Behind the scenes; inside the covers
New book release: Master the Art and Craft of Writing: 150+ games to liberate creativity
Shhh.
Come closer.
I’m about to share a secret about writing.
It’s a secret you probably know already, a secret nested in the deep silence of your heart.
Writing … is a mystery—a mystery that is both an art and a craft.
And deep below that secret is the yearning to play, to dance, to sing that silence into being. You know it. I know it. So … let’s play. Let’s dance. Let’s explore a level of creativity that will help us to sing that silence into being through the masterful shapeshifting soundscape of our words!
Master the Art and Craft of Writing focuses on a game-based approach to mastering the art of writing through playfully mastering the craft of writing.
Each one of the 150+ fun writing games in the book has been tried and tested in creative writing classes I teach, often with young writers aged 9+, many of whose pieces produced in half-hour classes are included in the book. Take this example, from a writing game about adverbs inspired by the base of a column in the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul:
If students as young as 9 can have fun with words and get to grips with creative writing, think what you can do! Can you dare to have more fun than they have?!
As a teacher and a writer, I firmly believe that craft must serve art. Writing must inspire the imagination and the creative process, which is why I encourage students and writers to learn the rules and then break them … for the right reasons. Writing is not just a logical left-brain activity. It is a creative right-brain art. Every writer has to find the right balance for themselves. When our writing accurately reveals what we see in our mind’s eye; when what we see has imaginative and creative truth, then our writing becomes a conduit for artistic expression.
Master the Art and Craft of Writing is structured in twelve sections. It starts and ends with silence, for silence is the birthplace of sound and sound shapes the elemental building blocks we use as writers, so the first chapter (I: Sound) deals in depth with silence, sound, and rhythm. From there, we deal with words, parts of speech, and sentences (chapters II, III, and IV respectively). They are invitations to create, spell, weave wonder.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Write to inspire.
And while you’re at it, have you ever thought of using capital letters in the middle of a word? (V. Punctuation) Here are two creative possibilities that one of my students came up with. What could you come up with yourself?
Whether you choose to evoke something emotionally, factually, or creatively in writing will depend on your purpose. Playing with these writing registers is great fun. You’ll find fun games to build your skills of description, using links, and depicting characterisation in the book (chapters VI, VII, and VIII respectively).
When we explore style and structure or when we deal with puns and wordplay, do we shift slightly further away from craft and closer to art? For me, art and craft connect at every level, and the extent to which they do in our writing is directly linked to our ability to inform, inspire, and entertain with words, which is what chapters IX to XI cover.
But is that what’s it really all about? Why do we write? Poetry, the sublime, the magical all take us to a realm of magic and mystery (chapter XII). To paraphrase Gibran,
Give me the words I need to sing creation into being
for singing words are the secret of existence
So that the sound of the silence from which they emerge
and to which they return can be heard as the frame
that shapes the start and the end of existence
And we’re back where we started, embracing and embraced by silence, where the magic and mystery that inspire creativity give rise to the singing words we need to shape our craft and reflect our art.
I continue to be privileged to work with great writers – young and old, and I’m delighted to be able to share some of their work and the writing exercises that I find inspiring in Master the Art and Craft of Writing.
Download a sampler of 12 exercises from my website. You’ll find the book available for purchase there, and you’ll find it in all major bookshops. It features some wonderful illustrations by the talented Carol Michelon.
Having mainly been traditionally published, I decided to publish this work through my own publishing house, Aladdin’s Cave Publishing. If you’ve noticed a gap in my posts, it’s because I’ve been dealing with editors, proofreaders, designers, printers, wholesalers, distributors, publicity and marketing people. I’m SO looking forward to getting back to the process of writing again.
Your support and the support of the writers I work with mean the world to me. If you do end up getting a copy, whether as a writer or as a teacher of creative writing, please reach out and let me know what you think of the book. I’m keen to know what aspect of the book has helped you, and what you’d like to see added to the mix.
For now, I pause.
I wish you well.
May silence inspire wonders in your writing.