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Writing Once Upon a Time

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birdboy-susan-lee-kerrFascinating. I asked in Facebook if I dare re-tell a fairy/folk tale in my new novel, and a whole bevy of friends from widely varied walks of life urged me:  Yes!  They are witness to the eternal appeal of fairytales (or more correctly folktales) and it was great encouragement to embarking on the writing journey. I’m delighted to discover #folklorethursday on Twitter, yet more witness.

Thing is, the novel is also a crime story, but with no gore, so really it’s more of a mystery… with some police procedure and the main character sucked in to being an amateur detective. She’s a story-telling therapist. This brings in archetypes, so I get to treat myself to my shelves of Jung, Joseph Campbell, hero’s journey… as well as Grimm, Jane Yolen, Marina Warner and more.

A Body of Knowledge is set in Chiswick. Great fun to see the place where I live through my character’s eyes and sensibilities. So now you are on the writing journey with me as I blog on about the everyday struggles of writing a novel. The fellow pictured here is Birdren Boy, one of my sculptural papiermache pieces. He’s on a quest. So am I. Are you?

 

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Writing and gin

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The joys of being a local author. Not sure what great grandfather Ephraim M (click here) would say, but he is coming with me to the start of the Chiswick Book Festival. And you can come too, if you can get to Waterstones, London W4 on Wednesday 14 Sept, 7-9 pm. The idea, organised by The Chiswick Calendar, is lubricated by Sipsmith, our local ginnery. Lots of local authors, loads of local readers, meet, mingle, and chatter.

the-young-ephraim-m-epstein

The Chiswick Calendar by the way is doing wonders for the local creatives — vid-interviews with local authors, local photographers, local artists, whole galleries-ful. Plus of course weekly handsome newsletter of what’s on. And great daily local photos. Have a look Here.

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Writing and teaching it

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List six objects you remember from childhood… Life Listing exercise, a great starter-off. To see the whole of it, click here for the link to my teachingcreativewriting blog. It features a termly freebie class exercise from the Matrix book, and an archive of others.

Yes, September! Back-to-school, back to planning creative writing classes. Pleased to say that the paperback full of exercises & ideas is now half-price, £7.00. The e-version is even less. Get writing, get planning.

 

Click here for Creative Writing: the Matrix paperback available only in UK. Or click here for Creative Writing: the Quick Matrix ebook version of selected goodies from the print book, available worldwide.

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Writing locally

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Strolling around in summerly bliss imbibing local sights. This stone sculpture I love, on someone’s lawn for all to see.  At the moment I’m thinking it could be an image of inner creativity. Wish I knew the sculptor’s name. My new novel is set right here where I live; makes me hyper alert to my surroundings.2016-08-06 16.12.13

There’s going to be a whole mass of public creativity at a mingle of Local Authors at Waterstones W4 on Wednesday 14 September 7-9 pm. I’ve got to polish up a 1 minute wowzer for the occasion, and so do all the other local authors. It’s going to be a pitch-off! Or a pitch slam? It’s a kick-off to the Chiswick Book Festival featuring some local and many national authors. Click here for The Chiswick Calendar freebie local authors evening and here to connect with the book fest.

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Your Responses: Why You Write Poetry

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Why haiku? So glad Charlotte asked. And I’ve added this summer season’s haiku to the ‘so still’ page.

Charlotte Digregorio's avatarCharlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog

This post is in response to my question to readers and followers on why they write poetry. I hope you enjoy it and that it gives you insights and inspiration.

And, to those poets who took the time to respond, many thanks.

Susan Lee Kerr

 When a haiku moment arrives, that is a heightened or deepened awareness, I need to catch it, a kind of mindfulness-in-action. And I want to convey it, to share that moment. Then the crafting into words, the catching and conveying itself, is an inner finding, deeply renewing, regrounding, calming. I used to write other poetry too, but now it’s haiku only. And prose — have just published The Extraordinary Dr Epstein, the true life of a remarkable 19th century immigrant, told as a novel… he’s my great grandfather, physician, farmhand, ship’s surgeon, founder of South Dakota University. From my long time as a…

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Writing a book giveaway

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… and figuring out how to get a Goodreads widget onto this blogsite. A) easy-peasy and fun, especially when you want to give a book (two books!) away to Goodreads’ huge bunch of avid readers. B) help!

So, you’ll just have to go to Goodreads to look for yourself. It has an author page, and of course a page on the book in question (The Extraordinary Dr Epstein). And if you are a writer and/or a reader and you don’t know Goodreads you are missing out on a very good thing. To go there, click here.   

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Writing tweets

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Joined Twitter-world two weeks ago after years of resistance. Surprise, it’s really fun! And hones your writing/thinking skills. How best to hook interest when I’m trying to build excitement in the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Lissa (because it features in a chapter of my Dr Epstein book)? And do it in even less than the famed 140 characters, because the link to a url takes space if you want to feature your blogsite. [Thank you Sue of PageturnerPR for the tip on shortening urls using Bitly]

Nautilus Bird, Susan Lee Kerr

Nautilus Bird, Susan Lee Kerr

So the writing/thinking is one thing. And then as a recipient of tweets I’ve learned I can follow lots of history-minded, even military-minded tweeters, to say ‘look at this’. Probably you know about this already?? In theory I did, but in actuality when @thehistoryguy, Dan Snow no less, tweets back a like or someone even retweets it — ooo it feels like somebody is listening. Yes, yes, a lot like Facebook, but faster. Not that I’ll stick with militaries for long, as that’s not my personal thing. When this chapter is done I’ll ease up, maybe start tweeting haiku and creative writing thoughts.  And tweeting to the #amwriting people. And following fav authors. Publishers. Genres. And art. And I wonder if papiermache is there. And…

…of course, it’s a great time-user. But fast, fun and stimulating. Still learning. I will see if I can put a Twitter thingy on this site. Oh; seems to work the other way, YOU can share THIS via your  Twitter, but if you’ve read this far, you are not on Twitter yet. You might be able to peek if you click here but might be you have to actually join ’em to see ’em. See, I told you I was still learning. So tweet-tweet, here’s a bird I made earlier, just for fun. Looks more like squawking than tweeting?

 

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Creative Writing Short Session

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Many thanks for this Lynn, delighted the Matrix book helped you. Hope it’s a brilliant session — share how it went!

lynnbradshaw's avatarlynn.bradshaw.multimedia.

I am about to give my first ever Creative Writing Session, as part of the staff development day at work. I have been using the wonderful Creative Writing: the Quick Matrix: Selected exercises & ideas for teachers by Susan Lee Kerr to help me prepare. Even though I have been at the chalk face for 30 years,  I am still apprehensive about starting a new training session.

Ms Kerr has produced a wonderful book which is full of great tips on how to set the classroom up, limit the amount of extra work you do, deal with students and get started on your creative writing course. Reading through chapter one has proved very instructive. I like her ideas on how to structure the course – they are very informative and helpful.

Following her advice, I am going to start with a brief introduction of myself as a writer.Then do…

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