Our friend, Geoff, who lives in Nogaro, is a writer; he’s had 31 books published, so in my opinion at least, that makes him a proper writer. He suggested running a one day writing course, so my friend, Sue and I went along, more out of curiosity and a shared desire to “try anything new” than for any other reason.

There were seven of us in total and apart from Sue and myself, they were all writers or aspiring writers! Four of them were working on novels and one had published an e-book on getting your confidence back to start horse riding again. I felt quite in awe of these dedicated, lovely people; two mothers of young children, trying to juggle their families’ needs with paid work and their literary ambitions; a man working full time at a local hospital who writes between shifts; the horse riding lady who is a retired doctor, who struggled to get her “doctor” status left out of her name on the cover; and an elderly lady who’s been writing her novel for years, had paid for a professional critique and as a result is now re-writing the book. Oh yes, and Sue and I, with no intentions of becoming authors.

The course wasn’t about the nitty gritty of putting words on the page, but gave a general overview of what’s involved in writing a book; the tools, the process, the research, and how to get published amongst other things. In one exercise we were shown a picture, the silhouette of a man standing in a small boat at sunset, a rifle in his hands, near a Scottish looking croft, next to which was a car; we had two minutes to write the synopsis of a story. Then Geoff played us some weird sounds and we did the same again. The variety of ideas was amazing! We also covered such things as methods for getting over writer’s block, what to do if you don’t like the way your main character is developing and how many words constitute a novel.

The course overran its allotted time, but by the end the writers on it were persuading Geoff to run a series of follow up courses, to tackle such subjects as character development and building the plot ; they were all very keen to have regular meetings, with him as leader/teacher. I was rather sorry to say that I won’t be joining them; I’d enjoyed the day so much, but I’ve too much to do and too little time in which to do it anyway, so I must prioritise. Apart from that, the sheer hard graft involved is mind blowing! I think I’ll just stick to my little blog and hope that you enjoy reading it enough to visit again.

For anyone who’s interested, have a look at     http://www.geoffholder.com/