"Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been."
Alan Alda
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'If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.'
By Joyce Carol Oates
News
After months locked up in my attic, I've finally wrapped up my junior novel. What to Pack in a Jungle Tin is book 1 in a series I've called The Survival Diaries—aimed at 9-12 year olds. Now for the easy part: finding a publisher and selling the film rights...
This Autumn, I've had the pleasurable task of critiquing a novel—with a strong autobiographical slant—penned by an immensely talented British/Argentine writer currently living in Singapore. I won't reveal her name until I've asked her permission but I feel very privileged to have been chosen to read her manuscript and I have no doubt we'll be seeing a lot of her in the decades to come (make way Pat Barker!). She's now refining her final draft and will shortly be approaching agents (welcome to the club!). There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that all she needs is one final nudge and she'll be flying...
Workshops in Singapore
For over a year now, my focus has been on running extended one-off workshops rather than courses spanning several weeks and involving a series of two-hour workshops.
School workshops
My latest school session took me to Tanglin Trust School (Singapore), where I held a talk for secondary school students on journalism as a career path, followed by a creative writing workshop for 12 keen and talented young writers. More TTS workshops are in the pipeline.
Adult workshops
My adult workshops have changed format in the past year. I'm no longer offering my five-week Storymaking and Storymaking2 courses. Instead, I'm offering a trio of full-day workshops: Creative Writing (an introduction), Writing for Children and Feature Writing. Each workshop runs from 9.30am–4pm, with lunch included. I feel these 'full immersion' workshops are the best formula for introducing emerging writers to the fundamentals of writing, as it gives participants plenty of time to discuss their own work and for groups to dwell on the finer points of writing and editing. There has been a fantastically energising buzz about these workshops, as ideas, questions and feedback have zipped back and forth. What never fails to impress me is the willingness everyone shows to be experimental in their writing and then to share the results with the group—that really does take some courage.
So far the feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive, so I'll be sticking to the full-day approach for the foreseeable future.