Author Archives: Story Scavenger
I wrote this – this afternoon, just for fun. I thought I’d put it up for a few days.
Definitions
You can tell it is a student house because the curtains in the window hang off the rails and aren’t big enough to stretch across. You can see things in the room. In the room in the student’s room in the student house you can see things. This is a list of the things in the room
list 1
n.
1. A series of names, words, or other items written, printed, or imagined one after the other: a shopping list; a guest list; a list of things to do.
2. A considerable number; a long series: recited a list of dates memorized.
v. lists
1. To make a list of; itemize: listed his previous jobs.
2. To put (oneself) in a specific category: lists herself as an artist.
they are: the curtains, a mirror; a cupboard; a door; a towel that hangs on the door (but not in the way the curtains are hanging); a poster in orange and black that is of Trainspotting and one of Blade Runner, that is a famous film based on a novel by Philip K Dick; a wall; two other walls, except you cannot see them properly only sideways on, like walls in a film that you can pass through to see what’s happening on the other side – and you see the cross-section of the wall as you move through
cross section also cross-sec·tion
n.
1.
a. A section formed by a plane cutting through an object, usually at right angles to an axis.
b. A piece so cut or a graphic representation of such a piece.
2. Physics A measure of the probability that an encounter between particles will result in the occurrence of a particular atomic or nuclear reaction. Also called collision cross section.
3. Statistics A sample meant to be representative of a whole population.
4. Informal A variety; a diversit
except you can’t do that, pass through the wall to see what’s on the other side, because a) you are not a camera b) because they are real walls c) because you cannot leave the house
ag·o·ra·pho·bi·a n.
An abnormal fear of open or public places.
Also there is a student, but he is not on the list because he is a person. The student in the room doesn’t look English, he looks Spanish or Italian or something else similar but not English, maybe he is an immigrant
im·mi·grant
n.
1. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.
2. A plant or animal that establishes itself in an area where it previously did not exist.
he stands in the middle of the room and does his weight-lifting in front of the mirror. Usually you cannot see the weights he does the lifting with, (they are on the floor, or perhaps in the cupboard, so they are not on the list) but when he is lifting them you can see the muscles in his arms working, and across his chest when he lifts them above his head. Also there is a bed, but it is not on the list either because you cannot see it, because it is beneath the window, below the curtains that do not close and hang off their hooks. The bed is under the window and often you can see the student getting up from it and kneeling on it, with his arms on the sill of the window, smoking a cigarette. There is a girl sometimes. The same girl. Her head appears over the sill of the window, or her arm does, dangling a stub of ash from a cigarette out of the open window, or her shoulder and the rest of her rises from the bed and you see her take the towel from the back of the door and she does this even though it is daytime and it is light outside. She stands in the window. She is young too. Maybe she is a student. Probably she is a student too. There is a tattoo on her stomach, it is darker than the circles of nipples on her breasts, but not as dark as the parts between her legs. She stands in the window so everyone can see. She is an exhibitionist.
ex·hi·bi·tion·ism
n.
1. The act or practice of deliberately behaving so as to attract attention.
2. Psychiatry A psychosexual disorder marked by the compulsive exposure of the genitals in public.
Once she gave you the finger.
give someone the finger
1. Fig. to display the middle finger upright as a sign of derision. (The gesture is derisive and offensive. See also flip someone off, flip someone the bird.) Did one of you guys give Ted the finger? Somebody gave the cop the finger.
2. Fig. Inf. to mistreat someone; to insult someone. You’ve been giving me the finger ever since I started working here. What’s wrong? I’m tired of everybody giving me the finger around here just because I’m new.
She gets up from the bed and she doesn’t draw the hanging down, off the hook curtains. And once she stood by the bed and touched herself, there, and you touched yourself there and she laughed. You could see her laughing right across the road. But you are not an exhibitionist because you were wearing trousers. That is when she gave you the finger. After that there was the sign. You added the sign to the list because you could see it. The sign was in the window and it was written in blue ink handwriting in capital letters. The sign said: W E I R D O
weird·o
n. pl. weird·oes Slang
1. A person regarded as being very strange or eccentric.
2. A deranged, potentially dangerous person.
You put up your own sign.
au·tism
n.
A pervasive developmental disorder characterized by severe deficits in social interaction and communication, by an extremely limited range of activities and interests, and often by the presence of repetitive, stereotyped behaviors. Therefore
au·tistic adj. & n.
But you didn’t put your sign on the list because it is on your window.
 |
| Marc Chagall, 1915, The Birthday |
Easter is almost here – hooray! – and to celebrate April’s Waterstones Writing Workshop is going to be on the theme of EGGS. Now don’t laugh, very important things, eggs – and not just the chocolate variety. All sorts of amazing things hatch into the world, and this month I’ll be challenging your imagination to think of some – as we write strange, funny and fantastical stories.
The Waterstones Writing Workshops happen the first Thursday of every month – from 5.30 – 6.45pm in the Waterstones Cafe. Join us for fun and inspiring creative writing games and exercises – all linked to a monthly theme. All writers welcome, whatever their level of experience – absolute beginners to Nobel Laureates! No need to sign up or register – just turn up with paper and a pen.
We are now a big and friendly group of writers (often 30 plus) - and I’m very grateful to Waterstones and Costa for continuing to host us for FREE. As a courtesy to them and to ensure we start the class on time – PLEASE can you arrive before 5.30pm, so that you have time to find a chair, order your tea or coffee and get settled before we start the class. This means Sky, the Costa manager, doesn’t get run off his feet and we all get maximum writing time. Thank you!
Waterstones is near the Clock Tower – 71 – 74 North Street, Brighton, BN1 1ZA Tel: 0843 290 8181 Email me at storyscavenger@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Feeling stuck? Can’t think of anything to write? Here are 3 Story Scavenger style tips – that are guaranteed to get your pen moving again. Ready for your mission? 1 ) Go to you local library – and find the newspaper archive. These are often on microfic…
Well it’s nearly March and I’ve decided it’s time to get-like-the-hare and go a little mad. Writing characters with strange quirks and crazy habits is always fun, and this month’s session – Going Slightly Mad – focuses on how you can make the strange interior realities of characters come to life, creating exciting, surreal and compelling stories that leap from the page.
The Waterstones Writing Workshops happen the first Thursday of every month – from 5.30 – 6.50pm in the Waterstones Cafe. Join us for fun and inspiring creative writing games and exercises – all linked to a monthly theme. All writers welcome, whatever their level of experience – absolute beginners to Nobel Laureates! No need to sign up or register – just turn up with paper and a pen.
Waterstones is near the Clock Tower – 71 – 74 North Street, Brighton, BN1 1ZA Tel: 0843 290 8181 Email me at storyscavenger@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Spring is the season for new beginnings – so it seemed the perfect time to launch a brand new Story Scavenger course. From April we’re back in our art studio base, for a 4 week course which will celebrate the life of the senses, using the experimental, imaginative Story Scavenger approach that’s proved so popular. This is an opportunity to develop fiction, poetry and autobiographical writing and as always the emphasis will be on opening things out, rather than pinning them down. I’m sure you’ll be surprised by what ends up on the page, as you explore new ways of writing and generating ideas. Here’s what we’ll be getting up to…
Week 1: SOUND
We’ll be using music and other sound prompts, writing our own musical scores with words, as well as experimenting with onomatopoeia and rhythm.
Week 2: VISION
What can you see? You’ll be sent off with cameras to photograph what’s outside and then come back to the studio for writing exercises that explore colour, shape and image.
Week 3: TOUCH
We’ll be exploring touch and movement, using objects, materials, textures – and with a handy blindfold, rediscovering the world through our fingers, writing about the body and the spell of the sensuous.
Week 4: TASTE
Party time! For our final session we’ll be bringing food to share, and as we feast, we’ll be doing some really juicy writing. Something to savour and nurture you through the spring.
You can book online through Eventbrite here. The course runs on 4 Mondays 15th April – 6th May 7.30-9.30pm and costs £50 – but if you book before March 12th you’ll get a 10% Early Bird discount.
2 wheels good, 4 wheels bad! Calling all lovers of 2 wheels – how would you like to take part in a free 3 week writing course AND get your writing published at the end of it?
As part of the Shaun Gladwell – Cycles of Radical Will season at the De La Warr Pavilion – I’m going to be running 3 creative writing session that celebrate
the magic, the machinery, the freedom and the beauty of the open road.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never written before – if you love your bike and want to share your stories of life in the saddle or on the road – then come and join us. Writing from The Motorcycle Diaries will be published by the De La Warr Pavilion and incorporated into the Shaun Gladwell season.
In Week 1, we’ll be inviting you to bring your motorcycle, scooter and cycling memorabilia along, as we write autobiographically about first bikes, memorable journeys and formative encounters.
In Week 2, we’ll be watching movies and paying homage to motorcycling icons in film and literature like T.E. Lawrence, Steve McQueen and JamesDean; Hunter S Thompson, Robert M Pirzig and Frederick Seidel, before getting creative with our own stories.
And in Week 3: we’ll be shooting video footage of your bikes and creating a piece of collaborative writing, that truly celebrates the love of two wheels.
The course runs on 3 Saturday afternoons April 13th – 27th 2-5pm. Places on this course are entirely free – your £10 reservation fee will be refunded on the first day. Do spread the word about this – and if you’d like to book a place, click here.
Don’t buy something – write something this Valentine’s Day! Yes, you too can escape the commercialism of the day, with this entirely free exercise, which will help you avoid the cheesy Valentines cliches and speak from the heart. This exercise is …
Love poems. They’ve got a bad reputation. It’s so easy to overstate it, get sentimental or fall into cliche. And yet if anything’s an antidote to the rampant commercialism of the high street, then surely a self-penned poem is it? Simple. Direct. Straight from the heart – not the wallet. The best love poems don’t try to be poetic, they simply speak of ordinary things, in authentic voices that ring true. At Brighton Waterstones last week, 34 writers (many of whom had never written a poem before) rolled up their sleeves, sharpened their pencils and gave it a go. Below, I’ll be posting some of their writing – and if you’d like to try it yourself then I explain the exercise in full here.
SCROSSICS By Rob Nisbet
Duellists at dawn
Two swords, our tongues cutting-edged
Stabbing.
Scissors, in our drawer beneath our cutlery
Separate blades, joined at the hip
Severing.
Our scissors are useless, why do we keep them?
So blunt, they could work in reverse:
“Srossics”.
Combining and joining
Lives reversed
Healing what has grown apart.
Two photos, with the same background
Unsevered.
Valentine (2013) by Adrian Hale
I won’t make you a sugar junky,
No chocolates or cute pictures for you,
No teddy bear cupids or cats with bows -
My angels will fly like the fierce
Winged beasts of Assyria and Babylon; fly across
The paper in their wild mad freedom
Taking the pen linked to the beat of my heart
Drawing the love from it as the ink flows
Leaving a trail of phrenetic lines and swirls
Expressing more than words left
hanging
In a phone call.
2 Poems By Katie Sollohub
The last time I thought I was in love
was when you looked into my eyes and didn’t say you loved me
My heart didn’t skip a beat, it just got bigger
I never gave you my heart, and I never asked for yours
_____
I don’t expect chocolates
But I will eat them,
And enjoy them
Poem about my love for you by Debbie Waldon
I’m not going to give you roses
Your hay fever wouldn’t allow that I bring flowers to your room.
There’ll be no satin heart-shaped cards trimmed with cheap broderie anglaise they call lace
Nor teddy bears sharing pyjamas, her the top, him the trousers, or anything else you find in charity shops in March.
I’m not going to drench myself in perfume I can’t afford, lie in wait in sexy underwear, wire digging into my ribs, on your rose-petal strewn bed.
Mostly because I couldn’t do that with a straight face.
I’m not going to claim insanity and boil your rabbit for your tea.
Not croon about the moon in June under your balcony
If there’s a pain in my heart it’s more likely to be angina than cupid’s arrow; shouldn’t love bring more joy than pain?
But I will buy your Yorkshire tea even if Tesco’s own is on offer.
Allow you to put all my CDs and DVDs in alphabetical order
But don’t expect me to put them back that way.
Rub Vick’s on your chest even though Olbas oil is better.
And on that day, St Valentine’s Day, I’ll remember that bubble and squeak and spotty dick win your heart quicker than lobster.
To Chris, a candle By David Wilson
Liquid wax, incense,
A length of wick,
Dipped and cooled,
Dipped and cooled
And laid to rest
Not for a church
Nor yet for a funeral
Inert, lifeless, waiting
For my spark, my light,
My flame, to burn, bright
Chasing shadows
Conquering darkness
Now alight, tended
Cupped, framed, held
Protected constantly
Never abandoned
And held high, as a beacon
A testament of my love for you
Thence to light others
And so never die
But go on burning
Generation after generation
Even after death.
Beginning by Robert Feld
Beginning of a novel
Story or facts are set out in detail
Your kind gestures, your sweet words
are the building blocks of the story.
Crisp words on a leafy page
Everyday is a new chapter
Language is as clear as crystal
Just being ourselves
In honour of the season of romance – and in a un-schmaltzy, non-commercial fashion, Story Scavenger is back in February for another FREE creative writing workshops at Brighton Waterstones, this time on the theme of LURVE. Come and join us on February 7th to write love poems and love letters. Write one to your first love, your last love, your Mum or your favourite footie team – but write it. Whether you send it is up to you!
The Waterstones Writing Workshops happen the first Thursday of every month – from 5.30 – 6.50pm in the Waterstones Cafe. Join us for fun and inspiring creative writing games and exercises – all linked to a monthly theme. All writers welcome, whatever their level of experience – absolute beginners to Nobel Laureates! No need to sign up or register – just turn up with paper and a pen.
Waterstones is near the Clock Tower – 71 – 74 North Street, Brighton, BN1 1ZA Tel: 0843 290 8181 Email me at storyscavenger@gmail.com if you have any questions.
