General Chat

30 years Jen...wow ..wish i had discovered writing 30 years ago...

i will be 65 in August and have been writing for about 18 months, never submitted anything to be published.

xx

I'd always wanted to write, but never felt I could seriously. I was often intimidated by good authors, especially the likes of Stephen King, who ironically actually inspired me to write after reading his book 'On Writing'.

I've had a couple of letters published, and years ago a piece in the parish magazine which I was particularly proud of. I couldn't even tell you what it was about now lol. But none of my actual writing has ever been published.

I decided to take a creative writing course to learn the craft and hone what skills I have, and to see if I 'have what it takes'. I'm now writing way out of my comfort zone and struggling a bit with it, but that is down to confidence. I can't wait to progress from non-fiction to fiction, but it will be some time yet.

It's taken me 50 years to take the plunge, but I think it's never too late to start, or start again.

Hi Teresa, I thought about a Creative Writing course, what was it like?

The thing is, anything that stretches you is good for you. I took up card making, and enjoyed that and slowly (so I am told) have got better at it. I then took up scrap booking, firstly to scrap pages of my Family History and I enjoyed that and still do. I wrote my life story, not to get published but to give to our Grandchildren later on and I enjoyed that. Although not published it has been well read on GR. And I keep going back to it to 'polish it'. Every time I go on holiday I write an account of what we have done and that is used in the two correspondence magazines I belong to. And therefore could not resist the chance to join in the writing group to see if I can write/learn to write.
I am learning a lot from advice given and from all your contributions. Am struggling at the moment to write poetry but we will see how that comes out, my first love is prose and mainly non fiction.

Really good Helen, it tests you, but there is plenty of feedback and guidance to help you. Choose carefully though. If you can get this month's Writers Forum magazine, there is an article about creative writing courses, as there are a variety of them to choose from.

I'm with the Writer's Bureau, doing the full comprehensive writing course, which covers all sorts of writing, from non-fiction articles and books, through short fiction, novels, writing for TV and radio, plays, childrens books, and others. The tutors are brilliant, and are all accomplished writers themselves.

When I was a child I wanted to be a writer (or a librarian lol) , but from the age of 16 to 35 I wrote very little, apart from one year when I went to evening class to sit an English O' level.When i was 35 I went to college on a 2 year diploma course ( A levels basically ) in History and English ..and found I COULD actually write 2000 word essays :) Both my English tutors on the course are published writers, one poems and plays, the other poetry and now 3 books ( a series) .

I write for pleasure , or more accurately because something just has to be written .

I want to write what I prefer to read I suppose , a novel, but maybe that is too ambitious and that is why I have lots of unfinished 'starts'...maybe short pieces suit my temperament better?

In case anyone doesn't know I'm 52 :)

Rose xx

I think you are all very talented and I am enjoying reading everything.I don't normally like poetry but have enjoyed those Love Poems lol,especially the first one !!!

i started writing for the first time in Sept 2008 when i couldn't get on to my usual art course. i enrolled at my local college in a class on Wednesday mornings , but you would not believe how much i learned, how to write in different genres, plays for stage or tv ,poems, novels, excercises.. we crammed it all in and did lots of homework resulting in us all attaining level 2 OCN
I wanted to do level 3 last year but the college didn't have a tutor for that level and i though OU would be a bit stressful to keep with, so i joined my art class again last September and a local writing group of about 12 of us..which i enjoy as it is a social evening out as well..

About 15 years ago I wrote loads of stuff, I couldn't stop, stories and poetry (the latter very bad!) and thoroughly enjoyed it. But then I stopped and haven't written anything for a long time. This is a great opportunity to start off again and I am really enjoying the different styles of everyone.

Thank-you Teresa, I will try and get hold of it.

I have been writing since I was achild, my most famous being a steamy teenage novel at school, lol, that kept my friends amused for a whole term!!!! I had a few letters published in magazine years ago.

Seriously, it's been something I've wanted to get into again for about the last 10 years or so but the tricky bit is getting started, isn't it? So this group seems like a good idea to help dust off the cobwebs!

I'm 51 and live near Tenterden in Kent.

I have never written anything except for a record of my time in Greece as a Nanny when I was 18 ,leaving home for the first time.I wish I knew what happened to my 'book'.It is too long ago now to be able to write things from the heart.I will just keep those memories in my head lol.

Well I seem to have been writing a few short poems but I am not terribly pleased with them. I like to read poetry but not sure about writing it, way out of my comfort zone.

Look forward to seeing them Ann (that's if GR lets me post this reply lol...2nd try)
xx

Tomorrow maybe if I pluck up courage, willing to receive guidance.

I haven't attempted poetry yet, I can think of words that rhyme, but forming them into a half decent poem is another matter. I don't understand the technicalities of poetry enough to write it.

I have to admit I do have one that sort of rhymes but I dug it out from some time back, an attempt I made for poets pot (remember that?) The others do not rhyme and are probably technically rubbish but I have not got a clue. (They are not long!)

Teresa, forget the technicalities until after you write some...and even then they aren't necessarily any help.

I can absolutely reccommend "Stephen Fry's book, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, is a guide to writing poetry."

It tackles all the compexities of 'iambic pentameter' rhyme, free verse etc...and also shows that a lot of the great poetry ignores the rules or 'bends' them :)

Look at any anthology and you will find poems that don't look like poems.... I like poems that rhyme usually, but my favourite is a non -rhyming one, 'Fern Hill ' by Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas - Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heyday of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it, was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

poems do not have to rhyme..most of mine are freeform

just write from your heart and let it flow into phrases.. then you will have a poem

xx

( that's what i do anyway)

and this one that rhymes on 2nd and fourth line


Walter De la Mare. 1873–

90. Nod

SOFTLY along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.

His drowsy flock streams on before him,
Their fleeces charged with gold,
To where the sun's last beam leans low
On Nod the shepherd's fold.

The hedge is quick and green with briar,
From their sand the conies creep;
And all the birds that fly in heaven
Flock singing home to sleep.

His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,
Yet, when night's shadows fall,
His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,
Misses not one of all.

His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,
The waters of no-more-pain;
His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,
"Rest, rest, and rest again."

and this that rhymes on first and second line, then again on third and fourth.

'Timothy Winters' Charles Causley

Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football-pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.

When teacher talks he won't hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he's not even heard of the Welfare State.

Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kithen floor
And they say there aren't boys like him anymore.

Old Man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy's dosed with an aspirin.

The welfare Worker lies awake
But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.

At Morning Prayers the Master helves
for children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"

So come one angel, come on ten
Timothy Winters says "Amen
Amen amen amen amen."
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen

Charles Causley