APRIL17TH AND A WONDERFUL
DAY AT THE ART WORKERS GUILD Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London,
running a creative writing workshop for
The Society of Medical Writers – you can find info on who they are here:
The
website says:
“Membership of the Society of Medical Writers
is open to any healthcare practitioner, student or journalist who publishes or
aspires to publish his or her written work of whatever nature – fact or
fiction, prose or poetry. Membership of the Society is intended to be
enjoyable, stimulating and educational, so that writing from (and about)
medical practice is improved and encouraged.”
From
my experience as competition judge and having run two creative writing
workshops for them I find what they do to be exciting and reassuring. Exciting
because of the energy, enthusiasm, humour and compassion I’ve experienced from
the members and their writing and reassuring, because in these days we’re
living through when medical workers, and the NHS in particular, take such a
battering from the current government, it's refreshing to discover such passion and humanity.
To
read the competition entries of this group, non-fiction and poems, demonstrates to me that there are ‘good people’ working in the medical
profession dedicated to their work, capable of empathizing with their patients
and, most importantly, put us, their patients, first.
I like their Aims:
"To encourage members to widen
and improve their standards of writing, including the preparation, presentation
and submission of material for publication in both scientific and creative
genres.
To provide regular meetings and
workshops for members for the exchange of views, skills and ideas, with
opportunities to learn from the experience of other healthcare / writing
professionals.
To encourage members to enter for the society’s Writing Competitions
and Awards and to submit items for
publication in the Society’s twice-yearly journal ‘The Writer’."
I enjoyed the ride into London
with my niece, her husband and twin girls – it was their fourth birthday, so a
lively start to my day! Stepping off the tube at Russell Square and faced with
a scrum of people crowding round the lift doors… I headed for the stairs. A
sign said: “There are 175 steps, please ask if you need assistance” So, ignoring the advice, lugging
my small case and heavy workbag, I headed off up the white tiled, Victorian
stairs… almost spiral, I was left a tad panting at the top, and daylight!
QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY
Virginia
Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster. The Bloomsbury Set, whose ideas on
Time and Free Will I discussed in the Introduction to my PhD Thesis:
“The lingering significance of
childhood experiences is intimately related to the ways in which we
imaginatively recapture these ‘singular revelatory moments’. My understanding
of such moments has been given an additional dimension by reading about the
Bergsonian idea of la durée. Natalyia
Gudz observes, “Reality, as viewed by Virginia Woolf, includes the whole
expanse of space and time. … The present
moment is never isolated, because it is filled with every preceding moment, and
is constantly in the process of change. Time flows with the stream, having
neither beginning nor end. Reality is actually timeless and spaceless, because
it contains all space and all time” (Gudz
2005: 2).
The
present moment can have an impact on psychological time which is different to
that of historical time. “Bergson, In ‘Time and Free Will’ (1888) had dealt
with two different concepts of time.
Historical time, which is external and linear, was measured in terms of
the spatial distance travelled by a pendulum or the hands of a clock. And
psychological time, which is internal and subjective, was measured by the
relative emotional intensity of a moment” (Gudz 2005: 3). “
And here was I out of breath and
on the bright daylight street outside the Tube… which way? I headed off and
found Brunswick Square, after asking a couple of people I went through an
alleyway and into a refreshing oasis, calm after the panting stairs-climb and
busyness of the streets of London… Queen Square was delightful, looking at
the map I saw that Great Ormond Street Hospital was close by and on the Square
itself were two hospitals: the National
Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), and University
College London.
SOCIETY OF MEDICAL WRITERS - CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOPS
The SOMW conference was held
inside The Art Workers Guild, whose portals hung above me in black and gold
lettering and a fanlight of windows… elegant and welcoming door… buzzer
pressed, door opened, up the stairs and a seat just off the main conference
room, I sat surrounded by old books and new on arts, crafts, design, a room
permeated by the ideas of its members:
“ … artists,
craftsmen and designers with a common interest in the interaction, development
and distribution of creative skills. It represents a variety of views on design
and stands for authenticity (irrespective of political and stylistic ideology)
in a world increasingly uncertain about what is real.”
After lunch and chats I ran the
creative writing workshop, emphasizing the need to play, the natural instinct of the human animal and how, in the busyness of being adult, we sometimes
forget this vital function. I caught the end of the last speaker’s talk on
Sherlock Holmes and how observant he was of everyday people, their stories,
actions, desires, hopes and worries.
So I threaded into my intro the
idea that, like scientists and naturalists, poets, too, must be observant,
aware of nuances, attentive to what’s going on, writing in response to human
stories, their settings. But besides noting human animals we might like to
consider other life forms, animate and non-animate with whom we share our
earth-home.
The workshop consisted of a
series of prompts and stimuli, starting with a simple warm-up exercise, “Today
in this room I hear/smell/see/taste/touch/feel”, to get the group in touch with
their physical bodies, reminding them that we’re not this nine pound head
bobbling about on the stalk of our necks, consisting only of the intellect, but we
are physical, we’re animals, too!
The group, all twenty one of
them, responded wholeheartedly, producing delightful, sensitive, funny, earthy
pieces of writing in a short space of time. Other exercises were writing in
response to ‘Art Cards’; describing an object in the room without saying what
the object was – and we all had to guess – ending with asking someone to read
out ‘The Door’ by Miroslav Holub, then writing in response either by describing
a door they knew, perhaps as a child, or describing an imaginary door, one
they’d like to see, to open and step through… and what they'd like to find there...
This last exercise linked,
coincidentally, with a talk on dementia by a previous guest who had produced a
book called ‘Open the Door.’ Synchronicity is alive and well!
Whilst the group were writing I
looked out of the window, onto Queen Square, the small oblong park in the
centre, its iron railings, decorative gates, people in shorts, t-shirts,
sprawled on the grass in the warm spring sun. Pigeons cooing and strutting
their stuff, beckoning the females on… a man opening his car door, getting out
his two small dogs. A youngish man with a walking stick and dogs on extending
leads. His car black and shiny A taxi pulling up outside the hospital. Workers
standing around puffing on ciggies… a private ambulance – don’t see many
around here – pulled up outside the hospital door… I turn and say “a couple of more
minutes” turn back to the window, gaze on the peaceful scene of grass growing
its green self into the light.
HISTORY AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE 'BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS'
I’m looking forward to judging
the next poetry and non-fiction competition for the Society of Medical Writers,
and presenting the prizes at the SOMW Autumn Conference and Writing Workshop,
Friday 11th – Sunday 13th October at the Valley Hotel, Coalbrookdale,
Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire.
Guest speakers (as well as myself) include:
Paul Evans, nature writer for the Guardian and BBC Wildlife magazine,
Jo Cannon author of ‘Insignificant Gestures’,
Andrew Peters, Shropshire poet and member of ‘Wrekin Writers’ and
Writing Workshops with Geraldine Green.
Paul Evans, nature writer for the Guardian and BBC Wildlife magazine,
Jo Cannon author of ‘Insignificant Gestures’,
Andrew Peters, Shropshire poet and member of ‘Wrekin Writers’ and
Writing Workshops with Geraldine Green.
The Door
Go and open the door.
Maybe outside there's
a tree, or a wood,
a garden,
or a magic city.
Go and open the door.
Maybe a dog's running.
Maybe you'll see a face,
or an eye
or the picture
of a picture.
Go and open the door.
If there's a fog
it will clear.
Go and open the door.
Even if there's only
the darkness ticking,
even if there's only
the hollow wind,
even if
nothing
is there,
go and open the door.
At least
there'll be
a draught.
- by Miroslav Holub
trans. by Ian Milner and George Theiner
Geraldine Green 19.4.2013
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