Tag Archives: Peninsula Writers Club

Catching butterflies

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“Catching butterflies” is a poetic notion offered by author Jock Serong at a recent workshop at the Peninsula Writers Club, that I attended recently.

Jock Serong presenting at the Peninsula Writers Club

It refers to one of the ways writers engage with the creative process. The butterflies are the ideas that flit around in our heads, or out in the ether. As writers (or artists) we get a glimpse of the colour, a shimmer of light reflected from their wings, and then it is gone. Maybe to return.

How quick do we respond? Can we catch it, study it, pin it down, find the words to describe it accurately? Or will it dart away to another creative soul who will be ready? Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic, expresses the idea that ideas have their own life that is independent of the writer. If one creative person will not express it, the idea will find another willing creative.

The topic of the workshop with Jock Serong was Plotting and Structure. He paced us through his ideas, giving examples from his books, and others. I liked his presentation style and the easy logic of his process. His description of his own novels inspired me to want to read them, as I haven’t yet. The Settlement is his most recent and the third of a trilogy.

We did a few exercises that he set for us. One was to put a character into a stressful situation and see how they react. A method often used by Stephen King.

We wrote for ten minutes. Others read out what they had written, and they were great. How quickly they put themselves into this character and the situation. Meanwhile I was still imagining my hero in her setting. Obviously, we have different approaches, but it illustrates my beginner’s ability, compared to the seasoned writers in the club

I was not disheartened though and left with a new ‘to-do’ list and fresh ideas. I made a structure table for my story and will have a look at the Scrivener software. I am now reading On Writing by Stephen King as this seems to always crop up as a ‘must read’ book for writers.

My own story has a new thread and I have plotted out the scenes, ready to start writing.

Writer’s Work

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After attending the Writer’s Workshop this month provided by the Peninsula Writers Club and facilitated by author Kate Mildenhall, I have been quietly contemplating… and not much actual writing.

Group picture – Peninsula Writer’s Club – 7 August 2022

The workshop on Pitching and Publishing was useful, but more so were the exercises and discussions with all of the writers in the room. It was interesting to hear about the progress of other writer’s projects, successes, and not so successful experiences.

I felt energised after the event and came home to prepare my own Annual Writing Work Plan. I am great at writing plans: work plans, project plans, communication plans, staff development plans, implementation plans. And I am happy with the personal creative writing plan that I prepared for myself.

I now have a year’s worth of relevant resources to work through in order to expand and deepen this skill of creative writing. I will list some of them below for reference.

Kate Mildenhall was an excellent facilitator for this workshop and her former career in the teaching profession was evident. I had already read and enjoyed her historical fiction Skylarking and after this workshop read The Mother Fault. I confessed to her that I could see many similarities between her novel Skylarking and my work-in-progress. We both had identified Anne of Green Gables as a story that was of a similar strain to our own works. So, yes, similarities, but totally different tales.

My own story sits idle. But I now have an idea about how to develop my story further. The ideas sit inside my head, as the main story did for years before I downloaded it from my brain through my fingers onto paper and computer and wove it into a comprehensible narrative. I am at the point where I need to sit and get these new ideas onto ‘paper’. I will need to prepare a storyboard like I did for the main part of the story, and then plot the scenes and weave the new scenes into the other part of the story that I have already completed. So, while the creative ideas continue to percolate in my head, I write lists of things to do, and read books about writing.

Here are some resources (in no particular order) that I have incorporated into my Annual Writing Work Plan (some I have read and listened to already*):

BOOKS ABOUT WRITING

  • Save the Cat! Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody*                                                  
  • The Artists Way by Julia Cameron*
  • The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron*                                                        
  • Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark *                            
  • Use Your Words: A Myth-Busting, No-Fear Approach to Writing by Catherine Deveny       
  • Everything I Know About Writing by Annie Dillard                                                                              
  • Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert*                                
  • Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg*                               
  • Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg*                                                   
  • Searching for The Secret River by Kate Grenville                                 
  • Ten Things About Writing: Build Your Story One Word at A Time by Joanne Harris *
  • Night Fishing by Vicki Hastrich                                   
  • On Writing by Stephen King                                                        
  • Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, Keep Going by Austin Kleon                                              
  • The Writer Laid Bare by Lee Koffman                                                     
  • Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott                                                          
  • The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy                                                          
  • Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum                                          
  • Writing Your Life by Patti Miller*                                                              
  • How to be an Artist by Jerry Saltz                                                              
  • A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders                                                         
  • The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr                                                 
  • The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp                                                           
  • The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Tredinnick
  • The Luminous Solution by Charlotte Wood                                          
  • The Writer’s Room by Charlotte Wood                                                   
  • How Fiction Works by James Wood         

PODCASTS

  • Magic Lessons by Elizabeth Gilbert*
  • The First Time by Katherine Collette and Kate Mildenhall
  • The Garret: Writers on Writing by Astrid Edwards             
  • The Writers Room by Charlotte Wood
  • Ruts and Routines by Madeline Dore
  • How to Fail by Elizabeth Day
  • Keeping a Notebook by Nina LaCour
  • Writer’s Routine by Dan Simpson
  • Between the Covers: Conversations with Writers by David Naimon
  • So, You Want to Be a Writer by Valerie Khoo and Vic Writers Centre
  • First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing by Mitzi Rapkin
  • James and Ashley Stay at Home by James Watson and Ashley Blunt          
  • The Screenwriting Life by Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna       
  • Dead & Buried by Carly Godden and Lee Hooper*

SOME OTHER RESOURCES