A week in review...
...and what a week it was!
Wednesday was our inaugural Creative Collective meeting and from some people's perspective (insert Physicist), it may have looked like we had just gone out for drinks. I corrected him of course and said no, it was more than that, and he responded 'Oh that's right, you had dinner as well'. Well it was a little more than just an evening with dinner and drinks. There was a lot of discussion and time spent getting acquainted with each other, and with our amazing waiter who looked like Roberto Benigni, but had in fact been his personal waiter in a restaurant when he was writing either a book or film. Our waiter (who was French) certainly knew his wines and V and I had the benefit of his attention when we spent an hour together whilst waiting for the rest of our party to arrive. We both concluded that V has an expensive taste in wine when the wine she was drinking was being sold for $75 per bottle. Myself, on the other hand, would highly recommend Chaeteau Jonc-Blanc Les sens du fruit if you like a full bodied red, still not cheap at $14 a glass, but ooh lala it was good!
After we sat talking for a while, with Paul directing as he has an insatiable desire to know the past history of all he meets, we got a chance to view some of V's artwork first hand, which looked amazing. We then presented a few pieces of our writing around the table for reading and offering feedback. Paul's piece was highly descriptive and he has a very good grasp of language, conjuring a lot of imagery, a vast contrast to my piece which was pacey and light (or has he put it, 'It read like something out of trashy romance novel', believe me, his writing skills are a lot more eloquent than his critiquing suggests :)). My piece was written as an exercise for my writer's workshop Inklings where we had to incorporate food into our writing, which leads me to Thursday evening, my writer's workshop.
I am loving these people and it has only been the second week for me. Carolyn is amazing and she has provided some excellent feedback on my writing as have the others who have been clearly writing a lot longer than I have. Carolyn's background is journalism and teaching and I find the workshops well structured and entertaining. There was about 7 of us all up this week, a couple of new faces (to me anyway) and a few faces not there from last fortnight.
After critiquing my piece, everyone was very eager to know how it will continue and offered a whole slew of suggestions. In all it was very well liked. I needed work on my POV (point of view) as I was in parts, writing in a close first person POV rather than an omniscient point of view so Carolyn gave me some pointers on techniques to change that. Also some excellent pointers on to where I could place dialogue to show the mood of other characters in the scene. She loved my opening, it was strong and used in medias res to create tension right from the beginning and I had great foreshadowing in the piece which will set up the rest of the story nicely. The whole evening left me feeling spurred on to write more and I came away buzzing with ideas but frustrated that I had work the next day before I could get these down on paper...there is always today however.
Well the Physicist is calling, he wants to conduct some sort of experiment in the bedroom...nothing sexy as you would imagine... I have a feeling it will involve gas of some sort. Today is also Netball day, so I had better get moving!
Here's to more awesome weeks.
Until then,
Stay creative
Fatty
xxx
Wednesday was our inaugural Creative Collective meeting and from some people's perspective (insert Physicist), it may have looked like we had just gone out for drinks. I corrected him of course and said no, it was more than that, and he responded 'Oh that's right, you had dinner as well'. Well it was a little more than just an evening with dinner and drinks. There was a lot of discussion and time spent getting acquainted with each other, and with our amazing waiter who looked like Roberto Benigni, but had in fact been his personal waiter in a restaurant when he was writing either a book or film. Our waiter (who was French) certainly knew his wines and V and I had the benefit of his attention when we spent an hour together whilst waiting for the rest of our party to arrive. We both concluded that V has an expensive taste in wine when the wine she was drinking was being sold for $75 per bottle. Myself, on the other hand, would highly recommend Chaeteau Jonc-Blanc Les sens du fruit if you like a full bodied red, still not cheap at $14 a glass, but ooh lala it was good!
After we sat talking for a while, with Paul directing as he has an insatiable desire to know the past history of all he meets, we got a chance to view some of V's artwork first hand, which looked amazing. We then presented a few pieces of our writing around the table for reading and offering feedback. Paul's piece was highly descriptive and he has a very good grasp of language, conjuring a lot of imagery, a vast contrast to my piece which was pacey and light (or has he put it, 'It read like something out of trashy romance novel', believe me, his writing skills are a lot more eloquent than his critiquing suggests :)). My piece was written as an exercise for my writer's workshop Inklings where we had to incorporate food into our writing, which leads me to Thursday evening, my writer's workshop.
I am loving these people and it has only been the second week for me. Carolyn is amazing and she has provided some excellent feedback on my writing as have the others who have been clearly writing a lot longer than I have. Carolyn's background is journalism and teaching and I find the workshops well structured and entertaining. There was about 7 of us all up this week, a couple of new faces (to me anyway) and a few faces not there from last fortnight.
After critiquing my piece, everyone was very eager to know how it will continue and offered a whole slew of suggestions. In all it was very well liked. I needed work on my POV (point of view) as I was in parts, writing in a close first person POV rather than an omniscient point of view so Carolyn gave me some pointers on techniques to change that. Also some excellent pointers on to where I could place dialogue to show the mood of other characters in the scene. She loved my opening, it was strong and used in medias res to create tension right from the beginning and I had great foreshadowing in the piece which will set up the rest of the story nicely. The whole evening left me feeling spurred on to write more and I came away buzzing with ideas but frustrated that I had work the next day before I could get these down on paper...there is always today however.
Well the Physicist is calling, he wants to conduct some sort of experiment in the bedroom...nothing sexy as you would imagine... I have a feeling it will involve gas of some sort. Today is also Netball day, so I had better get moving!
Here's to more awesome weeks.
Until then,
Stay creative
Fatty
xxx
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