St Deiniols in November

Since I would like to call myself a budding writer, I thought I would try and be verbose and eloquant in my account of the day at St Deiniol's Library. So here goes...

We went to St. Deiniol's and it was dead good. Sorry, I would say a bit more but I have a very poor imagination and everyone made me use up what little I had yesterday in what could only be described as a totally inspiring day. (Well, maybe not 'only described'; it could have been described as 'a frosty, foggy November morning' or 'Saturday'.)

The library at St. Deiniol's is a beautiful building in a beautiful setting. As someone (it may have been Chris) pointed out, the library looks like you expect old libraries to look. Bill said it reminded him of Terry Pratchett and he half expected an Orangutan to be swinging across the shelves. Unfortunately the bannister upstairs was loose so I couldn't go swinging (unless you count Bill's workshop where I teamed up with Joyce and Steph with Tom - but that's another story).

Polly led the first workshop and had us sniffing ladies' handbags - something I told the judge I would never do again - and eating fruit. Quite how this prompted Tom to write of witches' cats, or Bill to write about black bikinis, I'm not sure.

I went next and adopted a similar tactic to my normal teaching, i.e. don't prepare anything, say very little and let everyone else do the work. There were some brilliant pieces of work throughout the day, but Bob's political apology was superb. He clearly has a future in avoiding saying anything.

Lunch was lovely. I have to say, for £20 we were well cared for in terms of the room, the food and drinks and just having the opportunity to write undistracted for so long.

After lunch, Bob did his bit. Bob's was much more of a taught lesson than the morning's sessions and made a nice contrast. Instead of writing a finished piece, we had to think about a character's journey, develop a character and develop a plot idea. This was very stimulating and provided us all with good ideas for future works.

Bill's session changed the mood again. He had us working in pairs on dialogue and some of the work had everyone in hysterics, as did Polly's comment towards the end of the session that she'd finally worked out what was going on. It took me a while to recover from Tom rolling about on the floor begging for a sick note while Steph told him he wasn't cut out to be a fitness instructor.

Christine's workshop at the end was also very inspiring. She had us all packing a Gladstone bag with six items. Tom read a beautiful piece about Christening gifts, Steph packed herself in the bag and Chris did his first piece that wasn't about sex. The variety of the sessions and the running order, which happened (partly by coincidence) to be perfect made the whole thing work so well.

Both Steph and I are so glad that we went and feel so inspired that we may even get round to writing something one day. Thanks must go to Joyce for organising this fantastic event.

Thanks from G.O.E.S.

I've "borrowed" one of the pictures for the GOES blog. I would happily have used more but downloading them seems to take for ever. Is Bob really recoiling from handing over the money? Am I really so grasping? And whatever is Joyce doing in the background? Is it time for my medication ...

New link for Poets and Pints pictures

Changed the album now so that anyone in the group can add pictures - see the vrwg message I sent for instructions.

Non-members can access the pictures for viewing and downloading at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/vrwg2008/VRWGPoetsAndPintsAugust2008

VRWG Poets and Pints August 2008 -pictures

To see pictures from the night go to

http://picasaweb.google.com/gough.chris1/VRWGPoetsAndPintsAugust2008

keep looking as more are being added!

A full write up expected here soon!

Anthology Promotion

Today, Borders at Cheshire Oaks kindly gave us a spot near the entrance of the store to promote and sell our Antholgy. Thanks to the usual generous support of VRWG members, we sold eight copies of the Anthology - plus a further three to Borders for sale in the store. In addition to selling the Anthologies, we also received several enquiries about the Writing Group - and some welcome interest in the G.O.E.S charity. I am now going to attempt to attach a couple of photographs to this Blog - but I will also publish this on the usual site for those who are not blogging yet.

Competition picture is on my other blog

http://chrisgough.blogspot.com/

St Deiniol's Day

See the write up on Chris's blog - see the link in left hand column!

A new venture

This blog offers the members of the group the opportunity to write about anything they like to do with the VRWG, its members, the area, writing in general, basically ANYTHING that you want to share.

It complements the Yahoo site by producing a more interactive experience. It does not have such comprehensive messaging facilities as the Yahoo group.

In effect, by having a link on the Yahoo site and a link on the blog, the two elements can be used together as if it is its own website. (The wonder of the Internet!)

Anyway let's see how it goes. It's pretty easy to navigate but if anyone gets stuck just send me a message!

Chris