I clambered out of the four poster, but at altogether the wrong angle, so blowed if I didn't go careering straight into the wall. I tell you. I tried to ignore it and dragoon the well-known Freedman stiff upper lip into service, but the old noggin was having none of it.
Read More“You’ve been speaking to that blasted Freedman, haven’t you?!”
Read MoreThis course will look at examples of constraints created by some of the Oulipo’s main proponents, with work including the Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, the Metro Poem, and others. Course participants will have the opportunity to try out several techniques, and invent one or two of their own.
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Photo by Terry Freedman
This is an updated version of an article I published on this website in 2015. In my experience, it absolutely applies to artists, teachers and other creatives as well as writers or consultants.
Read MoreI’m familiar with a few of the stories in this volume, which features some well-known names such as Raymond Carver, George Saunders, Grace Paley, Ursula Le Guin and Susan Sontag.
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In 2005 I was approached by a publisher who wanted to publish an updated edition of a book that had been very successful, but needed updating. I ended up turning them down
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From Unsplash
I love the subtitle: A history of thinking on paper (my emphasis). I do think there’s much to be said for writing on paper, and there is no paucity of research showing the benefits of analogue over the digital approach.
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The original page containing my article, somewhat mangled after decades of languishing in a box
At the tender age of 17 I was in college, and a student representative on a body called the Joint Consultative Committee. This was a means by which the Principal could learn about the concerns of students in order to, hopefully, address them.
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Labyrinth
by Ideogram
In Escapism: a 50 word prose poem I presented readers with a prose poem constructed in accordance with a constraint, and invited them to suggest what that constraint might be. Here’s the poem again, followed by the solution.
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Here are a few of the books I’ve been sent for review recently, covering AI, maps, time travel and language.
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I’ve provided this (a) as an example of how a manual should be set out and (b) in case you just happen to have a working Atari with this software on it!
Read MoreThe most difficult thing for a saxophone learner to do is open the case and pick up the instrument every day.
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The term “automatic writing” is usually associated with a particular psychic phenomenon. However, software now exists that can take data, such as sports results, and generate reports from it.
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Picture by Ideogram
So the great prolificist had run out of ideas, eh? Well actually no: I had the opposite problem. I’d had so many ideas and corresponding false starts that I was floundering in a sea of ideas.
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Saxophonist, by Terry Freedman
On Friday I picked up my sax for the first time in a month. I attempted to play Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. It started off ok-ish, but then the timing went and so did the right notes. Well, you can’t have everything I suppose.
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My Jane Austen collection
Since I read Northanger Abbey when I was in my twenties, I have to say that in the interim it has much improved. Clearly, Jane must have taken a creative writing course or two because it is now much funnier, more cutting and more modern, what with her stepping outside the story to comment on her characters and the novel form itself.
Read MoreThe following story has been written in accordance with a constraint, in true Oulipian style. The Oulipo is a writing movement based on constraints, such as omitting the use of a particular letter when composing a text.
Read MoreIf your interest in the Oulipo goes beyond simply trying out their techniques, and you wish to learn about the context in which it was conceived and the developments in went through, you will find this book very useful.
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Saxophonist, by Terry Freedman
Writing in different voices, genres or styles is a really good way of improving one’s skills.
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