Writing Workshop

  How to Keep Your Reader in the Fictional Dream

 

                                                    Reading a good story is like  being in a 'vivid and continuous dream' (John Gardner)

 

Please join Deb (Ali is on a short writing sabbatical) on Thursday 25th February, 10am -12.30 at Judson's, Pocklington. £15 including coffee and cake, of course.

 

We'll be exploring techniques for our own writing (control of vocabulary; handling sentences; developing style) that can save us from distracting the reader from this 'dream'.  As always, we'll look at how the some of the best contemporary writers do it.

Do come and join us - and please book your place asap.

Best wishes

Deb and Ali

we're back!

Great heavens above! How did it come to this? No internet access for five days - that's FIVE WHOLE DAYS, people! What's it like? It's like one's right arm has been not just cut off, but brutally severed, that's what!

So much for changing to superfast broadband, BT... something of a slow start! And guess what: the reason for our stuttering start to superfast? The guy at the BT cabinet had plugged us into the wrong port. Yep. Highly technical. I throw my hands up in horror. No, I really do.

Oof. So glad to be back - and look out for Deb with our latest Thoughttree Writing Workshop later in February! As for me - now that I'm over the shock of the superfast fiasco - am taking a sabbatical to write the next novel. Will continue to blog though - there will be many on the subject of writer's block and what on earth do I write next, no doubt!

Creative Writing Course

Thoughttree are delighted to announce that they are working with York Adult Education to offer a new course in Creative Writing, led by Ali. www.thoughttree.co.uk for more details and how to book.

www.yortime.org.uk
01904 552806
email: york.learning@york.gov.uk

The Loney. So nearly great.

Congratulations to #TheLoney for being almost the Costa Winner this week - loved this book - most of the way through. #Hurley creates a world full of threat and foreboding; we are kept delightfully - and in most sinister fashion - on the edge of our readerly seats.

How does he do it? The page eggers are the sense of menace personified; look at the language as they arrive: 'crawled'; 'nightmare'; 'grotesque'; 'savage'. They are so effective because the the threat they bring with them is never quite realised - and this is important in Gothic writing where the thrill lies in terror, not horror. More of that in a moment!

This novel has echoes of Fay Weldon's Puffball. But Weldon (arguably true ruler of domestic Gothic) achieved something that Hurley has not: she stepped back from an overwritten ending to leave us with a sense of delicious wonder that the ordinary can appear so menacing/sinister. The Loney descends into farcical horror: the sacrificial baby? With 'shrivelled yellow face' and 'mangled claw'? Really? Horror, not terror.

And the miraculous recovery of Hanny? Oh please.

Its reductive, and a shame. So nearly great!

creme egg on the face!

Greetings bloggers all - glad to report that we are coming up to speed for the New Year (yes I know it's almost February!)

Important things first - hot topic: tried the first Cadbury's #Creme Egg of the season today. Result: horrid. You have cheapened the chocolate, Cadbury! First and last Creme Egg for me and definitely a case of egg on the face for Cadbury.

Creme Egg, anyone? No thanks.

Happy New year from Thoughttree!

Greetings from Thoughttree!

The festive season is behind us - the last chocolate sneaked from the box, decorations packed away, a trail of pine needles leading to a naked tree, lying prostrate on the damp patio...

Time for New Year's resolutions!

We're hoping that yours includes enjoying more Thoughttree Creative Writing Workshops in 2016!

Watch this space for the next session, coming soon.

And it's not too late to enter our Flash Fiction competition - title: Snow Globe. Word limit: 150. (Sounds easy, eh?)

Deadline: this Friday (8th Jan). Submit on-line. Winning story will be featured on our website and read on West Wolds Radio, the creative writers' radio station.

Best wishes

Deb and Ali

A 'who is he?' poem for Christmas

We've been working on metaphor poems with our young writers - always fun and you can still spot the learning in there (how many of us are falling back on word searches as the end of term approaches? What is the point of these things? They are so DULL!)

So here's a festive 'who is he?' poem (one I made earlier :P) to share as we head into the final week of pre-Christmas term time mania... copyright Ali, this time (its fun writing with the kids, after all...)

He is a mighty throne, draped in rich, twisted silks of crimson and gold.
The soaring, spreading palm tree fresh-fruited with fine dates.
A lone camel that plods across the searing, heat-shimmered dunes.
He is Arabian moonrise, yellowed and heavy in the evening sky.
The promise of starlight on the far horizon.
He is exotic spices haggled over in desert souks.
A precious jewelled casket; a gift of gold.

Who is he?

(One of the!) Wise Men, of course.

Happy Christmas from Thoughttree to all you slightly frazzled by now teachers - you will have earned your Christmas by the end of this week!