A British seaside town at night
Creative Writes visited a U3A (University of the Third Age) group in Essex last week. The creative writing group have been meeting weekly for a while and invited me along to offer some new ideas and a different approach.
We had a great morning of writing and laughter! There were lots of questions about the Creative Writes approach and much tongue biting when feedback was almost uttered!!
There was a mixture of exercises – some focussing on the more personal stories and others on creating new characters. We also dabbled into the non literal thinking exercises – with the group working in pairs to create a list of words and phrases associated with summer and then I asked them to write a poem/prose piece without including any of these words or phrases. There were communal groans when I revealed the task – after the lists had been written of course (there had been a similar reaction at the Creative Writes workshop during the Leytonstone Arts Festival recently!). The character work was a mega fast five minute write – in response to portrait postcards. The results were incredible (although I couldn’t possibly offer feedback!).
Try the above exercises and let me know how you get on!