Objectives and homework

Week one of CSM intermediate creative writing course was great. The tutor, Elise Valmorbida, is excellent. She was also the tutor on the beginners course, and the main reason I signed up for the intermediate despite it being shockingly expensive. The group has a really different vibe to those on the beginners course I took. The last group was much more ecclectic; a hotch-potch of Shoreditch trendies and SW yummy-mummies, but all kookily dressed, with successful careers and admirable writing skills. This group seems much more shy with their work, and less confident in their abilities. I find this difficult to deal with, as the main thing about these courses is you shouldn't apologise for or explain your writing. It's ok to be embarrassed, but it is what it is. If you publish a book you can't explain what you meant by it. Once writing leaves your pen it's no longer yours to narrate, and if someone misconstrues your meanings you can't take it back and explain. I'll be interested to see how the class dynamic works out.

To start with we each discussed what we'd been working on since the beginners course (to take the Intermediate you have to have successfully completed the beginners course) and what our aims for this course are. My primary motivation for taking these classes is to motivate me to work. In addition to that I want to get inspiration and get out of my comfort zone. I also want to work on technical aspects of my writing such as dialogue integration, structure and planning and tenses.

I talked a little about Senses, the script I completed last year. For me there was some glaring problems with the plot that I felt were unsurmountable, however talking them through made me realise there's still potential. I need to tackle issues like:

- why did Elise Stuart go missing? If she was kidnapped then why? Perhaps it's an act of misguided chivalry. Maybe the caretaker who kidnaps her knows about Tom's affair and wants Elise to overhear them.
- I need to complete a short biography of the caretaker, to understand why he's doing what he does. Is this a new thing or has he done this before?
- is there a trigger event to make the caretaker do it?
- Biogs of all the other characters would be useful too. eg whay are Emily and Tom together? Why are Tom and Elise together? Are Emily and Elise similar or different?

I've largely ignored the character of Elise because she doesn't appear much throughout, however even though she isn't physically there her presence still looms large over the action. A good example of this is the character of Maris in Frasier, who is constantly alluded to throughout the show but whom we never see.

My next steps on Senses are now to write biogs of all the characters, and really get to know them. In addition to this I'm going to write narrative monologues of the action from each of the main character's POV. Then I will leave the old draft to one side and start again as a stage play. For the first time in months I'm really excited about the script again.