Tuesday, 2nd September, 2014
In Which I enter a Storytelling Marathon.
Today was another big step in getting back into writing. I held my breath and…signed up for a storytelling marathon.
The next big event we’re having here is called Fun Palaces. It’s being organised by the author of The Room of Lost Things (review coming up soon) and I can’t wait. It’s like it was arranged for me; just as I feel the twinges of an idea returning, here is an event all about creativity and writing.
Do you know the game of consequences? It’s where one person writes the line of a story, folds over the page and then another person writes the second sentence, only knowing the last word of the previous sentence. At fun palaces they’re doing a bigger version of this; fourteen published authors (many of whom I am a little in love with) are writing a story collaboratively. Each is writing a small chapter, and on the day we will get to hear the completed story. Alongside this, there is also an 8-hour storytelling marathon. This is where people can sign up to read a story of their own creation for ten minutes.
I remember when I first started my undergraduate degree; the thought of reading aloud to a room of ten people sounded terrifying. We had a week to prepare for each piece, which meant that whatever we read would be by no means polished. After the first time I did it however, I never looked back. It ended up being one of my favourite parts of the course. I genuinely looked forward to the peer review part, be it good or bad. As we were all writers it helped a great deal.
So here I am, nearly four years later. I have an empty page and a deadline. Let’s hope I can get something together before then. It’s been interesting asking people how they write. Some people have an idea in their head that they need to get out onto the page; you see them furiously scribbling at a desk for hours at a time. Other people carefully plan each stage, and some of them even stick to it. As for me, I’m somewhere in between. I cannot write a single word until a fully formed sentence popped into my head. At the moment I have nothing, but I know it will come.
I can try and force it. Right now there’s a wedding taking place at St. Deiniol’s Church next door.
I could start with something like:
I can hear the wedding bells ringing in the distance. They clang in a way that isn’t rhythmical or melodic, but somehow they still sing gloriously in a way that is amiable to the ears. They’ve been going for some time now and I wonder if the people are still inside the church, and if so if the bells are disturbing the ceremony.
I remember when I was younger when I went to a wedding, and they got married in a small room with no echoes and had a tape of church bells which they played as the happy couple left the building. It was a strange, uncanny feeling; it didn’t belong in a room that was new or had curtains. It belonged in a great hall made of grey sound; this sound wasn’t quite the sound that was always permeating the air in romantic films and on sunny Sundays. This sound was not quite the same. The sound was somehow fuzzy and obscured by the speakers that tried very hard but couldn’t quite replicate the sound of the clear bells vibrating the air around.
The bells are quieter now. It sounds like the church is moving away. It’s slowly edging itself away from me, continuing to sound its bells whilst it takes a sideways glance to see if I’ve noticed its migration. Why does it want to leave? Why doesn’t it want me to know?
BrightStarBookworm 