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| Nightime at the Hay Festival |
Minutes of High Town Writers' Workshop
7pm Tuesday 27th May in the Spirit Room of Peepo's
Present: Liz (chair), Adam, Michelle, Stuart, John, Jennie, Ruth, Suzie, Louise, Irena
Apologies: Fiona, Marie, Kath, Andy, Ann, Emma, Sue
We started the meeting with notices:
- Emma is talking about her two new books 'Mary, Queen of the Forty' and 'Mercy' in Bridgnorth library on Thursday 29th May - tomorrow - at 1.30pm and 7pm - tickets from the library.
- The Saturday quarterly afternoon workshop on 12th July will be called 'Is there Poetry in All of Us?' and will be led by Irena
- Ruth and Suzie have accepted their role as judges for Kay's WI poetry competition in Presteigne on Wednesday 16th July. Everyone is invited to an evening of 'Prose, Poetry, Pudding and Pimms' at 7pm in the Presteigne Memorial Hall and everyone is welcome to read their own writing on the theme of summer. Anyone who wants to attend should email hightownwriters@gmail.com to let the organisers know numbers. Entry £7.50.
- Peepo's Spirit Room is booked for evening meetings on Tuesday 24th June - Jennie will chair - and Tuesday 22nd July (the 4th Tuesday in July, not the last).
- Stuart has invited all High Town Writers to a summer barbeque in his garden. We decided that most people would be around in August and thanked Stuart for his offer. Date tbc.
- The next writing task is sleep related and based on this Travelodge survey:
Choose one of these findings to inspire a piece of writing (poetry, prose or drama):
We noted that good writers make careful word choices - even if they do not know the technical terms for their choices, which is not necessary to know.
The two main word choices are meaning and how the word sounds.
We refreshed our memories of the main ways in which words can convey sound - and how the sound of the word can influence the mood or pace of writing. The four 'sound' choices we reviewed were onomatopoeia (when a word's sound echoes its meaning), assonance (when repeated vowel sounds a,e,i,o,u suggest internal rhyming), sibilence (when the soft 'c' or 's' ‘hisses') and alliteration (the repetition of the same sound - often a consonant - at the start of linked words).
We practised finding alliterative words (and tried to make them relate to the sleep theme) by writing a One - Ten 'poem'
Some of our alliterative choices, which could appear in the sleep task were:
- ONE woozy, wild wondering, worrying, whispering, weird wild wave
- TWO talking teenagers, terrified tots, twinkling twilight, trembling trees
- THREE thirsty thinkers,
- FOUR fears, falling, fading, flying
- FIVE fitfully fidgeting, faraway fists fighting
- SIX sinful stories, soporific, somnambulists sickly sweating
- SEVEN sorrowful, sexy, sleepy, sirens
- EIGHT aching agents aimlessly ate empty aeroplanes, eerie eels, elegant elephants
- NINE nerdy nighthawks noted naked neighbours, nifty nannies knitting knickers
- TEN terrible tantrums, tired toes, tumbling toads, tender temptress
We then looked at word choice. Getting the right word is so important - but it's also important not to confuse readers with too many obscure words - such as uhtceare which could be perfect for the sleep task - if people knew what it meant!
The Anglo-Saxons had a precise Old English word which meant 'pre-dawn worrying and anxieties' - uhtceare plural or uhtcaru singular. We used this as the base of an acrostic poem/prose to write about the dark time before dawn (uht) and the cares (ceare) we lie awake worrying about when we can't get back to sleep. Much of this writing was beautiful, amazing under the short time given for writing. Hopefully most people's Uhtceare (pronounced Oot Kay Aray) Acrostics will be typed up and shared on the blog over the next few weeks.
We finished the meeting with members sharing their writing on last month's theme - 'An Unexpected Smile'
If members who could not make the meeting want to share their writing, whether on a set theme or not, or try their hand at writing a sleep related 'Uhtceare' acrostic do send pieces to hightownwriters@gmail.com to be published on our blog - or publish directly on to the blog - you need a gmail account and an invitation - just ask if you want a new invitation sent.
The meeting ended at 9.45pm
Next meeting - Tuesday 24th June - chair Jennie
Next writing theme - something inspired by the Travelodge Sleep Survey (see above)
3 comments:
Enjoyed the meeting so much. Loved being stretched and challenged in such a fun atmosphere and safeplace. And you all helped warm my cold feet ð and imposter syndrome about the MA ðð Go Hightown Writers !✍️✍️✍️
Apologies unfinished draft published in error!!!! ðĪŠðą
Despite a little bit of haziness about the subject matter initially, we soon understood nd I learned a lot and had some fun.
But Liz, I thought we were reducing the amount of recording we were doing in our write-up! Thank you ð
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