New Creative Writing Courses

My creative writing course Getting Started will be running again soon - two time slots are available for this 10-session course :

Tues 10-12 noon (start 20 April)
Thurs 8-10 p.m. (start 13 May)

Full details of location, cost and what the course covers on the Learning Works website here.

Places are limited because group size is kept small so that everyone receives individual attention in a warm, supportive atmosphere.

I am also developing second level courses for those who have completed the first course, and the first is called Who Are You?  Somebody! and it focuses on personal writing.

Please contact Eileen at 012-207 2845 or Dennis 012-267 8298 or email mylearningworks AT gmail DOT com for further information or to reserve your place. You can also drop me a line at sharonbakar@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

Zhang Su Li's Writing Workshops

I want to let you know about some more writing workshops, this time those run by Zhang Su Li, the author of A Backpack and a Bit of Luck.

Su Li is running classes in Flash Fiction (for both adults and children), Travel Writing, and Copywriting.

Full details and dates can be found here.

Getting Started

I very much enjoyed Lydia's post about how she got started as a writer and thought I'd respond. I did try to leave a comment over there, but it somehow disappeared into the ether. And anyway I'd rather like to run with the ball!

I can't remember a time when I didn't want to write. At school I had this great running rivalry with my best friend Helen to see which of us could write the best composition for English classes. I ignored all other homework completely to put aside time to write because my poem or story had to be the best. We both wrote well above and beyond the call of duty, pages and pages where one or two would have sufficed. Helen always got a slightly higher grade though (and is now a published poet).

I still have my English exercise books (below) filled with my scribblings. My writing was frequently melodramatic and wonderfully florid! And always full of spelling errors. (Mild dyslexia?) It's pretty embarrassing to read them now.

I also started a diary in 1969 and kept it right up to the time I got married in 1990. (Too much honest writing left lying around probably wasn't a very good idea ... particularly as a diary is always a space for a good sound off! Keeping an online password protected journal was a substitute later on.)

But I digress.

I got my first poems published at 13 in the Coventry Evening Telegraph and my first boyfriend, a gardener called Francis, was one of my fans ... although on the two occasions we actually met up for a date, I was so much taller than him that I walked in the gutter while he walked on the pavement!

Although I'd always told myself one day I'd love to write. I didn't start writing seriously until I was in my 40's. I guess that's a good point at which to evaluate your life since it hits you that the sand is slipping through the hour glass (speeding up, even) and if you don't do the things you want to do now, you're probably never gonna.

But there was always the fear - would I measure up or end up disappointing myself in an area that meant so much to me? My favourite writers like Annie Proulx wagged their fingers at me saying "You'll never measure up." Spoilsports!

I also didn't know how to "get into" writing.

So when I saw an ad for a correspondence course with The Open College for the Arts, I decided to give it a go. I found the materials they sent very useful, and the tutor I was assigned to gave me excellent feedback. But I didn't finish the course because:

First of all, I lost my nerve several units in when there was a big jump from simple exercises involving description to suddenly writing a complete short story. (How the hell do I think up a plot, I thought, in the days before I realised that plots can just happen onto paper if you let them.) Looking back, I think the course was aimed at more experienced writers.

Secondly, because this was in the days before the internet had really taken off (and OCA was a particularly slow adopter!), each assignment had to be mailed to the UK (with an international reply coupon inside it for the postage), and then there was a long wait for it to come back to me. My tutor felt so far away!

Thirdly, only my tutor saw my assignment and (afraid to show my efforts to those close to me)
I had no chance to see how other readers reacted to it. I felt so lonely!

Much more helpful to me was a book I found in a bookshop in London: Writing for Self-Discovery: A Personal Guide to Creative Writing by Myra Schneider and John Killick which is a fantastic collection of exercises for exploring the material from your own life and experience. (The book appears to be currently out of print, but you can buy it from Abebooks for as little as US$1.)

I went crazy, filling notebook after notebook with recollection and thoughts and fiction and dreams. I never knew I had so much inside that wanted to break free.

There were many other useful books, and I should say more about these, but this one was my catalyst, my turning point.

I signed up with Writers Village which offers a whole range of short courses for one very reasonable joining fee and found friends and support. The course material is online, and the work posted to a bulletin board and feedback given by your coursemates rather than a tutor. The atmosphere was supportive and friendly, I made some writing buddies across the world (Most of the participants are from the US.) and the first two short stories I had published grew from assignments I posted there.

I also did a creative writing course organised by author Chuah Guat Eng at Silverfish. This was the first time I'd written with others and my - what a heady experience it turned out to be - with moments of real magic when we read back our pieces. Much much better than scribbling away lonely and alone!

But the teacher/trainer in me said ... hey ho, I want to encourage others to write and think I can do this better ... and that's why and how my own course for beginners was born. (And it sounds as if Lydia is thinking along these lines too ... good for her!)

I've just finished one run of it at the British Council and hope that the next will be in November, when I finish the project I'm currently involved with and have had a chance to rediscover my Mat Salleh roots in the UK for a few weeks.

There are lots of threads here I might pick up on another day.

But like Lydia I'd love to know, what got YOU writing?

Just to Let You Know ...

My creative writing course is running again at the British Council starting January 4th.

Details here.

More news about other courses and dates later!

An Eating Course?

Last night the final session of my creative writing course at MPH 1 Utama a. I took my sister, Tess along. After all, when I go back to Britain, I want to find out about her life and follow her to work (she provides counselling for families with kids with ADHD and other behavioural problems). Bibi, Ted, Martini and Jerusha brought along their writing for discussion and had some very powerful pieces between them. Philip was in an earlier group but had missed his "graduation" so I was happy he could drop by and get to know some new writing buddies.

Tess, has formed the impression (probably quite rightly!) that Malaysians are totally food obsessed. It was Bibi's birthday and she totally surprised by having husband Ammar turn up bearing a ton of delicious food from a friend's restaurant in Taman Tun. (The tomato soup was especially good!)


A most enjoyable evening altogether.

Writing at the British Council

My next creative writing course Getting Started - Finding the Flow will held at the British Council starting August 29th, and is partly sponsored by the BC Library. Details and registration here. (Get in touch if you want to know more - sbakar at streamyx.com.)

There is a slight amendment to the dates though - I will be in Bali late September - early October at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival - so the final session will be on October 10.

I'm really happy about British Council giving my course a home and promoting it for me. They were happy with the feedback from the last course I taught there, which really was fun.

I plan to launch further courses beginning September and have lots of schemes and plans buzzing round in my head but need to sit down and get the actual planning done and the scheduling worked out. Watch this space!

Another Creative Writing Course?

Oh shit! (Sorry for the expletive.) However could I have missed the news on Raman's website that he is going to be running writing workshops (Write with the Right Side of Your Brain) for teens and adults in June.

I guess he's changed his mind about the fact most creative writing courses are hocus. Ooooooh I forgot, the difference is in that word "creative". You can do all the same kinds of things, but you must call them "right brain" activities.

Right brain = creative? Left brain = logical reasoning? This, though, is the pseudoscience of the 1960's. As psychologist Brad Fowell of Vanderbilt University puts it:

In the scientific community, the popular idea that creativity exists in the right side of the brain is thought to be ridiculous, because you need both hemispheres of your brain to make novel associations and to perform other creative tasks.

Of course, his course will not be like the one I'm running. He makes this clear in his blurb:

This is not a 'rudimentary course' for 'beginners'. This is for those serious about their writing. This programme is designed to make real writers out of you. It is not one of those 'creative writing course' where no writing happens after the course.

Well there you are! Success guaranteed! How can I compete? I certainly haven't had anyone from my courses create the Malaysian War and Peace. Yet.

But I hope I've given my participants enough of a starting point from which their writing can develop, and more importantly, the confidence in their own voice.

Had the final session with MPH Tuesday night group this week. (Quite emotional, because this was everyone's opportunity to present their written work, and each person had crafted a piece which had personal significance for them.) And am still running the course in conjunction with the British Council on Thursday nights.

Will run the beginners course (Getting Started) again in June and plan new courses for September as well as a creative reading course.

Meanwhile am trying to find other venues for my course ... does anyone know a space that has the right kind of touchy-feely vibes (preferably that I can use for a daytime course), yet is no too expensive?

Meet Up and Scribble Night

A small group of us met up for a scribble session at Delicious Bangsar last night. Priya, Angeline, Seck Yen, Anna and Animah all did my creative writing course last year, though at different times, and hadn't met each other before.

We took some (crazy!) prompts from The Writer's Book of Matches: 1,001 Prompts to Ignite Your Fiction by the staff of Fresh Boiled Peanuts literary magazine. I ended up writing about a dentist who gets stabbed while waiting in the queue at TGV to pick up his tickets for The Da Vinci Code.

Yes, the stories came and sat with us too. Some of them pretty bizarre. Seck Yen and Animah both have absolutely surreal imaginations ...

Here's a couple of pictures I took:

The glamorous Anna who told me to caption this picture "It's the lack of oestrogen" for some reason!

Seck Yen reading his stuff and Angeline listening with rapt attention.

The good news of the evening - Priya is going to have a play performed at KLPac soon!

My Creative Writing Course

My creative writing course kicks off again next month, with MPH giving it a home once more. For which I am eternally grateful.

I haven't advertised it yet. Not because I'm slow and inefficient (which actually, yes, I am) but because I'd had a whole lot of folks who expressed interest in the course last year and were left in mailing-list limbo, so I have to give them priority. And then there's the word of mouth factor. Participants enjoyed the experience and passed the word onto friends. Thanks too to Yvonne for the publicity on her blog! (I may take her on as full-time publicist!)

I keep the group size small (I aim for 10 max) so that everyone gets plenty of time to share their work, but that means that courses fill very quickly.

The course will run on Tuesday nights 7.30-9.30 from 14/3-18/4/06. The price is (notionally!) RM450 but with the MPH Reader's Card there is now a 20% discount.

If you are interested, please contact me directly:

sbakar@streamyx.com or 012-6849935

And I'll send you all the details.

April/May I will be running the course in-house for a corporate client ('bout which I can say nothing at the moment), which means that the next public course will be in June. I'm also in the process of planning one or two follow-up courses, and short workshops for fun. My head is veritably buzzing with ideas!

Writing Buddies

We met last night at Delicious, Bangsar Village. A group of newbie writers who had "graduated" from my Getting Started - Finding the Flow Course. Most didn't know each other as they'd done the course in different venues at different times. But there was an easy camaraderie between them and new friendships were formed. We ate and chatted. And then it was down to business.

We did a couple of timed exercises from Roberta Allen's The Playful Way to Serious Writing - an excellent springboard for creativity. We alternately scribbled and then read out our work round the table. Some excellent characters and situations appeared and deserve their place in finished pieces.

It was great how at ease everyone in the group felt with each other - there was no shyness or hestitation or inner critic voice forcing apologies.

I plan to make these meetups a regular thing. I can't just get people writing and then abandon them! I have plans for more "modules" to build onto this first one now that I've seen how it works. Just need to take some time out to work on the materials.

Hope too that these new writers begin to find writing-buddies and organise their own sessions.

Thanks, Ben, for the lovely chocolates! Good luck with the Chocalicious venture! (Opening soon in Bangsar Village.)

Authenticity

I was telling someone at a party about my creative writing course recently:

"You know," he said "you've tapped into one of the great needs of our information age."

I said "Huh?" or something very like that.

"The need for authenticity" he went on. "People need to know who they are, and your course does that for them."

That struck a chord with me.

Two moments of truth from the writing class:

One of my participants burst into tears after a writing exercise one evening. She said that while writing, she'd suddenly realised why she was doing the course. It wasn't that she particularly wanted to be a published writer. "I'm writing to find my own voice," she said. And the course was making that happen for her.

Another participant had decided that the piece that she would work on during the course would be given as a gift for someone she cared about very much. She worked on her story through successive drafts, taking on board suggestions from the group for improving it. In the end she had a polished piece in her hand and she gave it to her friend with love.

A short time later he passed away. But she had the knowledge that she had given him something very special and from the heart.

When things like this happen, I just feel so ... humbled. There's a great satisfaction in having touched people at their deepest.

And the funny thing is that when writers begin to write from that kind of genuine, heartfelt need - something special begins to happen on the page.

Creative Writing Courses Investigated

Adriana Nordin Manan an intern with Malaysiakini called me up a few weeks ago to ask for an interview about the courses I'm teaching. We met for lunch and a chat, and I asked her to come and sit in on a session at Darling Muse. She did - and this is her report about the evening ...

Honing your skills in creative writing

Look around you nowadays - it seems like everybody wants to be a writer. You have all these creative writing classes being introduced. Who knows if they're any good my editor proclaimed to the jittery intern. I was in my first week in the office.

You should go find out more.

So off I went to have a look-see at the different creative writing classes found around town (two up and running and another in the pipeline, with yet another publicised but put on hold due to lack of response by the target audience).

In an art gallery somewhere around Bangsar, Class #1 was conducted by Sharon Bakar, one of the more experienced/well-known creative writing teachers in the area. On the walls were canvas paintings done in a clumsy and vivid manner, the outcome of a recent series of workshops for children. I could see myself buying one, if I had an extra RM1000. Heck, I didn't have enough money to pay for the full six-week course I was sitting in on that night, which was about a third of that.

There were seven women in the group, including the teacher. We began by listing different adjectives and nouns on two separate sheets of paper and later exchanging them among ourselves. Then we had to pen sentences using any adjective-noun combination.

Just write. Don't think at all. Just write whatever comes to mind. It doesn't have to make sense, we were told.

Daffodils paint the periphery.
The jackrabbit exposes its soul.
Cuttlefish color the corals.

We talked about self-censorship and the pesky little voice that tells you your writing is rubbish. We shared our stories. One that stayed with me was a personal recollection of living in a religiously overzealous university campus, herd mentality et al. Not forgetting of course the questions on your personal life which were, well, rude.

People used to always ask what race I belonged to. My stories changed every time and one of them was that my parents ran away from their respective homes to live somewhere far away, usually Siberia, where they met. And you know - they believed it!

Admittedly, it was tough to write without first formulating your thoughts. This is also why I suppose we were asked to write a lot on our own personal experiences, things that are easier to invoke. Nobody would chastise you for what you write about, growing up buck-toothed, for example.

As a slightly insecure person when it comes to writing, I felt very relieved and at ease with the supportive environment we had that evening, where everyone had a kind word to say about what you had scribbled down. So it wasn't so bad, this whole sharing your writing business. My initial nervousness overcome, I spent the next two hours writing, sharing and being delighted at what the others read out.

That night, I drove home resolute on writing a book or screenplay. Maybe, just maybe somebody might want to read what I have to say?.

Adriana also stops in at Ninety Five Percent Sdn Bhd:

... a brand-spanking new company in the Bangsar area, which advertised itself as a provider of specific writing skills training within a context of personal growth.

She concludes about the experience:

... the Dale Carnegie meets story writing course was a bit too hokey for me. Just like the global corporate training enterprise, the company had an approach that employed the ability to write as a means to market oneself better and I feared that this end could diminish the pleasure and fulfillment of writing in itself. ... I could see myself feeling shortchanged if I were coached by a person to write not to bring out the little voice within me, but to bring myself to fit the mold of ideal employee when I start job-hunting. I don't want my writing, something I consider very genuine and honest, to be bundled together with how I can appear more attractive as a job candidate ...

She goes on then interview various luminaries in the field about their thoughts on creative writing, including Raman (who has the usual axe to grind!), Ruhayat, Dhojee, and a couple of academics.

I was particularly interested in what Prof. Hazidi Abdul Hamid from The School of Media and Communications, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia had to say. He apparently is keen on seeing creative writing appear more frequently on students' academic schedule.

'I believe creative writing is a very valuable course to offer and to take even if you do not want to be a writer, what more a budding writer. In this increasingly maddening world these courses should be a must for all university students, but I know this is too much to ask. ... I believe that it should be taken as part of or in addition to normal academic work. Personally, I have found that being able to sit in front of the computer and knock out several pages of creative work helps me to think about my more academic work. If you concentrate too much on something you might lose it entirely but if you allow your mind to take its own course letting the left as well as right brain work, you will be far more productive and happier.

This pretty much echoes my own experience teaching undergraduate courses. And reaffirms my core belief - writing from the imagination, writing from the heart is just plain good for you ...

I am glad I've set up my courses. A few months ago I wasn't sure whether this idea would take off ... but things are going really well for me.

I thank from the bottom of my heart the dear friend who gave me the initial push; those who have had faith in me and supported me along the way (not everyone by any means - some sad surprises there); MPH for giving my course a home; and my course participants for being prepared to take risks and put their words out there.

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.

The Last Night

There we are, the last night of the course, sharing writing around the table in the Booker Room. Everyone has brought along a piece of writing they've been working on over the past week, polishing and extending the first thoughts that appeared on their notebook during class exercises. They shyly hand out typed up copies and read their words aloud to the group. We listen and we comment and we think about the direction each piece might take.

Jo-Ann has an evocative piece about her grandfather's house in a rubber estate, the careful observation of details bringing alive both scene and character. Fisha's piece about a remembered room has been transformed into an article about her own growth of confidence. ("I've never shown a piece of my writing to anyone before," she says, surprised when we tell her that we could imagine her writing a newspaper column.) Both Jo-Ann's and Fisha's pieces sprang to life in last week's session where we used drawing as a way into memory.

Keiko has written a piece on the tsunami for the childrens' magazine she edits.

Helen took me at my word when I said write about something that brings a lump to your throat: she has written about a dear friend who threw a birthday party for her despite the fact that she was dying of cancer, and cries as she reads it. ("You know, I haven't cried for years.") Abby has transformed a memory piece from a previous class into a moving short story: she was online chatting to a friend when she realised that he had collapsed at the keyboard with a heartattack. Fortunately, the friend survived thanks to a text message she managed to get to his daughter, and Abby's story is intended as a very personal gift for him.

Viv also has a short story for us about a troubled marriage, and there's plenty of tension crackling under the surface. Karina stuns us all with a wonderfully dark and angry piece written in a very distinctive voice: is this woman actually going to murder the guy she detests so much? Again, both pieces have grown from real-life experiences.

Seven writers who've made a promising start ... who've begun to make the clay which can be moulded into a finished work of power and beauty. But of course, they still have a way to go to learn how to shape and fire and glaze the final product. I hope they will stick it out and learn, because they each have so much to say, so much to contribute.

There is no creative magic wand that can be waved over people who want to write. There's a long apprenticeship which demands real commitment, deep faith and copious infusions of the writings of others.

We adjourn to Delicious cafe (which Abby manages) with the trifle Fisha made for us, exchange addresses and plan to get together for another writing session soon.

Creative Writing Course

Had a meeting yesterday with Renee at MPH. My creative writing course for beginners ("Getting Started, Finding the Flow") will begin in March and will run for 6 weeks on Saturday mornings. (Damn! There goes my step class, but for sure the sacrifice is worth it.) Am so happy that MPH will publicise it in their monthly events flyer.

I am more than a little scared now. Have to actually hope that there will be takers for the course and that the timing and pricing is right. Need also to plan when to launch the course at my other (more upmarket) venue ...

I know what I'm doing as far as the course is concerned, am full of excitement and enthusiasm at the thought of teaching this ... but sadly lack any kind of business brain. Perhaps I should take a business partner, someone to keep me grounded while I provide the drive and the inspiration.

So much want this to succeed. Have all kinds of ideas for other projects shooting out of my head.

Anyway, my course blurb goes as follows:

Have you always wanted to write, but never quite got going, either because you lacked the confidence or weren’t sure of the best way in? This course will get you started – the fun way.

Course aims and description

Whether you want to write fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction or memoir, this course will help you lay the foundations.

In a series of practical exercises you will be introduced to a variety of techniques (including flow-writing, clustering, layering and visualisation) which will enable you to tap into your creativity. The main focus of the course will be on writing from personal experience, and you will learn to express emotions on paper and identify your ‘core themes’. At the same time, you will learn to take positive steps to suppress the voice of your ‘inner critic’ who so often robs you of your confidence.

Most writing will be completed in the class, with further suggestions of activities for you to carry out at home. You will also have the opportunity to share your writing with other participants in a non-threatening environment. Towards the end of the course, we will work towards the completion of longer, more polished pieces of writing.

Cost and Duration of Course

This is a twelve-hour course, taught over six weekly sessions.

It is open to adults (i.e. aged 18 and above) and is aimed at those with little or no previous writing experience. Participants should already have a good grasp of the English language.

Group size is limited to ten participants to ensure the maximum amount of feedback and individual help.

Sharon Bakar

Sharon Bakar is British but considers herself to be a “local foreigner”, having lived and worked in Malaysia for the past twenty years. Her fiction has appeared in Silverfish New Writing 1, Men’s Review and The Edge, and her book reviews and articles on English language issues have appeared in The Star. She is the editor of a collection of short fiction ‘Collateral Damage’ (Silverfishbooks), which appeared in March 2004. An English lecturer and teacher-trainer by profession, she is particularly interested in the teaching of creative writing. She’s also a self-confessed bookaholic and an organizer of the first KL Literary Festival.