In praise of paper Planes again

As regular readers of this blog will know I have been attending the monthly creative writing workshops run by Tony Slides and Steve Whaling under the name of Paper Planes (www.paperplanes@hotmail.co.uk). These sessions are run in a room above Fuel Cafe (that's a place to visit in its own right!) in Withington in South Manchester. The next workshop is on August 8th starting 12 midday.

Each time we met we all write several pieces and I am usually happy enough with 1 or often 2 of them to put them, with some extra polishing, onto this blog. So immediately being at the workshop stimulates my creative writing - indeed I am often writing whilst having a pre workshop coffee downstairs in Fuel. That in itself would be enough. However the triggers that Steve and Andy use are mostly easy enough to take away and use and I have done this quite a bit recently and my Strange Days writings on this blog have been much helped by this.

But it goes further than this. We are always invited to read out what we have written and most of us do. I find it very empowering to reed my stuff out loud, I usually get a few laughs which feels good as the humour is usually there in the writing. But I genuinely like performing my work although I have yet to try out a poetic or writing audience beyond these workshops. We all make comments on each other's writing always positive not hatchet jobs. The encouragement and feedback is helpful and of course the things not said matter too.

It goes further than this we get advice about performing and publishing and we get to try out writing in ways we would never have thought about.

So over the months my creative writing has blossomed witness this blog. I have begun once again to submit the odd poem and short story for publication - scary but I am glad to be doing it again after 35 years. It has also had a big impact on my academic writing which I think has improved as a result although I have less tolerance for dry academic writing whether by myself or students. It has also helped me in turn to encourage my students to write with a more authentic voice.

The final bit of it is that I enjoy hanging out with Tony and Steve and the class members. Creative writing has led me to voice all kinds of strange aspects of my human condition some of which I wouldn't wish to meet on a dark night:) but I am as a result a fuller, richer person so going to these workshops means engaging with a fuller richer me. That is priceless.

Best to all,

Bill-on-bike