

The first, which is at 2pm every Wednesday afternoon, is called What’s Your Story, and is for people who would like to be able to write about an aspect of their own lives. This could be as exciting and dramatic as travelling around the globe on a lawn-mower; or as apparently mundane as bringing up four kids on a cleaner’s wage (like my mother had to once my dad died). I asked them to write about a time they had to do something for the first time, and gave them a sheet of questions to act as prompts. They were free to ignore those questions, but everyone made use of them and I was delighted with the results. My favourite line from the session came from Becky: ‘It’s like trying to get blood from a butterfly.’

View from the Garden Room, where I’m lucky enough to teach.

The second, which runs from 4-6pm, is called The Write Way, and is designed to help with descriptive writing. The format is the same, I give them a sheet of prompting questions, but I also put an object on the table for them to describe:

From my collection of oddities and irresistible.

Once they’d decided what it was, who might own such a thing, where it lives, etc they wrote sumptuous, magical pieces. I say pieces because one participant wrote something akin to abstract art, like a prose poem or a passage from a Neil Gaiman novel, rather than a narrative. I was really impressed by how their imaginations were fired by something that used to hang on my old plum tree in all weathers. It seems true that everyone can write, they just need a little help to loosen their imaginations, and Peter Pan Moat Brae is the perfect place for that.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this afternoon’s sessions…

Published by Eryl Gasper Dick


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      1. Not sure how glam it will be! Dave’s daughter won the prize but can’t go, so she’s passed it on to us. We also get two crates of Badger beer, and the tent to take home. X


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