Pause, and then write

Happy New Year!

The sun is shining as I write this and I am about to go for a walk with a neighbour. Although the paths are muddy and the breeze chilly it will be the loveliest thing. Sometimes walking feels a bit like writing. Yesterday, despite the sunshine, it took me an age to get out on the road. I suddenly found a number of small jobs that had to be done before I could go out. I prevaricated about gloves and hats. I sat by my muddy boots for quite some time, simply staring into space. And then I was out in the lanes, startled by the yellow of a dandelion, happy to see the blush of mauve in the sky, sitting for a while on one of the benches John has made in the woodland, glad to gaze at the circle of hazels. And, today, how much pleasure there is to be had in walking with a friend.

And so it is with many things. We put off the moment, whether it is the plunge into a pool, the first strides of a run, the rolling out of a yoga mat. Afterwards when we have walked or run or made friends with downward dog, we feel good. Writing can make us feel well. It is good for the mind and spirit and the imaginative life. If you are reading this, you probably know that already. You may have been given, or gifted yourself, a new notebook for the new year. Hurrah! But let’s be realistic, and kind to ourselves. At this time of year we are bombarded with exhortations and advice towards the new  person we are going to be in 2022.The stakes are too high! I have a number of notebooks that I began with a flourish on the first day of several Januaries and they remain  unfilled. Once I had missed a day, or two, somehow I couldn’t go back to it. It is even worse if you have a diary where blank, dated pages serve as reminders of your failure to write on Tuesday and Saturday. It’s already past the first few days of the new year, so let’s start with the kind of cheap notebook that Natalie Goldberg recommends. It is spiral bound, may have a cartoon character on the front and is not so fat it can’t, realistically, be filled in a month.

Filling a notebook a month, getting the words on the page is what Natalie Goldberg recommends. It is our daily jog, our morning flow. Some people write morning pages: twenty minutes of non-stop writing with no expectation, even, that you will read back what you have written. Some people make a date to write with a friend. This is low stakes writing. There is no need to worry about the Great British novel just now. Tjis is just about words on the page.

In last Sunday’s Observer Magazine (2.1.2022) Michael Rosen wrote about the importance of play in his life, of playing with words and, as he learned when his son died, how writing things down helps him to confront the sadness:

… penning a poem about sadness or a sense of loss can leave you feeling better as well. It helps, laying things down on paper. I call it “unfolding”.

Everyone can do this, it doesn’t take expertise. Think of it as doodling with words.

There’s a tyranny to education: learning to write frees you, but we’re restricted by being taught that formal sentences are all that’s worthwhile. Instead, scribble down fragments – think up half-lines mixed with song lyrics, lines from films, things people say. Don’t overthink it - it’s like talking with your pen. This process is a liberation for the mind.

I am thinking that you know all this. And you know how, not only the commitment to the formal sentence, but the requirement to write at particular times and in ways that are defined by others often dominates how children write in schools. For many, it is the only way they experience writing. The young people we teach experience sadness, too. They have complicated lives. They worry about things. Are you able to squeeze five or ten minutes of free writing, playful writing, into their school day?  In schools that I know where there are regular opportunities for free writing, young people like writing, often love writing. And they learn, also, the ways in which writing can be their own, that writing can make you feel better.

So I send you the very best of wishes for the year ahead. Write often. Write for your own reasons.  Be playful and tender. Allow the writing to bring you back to yourself. I hope, also,  that you are able to find the space where children may write for their own purposes and that they learn what a good thing that is.

How about a five minute free write every day? Start with this month’s thirty writing prompts to break into the page, along with an idea from David Morley.

Writing Inside Out

I am sorry that I have not published anything here for so long. I have known I should. In April I experienced a life-changing event and have just not been able to find public words. I have written. Writing has remained my lifeline, but, until the last few days, I have not found the energy to write beyond myself. I think that kind of ebb and flow of writing and what we choose to write -or not - may be familiar to most of us. I hope that you have been able to find time to write for yourself. Perhaps you have used and enjoyed the regular writing prompts posted on the site . Have you had time to read Katie Kibbler’s wonderful account of her encounters and commitment to NWP teacher writing groups? If you haven’t already, read what she has to say.  Feel inspired by her!

More than ever, our groups of teacher writers, and those who are not yet part of a group, need the time and space to write, and we need each other. Writing together brings a kind of affirmation, inspiration and comfort that infuses our lives and our teaching. It would be good to hear news of what you have been writing, how you have been meeting. Most of our established groups are writing together by Zoom. Unexpectedly, the Zoom meeting for writers is remarkably different from the many other on-line meetings that you may have to deal with. Essentially, the on-line meeting for writing teachers has become, what one teacher described as ‘a sacred space’. It works so powerfully for our well-being and is, at the same time, ‘the best kind of CPD’. 

During the spring and summer, when teachers were teaching remotely to blank screens, dipping in and out of school, caring for the children of key workers, trying to home school our own children, we, in Norwich, found that our meetings were a space that was ours. I was able, home alone, to run a meeting every week, rather than monthly. And that has proved to be wonderful. People come and go according to commitments and timetables, but we are always there on a Thursday. Sometimes children join us -and that is a pleasure and a privilege. And I have found that we are learning even more about ourselves as writers and teachers of writing.

My usual approach to running a writing group is to combine adult focused activities alongside approaches and ideas that can be transferred to the classroom. I have always included in our meetings some focus on pedagogy or process. But during lockdown, I began choosing ideas and prompts that were designed with the group and our situation in mind. I felt that we just needed the space to write -and to hear other people’s writing, about our days, about what we have lost, and what we have found, pleasures and sadnesses. And there is always laughter. At some point I worried about the teaching part of this venture. Had we lost that element of our meetings? And that is when someone said that this was the best kind of CPD. The weekly commitment has allowed people to stay in the writing moment, and not feel they have to pick it up again after a month or more. A weekly commitment is not necessary, though people reported how they had more frequently gone back to their writing, revised it, developed it. Most importantly, they said that what they were learning for themselves, through writing themselves, was richer and more deeply embedded in their teaching than in other forms of professional development. It is what I have always known at some level. It is hard to capture. It encourages me to encourage you to write with others!

We learn to write from the inside out…