Meeting together to write is such a core principle for the NWP that it has been difficult to know what to do during the lockdown. The answer is, of course, to do what everyone else has been doing and meet virtually.
Inspired by Marjory Caine’s work with the Whodunit NWP, the Southdowns group borrowed the format of some warm up writing exercise together and then a little break to write independently before returning to share work.
As 'Dalloway Day' was earlier in the week, we took inspiration from the RSL and Write and Shine Dalloway Day Celebrations. We began with a simple listing of everyday pleasures: ‘What she loved: life, London and this moment in June’ Woolf says of Clarissa Dalloway. So we listed the everyday things that were giving us joy, or making us smile now.
Lie-ins in freshly laundered sheets, not having to drive for hours to work, al fresco meals, cuddles with puppies, and the luxury of handwritten letters all featured.
Next we thought about walking. Clarissa Dalloway walks through London to buy flowers for a party. Her walk encompasses the exterior geography at the same time as her interior thoughts and perceptions. At one point she experiences a moment of revelation: her skill is in knowing about people. ‘If you put her in a room with someone up went her back like a cat's or she purred. So we began walking in memory, noticing the detail of a familiar route and what we saw and heard. - with a moment of revelation if one occurred.
For a longer prompt we looked at two very different extracts - Mrs Dalloway entering the flower shop, and Kathleen Jamie in Findings seeing an unfamiliar bird. One fiction and one non-fiction, contrasting 'nature' in urban and rural environments. After some discussion of what was interesting in each piece we set off on a more developed piece of writing retaining the idea of walking as the prompt, with a challenge to consider one of the following: Interior and exterior worlds, something encountered and 'researched’, or playing with unexpected images
As ever, there were delightful results. Two writers mixed images from school with natural ones. A gull that was 'RAG-rated' as amber, and a bindweed whose trumpet flowers heralded the end of term. There was powerful personification in teasing skies and conversations with gate posts, and some metaphysical contemplations on a beach. And, as important as the writing, the pedagogical discussion and thoughts about writing and sharing in the classroom.
So although I was nervous about the workshop, I have discovered that I like virtual writing in the company of others. Of course, I look forward to the time when we can meet in person once more, but for now, this writing is sustaining and continues the collaborative sharing of pedagogy and writing revelation so that to quote Jamie, we can ‘bring it home intact’.