Uniform yet Unique

Follow the rules 
but stand out

#Swanwick70 - Day 2

It’s the time of year when shops are trumpeting their ‘back to school’ offers. Children are bought new shoes, shirts and socks, trousers and pinafores, ready for the new academic year. Fully kitted out in their uniforms, they will be indistinguishable from their classmates as they respond to that first school bell.

In this morning’s short course on Writing for Competitions we were told to ‘put on the uniform’. That is, to read the rules so our entries follow the requirements as to word length, font type, etc. Then comes the tricky part. Having made the format of our entry uniform, we need to make the content of our submission unique.

Later this afternoon I listened to the prize winning entries from the ‘Write your way to Swanwick’ competition. I didn’t win. 

The Open Mic Poetry this evening was excellent with some very talented poets performing their work. I wasn’t one of them. 

Tomorrow evening I will watch the Prose Open Mic. I shan’t be reading.

The reason why is that, in all three cases, I failed to enter. 

To continue the analogy, I had the uniform but didn’t walk through the school gates. So now no one will know how uniquely wonderful my writing is. 

I know what should be written on my Swanwick School Report: “Must try harder next year”.

Time

So much to do, so little time

#Swanwick70 - Day 1

Hurray! I’ve arrived at Swanwick Writers’ School. This is the platinum anniversary, 70 years since the first event in 1948. There are 297 delegates of whom I know only a few but that doesn’t matter. There is a wonderful camaraderie because of our shared interest in writing.

One of the initial steps is to decide what specialist courses, workshops and short courses to attend. There is so much choice and not enough time.

If I could turn back time...

Then there are the social events. When I was here two years ago the Poetry Open Mic and Buskers’ Night were both fabulous with so many talented performers. As from last year a Prose Open Mic has been added. All three are expected to be oversubscribed so it may be a case of drawing names from a box.

There are two discos, a tea dance, parties on the lawn, plays to be performed, the list goes on and on. I have heard more than one person wish for one of JK Rowling’s Time Turners so they can fit more in.

I should be sensible and pace myself. I know I should. But it’s hard to resist all the wonderful opportunities laid out in the timetable.

Oh well. #Swanwick70, here I come!

Student Life - then and now

So here I am in York staying in a student hall of residence. I am three times the age of the youngsters in the common areas playing table tennis and sitting at their laptops. I am old enough to be their grandmother, for goodness sake! How did that happen? Where have the years gone?

Student luxury

It seems no time at all since my parents dropped me off at Ridge Hall in Birmingham. There I shared a bedroom. There was just one bathroom further along the corridor, shared between 10 of us. Everything was very basic.

Today the room I’m in has a double bed, an en-suite shower room, flat screen TV, cooker, microwave, toaster, fridge. Oh the luxury!

Breakfast (lunch, dinner and supper) in bed

But despite the more comfortable surroundings I don’t suppose the essence of the student experience is much different. The thrill of being independent of your parents. The joy of meeting new friends. The intellectual stimulation of conversations into the early hours about philosophy, religion, politics. The challenge of lectures and tutorials, research in the library, then essays and exams.

As a private writing retreat university halls of residence can work well. Perhaps it’s the studious air that is embedded in the fabric of the building. Whatever it is, I think I may do this again to encourage me to sit at a desk and just write.

Rights and Wrongs

Righting wrongs

Salad (so much more
tasty than porridge)

My journey today took me to a coffee shop in the little village of Askham Richard near York. Nothing unusual in that, you may say. Except this one is different - it is in the grounds of a women’s prison. All the food and delicious cakes are made by prisoners. The waiting staff are prisoners. The garden centre next to the coffee shop sells fruit and veg which has been grown by prisoners. 

HMP Askham Grange is one of only two open prisons for women in the U.K., catering for those coming to the end of their sentences. It is all about rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. And it has proved very successful in helping its residents to turn their lives around.

It’s a place where those who have done wrong can learn to do right. If you’re in the area I would encourage you to visit The Grange Coffee Shop.

Wronging rights

Freda and Barry’s favourite 
lets its writers down badly

Meanwhile in the world of magazine writing there is trouble. The rights of short story writers are under threat. 

Copyright and the moral rights to be acknowledged as the author of a piece of writing are now being demanded by Woman’s Weekly. 

Most of the professional and regular writers for the magazine are refusing to agree to these terms. 

Outrage is also being expressed by high profile authors in social media. And there has been strong support from the writing press, with both Writers’ Forum and Writing Magazine reporting on the issues. 

More information is available in this post by Joanne Harris on the Society of Authors website.

Protecting our rights is important.

Doing what’s right is important too. Let’s hope Woman’s Weekly realise this soon.

Quo Vadis?

As the summer holiday beckons I have been finalising my journey plans. Last year I blogged my way around the country. I intend to do the same with this year’s travels.

Curiocity - the hardback
Perfect for the coffee table

My journey starts tomorrow with a flight to Exeter to see family in Tavistock, which is always a pleasure but an added bonus will be the presence of my nephew and his family on a fleeting visit home from Argentina. 

Curiocity - the paperback
Perfect for the pocket

Matthew is a writer himself, co-author of Curiocity a brilliant tome about London with many curious maps and ways of reimagining the city.

The Charcter Conundrum
Perfect for teachers

He has written The Character Conundrum  a fascinating book for teachers wanting to promote resilience in children. 

He is also a very patient reader of my paltry offerings and I remain grateful to him for his support and enthusiasm which helps keep me going when I lose my way.

Knowing where you are going and when is essential when booking flights and trains, and planning routes. But the writing journey is seldom so easy to predict. Sometimes it goes in directions you never knew existed.

Six years ago had you asked me the question “Quo vadis?” I could not have given you an answer. I was in a place where there was no way forward. Then I won my first writing competition which gave me confidence to submit my work for publication. 

I no longer ask where my writing will take me next. I just enjoy the ride.

Poetry

Little Ms

At what point can you refer to yourself as a writer? For me it is when you write because you want to, because you need to, because the urge to do so can’t be contained any longer. Competition success, having an agent, being published, none of these matter. If you write then you are by definition a writer. Not necessarily a good writer, probably not a famous one, almost certainly not a wealthy one, but a writer all the same.

I don’t think of myself as a poet although I have had a few frivolous pieces published in magazines. Slightly more serious efforts have appeared in Mslexia’s subscribers’ only newsletter and in an anthology in support of the Koestler Trust charity.

Mslexia

Mslexia once called me a poet when they used four lines of my doggerel in their magazine. Success indeed - although they didn’t pay me for that one!

I ought to write more poetry, if only for my own benefit. Emotionally they can be cathartic and healing, and even a bit of fun. And, if any are worthy, maybe I could submit them to competitions or magazines. 

April is a good month to start by signing up to the NaPoWriMo Challenge.

Yours magazine

I never think of poetry as a money-spinner - in total I’ve earned only £140 and a tea caddy for my humble offerings. However (and with thanks to Patsy Collins for the lead) a recent poetry competition offering a top prize of £2,000 may force me to rethink the financial benefits.

But then, writing is its own reward. Isn’t it?

Open Online Learning

Open bookcase on-page learning

I count myself fortunate to live in the Internet age with so much information readily available. My father left school at 14. (He was more fortunate than his older sisters who went into service at 12 years of age.) Denied the educational opportunities that we take for granted, he never lost his thirst for knowledge. He was a voracious reader, interested in a wide range of topics. We had two sets of encyclopaedias at home and were encouraged to look up the answer to any queries we raised. Nowadays, Wikipedia provides that service online, with updated information instantly available at our fingertips.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are another facility which I’m sure my father would have embraced. Check out Future Learn and Open Learn for a wide variety of free courses. I have two courses on the go.

The first is aimed at international students and is about writing in English for academic essays. I do some part-time work proofreading for foreign students, helping them with their spelling and grammar, and so thought this course would be of help to me.

Marcus, my fictional legionary

The second course is about the soldiers who built and patrolled Hadrian’s Wall - research for a short story I am working on about a ghostly legionary who is still at his post today. (If it sells, you can be sure I’ll share the news here!)