Writing what you know

Week 3: Writing what you know

In week 3 it's all about what you know and how to use your life experience, memories and observations to fill your writer’s notebook and in the end to help craft your stories. To start with is collecting information from your everyday surroundings, looking for things you don't notice or think of as an everyday habit, then thinking about it in a unique way. This can be either places or people that you meet/encounter when you are out. A lot of focus is put on your use of the five senses in writing, describing what you see around you using sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Then lastly 'Raiding you past' trying to remember a specific point in time and writing what comes back to you in a logical sequence - though it is o.k. to invent stuff as well for fiction.

I am still carrying on with daily Haiku, my favourite from week 3 was:

Dark valley, winding
Silent shadows by moonlight
Furry figures creep


I hope you like. I am also enjoying the new technique of trying to fix on a memory and writing what you remember, my best from week 3 was arriving at a beach in my childhood:


I am in a town; loud noises all around; people chatting; the smell of sand and sea; the winds whistles by making my hair fly around, the ground is hot and rough, the sound of boat horns from far away and some close to my right. The taste of ice-cream hits me from a nearby ice-cream van. There is a puppet show just over the road where a man with white hair and a white tee-shirt stands with a tall puppet with black hair and a red jacket. The puppet is almost as tall as the 6 foot man. The hot sun shines off the many cars in the car park, a sea of red, black, silver and blue all looking out over the water or at the large supermarket down the street, Morrison’s I think. The supermarket is brown brick, a light brown with a rough surface, like the waves from the sea next to me. You have to pay a toll for staying in the car park and as my grandma and dad go to pay I lean against the car, close my eyes and try to imagine I am the only person in this car park with just the noise of the sea around me and the smell of ice-cream, sand and sea in my nostrils.

That's it for week 3, I am really enjoying the course so far and feel my writing is improving already. I am busy for the rest of the week so week 4 will most likely be up next Monday.

Till then, happy writing!