To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.
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My favourite writing resource even has a name…Gail. Yours should have a name too…Jim or Hilary or Sue. Because, in my opinion, the best resource a writer can have is a writing soul-mate.
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Poetry is in fact, enchantment, that it has the form it does because that very form casts a spell, and that when they thought they were bothered and bewildered, they were, in fact, being bewitched, and if they let themselves accept the enchantment and enjoy it they would eventually understand much more about the poem.
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Writing students do sometimes get confused about building tension, confusing it with conflict. Although these two aspects of writing both fiction and drama have links, and can be present at the same time, they are not the same.
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Dumping of rubbish can be almost as much of an issue in creative writing as it is in the countryside. Keep your writing broom to hand, so that, once you spot the dumps you can clean them up promptly – but not too promptly.
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All good quests need a map, and so do you. Not just any map, either – a treasure map, which will hide the plot secrets, lay the clues, and guide your reader through the dangers and dramas of their journey to a wealth of satisfaction at the end.
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Writing practise is the only way to become assured about your voice, I think. The more you write – and, as important – the more you think about writing – the clearer your voice will shine through, from your thoughts, from your heart, from your soul.
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One of the first things you may have taken on board, as a new creative writing student, is that it’s not only poets who needs to pay attention to a beat or metre: all prose must have a rhythm – the rhythm of the words, sentences and paragraphs. During Part Three of Writing Skills, we look at speech– the spoken monologue, the interior monologue, dialogue within prose and dialogue as script.
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A day in the sun at Hay…it’s one of the selling points of the Hay Festival – photos on the website are focused on people under sun umbrellas reading their latest purchase and drinking cool lager. This is a risky ploy for a Welsh summer event, but it paid off for the OCA posse that arrived at the festival grounds on bank holiday Saturday. We’d come for the culture, of course we had. We’d come for the literature, naturally, for the heightened conversation we’d enjoy with each other after sharing events. But the fact the sun was out certainly helped.
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Ironically, as a writing student (or as a student of creative arts who needs to write), you may not find simplicity easy to attain. First drafts often result in spontaneous explosions of writing which feel very good to get down on paper, but perhaps disappoint when you read them through.
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I am planning to be at the festival grounds for one day; Saturday 28 May, and I would be happy to join with OCA students to attend events and discuss them afterwards.
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