On Tuesday night, I ran my first ever
proper workshop session at Chesterfield Library. It was for a group of young writers called the Write
Here Group, which is run by River
Wolton – a recent Derbyshire Poet Laureate and workshop
wizard extraordinaire, who I’ve worked with before and who will be chairing the
panel discussion I’m taking part in for the Derbyshire
Literature Festival next month. I'd been asked to talk about getting published and how to write believable fiction that's set in the future.
Was I nervous? Definitely. I’ve been
running a small writing group at the library where I work for several years
now, so I wasn’t quite as terrified
as I might have been if I was going into this cold, but it was still a slightly scary prospect. What if no-one turned up? What if they thought I was boring?
What if they thought the exercises I was going to do with them were crap? I
even had an anxiety dream the night before, where I had to meet the group at a
party in the hallway of a large, posh house. Everyone was talking so loudly I
couldn’t make myself heard, even when I shouted. Then I realised I’d forgotten
all the worksheets I’d so painstakingly put together and printed out.
NIGHTMARE.
Thankfully, the reality was completely
different. When I arrived at the library, I was met by River, and when we got down to the meeting room, two
of the group were already there. I chatted to them about the novels they’re
currently working on, which sound amazing. There were chocolate mini eggs,
and grapes to snack on, and when the rest of the group arrived someone had even brought a box of Jaffa
cakes with them.
So far, so good.
We kicked off by talking about how I got my
agent, and how to look for an agent that represents your genre (look at the Writers and
Artist’s Yearbook, and find out who represents the authors you like to read in your genre – which is how I found mine). Then we did an exercise about how
to make up believable future names, which resulted in creating a character
biography, then writing a scene featuring that character on the theme of ‘most
frightening/exciting day in their life’.
After that we did a more general exercise
about worldbuilding, and then I had the opportunity to answer more questions
about writing and getting published. Before I knew it, the two hours were up.
And I’d loved every minute of it! The group were awesome – friendly and talented, and the quality of their
writing just blew me away.
It was an honour to be asked to speak to them.
A huge thank you to the Write Here group and River for making me feel so welcome!
A huge thank you to the Write Here group and River for making me feel so welcome!
