Monday 7 , November 2011

Free creative coaching/mentoring

Hello and welcome to the November newsletter.  The theme this month is mentoring, and I am offering five free creative coaching /mentoring sessions to the first people to let me know that they want them.  The sessions are taster sessions  - an opportunity for you to explore where you are now, and where you want to get to, and how to get there . I aim to be a guide and mentor, but you are the expert and my approach will be based on what you need.  The taster sessions will last 45 minutes, and can be face to face in Brighton or on the phone.

Contact me via the website. 

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plays and playing

 I've been catching up on plays this month, as I have begun to run a playwriting group at Chichester Festival Theatre, with Bolder and Wiser, a new venture, aiming to engage adults in theatre based activities.  I have been inspired by Edward Bond's Saved, in a production at the Lyric Hammersmith, directed  by Sean Holmes.  Bond' as a writer has acted as a mentor and inspiration to many of the "in yer face" playwrights of the 1990's, notably Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill.  This play is immaculately structured, and both shocking and powerful.  

Which writers inspire you? What is it that inspires you about them?  Let me know. Email me at mail@ink-inc.co.uk and I will put a selection in the next newsletter

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Inspiring writing - over to you.

Try this : Think of a place that you have strong associations with  ( write three sentences about that place, then see if you can sum up the essence of hte place in just three words. These three words convey alot of atmosphere.  Then think of a person you associate with that place. Descrbe them in the same way.

Think of an object you associate with that person and write a paragraph about that. 

Finally write a short dialogue in which this person meets the last person they want to meet, and have a confrontation.

Now imagine that the theatre has contacted you and told you that if you can come up with an idea for a play in thirty minutes, they will put it on, using what you can, come up with characters, location, scenes, story and theme.

Send me them and the ones I like the best  I will put on the website.

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Mentors

I am writing an ebook which will be available on my site, about the inner and outer journey of being a writer

.  I have been inspired, partly by my own experience, and also  by Jurgen Wolff's book "Creativity"  and by the Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler . In my screenwriting course the other day, we were looking at the film Almost Famous, by Cameron Crowe and talking about the mentor character. Mentors are sources of wisdom, guides. They often appear in films at the end of the first act at first, when they advise the character. Often older than the main character, they come from folk lore, where they bestow gifts on a character - the elves help the shoemaker, puss in boots helps his master win a kingdom.  A good mentor is enthused about learning, they can strengthen the mind of the hero to face an ordeal with confidence. They usually only appear two or three times - Glenda the good witch in the Wizard of Oz, Dickie, the sports agent mentor in Jerry Maguire. Think of mentors in films and plays.

Think of mentors in your own life - parents? Writers? Teachers? Older people in your community? Does the mentor prove to be a villain, as in Rumplestiltskin? Have you ever thought of someone as a mentor who then turned out to be a villain? 

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That's all for now

 That's it for now. 

Look forward to hearing from you

Julie

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