A sojourn on the Isle of Write
Having just returned from the Isle of Wight where I have spent the past couple of days in semi writing bliss, I thought I would just jot a few lines down in order to help my poor brain remember what and where it’s been lately. As I am also doing a writing module at Birkbeck I get a tad confused at times.
I stayed at The Grange in Shanklin which is probably the best part of Shanklin apart from the cluster of rather darling pubs in one corner of the village – The Crab and the Village Inn are two of these and a lovely meal was had at the Village Inn last night. Visiting Shanklin is like visiting the 1950s. It has an air of uncaredfor-ness about it. Yet, despite that, the people are charming, happy and warm. One of the things I thought slightly scary was the fact that the newly resident tatooist is suffering from hate mail from one or perhaps even several of the villagers to the point that he has posted one of the letters in his shop window along with his response which is very kind I must say, considering that it appears he is getting nasty mail on a regular basis. Having spoken with other people who live in surrounding villages, the Isle of Wight is rather set in its ways and not keen to make any change. Perhaps this is a good thing but it’s never good to be too blinkered I feel.
Back to the writing – the course was called Literotica: writing erotic fiction and was held by Mitzi Szereto. A frail, fragile looking lady, she is quietly fiesty and nicely interesting. She carries her bear around with her and I noted from her own blog that her bear has a facebook page which is slightly bonkers to a normal readership I would think but, on the other hand, bears have feelings and they never let you down.
She has written a lot of books in the erotic genre and they all carry titles that make you want to dive in and start reading immediately: Tales of Revenge, stories about real life women’s fantasies, Erotic Fairy Tales which I should think any woman would be intrigued to read. For myself, I can remember in my teens being deeply turned on by a Grimms Brothers’ character who lived in a pool. He was very very big and that’s all I can remember…..
The people on the course were enormous fun, and we laughed a lot during our readouts. What was really nice about it was the fact that we obviously felt quite comfortable together, although of course you can’t go on a writing course unless you are prepared to read out loud and be prepared to have some feed back. It is a bit scary but once you realise the group is good fun and without mean agendas, suddenly you feel quite released and ready to jump in and be counted.
The Grange is a gorgeous manor type house and is the perfect place for peace and solitude. I went to bed and didn’t wake until my alarm went off (the first morning I overslept as I hadn’t set my alarm thinking that I would waken early as I always do in London). Despite my evil cold, I felt all the goodness of serenity and peacefulness seep into me. There was no pressure to do or be anything other than myself.
Added to the fact that I love to write and will use any excuse to do so (time permitting), I have returned to London refreshed (ok, so the cold still hangs low upon me) and ready to take up pen again.
