Fiona

Andrew Wille sends his regards to the group and says if we have any questions please ask. I think he’s posting bit of additional stuff soon on his website.

Thanks, Raine.

Love the dialogue, Raine. Did you do that as you listened?

The I Remember is highly evocative! It’s turned into a piece about your Grandad, hasn’t it?

Thanks, Bella. Tomorrow I’m spending some time in a coffee shop with my six-week-old grandson and a notebook and pencil. I’m hoping for some lightness and humour in my eavesdropping!

Appreciating hugs, tissues, tea, chocolate biscuits.

I’m sorry this is a sad piece. Perhaps this has something to do with why I’m feeling emotional about my writing.

Feel like I’ve got here when everyone else is leaving…
It’s been a funny couple of days, hasn’t it? What with Ath’s comp and these ‘I remembers’ some unexpected emotions have floated to the surface.

This served as a reminder of the things we go through as children. It’s quite harrowing, in a way, although thank goodness for Glenn’s mum!

Love the Scotsness of it (made up a word). The now, right enough, a wee bit.
My favourite bits of the I remember are the bus that didn’t come and his old hands cradling nothing.

I’ve used I remember for character, and I’m planning to do it again for my brand new novel in gestation.

I love this, Bella. I wonder – if you’d been asked to write about that incident without doing it as an ‘I remember’, do you think it would have turned out differently in other ways than simply not starting each sentence with that phrase? I agree it’s like a poem, and I especially like the line about Glenn’s mum who also ‘remembered’.

This is wonderful! I remember kissing a photo of David Cassidy which my friend had stuck to the mirror in her bedroom. (Donny Osmond was hers.) And there’s nothing wrong with wearing a bra AND a vest now – but there would have been then!

Well. I’ve read the Le Guin and Burroway chapters and have had a strong emotional reaction. Not to the gorgeous passages. But to the prospect of this whole MA, to notebooks and journals and free-writing, and sharing with you lot and telling the stories that matter to me. I’m sixty years old and I’m sitting here crying! Don’t worry – I won’t use…[Read more]

Right! Write! Read! I have 2.5 hours this morning, so I’m diving in. Splash!

Love the authenticity of the dialogue. And I really, really want to know what Jonny has 68 of!

Noice. I like how the I remember sequence in this case tells the story – I’ve only ever used it as disjointed memories previously, all loosely connected to a theme. This puts a totally different spin on the exercise. I had a similar experience, but in my case it was tapioca… 😉

I read the gorgeousness passages out whilst in the bath. One of my dogs came and listened, but I can’t say he looked overly impressed…

I think I see what she is saying about them, in terms of them having the sounds and so on as part of the prose, but I didn’t really like two of them on a personal level. The third one was the one that struck me…[Read more]