Friday, February 27, 2009

Jeffers, Sheldon in NST

The New Straits Times today features a Q&A with illustrator Oliver Jeffers (left) who is in town for the British Council's Animating Literature: Words and Beyond conference. (For more on the conference visit Daphne's blog.)

And there is also an interview with author Jeremy Sheldon who ran some of the recent British Council City of stories workshops, who says that he first started writing as a bored teenager, confined to his dorm at Eton for rebellious behaviour. He says too that he got his love of story-telling from his mother who is Hong Kong Chinese.

About the workshops :
Sheldon said working with aspiring writers and having the opportunity to study their written work is similar to getting a “window into their hearts and minds”, an experience that still astonishes him every single time. ... His role said Sheldon is to function as the “external eye” and to show these aspiring writers not just the things they are already doing very well, but also to point out the few elements they may be missing.
The best piece of writing advice he received from his own teachers? :
... quite simply “write every day” ... Writing requires practice and writing daily, even if it’s only a little bit, can make a difference to aspiring writers. You need to keep working out what a colleague of mine calls the writing muscle. You can’t actually touch it or see it working but you know it exists.

6 comments:

Chet said...

I like what Sheldon says about the "writing muscle". And I'm beginning to think it can be better exercised the old-fashioned way - pen and paper - altho the electronic way can follow soon after.

bibliobibuli said...

i prefer writing by hand too, Chet ...

Chet said...

I'm also beginning to think there's something to be said about those guys who are always going on about the right pen, right ink, and right paper.

I recently bought a Parker gel refill to use with a Parker ballpoint I was given last year, and have enjoyed using it over the other pens I have. To my surprise, my fingers didn't experience as much writing fatigue as they usually do.

Strange, huh?

bibliobibuli said...

i'm fussy - i like nice thin fibre-tips but enjoy using different colours on different days. and good quality unlined paper.

Chet said...

I asked my sister for some notebooks the other day and she got me a stack from various banks, including 2 beautiful ones with unlined paper, which I don't like much (the unlined-ness). A5 size, tho. Keep for you.

Unknown said...

I, on the other hand, love unlined pages. Lines are so constricting. Was offline all of yesterday, and it is SUCH a relief to be back on the internet today:)