This blog was started in March 2014 when I intended to embark on a ‘creative’ writing project after many years of academic writing and all the strictures of style and content that entailed. But life intervened and nothing much happened although I hadn’t consciously given up on the idea. The possibility of writing had never completely waned and I occasionally toyed with the idea of trying some form of journalism, or autobiography, memoire or fiction. It was getting some encouraging comments on a couple of early pieces from the false start of 2014 and conversations with Robin and Lesley Thomas, both occasional writers themselves, that eventually prompted me to start again but this time in a rather more determined and focused way.
I bought the UEA Creative Writing Course Book and dug out the copy of Becoming A Writer by Dorothy Brande, first published in 1934 and still highly recommended by tutors today. Starting 3 months ago I started a daily writing exercise recommended in the latter – just 15 minutes a day writing anything that came to mind. For most days this wasn’t a problem as there was no pressure for it to be any good, just do the writing, and I soon found the 15 minutes became half an hour or so. Then, when I joined a WEA creative writing class In May 2019 I found I had a good resource, a collection of eclectic short pieces of prose and ideas, that could be used as the basis for the weekly home works.
Now I’ve relaunched this blog it will be used to post reflections on the process, the exercises and experience of taking the writing classes, and some of the pieces of work produced.
