I'm launching a six-week writing course for anyone embarking on a major writing project - novel, factual book, memoir or other genre. The sessions will help get you started and power you forward with your book.
If you have an idea for a book, but don’t know where to start, or if you have started but are not entirely sure where you are going (as happens to all of us!), this course will help you find clarity and motivation, giving you the tools to see your project through to completion in future.
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Sessions will cover:
Beginnings. What is your book all about and where do you get started? Who is your reader?
Whose story is this? Finding your authorial voice, or your main character’s voice. Style, point of view.
Knowns and unknowns. How much do you know about the world of your book? What research do you need to do? How to write with a mastery of detail, and not let detail master you.
Structure. A close analysis of different kinds of structure and how you can find the right structure for your book.
Layers and complications. Fiction needs reversals, characters need obstacles, non-fiction needs a clear and honest account of difficulties, to be worthwhile.
Endings. Your book may be a long way off being finished, but you need a sense of where it will end up. For non-fiction, what do you want the reader to take away with them? For a novel, how do you see it building towards a climax?
 
When: Mondays 7pm – 9pm
24th February, 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th March
Where: URC Church Foyer, Cowbridge, Hertford
Cost: £72 for the six week course.
Further info and to book:  [email protected]

Happy authors, plus the lovely Rosemary Bolton, Mayor of Hertford, at the launch of our latest Hertford Writers' Circle anthology - Herts & Minds. Twenty authors contributed stories and poems and there's something for everyone in there - werewolves in the closet, a dystopian drowned Hertford, a ghostly newspaper, a Puritan pioneer, a dogged anti-slavery campaigner, dragonflies and red kites... it's a good read, we think.

The 5/6 October was Fun Palace weekend. Fun Palace is an idea which is really taking off - all over the country, arts and community centres organise a weekend of creative activities for adults and children to try out for free. In Ware, Southern Maltings Arts Centre held its third Fun Palace, and the building was packed with people experimenting with everything from fused-glass art to being a radio presenter.

Myself and blogger Ceri May gave a workshop on 'Life Writing' - which could be memoirs and family history, or telling your present day story through a blog.

I believe everyone's story is interesting, if told in the right way. When I've done historical research for my writing, it's always a delight, and a rare one, to come across an account of everyday life written by a person at the time. In our fast-changing world, the detail of even our grandparents' daily life recedes from us, but I'm convinced that future generations will want to know that detail of our lives, which will allow them to connect with us on a human level.

The workshop produced some marvellous writing, much of it from people who had not tried to write before, but just had an urge to have a go - which is the spirit of Fun Palaces.

I'm looking forward to what we'll do next year...