of inspiration and an opportunity for expression, to help you make some connections you might otherwise not have discovered and create something unique and personal. You can write about real-life experiences or try your hand at some fiction, express yourself through stream-of-concious writing, or have a go at at writing in some form of poetry. Be creative, be brave, be honest. Those are the only provisos.

And remember! We’re not looking for perfection here! Just have a go! The best way to get better at writing is PRACTISE. All the best writers aren’t afraid to write badly. So turn your inner-critic off for a while and just see what words come out.

Now here’s what you have to do. Decide how you’d like to respond, write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please. Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.

Enjoy x

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Writing Workshop Prompts: I believe

Posted by Josie on Feb 21, 2011 in Writing, Writing Prompts, Writing Workshop | 2 comments

Hello from me. It seems to be Monday again, fancy that.

Right then. I am a big fan of separating out the idea of ‘religion’ from ‘belief’. All of us, no matter how religious we profess to be, live our lives according to our own set of personal beliefs, be they within a moral framework, or some kind of spiritual one, or even beliefs based on scientific reasoning.

This week I want to learn about YOUR beliefs, and how they affect your life. This is not about preaching, though, this is about sharing. Your blog, your space, your opinion – remember, when reading and commenting, that you don’t have to agree with someone in order to still be constructive and supportive. Judgement-free zone, okay? Just expression.

Here’s some prompts to get you thinking:

1. Tell me about a time where your beliefs affected a decision.

2. How have your belief systems changed through your lifetime? How do they compare to when you were a child? What new beliefs have you discovered? What old ones have you let go of, and why?

3. Write a simple statement laying out the beliefs you hold to be important, your own personal creed.

4. How do your beliefs compare to other significant people in your life? Have they ever caused conflict, or brought unity? What affect do they have on your relationship?

5. Beliefs don’t have to be limited to just a life-view. Pick something more specific. Write about your beliefs on parenting, or writing, or art, or nature, or cooking, or something else! (However, anyone writing another ‘beliefs about blogging’ post will get a sharp kick to the ankles… )

For any newcomers to our Workshop, here’s how it works: each workshop I’ll give you a bunch of writing/blogging prompts, something to get you thinking. How you respond to them is entirely up to – there are absolutely no rules and it is open to anyone who’d like to take part. The aim is to provide you with a touch of inspiration and an opportunity for expression, to help you make some connections you might otherwise not have discovered and create something unique and personal. You can write about real-life experiences or try your hand at some fiction, express yourself through stream-of-concious writing, or have a go at at writing in some form of poetry. Be creative, be brave, be honest. Those are the only provisos.

And remember! We’re not looking for perfection here! Just have a go! The best way to get better at writing is PRACTISE. All the best writers aren’t afraid to write badly. So turn your inner-critic off for a while and just see what words come out.

Now here’s what you have to do. Decide how you’d like to respond, write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please. Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.

Enjoy x

Workshop Badge Code:

Writing Workshop: Have, Am, Will

Posted by Josie on Feb 10, 2011 in Creative Writing, Me, Writing, Writing Workshop | 35 comments

There have been four times in my life when I genuinely thought I was going to break. I don’t mean just bad days, I have talked about getting through them before, I mean when you feel like you are actually going to die, or want to, when just the thought of keeping going one more minute seems physically impossible. It feels like your heart will stop, your brain will shut down, just through sheer, overwhelming emotional pain. If you’re lucky, you get through it. If you’re not, well, I guess you probably have a breakdown. I don’t know. Lucky enough I’ve always got through.

Three of those times have been in the last year, and Tuesday was one of them.

I could write in great detail about why, but I won’t. All you need to know is that after a really, really difficult couple of days, walking Kai back from nursery, it was like something snapped. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t hear. It was like my ears had filled with water, or I was standing in a wind tunnel. I’m honestly not entirely sure how I stayed upright.

All I could say to myself was “Just get home. Just get home” over and over, trying to make my body breathe and put one foot in front of the other. And get home I did. And then I let myself cry.

Do we have an emotional limit? I think we do. At least, I think we have a point at which we can be taken TO, but not over. I felt like I was there.

It did not go, that feeling. It stayed with me all day, rising and falling with the demands of my afternoon. Because I’m a mother, aren’t I? And that doesn’t stop. An automatic pilot making sandwiches and building train tracks as I tried to breathe. I couldn’t remember how to breathe. I couldn’t remember who I was. Oh no. That’s right. I do know these things. And so another minute passed. An another. I was still alive. I wasn’t quite sure how, wrapped in this huge, ice cold, weighty shadow, that seemed to have attached itself to my bones and my skin.

At some point, when Kai was playing, I picked up a tangle of wool from a bag at the side of sofa. Now, I’m usually a good knitter and ball my wool when it arrives, but here I had been too eager, knitting straight from the skein, leaving it, inevitably, when I’d finished, a tangled bird’s nest of knotted yarn. And with the wind still strong in my ears and my hands shaking and shaking, I found the loose end and began to untangle it, winding it into a neat ball. I don’t remember why.

I chased each loop and knot with my fingers, passing the bright yarn up and over and round, through each tangled tunnel and hole, round and round and round, breaking off to wipe Kai’s nose, or try and sooth his temper, or fetch a snack, but over and over I returned to my mess.

For a while there were no thought, but after a while it became like a set of rosary beads. Each turn and twist a new thought, a new internal cry. I chased my paralysing worry about Kai through knotted loops; I chased my crushing guilt at wanting to be happy and how that seems, in itself, determined to cause pain; I chased my exhausted effort to do the right thing, over and over, and internally screamed at the fact that it still seems to never be good enough, to hurt and rebound ineffectively, however hard I try. Turn and unloop and unknot and pull and wind and wind some more. Please let me cope. I am not coping. I have to cope. Pull and unknot and wind again.

And somehow the day passed.

I put a tired and fragile boy to bed. I remembered to eat. I talked quietly on the phone and was made to smile. And I wound my ball of wool until, at last, hours and hours after I had begun, I came to the end of it, at which point I put it down, without looking at it, and went to bed.

Coming down in the morning, it was the first thing I saw. Wound tight, and neatly; it’s strands criss-crossing in rainbow stripes. And nothing had magically changed, and nothing suddenly made sense, but I realised I was still here, I was still together, and I hadn’t broken. So I went to put the kettle on and had a better day.

I have coped. I am coping. I will cope.

Now it’s your turn. What triplet did you use to look back, look at where you are, and look forward?

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the Linky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and show your support to other participants by reading and commenting on at least two other entries.

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve got another whole week to take part and enter your link so there’s plenty of time. Don’t forget that anyone can take part! Our next workshop will be in two week’s time, so I hope to see you back soon.

(I’ve used a free linky thingy today while I sort out my subscription to McLinky tools – grr. Don’t panic that old Writing Workshop McLinkys have disappeared – they shall be back soon)

Posts Tagged "writer’s workshop"

Writing Workshop – Object Stories

Writing Workshop Prompts – Object Stories

Writing Workshop Prompts: I believe

Writing Workshop: Have, Am, Will

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