Wednesday, April 27, 2005

After the Storm

My creative writing course at Darling Muse is halfway through now, and the group has really gelled. We had such a good time last night. We started off sitting on the verandah, enjoying the garden and the breeze, but Sod's Law being what it is, no sooner had we got started than a terrific thunderstorm blew up out of nowhere and we hastily had to shift inside to the main gallery. We came back out later for our final writing exercise of the evening. It's a beautiful venue for this kind of activity wherever you sit.

The stories flowed as we tried out different kinds of activity, and it's so entertaining to see where everyone head had taken them. One participant sent me this note today:

"Thought i should tell you that last night i felt connected...connected with all of you but more so connected with myself. Now brimming with 3 stories all dreamt up last night, fact + fiction....nice feeling. Wonder if the heavy downpour added to the ambience?

Moreso i think it was one sacred moment when ALL was in equilibrium about me... i caught that peace for a few hours last night."


It occured to me that one benefit of this kind of course that I hadn't forseen, is that it gives very busy, often highly stressed working people a little oasis of calm and reflection in their week, a little time to reconnect with their inner selves. Maybe that all sounds touchy-feely, but it certainly works that way.

Have discovered too that there are folks who are excellent writers, but they've never written before because they just needed one thing to get started. Permission. And once they begin to put pen to paper it is as if floodgates have opened.

For sure need to find ways of supporting these new writers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rather disputable.