The Write Stuff
Many years ago I attended a night-class in creative writing which was being taught by Archie Hind, the author of . There were about twenty of us in the class which was held once a week in St. Mungo's school. Mostly we competed for time to read aloud our short stories, poems or extracts from epic novels. Everyone was very nice about everyone else's work and the closest we got to constructive criticism was when one of the older classmates told you to speak louder. The best bit of the night was when Archie himself told stories about his life and sometimes he could lead us up the garden path with a complicated saga which turned out to be a very long joke. He spent twenty minutes one night telling us how he once, on foot, tried to trace the source of the River Clyde until he found himself following a small stream up the side of a mountain and then the stream became a narrow burn and then just a trickle of water coming from an old dripping tap.
"I thought about turning it off, " he said, deadpan, "but then I decided I'd better not."
Of course, creative writing can mean all things to all people. On the first night of our class, a young chap excused himself after half an hour when he realised that this was not where you would learn about calligraphy.
Anyway, I mention all this because ±«Óãtv Radio Scotland has two initiatives on the go at the moment and both involve the creative writing. Have a look at the details of our Raw Challenge or else our search for new comedy writers.
There are no night classes involved and you don't even need a fancy pen.
