Discussion topic:

This month we discussed adjectives, and how they can enrich our writing.  We looked at adjectives under various categories.  During the discussion other words were suggested and it was decided the class members would look at adding new adjectives to the document.
 
Challenge:

Our challenge this month was a second test on the use of colon (:) and semi-colon (;).  We had looked at these a few months ago and it was interesting to see how much we remembered.
Our stories:

Our stories often result in discussion of issues raised in the stories.  One of the prompts was around citrus blossom and perfume, and this was a very popular topic.  The stories that resulted were very different.  Several of the class also shared the memories that the perfume of the citrus blossom evoked.  A theme that occurred a few times was around the question of parentage.  For example, there was the secret kept about the mother of a woman whose sister had been fifteen years older – was she really her sister, or could she have, in reality, been her mother?  This raised the issue of how times have changed, and the secrets that were kept in the past.

Prompts:

To support our ongoing writing, we will be meeting in December.  Here is the new set of prompts:

• A lasting gift.
• My white toothpaste glob had all the allure of a flaccid witchetty grub.
• “Well ain’t that the truth” she said.
• "Why don't you ever listen!"

Joy Shirley

We had a great session discussing well used words and phrases, solving some simple word puzzles, as well as providing feedback on the stories.

Hints:
I shared two documents, one listing words relating to tourism, the other listing phrases often used in stories.  We had a brief discussion about words and phrases that are overused after looking at these lists.  An example would be “Once Upon a Time” which was the first on the list of story phrases.  We left it open as to whether this was good or bad, adding this could be determined by the context.
 
Simple word challenge:
This month we looked at “Kangaroo” words.  These are words that have another word imbedded inside.  The challenge was to find the full word and the imbedded word from hints provided.  And examples:

1. What a courier will do (7) + An important organ (5)
2. Saying words out loud (8) + Mountain top (4)

The answers are at the end of the report.

Our stories:
More stories, more feedback provided.  One class member managed to weave in all three prompts.  The belt was used a couple of times.  Favorite was the third one, with couples/families agreeing on important things until…. These were all very different but engaging.

We also discussed issues around AI and the dangers and benefits of the tools such as ChatGPT that are becoming popular.  We may need more discussion on the impacts of writing.

Prompts:
The prompts for our October class are:

• Walking through citrus blossoms
• He downed his last whisky and staggered out into the night.
• As they trundled along in the afternoon sun, she sang songs and recounted meandering stories (Paraphrased from Jane Harper, Exiles)

 
ANSWER: 1. Deliver/Liver 2. Speaking/Peak


Joy Shirley

A great session discussing writing tips as well as providing feedback on the stories.

​Hints:
Before the class formally started, there was conversation about how hard it was to find something to write, or to continue after writing the first paragraph/s of a story.  I had recently found some thoughts about conquering writer’s block from the Rural Publishing Company and shared these at the start the class.  We then went on to hints around self-editing our work, and the traps we can fall into.  For example, we often see what we think we have written, and by putting the work aside for a period of time, we come with fresh eyes and identify mistakes more easily.
 
Simple word challenge:
The challenge this month was a very simple word challenge – identifying several words starting with ‘au’ from a definition and number of letters.
Examples:          
The person who wrote the book. (6) AUTHOR
Different people might have a different coloured one. (4) AURA
 
Our stories:
All stories had good beginnings, flowed well and generally had an ending that wrapped up the story.  Writing styles (often known as the writing voice) are developing.  A common theme many times is providing fauna, flora or inanimate objects with human personalities or reactions.  This month was no exception, with two pieces telling stories from a dog’s perspective, and an orb that reacted to the thoughts of the person holding it.
Fun to read, and with feedback as to ways to improve the story.
 
Prompts:
The prompts for our October class are:

• Call me anytime.
• Trying to thread the belt through the buckle, it soon became apparent that it wasn't long enough.
• We'd always agreed on the important things until ...

 
If you are interested in being part of the discussions, we always welcome new members to the class.

More stories, more laughs and more hints as to how to improve our writing.

Hints/Challenge:

During the class last month there was a brief discussion about the use of ‘colon; vs ‘semi-colon.  So this month we had a session and challenge about the different uses of these two items of punctuation.
 
Our stories:

The prompts for August were:
​

1. The swans bobbed up and down at the edge of the lake.
2. It was the summer when the chickens went on strike.
3. That part of the city always brought back memories.

 
Prompts:

The prompts for our September class are:

• She waved cheerfully as the boat gathered speed and disappeared around the bend.
• The wavelets washed over the sand and, in retreating, uncovered a shiny object still half buried on the desolate beach.
• He was lurking behind the bins  OR  He was found slumped behind the bins.

​Joy Shirley

More stories, more laughs and more hints as to how to improve our writing.

Hints/Challenge:

This month we had a discussion around grammar, particularly the importance of punctuation.  Wrong punctuation, or punctuation left out can totally change the meaning of a sentence or phrase.  We also explored the “Oxford comma”.  This is placing a comma in a list before the “and”.  For example, “red, white, and blue” rather than “red, white and blue”.  Most writing does not use the Oxford comma, but there are places where it can help the sense of the sentence. 

We then went on and looked at a list of phrases or sentences where punctuation was necessary, including some Oxford comma examples:

I want to thank my parents, Tiffany and God     
This could be read as Tiffany and God are the parents.  Adding an Oxford comma before the ‘and’ would help clarify it is a list of things.

Let’s eat Grandma          
Unless ‘Grandma’ was the meal, a comma is needed before ‘grandma’.

I’m sorry I love you        
Something is needed after ‘sorry’, either a comma or an exclamation mark.
 
Our stories:
The prompts for July were:

1. The dog glanced over her shoulder and trotted off down the path.
2. "It wasn't a 'p', after all - it was a 'y'! That made all the difference."
3. The candle flickered in its final attempt to stay alive but alas the room was left in total darkness.

The first prompt seemed to be the favourite, with only one person accepting the challenge of the second prompt.  This involved mis-reading the name of a town and ending up in Pućon in Chile instead of Yukon in Canada.  It apparently took some research to find the two similar towns!

One class member managed to submit an apology for not submitting a story, involving a very creative message covering all three prompts:

“Unfortunately l have no story this month. I lost all my light when the candle ran out. Then the rotten dog ate my homework. I last saw him trotting down the path calmly as you please. Not that the story was much chop. I kept getting the p’s and y’s mixed up in my best dyslexic style. Must try harder next month.” 
     
And this message was the only mention of the third prompt.
 
Prompts for our August class:

• The swans bobbed up and down at the edge of the lake.
• It was the summer when the chickens went on strike.
• That part of the city always brought back memories.

​Joy Shirley

More stories, more laughs and more hints as to how to improve our writing.

Hints/Challenge:

Our discussion and challenge for this month was on the five senses. 
​
In writing the tendency is often to include only sight and perhaps hearing.  But what about taste and touch? Or smell?  Could you taste fear?  Using a range of the senses adds depth and richness to the pictures we are creating in our writing. 

The challenge was to write a couple of words that could be used in incorporating descriptions for each of the senses in writing. 

Sight: shadowy, brilliant, dazzling
Hearing: screech, silence, raucous
Taste: bitter, cloying, dry, astringent
Smell: acrid, overpowering, pungent, chemical
Touch: prickly, sticky, comforting

Our stories:

The most used prompt this month was “My shoes are talking about me” and these gave us some chuckles as to the types of stories shoes could tell. 

The prompts are provided to give some ideas for our writing as often a stumbling block in getting started is knowing what to write about.  They can be used word for word or as a source of inspiration.  For example, the prompt could be around a male, but the story might be about a female protagonist.  Or it could include the age of a person, but the story might change the age.  Or even with one of the new prompts, to change the letters.

Not everyone found this month’s prompts inspiring, so we had some stories from other sources.  These involved concluding a story from the past and entries into the Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction competition.  Whatever the story is about, it is always great to see where our writing takes us.

Prompts:

The prompts for our July class are:

• The dog glanced over her shoulder and trotted off down the path.
• "It wasn't a 'p', after all - it was a 'y'! That made all the difference."
• The candle flickered in its final attempt to stay alive but alas the room was left in total darkness.

​Joy Shirley
​

It was good to be back together after missing a face-to-face class in April.

Hints/Challenge:

We discussed the issues that help us enjoy writing, and things that challenge us about our writing. 

One of the ideas shared around enjoyment was finding out what would happen in the story – how the characters developed.  A class member talked about how the characters fought her, wanting to go somewhere other than where she had planned and found this fun.  Part of this discussion led to the difference between “Pantsers” and “Planners”.  We discussed this last year, but it was new for people who had joined the class this year.  “Planners” map out their story in advance, with the structure and characters defined at the start. “Pantsers” have a vague idea and then let the story unfold, with characters and structure finding their own way.  Although all writing has a bit of each of these approaches.

One of the common problems was finding the right word.  The thought is there, but it can be difficult to find the word they want, sometimes resorting to a thesaurus (on-line or hard copy) to find the best fit to create the picture or thought.
 
Our stories:

All our stories this month were good and from a writing perspective enjoyable, although not always having a pleasant topic or a happy ending.  In each case though they worked for the story.  A common theme for some was around religion, particularly religious hypocrisy.  Others had a touch of humour or covered current events. 
 
Prompts:

The prompts for our June class are:

• She didn't notice me watching her.
• My shoes are talking about me.
• We'd always agreed on the important things until ...

And now it is time to start writing for our June class, using one (or more) of these prompts.


Joy Shirley
May 2023
 
 

​With Joy overseas in April, the class shared their stories and feedback by email.  A reminder to members of the prompts for the May class, by which time Joy will have returned: 

• It was a square cardboard box resting quietly in the “free box” section at Bunnings.
• I was staring at the ordinary little photograph for some time.
• She found it in the middle of the road and it changed her life.

Another enjoyable class of writers, able to discuss issues around writing and how to improve.

Hints:   We discussed the concept of “show don’t tell”.

Telling is when the author informs the reader of information.  It doesn’t stir the emotions and often the picture may not stay with the reader.  It can tell emotions but we don’t really enter into the emotions.  For example, use of was and felt are sign posts of telling not showing.

Showing is creating a picture rather than sharing information.  It can be more detailed and wordy but allows the reader to deduce for themselves what the character is experiencing, and experience it with them.  The reader can be more immersed in the journey of the characters.  It makes the reader think a bit more.  There is more action involved in the picture being created.
 
An example is:

• She was cranky and angry.
• She slammed down the phone.  “I never want to talk to her again.”

The second version gives a stronger picture of the emotion.
 
Our challenge:   Our challenge this month was to reword a couple of sentences as showing not telling. 
For example
“It was a sunny autumn day.”
OR
“The dry leaves crunched underfoot, with the sun glinting through the now nearly bare trees.”
Here is another example you could try:
“She felt sad.”

Our stories:

A range of varied stories were share for our comments.  It is interesting how similar stories can come from different prompts, or very different stories from the same prompt.  But this month, it was stories with a similar focus, from a different perspective in a different month.  Last month we had a story about the gift of a piano that brought memories of the past that resulted in devastation; this month the tory about a piano was exciting and joyful.  It was a relief to read this story this month for another reason.  Some of our stories were a little on the bleak side. 

Feedback on our stories always helps to improve our writing.  But there are times when a story becomes the basis of non-writing discussions about the past, or current, issues.  One story this month gave rise to a discussion about the role of the father 50-60 years ago in the raising of families.
 
Prompts:

The prompts for our April class are:

• It had been quite a while since I'd had to learn something so new and difficult.
• It starts in thirty minutes.
• One of these days, I’m going to say no.

 
I will be away for the April class, so we have some changed arrangements. The class will share their stories by email, and where possible prepare feedback for the authors on 10 April (the date of the class) and sharing with the class by email.

In preparation for our May class (when I will have returned) the prompts are:

• It was a square cardboard box resting quietly in the “free box” section at Bunnings.
• I was staring at the ordinary little photograph for some time.
• She found it in the middle of the road and it changed her life.

Joy Shirley

A great start to our new year of Creative Writing.  Returning class members seemed pleased to be back together and we were very happy to welcome some new members to the class.  There was time spent at the beginning with introductions, as well as talking about the way the class will work.

Hints:
Our writing discussion was around the importance of starting stories so as to grab the attention of the reader.  It is best to start the story with action rather than descriptions of background etc.

Our challenge:
Everyone was asked to write about shoes.  A description of their shoes, or a story about their shoes, or even a story about shoes.  Great imagination was shown.

Our stories:
We had a goal to write something every day during the Christmas break – just a few sentences or a paragraph.  For January the idea was to choose one of the paragraphs and turn it into a full story to share for our first class in 2023.

Many managed to write something several days.  But it became more difficult to choose something from their efforts to turn into a story.  And some wrote something totally different. 

In the past we often had some commonality in theme.  For example, one month we had a couple of people independently writing about the circus.  With no common set of prompts, this was not expected this month.  But one class member pointed out that many of them had ‘love’ in one form or another as part of the story – love by an animal for a human; love of people; love of home; love cannot be avoided.

We had a variation on “Jack and the Beanstalk”, where Jack entered a new world at the top of the stalk.  No giant, but he became a writer of great stories when he returned to earth – perhaps we could use his magic beans to help our own story writing!

Prompts:
The prompts for our 13 March class are:

• Some tunes bring back the wrong kind of memories.
• I’d thought the carpet was clean until my face made close and painful contact.
• I was beginning to wonder if driving a car was something I should be doing with a cranky Dalmatian in the back seat.

​Joy Shirley
 

​We managed to keep our final class for 2022 shorter so we were able to head to the North Eastern for Christmas drinks.  Still we did manage to cover the full program.

Hints:
This month we talked briefly about the value of editing our writing.  This can mean a lot of rewriting to make sure that the work flows, has no grammatical errors, and in general is a complete story.
 
Our challenge:
We had ten clues to words all beginning with the letters DEC – after all it was DECember – as our challenge.  One example was “This kind of art was popular in the 1930s. (4)” with the extra clue that the word contains only four letters, the answer was DECo.
 
Our stories:
For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:

• She/he stood on the balcony
• She sat staring at the screen.  The words of betrayal sliced into her like a blade.  An intimate and intense email meant for her boyfriend but mistakenly sent to her.
• The rain was so heavy she/he could not see to make the right-hand turn, so she/he turned left

 
We enjoyed discussing the wide range of ideas that had inspired our writing this month.  There was one poem from a class member who claimed it was not a strong point, but was found interesting and fun by the class.
 
We are looking forward to coming together again in 2023.  In the meantime, we have a writing challenge for the break.  We will endeavour to write every day for a month.  This can be just a few sentences or a paragraph.  Then in January, the idea is to choose one of the paragraphs and turn it into a full story to share for our first class in 2023 on 13 February.

Joy Shirley

I was disappointed to miss the October class and was pleased the class had gone ahead as usual.  Actually I was not very disappointed as I was in Tasmania helping our son celebrate his 50th birthday!
 
Hints:
This month we discussed some grammar traps.  Firstly we talked about when to use apostrophes, looking at some examples of correct and incorrect usage.  One simple example was the difference between “its” and “it’s”.  “Its” is around ownership and “it’s” is what is known as a contraction of “it is”.  We also looked at some common spelling mistakes/confusions, for example “principal” and “principle”.  One thought for working out which to use is that the principal of a school is a pal, so use “PAL”.
 
Our challenge:
We had a very brief challenge, identifying words from a description, with the only clue being the number of letters in the word was the same as the Scrabble value of the first letter of the word.  It was made more difficult as some of us had not played Scrabble for many years and so had forgotten the values if the letters.
 
Our stories:

For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:

• The lady with a troubled look on her face
• Daffodils danced in the breeze their tiny yellow trumpets exuding music to willing listeners
• The reflections on the still water of the lake, did not reveal what lay beneath​

A range of new stories were shared this month.  In many cases these covered issues that are common to lives today – family violence, bereavement, mental health.  And as happens on occasion one of the contributions was a poem – about how inspiration had failed in finding the right story to write.  The poem was brilliant.

​The topics for our 12 December class are:

• She/he stood on the balcony
• She sat staring at the screen.  The words of betrayal sliced into her like a blade.  An intimate and intense email meant for her boyfriend but mistakenly sent to her.
• The rain was so heavy she/he could not see to make the right-hand turn, so she/he turned left

 ​
We are planning to continue writing over the Christmas break with a challenge to write every day as part of the plan.


​Joy Shirley

A variety of structures and genres this month for Creative Writing - monologues, poetry, reflections on a time spent in isolation, plays on words, visual descriptions, answers to questions,  and a ‘ did she or did she not do it’ poser.

And all this from prompts that talked about “magic,” “beasts” and “spring!”

As always plentiful discussion as to the hows and whys of writing, the roles of personal experience and imagination, and the difficulties in starting and fulfilling one’s ideas in writing. 

November prompts include:

• The lady with a troubled look on her face
• Daffodils danced in the breeze, their yellow trumpets exuding music to willing listeners.
• The reflections on the still water of the lake did not reveal what lay underneath.

Which would fire your imagination? 

​Pat Treleaven

With some of our travellers returned to Benalla we had a larger group this month, which always makes for interesting discussions.
 
Hints:
We talked about finding names for our characters.  This included not giving characters similar names, not using the same start initial, not using the same end letter and not using the same length.  All of these can interfere with the flow as readers struggle to remember which character is which.  Readers will often look at patterns like initial and length rather than actual spelling of the name.  Tim and Tom would be a great example of what not to do!  And watch for names that will have a preconceived meaning such as Buffy or Hannibal … unless of course it is appropriate to the story.
 
Our challenge:
For our challenge this month we looked at some more cliches, writing new versions of some well-worn phrases.  An example “His eyes dropped to the floor” became “His eyes did a backflip”
 OR
“A tear fell down her face” became “the faded freckle on her face was washed by a single tear”.  These gave a clear picture of the emotions or actions.
 
Our stories:
For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:

• On the road again
• They had both got out, and it caused a great sensation
• A storm was brewing and hours had passed since they’d left the camp

 
I have mentioned it before, but we always seem to have different people come up with a similar idea without any consultation.  This time two people wrote about young men and their first car.  You would expect that this would be an obvious coincidence as one of the topics was “on the road again”.  But neither author wrote on this topic.  One was about being caught in the storm and the other was around the great sensation with both occupants of a car being safe after an accident.  Outback travels appeared twice, with descriptions of the landscape and people met on the road.  Then we had a great description of walking around the lake, which inspired members of the class wanting to get out and take the same walk (if it had not been so wet).
 
Finally a class member had recently come across the concept of “Metafiction” and provided an attempt at writing in this manner.  This is a very hard to describe – a story in a story.  (I am not going to try to explain further, but perhaps try Google if you are interested in exploring this).
 
The topics for our 10 October class are:

• Magic! Whoever would have thought you could find it in….
• With a loud roar, the wild beast charged
• The promise of spring was in the air

 
We are always ready to welcome new storytellers to the class.


Joy Shirley

A smaller class this month with many taking the opportunity to travel.  Even so, the conversation resulting from the different stories took the full two hours.
 
Hints:
This month we talked about use of cliches, both in text and in the plot basis for our stories.  For example plots such as ‘The idyllic country cottage bequeathed to the heroine by a generous aunt’ OR ‘The Gothic house with ghosts in the walls’ have been overdone and will probably not be very interesting for a reader.
 
Our challenge:
The challenge this month was to complete some common phrases without falling into the cliché trap.  We had ‘As tall as…’ and ‘As warm as…’.  Two people came up with same idea for warmth – the hug of a granddaughter.  There was ‘As cold a morning hot water bottle’ and ‘As tall as a pencil pine’.
 
Our stories:
For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:

• The accommodation was booked and the departure day set
• “What are you doing?”
• {Emma} liked to cook when she had time

 
Stories as usual varied.  Two were perhaps more serious with underlying messages.  One was a discussion between a couple.  The husband was concerned about the state of the world, and his wife thought they could not do anything so he should not worry.  This resulted in a discussion about how every small step can help.  We also talked about the treatment and encouragement of young children who have developmental problems.  This resulted from a story about a young boy with autism who was able to help police solve a series of crimes.  On a brighter note, we all had smile about a story giving personality to kitchen tools such as a mixer and knives.  It ends with them planning to form a union.
 
The topics for our 12 September class are:

• On the road again
• They had both got out, and it caused a great sensation
• A storm was brewing and hours had passed since they’d left the camp

 
And we are always ready to welcome new storytellers to the class.


Joy Shirley

Each month I eagerly await the efforts from the class.  I make sure I carve out the time to read the contributions ready to provide helpful feedback during the class.  This month was no different.  
 
Hints:
We discussed two point this month.  One was around some hints for editing our work.  These included printing a hard copy, reading it in a different location from where it was written, reading the work aloud, and not expecting the first draft to be perfect.
 
The second point was around the use of different words to describe colours.  While this can add to the richness of the text, it is a good idea to use words that people will understand without heading to the dictionary.
 
Our challenge:
The challenge for July was quite simple.  Close your eyes for 15 seconds.  When you open them, write 1-2 sentences about the first THING you see.
 
Our stories:
For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:

• The caravan slowed to a cumbersome stop
• She sat on the tram, unable to make eye contact
• I ran away from home when I was ten

 
An interesting group of stories this month gave us a lot to talk about.  All prompts were used along the way, some humorous, other much more serious and challenging.
 
But what was really interesting was that we had three poetry contributions.  It is intriguing how we often have similar themes to our stories without any collaboration.  All three poems were around the caravan, one involving a runaway 10-year-old, the other two provided stories about old vans.
 
The topics for our 8 August class are:

• The accommodation was booked and the departure day set
• “What are you doing?”
• {Emma} liked to cook when she had time

 
And we are always ready to welcome new storytellers to the class.


​Joy

​We need to carve out the time to write.  For some of us this starts at the beginning of the month; for others, the deadline is what drives them to write.  Perhaps some of us are thinking during the month but only put pen to paper (or is that fingers to keyboard) as the deadline approaches.  Even so, we are still sharing many differing stories each month.
 
At the class this month we discussed some questions on writing.  Should we plan out our stories, or just start writing?  Both approaches are valid.  There are terms used for the approaches – planners or pantsers.  The meaning of planners is obvious.  Pantsers are those who write “by the seat of their pants”.  In other words, they have a vague idea and just start writing.  The story takes its own path – it does not abide by any rules set down by the author.  But this can happen to planners as well.
 
Another topic discussed was the practice of some authors to move around in time.  This can only work if very well written.  If not well written it can be either distracting or totally unreadable.
 
Our challenge:
Often you can add just one letter to the start or end of a word to create a new word.  Our challenge this month involved looking at a series of such pairs.  For example, using the clues “You find lots of these in a book / Knights wield them” you find the answers “words/swords”.
 
For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:
 

• Mind the gap
• Appearances are often deceiving
• The sound of shattering glass

 
Of the stories this month, the shattering glass seemed to be the most popular topic, although all were used.  We had a romance writer being hacked by a wicked “ghost”, turning her books into pornography by subtly changing a letter or word.  One of the shattering glass stories was a kangaroo entering an empty house; another was breaking of a “fine-cut, expensive, and satisfyingly heavy, Scotch glass”.  There was even one using the “mind the gap” prompt that showed how many ways and places the term has been used.  Another month of interesting and creative writing.
 
As well as the creative stories, we had a couple of pieces on writing.  One was the use of body parts as idioms – ‘my brain hurts’, ‘apple of one’s eye’ and so on.  The other was around how many people who write are loath to call themselves writers because they are unpublished.  Actors, artists and musicians for example are proud to claim their skills, so why are writers not recognised in the same way as amateurs in the other arts.
 
The topics for our 11 July class are:
 

• The caravan slowed to a cumbersome stop
• She sat on the tram, unable to make eye contact
• I ran away from home when I was ten

 
And we are always ready to welcome new storytellers to the class.

​Joy Shirley

Another month of great creativity, with lots of imagination.  It is always interesting to see how differently we interpret the various prompts.
 
Our writing challenge this month was called a word ladder.  We start with one word, and progressively change one letter at a time to create another word.  We started with the word ‘writer’ and after nine changes ended up with ‘billed’.  To make it easier, each change did have a clue.  Some of the class found the clues did not help much, but eventually we found the final word.
 
One of the points that is often made about writing is the concept of “show, don’t tell”.  Some early classics use a lot more telling than is generally expected in current writing.  An example of the difference is:

• She was cranky and angry
• She slammed down the phone.  “I never want to talk to her again.”

The second point leaves the interpretation to the reader – the author does not provide a judgement, but the reader gets a picture of someone who is angry.
 
For our written work to share with the class there were three prompts:

• Just then an alpaca stuck its head out of the window
• Don’t go mistaking paradise for that home across the road
• They crouched in the ditch not daring to breathe until the footsteps faded into the distance

 
The Alpaca prompt was very popular.  We had an escape artist alpaca, an alpaca used to destroy a floral competition entry, an alpaca used to identify a fleeing van.  There was even a ‘ghost’ alpaca encouraging an alcoholic to stop drinking.  The ditch prompt had a couple of young boys hiding from bullies in the ditch while planning their revenge.  And a thought about envying the owners of a large house as ‘a home is determined by what goes on inside’.
 
The topics for June are:

• Mind the gap
• Appearances are often deceiving
• The sound of shattering glass

 
We will be having a class on 13 June even though it is a public holiday.  

​Joy Shirley

​A great set of stories again this month.  We had three prompts to choose from:

• She stood on the balcony
• The reflections on the still water of the lake, did not reveal what lay beneath
• The hotel was deserted.  Salt and pepper shakers sat on the dust covered tables.

 
We started with a quick challenge identifying collective nouns for a range of animals.  Some were well known, such as a swarm of bees.  Others were less familiar – a stand of flamingos.  We finished the exercise with sharing some ideas for a collective noun for a group of caravans.  Some ideas were more creative than others – nuisance, lumbering, blockage, chaos – but also ideas such as caravan (of caravans) and convoy.
 
We talked about the concept of “white space” – creating space between paragraphs – and length of sentences – not too long and varying the length.  Without these practices a story can be very hard to read.
 
Stories ranged from descriptive to whimsical.  Feedback was always positive, even when it was providing ideas for improvement, such as overuse of the same word in a paragraph or adding an ending that was not necessary.  Overall the stories were interesting, varied and appreciated.
 
The topics for April are:

• She pushed the strands of wet hair from her face. 
• He could see the greedy look in {insert name} eyes
• She bolted out the door like a bat out of hell

 
I am eager to see what the new topics bring for our next class on 11 April.  Happy writing everyone!

Joy Shirley