Knicks

Good luck!!

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]

I agree – using I Remember to find a voice is a super idea. I shall be pinching that one for sure.

I love your I Remember, and particularly the I don’t remember popped in the middle. It’s interesting to see where the exercise takes us.

I enjoyed the Burroway chapter. There were lots of great suggestions to kick start ideas and, like Woolleybeans, I think I shall have to summarise them before they slip away. I’ve seen free writing suggested many times but never tried it. Perhaps now is the time to give it a go.

I struggled to understand the gorgeousness of the pieces in the Le…[Read more]

What a fab idea to use the I remember exercise to find a character’s voice. I shall do that in future. Your ‘I remember’ is very lovely and conjures up so many scenes and senses. It needed several reads to take it all in.

Thank you! I have to admit I developed a bit of a soft spot for wee Jonny!

I’ve only ever used the I Remember exercise for finding a character’s voice before so it felt quite different doing it for myself. I still think doing it for a character is more useful for any actual piece of writing. But I guess this is good for simply getting yourself…[Read more]

Finally read all of Chapter 1 in the Burroway book. It made lots of sense and I can already feel the details slipping away from me… To that end, I am going to try writing myself some summaries of the readings and see if they help it go into my memory better.

Blimey – you did well to get all that dialogue down, Raine! Loving the accent in it. And I remember is so poignant – some of what you’ve written seems so matter-of-fact, yet it is still so full of emotion. Like it.

I’ve always got a soft spot for Kipling’s style – it is so much fun to read aloud to small people. As for the really strong dialect sample (not got my book with me so can’t remember which one that was – about the frog!), I can admire it and enjoy its differentness … but for anything beyond flash length, I’d really have to care about the…[Read more]

WOW. I’ve been out of the Den for these v busy last few weeks rushing around UK and Bulgaria and have just popped in.

THANK YOU @woolleybeans and @raine! I’m so appreciative that you’ve both gone ahead and applied scientific clarity and teacherly experience to this huge project and marshalled it into a manageable form. I am SO KEEN and very…[Read more]