Me, myself and I'm starting again.

So, on with the first exercise, I posted a short story in the meantime, I don't think it's up to the standard I'm aiming for but then that's the point of all this work.

Chapter one is very readable, but this is essentially a book of exercises so I can't just give them away, you need to go and buy the book. You could infer the questions from the answers in a kind of 'Jeopardy’ style but you’d be missing the all the context and build up. Trust me, it’s worth reading.
I’ve chosen a nickname of mine and written a few paragraphs about it.

‘Timmy Da Phish had a complicated birth. I played cricket, back when I lived in England, and if there’s one thing that cricketers obsess about it’s the weather. E-mails would be tossed back and forth between players in the days leading up to a crucial cup match discussing the fickle English weather. Having made his prediction, a team mate signed off ‘Kettles’ (an affectionate nickname of famous weatherman John Kettley). In return I signed my own prognostication Timmy Da Phish (After Michael Fish) and it stuck with me.
 
Later, my team shirt had Da Phish (To save on letters) on the back and my e-mail account became Timmy_da_phish@****.com.

It is a comforting name that reminds me of playing cricket and of the team-mates and friends of that era. It has gone out of use now that I’m in France , which is sad but I still use it online from time to time, it’s apparently unique.

I look back on that time with a lot of fondness, the Real Oddies Cricket Club lived up to their name. We were the only team in the league that didn’t have a home town or village, we were a pub team (The Odd One Out Free House) and we found our players drinking in the lounge bar. As a result, we were not the most athletic or gifted cricketers but we were a wide range of characters.

The pub itself was a blast from the 1970’s, sticky carpets, vinyl upholstered benches and no swearing in earshot of TL (The landlord). It hosted the meetings for The Socialist Worker’s Party and the local mental health self-help group. It also boasted the finest real ales in Colchester so attracted an altogether different crowd of ale aficionados. To say there were a few characters would be selling it rather short. From these fine specimens, we would select 11 able bodied men and women to play league standard cricket, very occasionally with spectacular success. Of course, there is a downside to this selection policy reflected in a scorecard (19 all out, almost certainly a league record low) a copy of which graces the wall of the lounge bar.

I believe it is all still going on.’

Ouch! Shock Development.

When I started this blog, I tracked down one of the ladies who wrote it and asked permission to use her book and blog my results, progress and impressions of it as I went. I heard nothing until last night when she wrote to me and said '...we do not give you permission to use the exercises or quote from the book.' That's quite a slap in the face given that I've bought the book and was doing my best to promote it. In my humble opinion, it is a good book and I think that my final assessment would have been pretty positive. Frankly, I didn't ask for permission to quote from the book and if I can't use the exercises then it might be fair to consider asking for a refund.

It is however, only one book out there in a large market and I will now get on with starting a new one. I have gone for 'Back to Creative Writing School' by Bridget Whelan and will endeavour to avoid the same issues again. Largely by not sending a polite enquiry to the author and also by continuing not to quote from or giving away too much of the book. Let’s face it, if anyone has the stamina to read weeks of my blogs to try to glean the essence of a writing course and all for the sake of saving the cost of a book then good luck to them. My recommendation will always be to buy the book if you like what you see here.

Lesson learned, back soon with my first impressions of the new book.

Don't steal my YOP!

Exercise 2

This one was interesting, a composite character. I wrote a list of six people, either famous or known to me, and listed six things about each of them. I went for 

Job

Appearance

Sense of humour

Item of clothing

Place

Mannerism

Having listed these, I rolled a dice (in fact a random number generator using atmospheric noise to pick numbers) to choose which answer to use from each person. My selections left me with:

A footballer (From Jimmy Bullard).

Mediterranean looking (From Davide, my daughter’s swimming instructor).

Good but weird sense of humour (From my friend, Francois).

Wears lots of rings (From Debs, an actress we know).

Associates strongly with university (From David Mitchell).

Points a lot and is cocky (From Usain Bolt).

I am then to write a paragraph about them in a mundane situation, okay…

 I immediately think of a situation where all of these characteristics overtly combine in a single wild scene. 

Holly dribbles her football down the university hall. She’s trying to catch the lift. Another student gets in the way. She slams his face into the wall, scratching him with her many rings as she does so. She can see the doors starting to close and redoubles her effort, black hair flowing behind her. Ten meters to go, the doors are halfway shut but she has time. Flying past her tutor’s door, she cocks a finger and respectful nod at him. Her fingers jam into the closing door and it reopens. At the astonished group in the lift, who witnessed the whole thing, she offers a winning smile and says ‘Going down?’

On second thoughts, maybe I’m being asked to describe the scene and allow the character to respond naturally. After a bit of contemplation (and wondering if maybe I want a re-roll [or re-generate] on which of Usain Bolt’s characteristics I want included), here's what I've got.

Holly doesn’t lose her cool easily but this could be an exception. After the essentials there was rarely any money left for a luxury. Essentials included money for bus fare to Uni, books when she couldn’t borrow them, pens when she couldn’t steal them, drinking, smoking and taxi home on a Saturday night.

‘Where is it?’ she asked her housemates, the three of them looking at her with innocent bewilderment.

‘What?’ asked Kelly.

‘My drink…’ more blank looks ‘from the fridge’

‘That yoghurt?’ this was Macie.

‘Yoghurt drink, if it was a yogurt, it wouldn’t have come in a bottle.

‘A yogurt drink’s still a yogurt.’

‘No, it… okay, I’ve just realised that I don’t care what it’s called, its present location is of far more interest to me.’

Leshawn took her attention away from her phone for long enough to ask Holly why she played football when she was too clever for it. Holly ignored the question, assuming it to be rhetorical, Leshawn was already looking at her phone again anyway.

‘Right, I’m going out, any of you lot’ she roved a finger around the room ‘feel you need to replace it, now’s your chance.’ With that Holly went out.

It's an abrupt end I know but it was also only supposed to be a paragraph. Starting work on question 3 now.