Holiday Inn, Armação de Pêra
The NaNoWriMo participants are now under “starters orders” as they eagerly await, or not, the first of November to arrive when the challenges begins. I am not feeling quite as apprehensive as I was thanks to the inspirational two-day residential Creative Writing course I’ve just attended at the Holiday Inn, in the Algarve. The course, presented by Anne Aylor, gave me some much-needed self-belief and rekindled my flame of creativity. The other course members also proved a great source of inspiration as they shared their experiences and writing exercises with the class. Anne, as well as being an excellent teacher is also a great motivator and I will certainly be going again next year!
Both days were packed with a variety of timed creative writing exercises along with constructive feedback. To my surprise, I really enjoyed this and discovered a whole new approach to writing. My favourite exercise was Stream of Conciousness. For this exercise we were given the opening sentence from which we created our own story in ten minutes. During this time we were expected to write without stopping, not make any alterations or even pause to read what we had written. Yes, it was tough, but once I cleared my mind and let the thoughts flow my pen raced across the page without effort.
This is the approach I will adopt for the NaNoWriMo. I’ve relived the novel’s plot and characters through my dreams and written copious notes so I will just write…
My only concern now is the time aspect because I’ve since been enlisted to look after my little granddaughter in France for a week in November. Perhaps she can learn to type and give me a hand!
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