On Saturday I attended a writing workshop in Denmark presented by Rachel Robertson. The workshop was aimed at writing 'the self' or some of the techniques one can use in writing reflective stories, truth or lies. Rachel has just recently published her own memoir, Reaching one Thousand: A Story of Love, Motherhood and Autism published by Black Inc. She is from Perth and lectures at Curtin Uni.
As one of about twenty participants, all women, I was immediately struck by the question - why no men? After all men do write. Admittedly in the previous two weeks I attended a workshop at Albany Library presented by John Cecil on recording people's stories and apart from John there were only two men out of a dozen participants.
That aside - the venue was great if a little crowded but it was convivial. Rachel was great, giving us a perfect blend of theory and practice, both serious and humourous. We covered technique, scene, summary and reflection, and creative ideas for finding our voice and form and shape in our story. We had just enough creative writing to get a feel for the techniques, writing both thoughtful and fun pieces. I'll spare you the details of my personal story but give a hint of the fun bits.
Called Chinese restaurant menu exercise - this was part of the result.
'Happiness is a battle. Raging backwards and forwards. Bloody. Watch out for spears in your back. Or drones coming out of nowhere, ready to blow your happiness to bits. Low flying happiness. Lying in the blood of battle, can you look back and know you've been happy?'
Actually I'm not a blood and guts person, but I couldn't resist the metaphors.
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