Day School

Hullo there, I've been to a creative writing day school as part of my course. Wow, it was such a great day, my furry head is buzzing with so many ideas, I just need to get them all down before they disappear into the chocolate filled fuzz that fills most of my brain space.

One handy tip I learnt yesterday was to write bullet points for story ideas. Previously, whenever new creations came to me, I'd sit and try and write a whole story at once. The (fabulously inspiring) tutor set an exercise where you recall an incident that happened to you, but only note it down in bullet point style. He then took all the notes back and re distributed them so you were in possession of someone else's jottings. Out of the bullet points we were asked to write a short passage of fiction, it didn't need to include all the stated points, but rather, use those as inspiration and see where they took you. Once again I can't post mine as it developed into something I'm hoping will be worthy of an assignment piece, but if I change my mind I'll post it here at a later date. I thought though that the technique of taking an event and paring it down to bullet points was well worth sharing. Whether for a real life event or something sparked by your imagination. It's an easy way to get your ideas down before they float away. Have a try, think of something you've experienced recently, write down in bullet point style some facts from it, now, write a story either based on or sparked off by those points, it's a lot of fun, and can be quite amazing where your imagination takes you.

I was so inspired by my tutor that I wrote a little ode to him;

Oh teacher, I'm in awe
Of your clever head.
The quotes you spout,
The books you've read.

Hopefully he'll never discover this and realise it's about him or My brown fur might flush a little red!

With love from the bears