Thea

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.

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… 😉

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.

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]