I ain't no Eleanor Catton

I like this going back to the future.  

It is having some up sides.

Today I am feeling like a lucky girl.

Somethings are going my way.  

Instead of winning $23 on Lotto, it was $30.  That was a nice surprise when I went to claim my winnings this morning.  But that is not what I am really feeling ‘lucky’ about.

And lucky is not the appropriate word either.  It is more that I can think that maybe, just maybe, I am good at some things.  Writing being one.

Not writing in terms of the literary Booker Prize award winning Luminaries – good heavens – I can certainly write that many words on any topic I am interested in, that is real or historical, but I do not have a strong right brain function that can create fiction, in any form.  Nor do I enjoy anything fictional.  My book shelves here are full of history books, biographies, autobiographies and pictorials.  To attempt to write 700 pages of fiction has to be admired but not envied, from my point of view.  

This person is a boring, factual, logical, reasoning left brained person.  Take me to a fictional sci-fi movie and I will fall asleep within minutes of the opening scene.  Actually, all sci-fi is fictional Verna.  So, take me to Noddy in Wonderland and I will fall asleep within minutes of that opening scene.  Take me to Into Thin Air, Black Hawk Down, My Left Foot, A Beautiful Mind or any other movie based on fact and the attention span will keep me wide eyed through any overlong, overly stretched movie.  Which explains why I never got past the first Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings books and movies.

To me it is easy to sit here at this PC and fluidly bang out something within minutes, at any time, under most circumstances on a topic that is real, true; or maybe really stretched truth. 

This brings me to why I felt lucky, or rewarded. 

In January I received an email about an 8 week Wednesday evening work shop memoir writing course to be held at the Michael King Writers’ Centre. The Michael King Writers’ Centre is one of a kind in New Zealand: there are no other writers’ centres like this anywhere else in the country.  The centre is a lovely old historic house, sited high on the slopes of Mt Victoria in Devonport and is there to support New Zealand writers and to promote the development of high quality New Zealand writing.  Some very austere writers have been in residence there.

                    

Reading about this series of workshops created some interest in my right brain, but mentally noted it looked a bit high-brow and for real writers, so deleted the email.  Plus, there was a cost to the course so precluded any concept of looking further into it.  

Two weeks later the email arrived in my box again so I read it for interest sake and then pondered for several days whether or not to apply.  It was being run by a reasonably well known (in writers’circles) University of Auckland English lecturer and renown writer in her own right.  Pondered for a few more days before enquiring if the applications had closed, told no, so sent an application in.  Was emailed back to be told there were only nine places on the course, they had already received a number of applications but they would forward on my application if I could submit something I had already written that was no more than 500 words.

Well, for some the task of writing 500 words would be difficult.  For me, writing only 500 words is difficult.

As son Danny often reminds me, “I’d read your stuff Mum, if it wasn’t always so long.”  With the emphasis on the word ‘long’.  It is fair to say that Danny is not my Number One fan.

I did not have time to sit and write something new or innovative so scoured my blog files until I found the one and only blog article that was close to 600 words.  It was one of the more boring blogs, which is why they all end up longer, to make them non-boring.  Deleted a few words off it until I got it down to 507, and then sent it off.

In the midst of my East Coast/Poverty Bay meanderings I received a text to tell me I had been one of the nine accepted on the course.  And to send the money through.

Was bemused, yet flattered.  Then my left brain told me there were probably only nine applications but it also told my right brain that I would go to the workshops anyway. 

Last night was the first of the 8 workshops.

I am now more bemused, more flattered.  The other people on the course are real writers.  Some have had works published.  Some are writer-poets.  Most appear very academic. 

In her opening half hour spiel the tutor let us know how “privileged” she felt to be working with people with such writing skill and talent.  How there were many applications and we were the best of those submitted. We were informed this is the first “Master class” in memoir writing she or anyone had ever taken.  We are apparently most fortunate to be working in this austere writers retreat centre and would be taken on a journey of writing development to help us evolve and expand our writing techniques and mastery.

I was all the more bemused and all the more flattered.

We were given writing exercises.  We wrote.  When one writes one then has to read it back to the rest in the workshop.  They were all very good.

It would seem I held it up there with the rest.  My style is certainly not ‘academic’ but clearly there must be something in it that is worthwhile, otherwise I would never have been accepted on the course.  And nothing I wrote appeared any more or less fitting than anyone else’s. We were all very different, all very absorbing.

At the end of the evening I walked to the ferry with one of the others on the course.  She has had two poetry books and two children’s books published and about to publish her third poetry book.  I delighted in the fact that I was not in awe of her.  She is interesting, as are the other 7 on the course, I shall learn a lot from each one.  And will enjoy the ‘journey of writing development’. 

The journey home had me feel less bemused and flattered and more self-congratulatory on the fact I had actually forwarded the application in the first place and ended up in this prodigious situation.  

Almost skipped home in the dark from the train station, in good stead.  Was looking forward to a nice slice of beautiful cake and a cup of tea.  Cake I had left at home for my running friends to share and enjoy.  It was a very large cake.  I knew they would leave me a large slice to enjoy over my cuppa, particularly after the love and caring I had taken over it.

Walked into the kitchen and saw the minutest slither of what could have once been part of a giant cake on the plate.  The width of the cake fork was wider than the slice.  

When I am a resident writer in the Michael King Writers’ Centre I shall write about that lot.