Christ, I feel washed out...I know that’s not the best choice of words considering I’ve just returned from teaching creative writing to three classes of kids at a Catholic School, but hey – I really am a bit knackered. This is the first time I’ve taught creative writing to anyone, let alone three classes of teenagers, and while it went very well considering (considering it was done largely on the hoof and without any prior experience) it was a tiring day – though I admit this was probably compounded by the severe lack of sleep during the previous week (just training for fatherhood, you see). Despite that, and despite being a little nerve-wracking in the preparation, I’m very glad that I did it.
As a publicity event i.e. selling books, it didn’t do so well, but then in retrospect that perhaps wasn’t the point. I could have done the hard sell - it could have been just about the books, but I kept pulling back from that. I thought it was too good an opportunity to impart some experience of writing and how I write, rather than what I write, to children with a love for writing and reading.
I wanted to give something back, you see.
Many years ago, I remember a number of poets and writers coming to our school and doing similar things. Mostly they were a massive benefit (apart from one poet who insisted on preaching her politics through the entire session and I learnt pretty much nothing about writing or poetry at all). It was fantastic just to have someone there, who had a career in something I truly loved doing - outside of school as well as in lessons. As Hagelrat mentioned in the comments to the previous blog entry, back then not many writers went to schools. That these writers chose our school to visit, I believed was a privilege. It was inspiring to listen to them, to be near them, to have an example of writing for a living right there in the class-room just a few yards away.
It felt real.
But on Monday I didn’t want it to be just real. I also wanted to help, to tell the pupils that I was pretty much like them at their age, and with determination I’ve got to where I am. To show how it is possible to find inspiration from anything, even the ordinary; to write effective momentum in prose; that knowing the conventions of genre is important so that you can break those rules. And more importantly, to believe in one’s self and one’s writing, even at that age. By all accounts, and by what the students were saying to their teachers after the lessons, I achieved that – or rather I achieved that with massive assistance from Lee Harris, who articulated my thoughts perhaps better than I could mumble.
But it doesn’t end there. The short stories that were started during those lessons may (or may not) become part of the pupils’ final GCSE course-work, so I’ll be interested to see how that goes. And on top of that, I’ve agreed that pupils from St Edmunds can send me their short stories. As a rule I don’t tend to read stories submitted direct to me via the blog or website because I simply don’t have the time to read them (maybe if I become a full-time writer, I can change that policy - I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep), but this is different because by holding the creative writing lessons on Monday, I’ve already opened the doors to this school and they are talented kids.
If I can inspire just one of them to pursue a career in writing, then I’ve really achieved something.
Posts
