EmmaD asked me to do a piece on this on my return - not sure if this is the right place (site admin will no doubt move if appropriate), but here goes.

Absolutely fantastic experience, so first off my thanks to everyone on WriteWords who took the time to recommend that I do this. I've just arrived back today, and have to say that this last week has been the best fun I've had in a long time.

The course tutors were Jill Dawson and Romesh Gunesekera, both successful novelists who are also I've found out this week, high quality tutors. We were at Arvon's Lumb Bank site near Hebden Bridge, where the Yorkshire mists, stunning views, and bracing walks provided the ideal counterpoint to the stimulating workshops of Jill and Romesh. The work was a-lot more intense and consequently much more rewarding than I had expected, and as a result I feel I have learnt a hell of a-lot in a short space of time.

There were fourteen of us on the course, and although some of us admitted to having initially had reservations about the communal living thing, by last night we were pretty much all in agreement that we'd actually enjoyed that part of it. Which in practice meant having to cook one evening meal for the group as part a team of four at sometime during the week, and doing the washing up one evening in the week. No big deal really, and that part actually turned out to be fun too.

Both tutors socialised freely each evening, and I think all sixteen of us enjoyed the stimulating, wine-fuelled discussions over dinner that sometimes continued on into the early hours of the morning. I certainly did.

So if you have a week and about £500 to spare, I'd definately recommend to anyone who might be thinking about it to have a go on one of these.

Dayfdd, thanks for this. Glad you had such a great time. What was the course on? And can you give us any idea of the kinds of things Romesh and Jill D. got you all to do in the workshops?

Emma

Hi Emma,

The name of the course was Enjoying Inventiveness.

The workshops of both Jill and Romesh were very much exercise based. 14 or 7 in the group, depending on if they got split for that day.
So for example:

- Everyone writes up the last line of a story onto the board (7 in that group), this has to be off the top of your head, you get max one minute to think. Then everyone has to take one of those lines to start a story, and another to end it; 12 minutes writing time. Then read them out to the group. Then re-write from a different viewpoint in the story (make up new character for this if necessary), 5 minutes for this, then read it out; then reduce it by 25%, 5 minutes for this, then read it out.

-Pick up an object (various laid out by tutor such as fossil, pebble, mini gin bottle, leaf etc.) and write about it. Read it out to the 14 in the group.

-Write a piece about somewhere you remember; 15 minues. Then take that piece and write a monolog about it, and think what you'd do next, after what you've written. Read it out, and the others in the group have to guess what they think you'll do next, and it then gets compared to your answer.


Those are just 3 off the top of my head, but there were many such exercises.
The only way I can describe the effect of this is that it felt as though, just as if they were squeezing a tube of toothpaste, Jill and Romesh used their workshops to squeeze our brains so that lots of stuff came out and got written down onto paper, in a rush, just like toothpaste comes out quickly.
So we all wrote loads, some good, some indifferent, some maybe not so good. Didn't matter though, no time to think or review (at least not in the workshop itself), just move onto the next exercise, rise to the next challenge and use the brain to write again, absolutely bloody brilliant.

Workshops every morning and then we had the afternoons "off", either to write, or to walk in the beautiful surrounding countryside. And you were also given one 30 minutes session with Jill and one with Romesh on one of those afternoons, sometime during the week. I found both of those sessions incredibly helpful and informative.

Finally we all had to produce one piece of work for an anthology, which was put together yesterday, photocopied, so we all got to take one home. And then we all read anthology pieces out to the group last night, on the stage, in the Barn. Fantastic.

Dafydd, that sounds such fun! And, as you say, very inspiring. It's so useful to have a repertoire of ways to bring out new ideas you didn't know were there. I love the last line idea - brilliant!

Emma

Thanks for this Dafydd, very interesting. Thanks to a recent listing on WW, I've booked a place on a week-long writers' retreat in January at the Arvon centre in Totleigh Barton in Devon. The retreat is non-tutored, although from the joining instructions I think it has the same communal catering arrangements etc.

I'm looking forward to it very much, both as a kind of kick start to my planned year off from my day job (although the year off itself might not actually start in January, if you see what I mean ), and in its own right as a quiet week away in the company of others who write.

Katy

Sounds great! Thanks for posting.

Enjoy, Katy!

Nik