Writers Process Blog Tour

Thanks to Ellis Kerkhoven for tagging me into the chain for the writer's process blog tour. It's been fascinating reading writers' processes and seeing how people manage to articulate why they write and how they write.

For anyone who hasn't heard of it, the Writers Process Blog Tour is 'simply a weekly insight into and sharing of people's writing process.' So here goes...

What am I working on?

I have a lot of different stories at different stages of development, but the one that I'm concentrating on at the moment is called The Burning. 

I've been writing this novel for children aged 10+ for about seven years now. I've written draft after draft and seen my writing evolve and develop with each one. I've restarted about four times and the current reincarnation is vastly different from the others (working titles include Master Juggler, WordWeaver, The Storyseeker). It's a story about storytelling and the importance of having the freedom to create and to imagine. Culture and society is founded on our ability to communicate ideas through writing, art and song and I am intrigued by what happens when you take this freedom away or try to annihilate culture. 

I travelled to Cambodia around the time I started writing this story and learnt a lot about the Khmer Rouge, about how Pol Pot wanted to take the country back to year zero and start again,obliterating its past and history. When the regime began taking over the people they went after were the intellectuals, the masters of their arts. Now a new generation is growing up with gaps in their history. People are relearning their traditions and its hard work because there are so few people left that remember or have the skills to teach what is lost.

My three (well, ok, it's actually four) line breakdown is: 

Romy is a storymaker in a world where storymaking is forbidden and the only tales you can hear are Emperor approved propaganda. When Romy’s identity is discovered her home is burned, her mother taken and she is left alone with only a raggedy juggler boy to help her. Determined to save her mother and with the help of Mister and the travellers who can tell Romy more about her past, Romy does her best to survive and find her mother without being caught. As she travels through the country towards the City of Lies, her stories begin to ripple about her, perhaps paving the way for a new way of life for everyone.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My genre is usually fantasy or magical realism and I like to try and turn usual expectations inside out. During University I wrote a story about a world that existed behind this world and it was run by fairies and elves and goblins. However, the fairies were huge, like giants, the elves were strange creatures with four legs, they were green all over and grew moss like fur and they were very down to earth and practical, also the goblins were not the bad guys - I like to have a different slant on things if I can.

Aside from that though, I don't know if my work is that vastly different from others, I'm just trying to engage readers in a world that feels real and in the lives of empathetic, believable characters with strong story lines to follow. I think that what makes it different is that it is written by me. My way of seeing things, of writing things down onto the page is my way and that will always make it different from someone else's.

Why do I write what I do?
Looking over things that I have written, I suppose it would  be fair to say that I write what interests me, what captures my imagination, I write to explore ideas and possibilities. But I don't ever sit down and think today I am going to write about such and such. Something triggers a scene, or a line of dialogue in my mind and I go on from there.

 Sometimes it feels like an addiction. I don't know why I have the compulsion to write, I don't know why certain characters or scenarios or ideas take shape and become stories or poems. They just do. It's all part of the mysterious make-up of the Universe. It's a kind of magic. 

How does my writing process work?
I very much admired Candy Gourlay's and Vashti Hardy's descriptions of their writing processes and would like to be able to be as eloquent as them. For me writing is a process that happens in fits and starts, that means bouncing off the walls one minute and then slinking off to hibernate the next. I'll try to break it down.

Most story ideas I have tend to be triggered by me being somewhere and seeing something. In my book The Burning my main character, the storymaker, has to be surrounded by people, by experience and by life in order to be able to tell stories. Life seeps into her, ideas recharge her, she learns and thinks and words take shape within her that she releases into stories. I feel writing is much the same - you need to fill yourself with experiences and ideas gleaned from being around people, or walking through a city, or sitting in the sun, or browsing an art gallery, or reading books, or listening to music, or watching films, or travelling to a land you've never been to before and breathing it all in. I collect postcards and objects that have the tingle of story about them and I use them as story starts. See my earlier blog post about this here or my feature for Words and Pics here).

The current story that I'm writing was triggered many years ago when I was in Belgium eating waffles in one of the main squares - all of a sudden there was a juggler there. He was wearing stilts and he began juggling and then there were hundreds of people all juggling. Here my memory gets a little hazy because I have written that as a scene in my story so many times that I can no longer remember how much of it is real and how much I have made up. But in my note book that day I wrote: 'Juggling Master at the Grand Palace dressed in red, girl apprenticed, the drumming of the clubs, cries and shouts, heat of the sun, sticky chocolate, stripey socks, red wagon.' This somehow combined with a memory of a trip to St Ives in Cornwall and sitting on the beach eating chips in the dark listening to the sound of the waves rolling in and seeing the humps of the fishing boats left stranded on the sand when the tide came out.  An image arose in my head of a girl seeking shelter in an upturned boat and meeting an extraordinary boy, a juggler, who tells stories. And the story in its first carnation was born. 

   

A couple of scenes I drew out for BackWorld

I write feverishly when I have story to write -  I can spend hours and hours in front of the keyboard not even noticing when it's time to eat or drink. My waking hours are spent thinking about my characters, about the story. I wake up with lines of dialogue in my head and plot problems solved. I'm not an artist but I try to draw out scenes and characters, I write back stories for the world I'm creating and all the characters. 

I search out pictures of my characters.

I map out the country, the terrain I'm writing about, I search out pictures of characters or places and I display them all around me.

 Then there's a lull. Everything goes quiet and I begin consuming books. I read, read, read. Preferably books that I've never read before, a mix of genres, and age range. Recently I've switched between reading Longbourn by Jo Baker, Alice in Wonderland and Generation Kill by Evan Wright. 

 I watch films and I think and I don't write a single word. Then I'll make myself write something, anything. I have a trashy romance story that I keep going as a way to get me writing again. This story allows me to write anything without self editing. I write without self-consciousness like I did when I was a teenager. I write without inhibition or rules. Then that dries up too and that's generally when I'm ready to continue with the story that went into hibernation.

 Once the first draft is done I send it out to those people I trust to give critical, useful feedback and then I start working on something else until I feel ready to start editing. I try not to edit as I write, which is hard because I love editing as much as I love writing. But as Fletcher Moss tweeted recently in his series of 52 things he's learnt since The Poison Boy was published: 'A slightly crappy finished novel is ten-times better than a brilliant first five chapters. Whatever you do - finish it! #pb52s'

 

So as you can see it's a muddle. I don't have word limits, writing days or any real structure to my writing and sometimes I wish I did but every time I've tried it's just felt forced and difficult. 

 I was asked recently what would I do if I never got published, would I still write? For me the answer is that there isn't really a choice. Yes, I would still write. I write because I have the compulsion to do so and I love it. It would be a dream come true to have my stories read and loved, treasured by readers for generations and yes, that's what I hope for. But it's not why I write. I write because the stories form inside me and so I write them out as best that I can. Besides, never is a long time and by the time you get to the end of it... well I don't expect you'll worry about things too much then!


For the next link in the chain I pass you on, appropriately enough, to a storyteller - Charlotte Comley. 

Charlotte Comley is a creative writing group organiser and now self-employed writer of educational resources, blog content and articles. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing for Children at Winchester University. She is a member of SCWBI and regularly blogs at  aimingforapublishingdeal.blogspot.co.uk/

 Enjoy!

Never Give In, Never Give Up: REACH!

Every year my friend makes a scrap book page for her word of the year and it's something that I've started to do too. A word of the year is sort of like a mantra for that year. Last year my word was FEARLESS and I think I lived up to it by chucking in my job and branching out on something completely new. That actually didn't work out as well as I had hoped, but the sentiment was there: Try. DO.

Last year my being fearless did open new doors for me too. It led to my features being published in the SCBWI online magazine Words and Pics (Happy Birthday by the way Words and Pics), it led to me being part of some fantastic writing workshops with the Golden Egg Academy led by the inspirational Imogen Cooper and it led me to start writing again.

This year I didn't want to stray too far from the idea of being fearless, but I have to admit that the whole job situation not quite working out did leave me quite bruised. I wanted a word that would express a desire to remain positive, to not give up, but that wasn't quite so 'in your face'. I chose:

REACH

Here's my scrap book page for it. The quality of the picture is not very good because I am camera-less at the moment and having to borrow my husband's i-phone.

The journalling on the page reads:

Never give in, never give up. 
2014 is the year to keep trying, to keep reaching for my goals. 
Flapping your wings is the first sign of life!

The last sentence links in with the Snow Bird image on the top right hand corner which is a page out of a book. It says:

'Look!' said Jim, 'he's opening and shutting his wings! He's come alive!'

For me this is a reminder that although it can seem easier to just pass through life without taking risks and making mistakes, to really live and and make the most of your life you have to take action - you can't fly if you haven't stretched your wings. So that's what this year is all about. Moving forward, making progress, reaching for all the things that are important to me with hope in my heart and the sky as my limit.

Working with Very Able and Talented Children

Encouraging very able and talented children with creative writing in and out of the classroom.

 This post ties in with my current feature for SCBWI online magazine Words and Pictures.

Very Able and Talented children (previously termed as Gifted and Talented - G&T) are the top 10% of pupils in each age cohort, as identified by the school, and are then placed on a gifted and talented register. Not all very able and gifted children are good at all subjects. Don't assume that because a child is gifted at maths that s/he can read or write well, or that if a child is talented at writing they are equally good at science. Generally they relate well to learning and enjoy engaging in learning activities for many subjects, but that doesn't mean they won't have challenging behaviours at times or try to get out of working (particularly if they find the subject matter boring, or too easy) .As with any child, don't make assumptions about them just because of the label!

Very Able and Talented children can often be regarded by their peers as the odd ones out in school and can become isolated or find socialising difficult. Very able and talented children deserve an opportunity to interact and accept guidance from a teacher as much as any other child, but because there are so many differing abilities in one class and the priority is to support weaker learners, gifted children are often left to do the work on their own. They may be able to handle this, but it's not always interesting or challenging enough for them. Sessions outside of schools, such as residential weekends at centres such as Kilve Court Education Residential Centre and Leeson House Field Studies Centre, offer opportunities for children to interact with others similar to themselves, and also, importantly, find themselves in a more equal, stimulating and challenging environment.

 

This post will mainly discuss my experience of running Very Able and Talented courses in the education centres mentioned above. However, I will also touch on bringing some of these principles into the classroom as well.  I believe that teachers have a responsibility to not only promote and encourage children to attend Very Able and Talented courses and workshops, but also to bring the ideas and ethos into the school where every pupil can benefit for them. This is where artists, writers, scientists, musicians etc.can really add depth and interest and bring a new way of thinking to a class.

For the rest of this post I will refer to Very Able and Talented workshops/courses/ideas as Enrichment . I feel this term sums up what the prime ethos is - to enrich the learning lives of our children in the most interesting ways that we can. My thoughts and comments reflect only my beliefs and experiences and not those of any organisation or body that I refer to.  My Enrichment courses mostly run with twelve to fifteen pupils in school years four to six. Groups can sometimes be as small as four pupils or as large as twenty-five to thirty. For Enrichment weekends twelve seems a good number.

Enrichment

Core aspects of Enrichment courses that can be bought into the classroom.

•  Guidance - children are inspired by seeing something first hand. Involve yourself in the tasks and discussions. Treat the children like equals, listen to their points and questions and ask them to expand on them. Children who are top of the class without too much effort can really thrive on pushing at their own limitations and being expected to raise their thinking even higher. It's not about teaching, but about guiding them into a new way of approaching the subject.

• Empowerment – children take responsibility for their learning, decision making and problem solving. They feel empowered by their progress and earn real ownership over their work.
• Independence – no story starts or first lines. No whole ideas given to them, just glimpses.
• Responsibility for learning – they choose how much work they put into the story, they are given blank pieces of paper to fill. Scary but satisfying. This doesn't mean they only work for as long as they want, it comes back to your guidance. Read their work, ask them about it, point out where it's not working, praise everything that works and then ask them how they will develop/improve it.
• Problem solving – e.g. craft making, map making, paper engineering – letting them work it out for themselves. If they are struggling give them options. You could do this... or this... or this... what do you think?
• Experimentation and exploring – with writing and also in craft. Let them try out their ideas. If it didn’t work – why didn’t it?
• Making mistakes – encourage them to write in pen so they can see the changes they make to a piece of work and to be confident about writing. Pen also lasts longer and photocopies better.
• Sharing and discussing work - encourage children to read their work aloud to the group, getting feedback, discussing what is working and what is not working. Encourage them to learn that you can’t argue people into understanding what you have in your head, you have to lead them to it with your words.
  
  
  
• Social experience and interaction – talking with like-minded children, getting excited over the same things, encouraging each other, helping each other.
• Time – to learn, make mistakes, work on one project in a concentrated period of time (e.g.a weekend). 

Weekend Enrichment courses are not just an extension of school. This is children’s own time, they must be building on and learning more than what they do in the classroom. It should be engaging and enjoyable to really get the best out of them.

I tutor creative writing, I do not teach English.     

Teachers provide the grammar, I provide guidance to help them create something with the building blocks they have learnt (structure, atmosphere, characters, plotting, showing not telling, embedded description, language, using techniques such as similes/metaphors/adjectives sparingly but effectively).

My courses use craft, art, outings, dressing up etc to bring alive the physicality of writing. It lifts writing off the page and out of the notebook, but it's important that the activity is not just ‘tagged’ on. It needs to be embedded into the writing so that the two exist together.

 

An Enrichment session would run like:
 

The IDEA

Make it seem big, impossible e.g. a book with a secret compartment, make a world, discover a creature, make a book from scratch. 

But the idea has to have a simple essence

The rockets/worlds/creatures/ can be created with knowledge the child already has, they just have to refine it, e.g. rockets designed by knowing the right information, worlds created by descriptions, creatures discovered using what they know about nature etc. Nothing should be out of reach, but it must seem as though it might be.

Free reign and a blank page

Allow the child freedom to explore, experiment, make mistakes, be silly

and try again.

We deliberately have no worksheets on outings. Children take notebooks and we stop to encourage them to look around, suggest things to them, ask them to feed back to the group. We set them tasks such as listen to the sounds think up an onomatopoeic word to describe them, write it down, look at the light, think up similes/metaphors, write a paragraph describing how you feel simply through describing the surroundings. 

Create a story map when you get back to the classroom

Guidance

Using group workshopping, one-to-one tutorials we work on the stories. Emphasis is on reworking, not completing. There is no 'right' or 'wrong'/'good' or 'bad' writing, only writing that is working and writing that is not working. Ensure children have the right terminology and understand it before letting them workshop together. Join in to guide the first attempts at workshopping,

Methods for encouraging discussion:

•  Group work– peer assessment/social interaction.
• Encourage discussion and debate.
• No story starts, no corrections only suggestions e.g. how could you show character here, this is a dramatic moment, but I don’t understand what’s happening.
• Class and group discussions on what is working and why.
• Questions encouraged/challenging what we say.
• Writing exercises.
• Lots of one-to-one tutorial time.
• Read-arounds - stories are shared without any critical feedback, everyone just applauds and thanks the reader for sharing.

Enrichment key words
Guidance 

Blank page

Free Reign

Self-learning

Responsibility

Empowerment

How can this be brought into the classroom? How can we plan something that includes every child not just Able and Talented, but that is challenging the Able and Talented children too?

Possible Ideas

• Newsletter/magazine written by and made by children for the school
• Play that the children write, direct and stage themselves for the teachers
• A project that can be worked on over a number of weeks
• Blog/website that needs to be updated (be aware of safeguarding issues)
• Children led competitions/book panels, book clubs
• Storytelling - first to the children and then to each other. (Roald Dahl’s revolting rhymes is an excellent way to story tell - I will post about how to use them later this week).

 Examples of writing exercises/activities/filler activities:

• Group poem exercise –using poems, stories, articles, their own writing.
• Post card/objects exercise – can be done factually or as fiction (not ‘what is it?’ but ‘what could it be?’)
• Consequences exercise – story structure can be as silly or as serious as you want. Ask them to include similes/adjectives etc.
• Group story map - can be done after trips out, walks, inside – collective memory and shared experience.
•  Book making
• Bookmark making
• Feather book
• Collage 

Future posts will look at these exercises in more depth and give more information/resources on when and how to use them.

In the meantime more information on gifted children can be found here, and you can read more about my courses on the SCBWI Magazine, or on my old Creative Creatures website.

 
Bye for now!
rb-h
x

Words and Pictures

I am very excited to be a part of the SCBWI Online Magazine Words and Pictures. My first feature can be viewed here.

SCBWI is a fantastic place for writers and illustrators of children's books to get together and share ideas and experiences whether they be new writers, published writers or just
dabbling their toes in the pool of creativity.

My feature for Words and Pictures is about my writing workshops that I have been running for over ten years. Over the next few days I will be posting more information and resources to link in with that feature, so stay tuned if you're interested!

The next post this afternoon will focus on running workshops for very able and talented children.

See you then!

rb-h

Writing workshops for children are full on, but fun and inspiring.

x