17 November 2003
Bridge
Many people new to writing find themselves facing their blank piece of paper or their blank screen like an enemy. Their is a gulf between them and the spark they can see inside their heads, behind their eyes.
When my husband, Labyrinth education director Greg Mosse, teaches creative writing, one of his first tasks is to get students across that gulf.
He has recently been doing some work with children's writing. To focus their minds he ran a short distance learning course. The children were asked to write 100 words each day to a set structure:
Day 1 - describe the place
Day 2 - describe person one
Day 3 - describe person two
Day 4 - describe their conflict
Day 5 - tell the reader what the conflict was all about
The children shared what they wrote each day. The stories grew organically, with plenty of time between sections to let the imagination blossom.
Next week we're going to run another course - 10 days at 100 words per day - for some of the same children plus a few more.
Again there's a structure to follow ... but plenty of room for imagination too.
Writing is a like a ship with imagination as its engine and perseverance as its fuel. It is important to run out of neither ...
There is a bridge from your imagination into the Labyrinth.
