Back on the courses again for day five, and I was starting to feel a bit glum, partly because of tiredness and partly because there were only two days remaining. The real world had encroached a bit with unfortunate news from home, which brought returning all that much closer.
For the short course I considered both the public speaking and Wild Words courses, comedy sketch writing and working with the media being very much not for me. Wild Words seemed designed to complement the Ways of Seeing course, only using an outdoor setting. However it looked like it was going to rain, and I decided to look at a new skill rather than building on what I was already doing in the novel course.
Public speaking was in two parts: the first on the technical side; the second on getting over the fear of doing it in the first place. It took some of the mystery out of it, certainly, but I'm not sure if it will be enough as I get nervous just speaking to my department at work as a group!
Back in Ways of Seeing, we looked at trusting our instincts and listening to hunches. We did another guided visualisation, this time to speak to our inner critic, and as a group seemed to find it easier. A number of people found it looked like a parent, some had monsters, and one even found it looked like himself. At the end, we were given another homework to do, which involved speaking to a character from our work.
The evening speakers were David and Hilary Crystal. They came to my first Swanwick in 2011, where David was a speaker and his enthusiasm was catching. This time they both gave a presentation on their new book, Wordsmiths and Warriors, which is a linguistic tour of the UK. I had a setting idea for a story during the talk, although I'm not sure what to do with it. I also discovered how creepy it is when someone says "Y Y U R" to an audience of around 200 people, who respond in unison "Too wise you are, too wise you be. I see you are too wise for me." I felt like I was witnessing the triggering of a cell of sleeper assassins!
A friend and I were out of the hall fast enough to be first in the queue for a signed book, although as Wordsmiths and Warriors is in hardback I settled for a more portable paperback. Afterwards we went to the Ceilidh, which is Scottish dancing, but a technical hitch pushed the start so late I gave up and went for a more reasonable 11.30pm bedtime!
For the short course I considered both the public speaking and Wild Words courses, comedy sketch writing and working with the media being very much not for me. Wild Words seemed designed to complement the Ways of Seeing course, only using an outdoor setting. However it looked like it was going to rain, and I decided to look at a new skill rather than building on what I was already doing in the novel course.
Public speaking was in two parts: the first on the technical side; the second on getting over the fear of doing it in the first place. It took some of the mystery out of it, certainly, but I'm not sure if it will be enough as I get nervous just speaking to my department at work as a group!
Back in Ways of Seeing, we looked at trusting our instincts and listening to hunches. We did another guided visualisation, this time to speak to our inner critic, and as a group seemed to find it easier. A number of people found it looked like a parent, some had monsters, and one even found it looked like himself. At the end, we were given another homework to do, which involved speaking to a character from our work.
The evening speakers were David and Hilary Crystal. They came to my first Swanwick in 2011, where David was a speaker and his enthusiasm was catching. This time they both gave a presentation on their new book, Wordsmiths and Warriors, which is a linguistic tour of the UK. I had a setting idea for a story during the talk, although I'm not sure what to do with it. I also discovered how creepy it is when someone says "Y Y U R" to an audience of around 200 people, who respond in unison "Too wise you are, too wise you be. I see you are too wise for me." I felt like I was witnessing the triggering of a cell of sleeper assassins!
A friend and I were out of the hall fast enough to be first in the queue for a signed book, although as Wordsmiths and Warriors is in hardback I settled for a more portable paperback. Afterwards we went to the Ceilidh, which is Scottish dancing, but a technical hitch pushed the start so late I gave up and went for a more reasonable 11.30pm bedtime!
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