Creative Summer

Creative Writing Summer Camp Douglas College 2010 Welcome to Creative Writing Summer Camp! You are about to embark on an individual and collaborative exploration of the art of writing and storytelling across many different forms. “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.” Vladimir Nabakov Telling our stories This week we will each seek out, discover, express and share our lives and stories Through daily discussions, brainstorming, and experimentation across different written, spoken, visual, or musical forms. “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” Vita Sackville-West Discussions Brainstorming spoken Visual Journaling written Musical Catching our stories Artists should always think of themselves as cosmic instruments for storytelling. Ted Lange Lists are the butterfly nets that catch my fleeting thoughts. Betsy Cañas Garmon There are no wrong suggestions in brainstorming. The idea that makes you nervous, or makes you begin to laugh is the idea that you should pursue. Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake. Wallace Stevens This week we will each be on the lookout for the stories buried in our own day to day lives, as well as those of our fellow campers We will be using interviews, brainstorming, discussions and journals to help seek out and explore our stories And written words, in prose and poetry as well as songs, movies, podcasts Once we have identified and brainstormed our story ideas, we will explore how each might be expressed across many different examples of creative writing To share our stories... ...with the world. Interviews Interviews It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about. Tom Brokaw Visual storytelling of one kind or another has been around since cavemen were drawing on the walls. Frank Darabont Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well. Ajay Naidu I like narrative storytelling as being part of a tradition, a folk tradition. Bruce Springsteen Don’t get it right, just get it written. James Thurber Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion. Marcus Tullius Cicero A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. Leopold Stokowski As for today... Who are we? what brings us here? Introduce yourself to the people sitting on either side of you. We will be conducting interviews of one another at the beginning of camp each day. But first, let us brainstorm questions we would like answered! Interview #1 I try to leave out the parts that people skip. Elmore Leonard Interview Questions I was fortunate that I was at newspapers for eight years, where I wrote at least five or six stories every week. You get used to interviewing lots of different people about a lot of different things. And they aren't things you know about until you do the story. Chuck Klosterman What is your name? Where were you born? What is your favouritve subject in school? What interests you about creative writing? What aspect of creative writing are you most interested in improving? What is your favourite story (movie, book, short story, song)? My basic approach to interviewing is to ask the basic questions that might even sound naive, or not intellectual. Sometimes when you ask the simple questions like 'Who are you?' or 'What do you do?' you learn the most. Brian Lamb And where are we going? I learned from Dick Cavett that you can ask anything, no matter how bizarre or irrelevant it may seem, and it might lead in a really interesting direction. Terry Gross Terry Gross' other point on the surprise question: "Don't censor yourself. Just ask." If you had to share one piece of your group's conversation, what would it be?