at last: the per­fect writ­ing course

But first, before I tell you about my new class, I have to rec­om­mend a total­ly addic­tive British minis­eries called “State of Play.” It’s a crack­ing thriller about a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter whose assis­tant turns up under a tube train, set­ting in motion a whole series of events that don’t seem as if they could pos­si­bly be con­nect­ed, but… well, you know. I came upon it in my quest to watch all things con­tain­ing the incan­des­cent James McAvoy, and he’s well worth the hunt. But the actors are all mar­vel­lous: Bill Nighy, John Simm, David Mor­ris­sey and oh! Marc War­ren, who is so won­der­ful in “Hus­tle.”

And then there’s the wicked­ly fun­ny and oh so total­ly British sit­com “Shame­less.” We were led to this by my film friend who knows I’ll watch any­thing with James McAvoy, but real­ly it’s Anne-Marie Duff (his real-life wife) who steals the show. It’s set in Strat­ford on a coun­cil estate and you have to give it at least fif­teen min­utes before you think you don’t like it. Cig­a­rettes, chil­dren drink­ing lager in school uni­forms, peo­ple get­ting drunk and end­ing up in car boots on their way to Calais on the fer­ry. It’s writ­ten by the won­der­ful Paul Abbott who wrote “State of Play,” but you could hard­ly find two projects less like each oth­er. “Shame­less” is auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal­ly based, though, so that may account for the range. Any­way, two real­ly addic­tive pro­grammes for you to enjoy.

But my new writ­ing class! As you know, I have slogged through a lot of class­es at Citylit, try­ing to find my niche. Fic­tion? Nope, don’t have a grit­ty nov­el in me, as my class­mates seemed to want me to try to pull out. Screen­writ­ing? Hmm, I hate most films, so no, that’s not my world it turns out. Com­e­dy writ­ing? I’m just not that fun­ny (although we had fun in the class). A one-day work­shop last year called “Auto­bi­og­ra­phy into Fic­tion” was on the right track, but one day isn’t enough to find out if you’re cut out for the sub­ject. Now, last week I start­ed “Cre­ative Non-Fic­tion,” and it’s… right up my alley! It’s basi­cal­ly about turn­ing your own life into some­thing you can write about and not be sim­ply report­ing the facts. Like this blog, only more… creative.

My class­mates are fas­ci­nat­ing, most­ly British but with a gor­geous French woman and her Israeli best friend thrown in for spice, and a girl born in Lagos but raised here, and a Kenyan lady keen on writ­ing her fam­i­ly his­to­ry. It seems that most peo­ple want to chron­i­cle their fam­i­ly trees in some way, and I sup­pose I do have auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal fam­i­ly inter­ests as well. Have you read a mem­oir called “A Girl Named Zip­py?” You must, if you have not. A girl’s small­town Indi­ana life described with such wacky humor and wit (of course, her fam­i­ly was quite, quite nuts so she had bet­ter mate­r­i­al than have I) that you find your­self read­ing it aloud to what­ev­er poor per­son is sit­ting next to you. That’s the sort of project I’m aim­ing for. There are, of course, two types of mem­oirs: the first (like Peg­gy Noo­nan’s “What I Saw At the Rev­o­lu­tion” is easy to write and easy to get pub­lished because it’s writ­ten by some­one famous, to whom fas­ci­nat­ing things have hap­pened, and who knows com­pelling and famous peo­ple. But no, such a lazy path is not for me. I must opt for the sec­ond type of mem­oir: one writ­ten by a com­plete­ly unknown per­son who does­n’t do any­thing very mem­o­rable or impor­tant, but some­how makes it inter­est­ing enough to get a pub­lish­ing con­tract. Sound impossible?

Per­haps, but I have sev­en­teen weeks of class to prove it wrong.

I do love mem­oirs. Ruth Reichl had a head start, being the edi­tor in chief of Gourmet Mag­a­zine, but still, her “Ten­der at the Bone” is price­less no mat­ter who she is. When her moth­er poi­sons every­one at her son’s engage­ment par­ty by feed­ing them out­dat­ed food from a store that was offload­ing its Automat machines, you know you’re in for an excel­lent ride. And Annie Dil­lard’s “An Amer­i­can Child­hood” is unput­down­able. Can I do any­thing half so good? We shall see.

But I digress, because I meant to explain why the class this week was so good. The writ­ing exer­cise was a seem­ing­ly point­less and rather bor­ing assign­ment to spend ten min­utes writ­ing about a vivid child­hood mem­o­ry. We could choose between ages 0–5 years, 10 years, and 16 years. Well, it turned out sur­pris­ing­ly easy to do, fun to craft, and every­one’s exam­ples were so intrigu­ing that we real­ized the old Flan­nery O’Con­nor quote was quite true: “Any­one who can sur­vive her child­hood has enough writ­ing mate­r­i­al for a life­time.” Any mem­o­ry of child­hood is fas­ci­nat­ing, it turns out: a dread­ed Sun­day tea with grand­par­ents, wak­ing from a nap to find a stranger bend­ing over one’s crib, the town dance with sweaty-palmed boys, a trea­sured mea­sur­ing cup used by a beloved moth­er. Real­ly won­der­ful. I had­n’t been par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased or dis­pleased with what I wrote, but then the time came for me to read aloud (so nerve-wrack­ing! why do I put myself in these sit­u­a­tions!) it was well-received. It was real­ly a mile­stone: the first time I’ve ever had feed­back on style. Not con­tent, as in my dear blog read­ers enjoy­ing a recipe or an anec­dote, but the way it was writ­ten. I have come to the con­clu­sion that one can­not real­ly ana­lyze one’s own style, or even notice it for what it is. That is for read­ers to see. And it’s prob­a­bly quite con­sis­tent with­in each writer, if only we can learn to see and describe what it is. So we’re meant to expand on our pieces in the com­ing week, and go back to class ready to be ripped apart or praised, as the case may be. I think it’s going to be fun.

Well, in the mean­time, in the quest for decent writ­ing mate­r­i­al, we are head­ed off this evening for a week­end in Mar­rakech to cel­e­brate our dear friend Vin­cen­t’s birth­day. Should be an adven­ture! I broke down and bought a bathing suit yes­ter­day, in antic­i­pa­tion of the hotel swim­ming pool. I don’t even know where we’re stay­ing! Vin­cen­t’s arranged every­thing. I grov­elled to Avery’s head­mistress for per­mis­sion (well, sort of after the fact since all the plans had been made) to take her out of school tomor­row, and asked that any beat­ings be lim­it­ed to the wet-noo­dle vari­ety. She wrote back and said that the cater­ers at school were low on wet noo­dles, so Avery was quite safe.

See you Sunday…