Start the week #96

Special freebie edition

Greetings!

This is going to be a very short post I’m afraid. But I hope to be back on Wednesday, with another letter to

Rebecca Holden

. Do subscribe to hers to enjoy this ongoing correspondence, and other great posts.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

I have been a…

Have you ever thought about all the jobs you’ve had, whether paid for or as a volunteer? I have borrowed this idea from a book called Picture Perfect.

Author, Blues harmonica player, Businessman, Co-counsellor, Consultant, Delivery driver, Editor, Filing clerk, Forklift truck driver, Head of Economics, Head of E-Education, Head of ICT & Computer, ICT Advisor, ICT Co-ordinator, Leader, Lecturer, Maintenance worker, Manager, Market trader, Masseur, Office boy, Principal Officer (ICT), Private tutor, Public speaker, Reflexologist, Salesman, Singer, Teacher, Teacher in further education, Teacher in prison, Teacher in school, Transcendental Meditation checker, Writer.

Coming up with what I call a stem, like “I have been…”, or “I remember”, is a great way of stimulating the creative juices. This is one of the techniques I will be covering in my course called Writing Using Constraints in just under two weeks’ time. That is assuming it goes ahead. At the moment only one person is booked on it. Apparently bookings are down right across all the departments of the college, presumably because of finance. Anyway, we have to make a decision next Monday (16th June). If there are not at least five people signed up by then, the course will be cancelled, which would be such a shame. Every time I’ve run it we all learn loads and have a good laugh.

Here is what people said about the course last year:

• Thanks for everything Terry, a truly enjoyable day

• Terry, thank you for a learning experience which surpassed my already-high expectations! The course was superb: the atmosphere in the classroom was welcoming and friendly, the resources were excellent, and although in advance of the course I had felt nervous about the prospects of both working in collaboration with other students and sharing my own thoughts and work, these in fact proved to be the aspects of the course which I enjoyed the most! I felt supported throughout, and learned a great deal about writing with constraints. I'm looking forward to putting what I learned into practice in my own writing projects. I can't wait to take another course with you - thank you, Terry!

• Friendly, knowledgeable

Free articles

I have (probably temporaily) removed the automatic paywall on this site, thereby freeing up 557 pieces for you to read should you so desire. This doesn’t affect the articles originally published only for paid subscribers.

Articles you may have missed

Start the week #95

FRom the archives: one-sentence stories and six-word reviews (with contributions from readers)

My life in cafés (and three in particular)

Chortlesome videos

Here are a couple of videos that made me smile.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading it.