Sunday, April 08, 2007

Masterclass

I realise I didn’t comment on the Masterclass I delivered in Halifax (apart from registering a degree of surprise that I should be delivering said class.)

I enjoyed it. It mainly consisted of me speaking of passion – for subject, character, place, period. Passion for what you write will make you do one of the hardest things – sit down and write every day. I quoted what used to be above my desk (and is engraven on heart and posterior): ‘The Art of writing is the Art of putting the bottom in the chair.’ I also emphasised the necessity of the first draft being strictly for oneself. ‘Its only a first draft’ is another CC mantra. If its for yourself, you can write rubbish, fail miserably, misspell, be ungrammatical…anything, because no one is going to see it. It leaves you free then to concentrate on what you should be concentrating on in the first draft: finding your characters, letting them tell you their stories, playing with voice and form. No one sees my first draft. It gives me enormous freedom.

Heh! I’ve blogged twice in a week! I must be getting into it. And I am contemplating a big step forward. A tech wizard friend is trying to set me up with an ipod I can record on. He will then give me a site I can upload to which people can access from my blog. So I am thinking of podcasting from Romania.

Imagine… “So here I am, sitting in the ruins of Dracula’s castle at Poenari. I am alone. Entirely alone… except! No! No! Stay away from me. Stay….!”
Hmm! Could be fun!

1 Comments:

Blogger Rachel said...

I am sure I am not alone when I query: What DOES the second 'C' stand for, CC Humphreys?



I think it is beautifully ironic that you will be amidst ruins and podcasting!!

4:03 PM  

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