People, poetry, prose, working.

The day before yesterday was great. Following the natter referred to in Saturday's post, below, I felt 'given permission' to do things differently.

I spent a few hours with the lovely Andrew Marshall talking about his novel for kids, and about my novel. We work in a face to face writing group, but there tends to be lots of playwriting talked about there, so this was a quiet time for prose. Andrew is a playwright as well as a very very successful author of relationship books.

We are total opposites. He is very hot on plotting and structure. I do the other stuff like voice, characterisation... things that are left to the actors and directors, on stage. The two writing disciplines are SO different!

The session was intended to be a quick 'tutorial' from me, targetting those elements of fiction he felt needed strengthening.

After a curry at a local pub (I will never be skinny) he got hold of my novel (metaphorically) asked about twenty minutes worth of questions, and lo and behold, came up with a structure that was so right - motivation, links, reasons for this and that... all by looking at the relationships between the characters, over time.

Wow.


Afternoon, tea with the poet Judith Kazantzis. HERE. And the brilliant news that she will give me guidance on poetry. In one hour, looking at a few of my poems, we talked about the effects of different shapes on the page. About the effects of certain grammatical constructs within lines of poetry. About communication. About 'letting the air in', about humour.

I came away with so much. And it is going to be exciting seeing her on a monthly basis. I am one lucky lady.