Starting to write is not easy. Faced with a blank page or computer screen I suddenly find that washing the floor, cleaning the loo, shopping or making duty phone calls are the most fascinating ways of spending my time. Why do I do that? I guess I’m just scared.
A few years ago I wondered what to do to minimise this fear and increase my motivation. I’d tried those Help Yourself to Write books but found them boring to read, and call me a wimp but I also found it difficult to do the exercises on my own. There was, however, one exception, called The Artist’s Way* by Julia Cameron. The book is divided into 12 chapters and each chapter provides a set of activities to stimulate creativity. More about Julia’s book later.
Despite The Artist’s Way I still needed more stimulus, so when I was back in the UK I decided to attend some creative writing classes. They turned out to be good. It’s so nice to swap ideas with like-minded people and to discuss problems and successes, and most of all it’s wonderful to have a tutor who sets writing exercises.
Returning to Bulgaria I wondered what to do, without any writing classes. Ok, I thought, let’s run one of our own. So I asked a British poet called Kathleen Kenny to come to our house in Hotnitsa in September 2007 to run a week-long creative writing course. It was magic! For four days we attended structured writing classes and on the last evening held a reading of our own work, which was nerve wracking but good experience. I’ll write more about readings at a later date. At the end of the course we produced an anthology of our work and wondered what to do to keep our motivation going.
Sarah, one of the Hotnitsa course participants, suggested we establish a weekly writers’ group. So the Veliko Turnovo Writers’ Group was born. The group meets every Wednesday from 10.30am to 1.00pm in the Veliko Arts Centre. Each week we use a similar format:
-News about successes and/or competitions.
-Reading, sharing and receiving feedback on previously written work.
-A short writing exercise to get us going, followed by a more substantial exercise.
-Reading out what we’ve written.
This column that you’re reading now, which will continue throughout January and February, is a newspaper version of a writers’ group. Each week I will provide you with exercises and ideas to stimulate writing. You can try them yourself at home or, better still, in your own writers’ group.
The Morning Pages
Ok, let’s get started. Julia Cameron says the best tool she knows for starting to write is something called the “Morning Pages”. She recommends that you do them daily (she’s been doing them for 10 years). The Morning Pages are three sides of longhand writing about anything, everything and nothing. For example: “I haven’t anything to say today except that I’m really tired and the place is a mess and I can’t face …etc, etc”. The Morning Pages are not intended to be art; they are just meant to get your hand moving across the page. Write down whatever is in your head. You don’t need to use punctuation if you don’t want to and nothing is too silly to be included. Try not to be a perfectionist during this task, just get words on the page and don’t read them when you are finished, just leave them be. Never skimp or skip the morning pages, as some writers have done their best work when they haven’t really been feeling up to it.
Writing Lists
Writing lists from the top of your head is another good way of getting started. Let’s assume that you’ve done your Morning Pages today and you want to move on to something more structured. Do this as quickly and spontaneously as you can. Try not to think too much. Take 10 minutes to write the following lists:
-five things you could find on your body
-five things you could find in the garden
-five things you could find in the kitchen
-five things you could find in the shed
-five things you could keep in a drawer.
Read over what you’ve written and circle one word or phrase that you particularly like from each list. Do this as quickly as possible.
Then, take another 10 minutes to write some more lists of:
-five animal noises
-five colours you like
-five colours you don’t like
-five ways that animals move
-five ways that humans move
Quickly circle one word or phrase from each list.
Now, write 10 sentences using the circled words. Time yourself. Don’t take longer than 10 minutes. Finally, choose one sentence and develop it into a poem or piece of prose.
Good luck with your writing this week and don’t forget to do your Morning Pages every day.
The VT Writers Group
This group meets weekly in the Veliko Arts Centre, 36 Ivan Vazov Str, Veliko Turnovo. For more information call Eileen Sutherland on 089/ 989 64 42 [hotnitsa.com].
*Recommended Books
-The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, ISBN 0 330 34358 0, published by Pan Macmillan, 1995.
-On Writing by Stephen King, ISBN978 0 340 82046 9, published by Hodder and Stoughton, 2000.
-The content for the Writing Lists exercises originated in a class run by Kathleen Kenny.
