The Writing School

The centre director made mollifying gestures. He tended to wear mollifying jumpers. Jumpers designed to reassure, to defuse tensions, to make the unlovable feel loved; jumpers with a whiff of Ted Hughes. ‘Of course,’ he said and, spreading his hands, ‘Look, there’s always someone.’ ‘Anyone else complain?’ I said. ‘Not really. Peter thinks the wine

And soulful investigations can make for dull writing; emotions are not only hard to describe but boring to read about when isolated from the other experiences of life because, in fact, they never are isolated from those things. Rachel Cusk’s description of a tooth extraction in Aftermath is also about extracting herself from a marriage. The nurse h

They may have come here to get away from other people. All the same, it was interesting, and poignant, to see how everyone arrived on the first day ready to reinvent themselves and how, by midweek, all the original character traits were reasserted, for better or worse. People settled into groups – the popular ones, the quiet ones, the odd troublema

The exercise is about describing an object and a related incident. It doesn’t have to be about anything significant or revealing. You could remember the tumble drier catching fire, or, I don’t know, watching a television show. Not all memories are loaded.’ ‘OK. Yes, I suppose I see what you mean.’ ‘Most of the things that happen in homes are boring

People came to the writing school with unbearably sad stories, about children who had died, about surviving rape and suicide attempts, about addictions or parents who never loved them. Often they hoped to turn their own story into something that could be published, perhaps without realizing that also meant turning it into a package, a product that

‘You mean fictionalizing your experience? Or writing something different inspired by it? Or just totally different?’ ‘What do you think?’ ‘I think making stuff up is harder.’ It was like being a doctor sometimes, sitting there at my desk, hearing about symptoms and trying to locate their source, dispensing advice while discreetly keeping an eye on

Perhaps this woman had found a way to prevent the sad things that happen to us turning into secrets, then percolating through the subconscious and causing havoc in the dangerous territory of memory. The trick might be to proclaim your story, rather than hide it.

‘How are you?’ he asked. We were sitting in a ‘break-out’ area, in deep nourishing sofas that are intended to cradle fragile personalities. People come here to make difficult phone calls, and sometimes to get fired. ‘I’m well, thanks.’ ‘But how are you really?’ he said, looking at me so intently that I found tears pricking my eyes. I wondered if I

I looked out of the window at the glimmering hills, thinking about going for a run. I was more interested in the concept of myself as the kind of person who went for a run before a day of teaching than in the running itself. But a writing course offers the chance of reinvention, for tutors as well students, and as long as my trainers were there, pa