#creative risks

Harrow the Ninth is a patently unreliable narrator. She’s pretty sure she’s insane. She's pretty sure that her cavalier died in order to make her a semi-immortal knight of the Emperor—yet none of her Lyctor powers kicking in. And she’s only mostly sure she can trust the Emperor, aka God, who makes a surprising number of dad jokes, and she’s pretty sure she can’t trust any of her fellow Lyctors, because one of them is doggedly trying to kill her, and the rest don’t seem to mind. (By the way, before starting this book, I reread the last few chapters in Gideon the Ninth to remember who everyone was, and I recommend it strongly.)

The second book in Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series is a slow burn, a determined trek, a psychological thriller. The book is narrated in a 2nd person point-of-view whose readers cannot trust, mirroring the way Harrow’s brain is turning against itself. Can you trust yourself, the reader, to feel you know what happened? What’s real? What you can trust is happening now? Harrow has a very different idea of what happened at Canaan House than we do. I recommend holding onto your seats and trusting the wild ride of Harrow the Ninth, as flashbacks become metafiction and ghost story. Once you’re in, you’re committed, and the momentum will build until the twists of the ending and the foreshadowing for Alecto the Ninth leave your mind spinning. Muir is a wonder, and I continue to be astounded at the creative risks she takes within this series.

For Creative Risks we were asked to make a piece of music or sound from something that wouldn’t usually be used to make sound. I put together a piece from short 3 second video clips taken from the past year of my life. Some were from parties, most were from Japan and Disneyland.

I think this was a successful piece, I presented it without video because I wanted the sound to be out of context, which worked because the class thought it sounded “creepy” and compared it to “something out of silent hill” which is contradictory as the clips are from Disneyland. I liked this because the clips were from happy times in my life which shows a contrast to what they sound like to other people out of context. I think this also reflects the fact that my pictures and memories from my life don’t mean the same to anyone else, simultaneously, someone else’s memories not meaning anything to me. 

The Great Acting Blog: “Don’t Be Frightened Of Creative Choices”

Don’t be frightened of creative choices. These are the ones that feel a little bit risky, that may just get us into a little bit of trouble. They leap out of the imagination unexpectedly, and they feel right but we don’t quite understand them and we’re not sure whether they’ll work or not. But they’re also the most:

provocative

thrlling

vivid

bold

original

impactful

inspirational

intense

meaningf…

A simple question can take you to some very interesting places. I had my second outing as a writer in residence yesterday. This time I was in Oxford Street Books, Whitstable, writing stories inspired by whoever came into the shop. To make life more difficult, I decided to try and write these stories – brief flash fictions – on the spot. Give me the inspiration for a story, and you can take the resulting slice of literature away with you. Now. Partly, I wanted to demystify the process of idea generation. I wanted to show people – and myself, too – that ideas can be found anywhere, and that the writing process can be very quick, when necessary. I also felt that I, like many writers, spend a lot of time hanging about in the shadows, eavesdropping and observing, finding small details that could form the beginnings of a character or a story. I wanted to be more open about this process, I wanted to thank the people who inspired me, and show them what I had produced as a consequence – even if it was rubbish. So armed with my now familiar toolkit of 3x5 cards, BlueTac, paperclips and pencils, I set about my task. I picked customers at random and said something like this: "Excuse me, but I'm a writer and I'm working on a special project here today. I'm writing stories inspired by the people who come into the shop. Would you inspire me please?" This question tended to generate a nervous laugh, a look of terror or just blank incomprehension, so I quickly followed up with a simple instruction: "An easy way for you to inspire me would be to tell me your favourite word. What is it?" Now, the answer to this question wasn't very important at all. But it opened the door to further probing. It was remarkable how quickly I could go from a simple question ("So, why is peace your favourite word?") to something much deeper ("So, do you feel that your life is in a dark place at the moment?") I had no idea these brief conversation would be so revealing. I'd furiously scribble notes and when the conversation seemed to have run its course – and people wanted to talk for a lot longer than I expected – I would ask them to browse the shelves while I wrote something for them. Every time I sat down to look at my notes, I had no idea what I would write. But I always managed to produce something. I would give the result to the customer, and stick a copy to the wall or a shelf for other people to read. It was an exhausting, but inspiring day. Massive thanks to the great people at ReAuthoring who – yet again – made this all possible. Here are some photos (be kind – keep in mind, each piece of writing took about 90 seconds! And apologies for the handwriting):

This is Anne, reading "Anticipation", which she inspired

Anticipation, inspired by Anne

Start Counting

This guy had a great attitude. He inspired Start Counting

Brilliant Brian – he owns the shop and makes great tea

Jane enjoying "On the Edge", which she inspired 

On the Edge

Some of my stuff, pinned in place

The Woman Who Married a Parrot

Wendy with "The Woman who Married a Parrot"

The poster I put up in the window

Poster for inside the shop