Creative Writing
Graphic by Terry Freedman
Quite by chance I’ve been reading about bureaucracy recently — such as in customer (dis)service — and it reminded me of North Thames Gas’s attempts to drive me mad. That was many years ago and North Thames Gas doesn’t even exist any more, but even now the mere mention of a gas company starts my nervous twitch going.
Read MoreThis is a transcript of a conversation between Fred Terryman and myself. It’s been lightly edited, with the pauses taken out for ease of reading.
Read More
Oulipo word cloud
Can creative writing be automated (without using A|).
Read MoreHow many ways can you organise a library?
Read MoreHave you ever thought about all the jobs you’ve had, whether paid for or as a volunteer?
Read MoreAn article I wrote for a client is characterised by 24 pieces of data. More correctly: metadata. So what?
Read More
Shoredticth in black and white, by Terry Freedman
The standard advice for writers who are feeling uninspired or blocked is to allow your mind to wander where it will or to just start writing aimlessly to see what happens. Therefore to suggest the opposite approach, that of imposing some constraints on your thinking, seems completely counterintuitive.
Read MoreWhat is writing with constraints? In a nutshell, it means writing according to specific and tight rules. The “official” name for this is Oulipo, which is a French acronym for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle.
Read More
Blogger, by Terry Freedman
Some people say "of course creative writing can be taught", while others say the opposite. I take a slightly more nuanced view.
Read More
time’s running out! Picture created in ImageFX
This collection of work by Gay Talese is utterly brilliant, and contains items that haven’t seen the light of day in a long time.
Read MoreNot everything in life is black and white -- but perhaps more of it should be.
Read More
Creative writing class
Reading each student’s work each week, at a rate of ten minutes each, took nearly two and a half hours. Thinking of suitable comments, adding them in to the appropriate place in Google Classroom, and updating my spreadsheet markbook took another hour and a half.
Something had to be done.
Read MoreLast week I announced a competition to win a copy of A Town Without Time, the new collection of work by Gay Talese. Here is the link again, this time with an unrestricted link!
Read MoreHere are seven handy techniques with which to enrich your writing. Used sparingly, they can be very effective at bringing a piece to life.
Read More
Three creative writing experiments: stories written in the hardboiled style.A short review, plus a chance to win a copy of this new book.
Read More
A writer, by Terry Freedman
Next week I’ll be teaching a course called The 60 Minute Writer. The title always makes me smile because it sounds like I teach people how to be a writer in an hour. It reminds me of a joke by, I think, Frank Carson…
Read More
An A minor harmonica, by Terry Freedman
Poetry writing is not my thing. At least, I don't think it is. The reason for my uncertainty is that although I attended a one-day poetry class some years ago, the feedback provided by the tutor was not very detailed, to say the least.
Read More
drawing of a fish, by Terry Freedman
This is a piece I wrote during a flash fiction course several years ago. It’s exactly 90 words long.
Read More
