Back to the Classroom -- NOT about school visits

It was 2011. I was a full-time teacher with one novel published and prize-winning, and another due the following year. I had just signed up for an Arvon YA course with Celia Rees and Linda Newbery, and I was so excited that I shared the information with an acquaintance who was an aspiring writer. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t like that, being told what to do. I would never go to something like that.’ She remains unpublished. (And by the way, the course was amazing, and many of us are still friends, with several now published or well on the way.)

all will be revealed...

This isn’t a contribution to the Can Writing be Taught debate: it’s my experience as both learner and teacher that talent can’t be influenced by a teacher or mentor or contact with others, but that many elements of craft and language-awareness can.

I love learning. I was a swot at school and I worked and played hard at university (four degrees at two universities). When writing became a big part of my life, it was natural to me to seek out places where I could learn about that too.

Back in 2001, I signed up for a course called Novel Writing at the local FE college. I had, then, a very rough unfinished first draft of an unpublishable novel, whose progress was erratic because back in those days I used to write ‘when I felt like it’ or ‘when I was inspired’. (Shrieks of silent mirth.) The very first thing the tutor gave us was an exercise in the correct use of the semi-colon. I had a PhD in English and to be honest, I was a bit offended. Surely, I thought, people on a novel writing course don’t need basic punctuation lessons? (OK, more shrieks of silent mirth: I was young and naïve.)

Despite the bad beginning, the course was useful, if for no other reason than that it gave me an incentive to make weekly progress, and introduced me to the importance of giving and receiving feedback. Now, when I meet and mentor aspiring writers I always encourage them to seek out something similar, and I often feel annoyed at their (not infrequent) reluctance. Don’t they know how lucky they are, I fume, to have access to so many courses? I give them Arvon brochures and tell them honestly how my first Arvon course taught me more about writing than a subsequent M.A. in Creative Writing.

Recently I was interviewed as part of an initiative of the NI Arts Council to identify areas of need for arts professionals, and the main thing I could think of was the need for professional development for published writers. There are plenty of courses and mentoring opportunities for aspiring and emerging writers, but anything beyond that tends to be generated by writers themselves, often informally. Of course there must be writers who feel they don’t need professional development, and good luck to them, but I’m sure there are many like me, with a few successful books under our books but no idea how things will work out in the future, who would love to be able to keep on learning. After all, professional ballet dancers take daily classes; athletes train. Yes, of course I learn on my own. Every book I read – and write –  teaches me something. But there is something magical about being in a class, with a wise guide, and other learners to share experiences with.

Books are wonderful, but sometimes you need people. I’m teaching myself the guitar: I’ve always sung but this is my first attempt at learning to accompany myself. I have a reasonable ear, so I wince and try again when it sounds horrible, and I have made progress. After six weeks, when I could play a song all the way through at normal speed without embarrassing gaps while I fumbled for the next chord, I let my stepfather (a brilliant guitarist) hear me. My chord changes were grand, he assured me – but my strumming was wrong. I had been so focussed on the more difficult thing that I hadn’t realised how badly I was doing something equally important. If he hadn’t shown me, I would never have known – even with a lifetime of watching other people play. Even with a good Teach Yourself Guitar book. Sometimes you need people.

sometimes you need people 

That’s why I was so thrilled when, last week, Arvon announced a course especially for its own tutors. I signed up immediately and, given that it’s in January, I’m just praying not to be snowed in, so that I can go and be a student again.

Every day is different. I love it! - Linda Strachan

My shed- 'Tuscany'

One of the best things about being a writer is that no two days are the same. I love having the chance to stay locked away in my shed at the end of the garden, losing myself in my characters and their world, and shutting out the everyday things of real life.  
But writing is only part of the picture, soon it comes time to put on the glad rags and go out to meet the readers, and other writers, and do all the other things that are part of being a writer - particularly a children's writer.

I have a lovely time with my books for younger children and I get to spend time with my cuddly friend Hamish McHaggis.  I never thought almost 10 years ago when I started to write the Hamish stories, that I would have such fun or that children would take him to their hearts.

Hamish at Wee Write Children's festival (at Aye Write Book Festival)

Visitor Centre

I love the variety and the moments of delight when something unexpected happens. Recently I received a package in the post of wonderful stories written by a primary school class based around the Hamish McHaggis characters. Each story had a colourful and carefully drawn book cover.  

Sometimes when I visit schools I discover that they have been working on Hamish related activities for an entire term, often using the great free classroom resources   based on the Hamish series and produced by the Scottish Book Trust. Their classrooms are full of all kinds of wonderful pictures, letters to and from Hamish and models of Hamish's Whirry Bang (vehicle), the Loch Ness Monster and their own visitor's centre. 

 From 'The Search for the Loch Ness Monster'

With Hamish illustrator Sally J Collins

Tattie Bogles (Scarecrows) 

Versions of Hamish's Whirry Bang

Hamish's little Hoggle (home) in Coorie Doon

This weekend I will be speaking to a sell-out crowd of Hamish fans at the Coastword Festiival in Dunbar, East Lothian.


But Hamish is just one aspect of my life as a writer.  At Coastword Festival I will also be speaking about my YA novels, about Joyriding, (Spider) Knife crime (Dead Boy Talking) and Don't Judge Me which involves fire-setting, quite a change from stories about cuddly Hamish McHaggis!

Although I love speaking to little children I also enjoy the challenge of writing and speaking to a young adult audience. But I suppose in some ways the challenge is the same.  It is my job to be saying something that will grab their interest, whether they are 2 or 8, 12  or 18.

Auchtermuchty

I enjoy travelling,  and visiting libraries and schools on my own is great but I do love it when I get the chance to meet up with other writers as part of an organised event.  
Having the opportunity to visit schools abroad is wonderful and I have found that children love stories wherever they live and often ask the same questions whether they are in Cairo or New Zealand, Scotland, England or Wales.

Mass Lobby for School Libraries in Edinburgh

Writers also need to have a voice and to get out and about to promote and protect facilities for our readers and supporters. Independent bookshops and public libraries (and their librarians), and school librarians are under threat and we must raise our voices to support them.

Another aspect of my writing life is being a creative writing tutor and I get great pleasure in assisting aspiring writers, in all areas of writing, to realise their potential. I found tutoring the week-long Arvon Foundation courses an amazing challenge, with so many different kinds of people at all stages in their writing. 

At Moniack Mhor

I also really enjoy running shorter, day long or weekend courses with adults, such as the Words in The Landscape workshops recently at Moniack Mhor Scotland's Creative Writing Centre, in conjunction with the Abriachan Forest Trust. 
It is important to get any group to work well together and foster a sense of trust, so that people feel they can share their writing for fair and constructive criticism.

I love the scenery I discover on my travels, the wonderful wilds that inspire stories of all kinds.

 And most of all the amazing and interesting people I meet along the way.

I feel privileged to be able to have such a wonderful and varied career. As with anything there are times when things don't go well, frustrations and of course there are disappointments but these are the times when I  go back to my shed and disappear into my writing. By the time I emerge nothing ever seems quite so bad. 



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Linda Strachan is the author of over 60 books for all ages from picture books to teenage novels and the writing handbook Writing For Children  

Her latest YA novel is Don't Judge Me  

Linda  is  Patron of Reading to Liberton High School, Edinburgh 


website:  www.lindastrachan.com
blog:  Bookwords 

Writing Groups and Criticism - Heather Dyer

 

Perhaps you have been following the debate on the merit of creative writing courses in the Guardian recently (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/14/creative-writing-courses-advice-students). It’s a long-running debate and there are valid arguments on both sides. But what interests me at the moment is the value of criticism in creative writing classes – and this goes for criticism in informal writing groups, too.

Personally, I love criticism. I’m greedy for it. I know how hard it is to find someone who can give honest, constructive criticism – criticism that makes you suddenly see the wood from the trees, makes you realize that what you were never quite happy with is just not good enough, and can ask questions in ways that leads you to answers you didn’t know you were looking for.

As writers, we’re standing inside our stories, so it’s difficult to know how they look from the outside. As Kathy Lowinger says, ‘Get your work read because you can’t see yourself dance’. An outside perspective can be invaluable – and offers insights that you wouldn’t get otherwise.

But - having been a member of many writing groups, and a teacher of many creative writing courses, I also know how damaging criticism can be. I come across students who are afraid to read their work in case they receive a negative comment that makes them want to give up (and in this case, I tell them, ‘don’t read’). I come across people who were criticised as children for their creative efforts and were told they were ‘making a mess’ or weren’t ‘doing it properly’ . Needless to say, they haven't tried it since. And I come across writers who want to offer up their work for criticism, but only want positive feedback and defend their work against the slightest criticism.

So I suppose I have concluded the following:

1. A writer shouldn’t share their work until they’re ready for criticism and can take it or leave it without being mortally wounded. This is usually possible only after some time has elapsed after writing it.   
2. A writer should say ‘thanks’ for the feedback they receive, and nothing more. Then they can go home and decide what to do with it. If a writer tries to defend their work, the people giving feedback will quickly stop bothering. 
3. When giving criticism, try and restrict it to the one or two main issues – don’t go on and on. 
4. Try and give other writers the feedback that they are ready for. We can’t judge everyone by the same yardstick – and when I think back to what my writing was like when I first started, I cringe. By working to our strengths and strengthening the positives, the negatives often fall away all by themselves
5. But even when giving feedback to experienced writers, don’t forget the positives. We all like being reminded of what we do well. It makes us want to carry on.

What's your experience of writers' groups? Have I forgotten anything?

http://www.heatherdyer.co.uk