Creative Writing
What is writing with constraints? In a nutshell, it means writing according to specific and tight rules. The “official” name for this is Oulipo, which is a French acronym for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle.
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Blogger, by Terry Freedman
Some people say "of course creative writing can be taught", while others say the opposite. I take a slightly more nuanced view.
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time’s running out! Picture created in ImageFX
This collection of work by Gay Talese is utterly brilliant, and contains items that haven’t seen the light of day in a long time.
Read MoreNot everything in life is black and white -- but perhaps more of it should be.
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Creative writing class
Reading each student’s work each week, at a rate of ten minutes each, took nearly two and a half hours. Thinking of suitable comments, adding them in to the appropriate place in Google Classroom, and updating my spreadsheet markbook took another hour and a half.
Something had to be done.
Read MoreLast week I announced a competition to win a copy of A Town Without Time, the new collection of work by Gay Talese. Here is the link again, this time with an unrestricted link!
Read MoreHere are seven handy techniques with which to enrich your writing. Used sparingly, they can be very effective at bringing a piece to life.
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Three creative writing experiments: stories written in the hardboiled style.A short review, plus a chance to win a copy of this new book.
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A writer, by Terry Freedman
Next week I’ll be teaching a course called The 60 Minute Writer. The title always makes me smile because it sounds like I teach people how to be a writer in an hour. It reminds me of a joke by, I think, Frank Carson…
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An A minor harmonica, by Terry Freedman
Poetry writing is not my thing. At least, I don't think it is. The reason for my uncertainty is that although I attended a one-day poetry class some years ago, the feedback provided by the tutor was not very detailed, to say the least.
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drawing of a fish, by Terry Freedman
This is a piece I wrote during a flash fiction course several years ago. It’s exactly 90 words long.
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Blogger,+by+Terry+Freedman
Every so often I read some pundit, or usually a journalist pretending to be a pundit, suggesting that blogs are dead. What can I say? They’re not.
Read More“Good afternoon”, said the doctor. “What seems to be the trouble?”
Read MoreAs indicated by the title, the first thing to know about this anthology is that it comprises both poetry and prose, rather than one or the other. Many of the pieces are quite unusual...
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station platform, by Terry Freedman
Transport in London these days is, for the most part, sleek, efficient. The epitome of this newish Utopia is the Elizabeth Line, with its silent, gliding carriages, air-conditioning and wi-fi. The announcements are soothing...
Read MoreIn this essay I have used three different AI apps to analyse a piece of my writing, and to make suggestions for improvement.
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One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. This one was written in the style of Borges.
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When writing short-form I think it helps to think in terms of the minimum viable wordage, or MVW...
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