Putting pen to paper

Hard at work (Image, Penny Blackburn)

I joined North Tyneside Writers Circle on Saturday as part of my recently declared intention to write more. I enjoyed the writing exercises. Writing the old fashioned way with pen and notebook is different. I find it releases me from editing as I go. I am not a proficient typist but do most of my writing with a keyboard which allows me (too much?) time to spot errors along the way.

Writing freehand I can and do write quickly – a throw back to pre-computer days when lecture notes were scribbled down in real time and all essays and exams were written longhand.

So it was interesting to see what my subconscious mind let loose on the blank page.

Writing stick prompts (Image, Penny Blackburn)

NTWC were a welcoming group. Their focus is on sharing of news and competition opportunities, followed by writing prompts and an opportunity to read aloud the resultant scribbles. Previous groups I have attended work differently. One turned out to be particularly toxic. A supportive group can be hard to find but worth searching for. Good news – it seems I have found one.

Once upon a time….

I have had a good week. On Thursday I took part in a dramatic reading of a play, and on Friday I had a piece of flash fiction published online.

Both are linked to the creation stories and feature Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel.

‘Cain, a Mystery’

This month is the 200th anniversary of Byron’s death. Jon Quayle and Meiko O’Halloran, who both lecture in Romantic Literature at Newcastle University, invited Jesmond Library’s Play Reading Group to take part in a dramatic reading of Lord Byron’s play about Cain and Abel. I read the part of Abel’s wife; by the end of the play, of course, his widow.

The play was so much more powerful as a group event. Despite having read it several times in rehearsal, performing to an audience gave it an added dimension. It was a fabulous experience.

And I learned a lot more about Byron, not least of which that he didn’t just write poetry.

‘He was certainly handsome’

Since November 2008, Paragraph Planet has featured a different 75 word story every day. I was first published on the site back in May 2014; this is my 33rd time on the planet. They accept any genre, any style, complete stories, extracts, descriptive pieces – the only requirement is that it must be exactly 75 words including the title.

I find it a good way to warm up at the start of a writing day, rather like a singer will start by practising scales.

I also find the 75 word discipline an excellent lesson in editing, honing a story down to its essence, deciding what words to cut, where to place the emphasis.

Inspiration

This particular piece started as a prompt given at a writing group some years ago – ‘Adam and Eve’s first date’. I found the first draft in an old notebook and adapted it for Paragraph Planet.

Now I feel inspired to see what else I may have tucked away in my countless notebooks or saved to memory sticks. There is definitely one story there which with a bit of reworking I hope will suit The People’s Friend. Let this be my challenge for the week.

Nothing happened!

My first week of retirement has been underwhelming.

All the exciting plans I had – trips out for coffee, for brunch, some shopping, a visit to a local library for research, be part of a 10th anniversary celebration, attend a book launch – I had to cancel them all.

I was confined to the house.

Covid, that devious devil, caught me unaware.

Despite this, I can report I have submitted a 75 word flash fiction piece to Paragraph Planet, and sent two letters to magazines. It isn’t much, but it’s a start.

Making plans

At a workshop I attended some years ago, the fiction editor of a popular womag pleaded with us never to submit a story titled ‘Moving on’ or ‘Letting go’. Apparently they were the two most common, and boring, titles used by hopeful writers. Good as a theme, but not as a title.

Yet moving on is the theme to this blog. This month I reached an important milestone: retirement. Thursday was my last day in the medical library where I have worked for the last five years. So I said goodbye to Stan and Stella, the guardians of the stacks. And goodbye also to my lovely work colleagues and companions.

So what do I do now? I have a rough outline of the things I would like to achieve with my newly acquired free time. Amongst them is to write more. This blog is a small start to that. I hope the discipline of blogging regularly will exercise the writing muscle and release the Muse.

I want to visit friends and family more frequently. No adventurous flights or cruises to exotic places though. Even if I had the money to do so, family commitments would not allow. However the bus pass is full of promise. I also plan to continue volunteering at the local community library in Jesmond where all sorts of wonderful things go on.

Then there are things I cannot avoid doing: housework, gardening, paperwork – all the boring stuff. But that is as far as it goes.

So am I making detailed plans? Not really. Just a very rough outline. I suspect I will be making it up as I go along. But I do plan to enjoy the journey.

Looking for Agatha Christie

In December 1926 Agatha Christie was reported missing. She had quarrelled with her husband, abandoned her car in Guildford and left a note that she was going to Yorkshire. Then, silence. No one had heard from her. No one had seen her.

The public were enthralled – here was the ultimate unsolved mystery with one of the most successful writers of the genre at its centre. The Home Secretary is said to have put pressure on the police to find her; Conan Doyle and Dorothy L Sayers were involved. It took 11 days before Agatha Christie was discovered, checked in under a pseudonym at The Old Swan hotel in Harrogate.

Doctors diagnosed amnesia. Cynics thought it a carefully staged publicity stunt. Some speculated that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. Others that she intended to punish her husband

Poor Agatha. Perhaps she just wanted to be alone, take time away from public expectations and family commitments.

Since leaving Swanwick Writers’ Summer School last week I have spent my time avoiding other people. Nothing as elegant as The Old Swan for me, Premier Inn being more my style. I was not running away from any trauma. And I did tell my family where I was. And I also moved around more, but after time at Newport, Bromsgrove and Macclesfield I finally followed Agatha’s example and have spent the last two nights here in Harrogate. She made a good choice, it’s a lovely place to be.

I hope Agatha Christie felt as refreshed after her time in solitude as I do after mine. Home tomorrow

Kipling

Was he the lover of exceedingly good cakes? Or the writer of exceedingly good stories?

According to a cafe I visited in Newport on Thursday afternoon, Rudyard Kipling was a lover of both. Maybe Rudyard did have a sweet tooth, I do not know. They quote as evidence an extract from the Just So story ‘How the Rhinoceros got his skin’ where the Rhinoceros steals a cake and is punished by the crumbs being hidden inside his skin (which he had taken off to go swimming).

Perhaps not a sound basis for asserting that Rudyard Kipling and cakes belong together – almost sounds like a Just So story of its own – ‘How the Kipling Cafe got its name’.

The ‘Mr Kipling’ of cake fame was a brand name invented in the 1960s and is not related to a real person. (See also Captain Birdseye, Sara Lee, Dr Pepper, Uncle Ben.)

It did remind me though of the power of good writing to become memorable. Most of us can quote something which he wrote. Kipling’s poem ‘If’ was voted Britain’s favourite poem in a BBC poll in 1996.

AE Housman

I encountered a memorial to another famous writer yesterday on a visit to Bromsgrove. Holed up and feeling sorry for myself with post-Swanwick Covid, I took myself out for a well-distanced walk in the fresh air along the high street and was delighted to find his statue.

Housman was born nearby, hence a Worcestershire man, but his famous poetry collection is ‘A Shropshire Lad’. There is one phrase which resonates: ‘the blue remembered hills’. (Perhaps equally famous for the Dennis Potter play of the same name.) It is a long time since I have read the full collection but what remains with me is the sense of melancholy and longing for the happier days of youth.

Perhaps melancholic reflects more of how I am feeling.

Memorable writing

Encountering Kipling and Housman has made me wonder about my own writing. Will it ever be memorable? Sadly, I acknowledge much of my over exaggerated prose should be destroyed, as we writers are urged to do.

(Thanks to paragraphplanet.com for publishing this little bit of fun.)

Joyous

Regular followers of my blog (Hello, Mum) will be aware that my posts follow on by alphabetical order. And I really cannot think of a more apposite word to describe this last week spent at Swanwick Writers’ Summer School than ‘joyous’.

Joining in

This was my sixth visit to Swanwick. Of the approximately 200 delegates this year approximately 25% were new to the school, exactly the position I was in back in 2016 when I arrived knowing no one. Now it is just wonderful to meet up with old friends, wonderful to make new friends, and to find I have confidence to join in with everything whether that be selling raffle tickets or reading at open mic nights.

Judgment free

Swanwick is a safe space. Attendees are at all levels of writing, complete newbies through to regularly published, but we all are encouraged to share our writing in a non-judgmental environment.

I particularly love the Open Mic slots, both Poetry and Prose. These are always popular and this year were both oversubscribed. I was fortunate to get a chance to perform at the Prose, sharing three 75 word pieces which had previously been published on Paragraph Planet.

Sadly no Page-to-Stage this year, so no chance to win another Swannie. I was though one of the winners of the crossword competition.

Jolly Jesters

The fancy dress evening this year took Fairy Tales as its theme. There were some very imaginative costumes. Not something I do (although I did wear a ringlet of flowers in my hair a few years ago for the 1960’s theme) but it was stunning to see the efforts others had gone to.

Journalism, etc

There are so many courses available at Swanwick it can be hard to choose – 36 in total this year. All are included in the price. None have to be pre-booked. And if you start one but find it isn’t what you were expecting you are free to switch to another.

Following my recent visit to Dundee (home of Jam, Jute and Journalism) it isn’t surprising that this year I chose Viv Brown’s Writing for UK Magazines as my specialist 4 hour course. I wanted to revisit the market where I have had the most success, to discover what is new and what has changed.

I also did 3 short courses and 4 workshops: Rediscovering your writing mojo – Esther Chilton; Water & Poetry – Roy McFarlane; The Trickier Bits of Fiction – Sue Moorcroft; Comedy – a whistle stop tour – Phil Collins; Whose story(line) is it anyway – Zara Lamont; What’s in a Name – Liz Horrocks; and Photography for Writers (Simon Whaley).

By the end of these my notebook, and my head, are ready to burst. I am now taking a couple of days to myself to decompress and reflect.

Jaw and Jar

But as much as I gain from the academic input attending courses and workshops, I am sure I benefit even more by spending time chatting and sharing a few drinks with friends.

Jubilee

Next year it will be the 75th Diamond anniversary of the Summer School. How amazing that it has continued for so long and is still so popular.

If you have never been before please consider it for 2024 – the dates are 10-16 August. There are assisted places available, and also through Writing Magazine there will be three opportunities to win a free place.

And if you would like to pitch a course then the Vice Chair would be delighted to hear from you.

Into the Night…

Earlier this year I was at Daunt Books, Marylebone for the launch of ‘Into The Night’, written by Matt Lloyd-Rose. It is a memoir of a year spent serving as a Special Police Constable on the streets of Lambeth.

The book was published in May 2023 by Picador to critical acclaim. It was chosen as book of the week by BBC Radio 4. An extended extract was published in The Guardian newspaper and The Week. It was reviewed in The Observer and the Times Literary Supplement. The author was interviewed on ITV London, and by Anoosh Chakelian for the New Statesman podcast.

Much has been said in recent years concerning the all too many instances of misogyny and institutional racism in the police service. Lloyd-Rose doesn’t shy away from such issues.

In the book he takes us with him on a typical shift, so that we too experience the difficult realities of policing the streets of Brixton.

But what lifts this book beyond a polemic is its lyrical writing, delivered with humour and compassion, a carefully observed attention to detail, the extensive background reading and research, and the sensitively considered approach to reframing police work.

It challenges us to look again at what we expect from the police. It is a highly recommended read.

Here be dragons…

Unchartered territory is where you find dragons.

Dundee is somewhere I had not previously explored. It’s been fun finding my way around somewhere new. There is plenty to see, much more than I can fit into one weekend.

It is the fourth largest city in Scotland, traditionally known for the three Js: Jam, Jute and Journalism.

There are bronze statues of famous comic book characters: Desperate Dan, Minnie the Minx and Oor Wullie.

Plenty of interesting places to visit: The MacManus Art Gallery and Museum; HMS Unicorn; RRS (Royal Research Ship) Discovery; Verdant Works – a museum about the city’s textile heritage; V&A Museum of Design.

DC Thomson’s offices

Dundee is home to DC Thomson, and in particular The People’s Friend, by whom I was first published back in June 2014.

And as well as the dragon, I also found penguins, and a polar bear, and lemmings.

Gone but not forgotten

Anne Brontë’s grave

I visited Anne Brontë’s grave. She is buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, high above Scarborough. The sea air has weathered the stone; soon it will be completely illegible. A plaque has since been installed which marks the place and repeats the words of the original inscription.

View of Scarborough South Bay from St Mary’s churchyard

Her grave was marked with flowers, whereas others nearby were barren. Those well-meant sentiments – forever in our thoughts – last only as long as the family who make the promise. But Anne’s writing has awarded her a form of immortality: as long as there are readers she will never be forgotten.

Cliff railway

Throughout the rest of the day I enjoyed the classic British seaside experience: watched the donkeys plod their sandy path; rode the funicular railway as it rattled its way upward and down the cliff; in the arcade the ‘penny falls’ machine (now 2p coins) still takes more than it gives; two lasses convulsed with laughter at the indignation of their friend whose hot sugared doughnut was snatched by a seagull; people ate ice cream; drank cups of tea and pints of beer; fish and chips were eaten with fingers. I even got a little bit sunburned.

Brontë Bramble cocktail

I finished my grand day out with an elegant cocktail: the Brontë Bramble.