A new literary venture – back to teaching creative writing

This month I’m back to teaching creative writing. It’s a new venture that coincided with the new moon on 2nd October. If ever there was a time for new beginnings, fresh starts and the potential for growth, as per new moon symbolism, this would be it for me.

I’m running the classes for 6th form at the grammar school where I work as part of their enrichment sessions. It’s good to be back to running creative writing classes after eight years. I previously held classes at two schools in London: Battersea Park School (now Harris Academy, Battersea) and Sacred Heart High School, covering all of the usual basics such as point of view, characterisation and plot, as well as chapter planning for longer works. With both groups, the end goal was producing an anthology to showcase their work.

This time around will be quite similar, except I’ll be giving them more homework assignments too, especially to help keep them focused on producing word counts targets each week and working to deadlines. It’s all part of the writing process for any author, as we know.

Anyway, getting back to teaching creative writing has meant that some other things are taking a temporary backseat: in this case, Bindweed Anthologies. After the last creative writing group at Sacred Heart High School finished in 2016, I started up Bindweed, so it’s fun to bring things full circle again by starting up a new creative writing class. It’s great to be able to help others with their literary life, in addition to managing my own writing. Plus, on a personal note, it’s lovely to engage my brain again by balancing the literary needs of others. There are a mix of creative types in the class: poets, non-fiction bloggers, one screen-play writer and the rest being a mix of short story authors and novelists-in-the-making. Planning writing activities to meet the needs of all is a welcome challenge that shakes off the dust-bunnies in my brain.

Everything in balance.