Saturday 14th May, 2011
After a good night’s sleep, I arose to a deep discussion surrounding the quality of the previous night’s play. Verdict – good but with room for improvement. Perhaps today would make it all better for my new found friends.
We had separate plans for the day, with Deborah hitting up A Wordy Day Out to meet and support Young Adult authors and following my right brain, I went to the Wordy Workshops, where I joined a Creativity Workshop led by Kathryn Burnett.
After getting lost copious times, I eventually ended up on a mezzanine level away from the main drag of the festival, in a room filled with long tables covered in white tablecloths, as we were perhaps there for a wedding reception, or some sort of ex-servicemen’s dinner. Fortunately for me, I was in the right place and sat down to await my mind being opened.
Sadly, I had forgotten the required sheets of paper we were asked to provide (I did get a press pass, I shouldn’t complain), so this is the point in the festival where my programme becomes completely filled with random turquoise scribbles (Lamy Safari, how you say…FTW?) of increasingly more and more bizarre rantings.
Kathryn led us through a series of mind opening exercises, designed to ensure we forgot our logical mind and just concentrated on the fun stuff of creating, without boundaries or thought. For the next two hours, we were stretched in all directions, following multiple ideas from a flash thought through to something that might almost have been useable.
What I learned from the whole experience was that writers have a tough time of it, and that coming up with a clear idea is a long process of trial and error. I came up with hundreds of thoughts and ideas in the time we had, and I learned a lot. A very worthwhile experience, but as I discovered afterwards, incredibly draining! How do these writers do it?
I arrived late back at the Centre, too late to catch the Antarctica talk by Jane Ussher and Steve Braunias. Fortunately though, I was in for a treat when I met with Deborah’s mentor, Tessa Duder and her partner and a friend. Imagine my joy when they all turned out to have superior Antarctic and shipping experience. The talk of dog teams, harsh polar life and the state of the American’s ice cream machine left me wide eyed and sparks flying around my mind. If there’s one thing I love, and my mother will confirm this, it is the promise of adventure. A fantastic way to wrap things up at the Festival’s second day.
After a trip to the supermarket, it was a gourmet four course dinner for us back at the apartment, one I struggled to finish. Cheese and crackers, more of the delicious pumpkin soup (I defy any fresher in the UK to make such fine soup from scratch), chicken kebabs and then sticky toffee puddings. I didn’t make it to pudding, I’m not sure if they did either. I barely managed to crawl back to my bed to the relative safety of my iPod and the dulcet tones of The Cure’s Robert Smith lulling me into a deep and satisfying slumber.
Final day tomorrow.
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