9780415317856_the_routledge_creative_writing_coursebook

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www.ATIBOOK.irWriting as art 31suggested rather than stated, where the spaces are for you as a reader to enter the text,how you can achieve that as a writer.Start to examine your own life as a source of insight and information about the world.Think about the sorts of worlds you inhabit now and have inhabited in the past, your ownparticular family, home, workplace. Go back to other places you have lived in. Focusclosely on a particular interior, its detail and mood, the reality-effects that make itmemorable. How important are seasons, time of day? Think of jobs you have done: Justwhat was it like in the kitchen of that pizza place? Serving awkward customers in theshoe shop? Working on the early morning post? What about the world of the leisurecentre, or disco, or martial arts group? All these places will have their own routines, theirown jargons and rituals. Try to describe a typical scene. How are people dressed, how dothey speak, relate to each other? Think about the dynamic between members of the group.Who’s in charge? What are the unspoken rules? Where are the tensions? You are anauthority on your own world(s) that are wider than you think. Try to find a fresh way ofdescribing the ordinary. What’s everyday to you will be unusual to someone else. Whenyou have got your ‘reality effects’ you have basic material you can work on, not only forwriting memoir but to develop into fiction, poetry or drama.Suggestions for WritingThe conditions under which writing happens, both physical and emotional, is a topic ofmuch fascination and little certainty. We can only guess what causes the seeds to grow.But we do know that writing workshops sometimes allow the imagination a chance tocreate those conditions. The imagination acts as a form of flight simulator, so thatalthough you are actually sitting at a desk and writing, you are also, in your imagination,somewhere else, writing in the voice of someone else, maybe a character or persona, orreliving an experience of your own. You are also learning at the controls what happenswhen language is used creatively. The suggestions below, as with others in this book, areintended to advance your confidence, and help you both to explore new possibilities, andto devise your own simulations using these as examples.Read the following passage by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop lived and wrote in SouthAmerica. The animal in this prose poem is a real creature and here she has given it avoice.from ‘Strayed Crab’This is not my home. How did I get so far from water? It must be overthat way somewhere.I am the color of wine, of tinta. The inside of my powerful right claw issaffron-yellow. See, I see it now; I wave it like a flag. I am dapper andelegant; I move with great precision, cleverly managing all my smalleryellow claws. I believe in the oblique, the indirect approach, and I keepmy feelings to myself.
www.ATIBOOK.irThe routledge creative writing book 32But on this strange, smooth surface I am making too much noise. Iwasn’t meant for this. If I maneuver a bit and keep a sharp lookout, I shallfind my pool again. Watch out for my right claw, all passersby!My eyes are good, though small: my shell is tough and tight. In myown pool are many small gray fish. I see right through them. Only theirlarge eyes are opaque, and twitch at me. They are hard to catch, but I, Icatch them quickly in my arms and eat them up.What is that big soft monster; like a yellow cloud, stifling and warm?What is it doing? It pats my back Out, claw. There, I have frightened itaway. It’s sitting down, pretending nothing’s happened. I’ll skirt it. It’sstill pretending not to see me. Out of my way, O monster. I own a pool, allthe little fish that swim in it, and all the skittering waterbugs that smelllike rotten apples.Cheer up, O grievous snail. I tap your shell, encouragingly, not thatyou will ever know about it.And I want nothing to do with you, either, sulking toad. Imagine, atleast four times my size and yet so vulnerable… I could open your bellywith my claw. You glare and bulge, a watchdog near my pool; you make aloud and hollow noise. I do not care for such stupidity. I admirecompression, lightness, and agility, all rare in this loose world.(Bishop, 1991:140)Notice how Bishop gets right inside the nervous system of the crab and develops its voiceaccordingly. She is maybe saying something about herself, but indirectly.1 Write a passage of similar length using an animal as speaker. This animal is in astate of discomfort, possibly dislodged from its usual habitat. Another animal appears. Anaction takes place.Write another passage where the speaker is human. Again, in a state of physicaldiscomfort, showing an attitude. Another person or people are present, and at somepoint—as in the passage above—the speaker is threatened.2 Write a poem in the voice of a famous person; alive or dead, past or present. Try toenter his or her imagination. Include in your poem three things significant to yourspeaker; these are an object, a question difficult to answer, another voice.3 Each of us is involved in a whole range of different activities and any of these couldbe useful for writing. Using ideas from your workbook, write a short story, a poem, thefirst scene of a play, or a piece of personal narrative, making use of your specialunderstanding of a work place, surroundings you know well, an individual or groupactivity. Pay attention to voices, details and reality effects, close-up images, building onyour sense of what you know.4 Try looking out of a window or taking a walk down a street—perhaps it leadssomewhere a little unusual, or to somewhere not very surprising. Maybe the windowlooks out over neighbouring gardens or fields. Whatever you see, describe it, findsomething in the surroundings interesting to you, something you are looking at with neweyes. Using these and other details, put together a poem or short story with thesesurroundings as its opening setting.
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