More Course Feedback

• Lovely accommodation that offers both comfort and functionality
• Hard work but great fun!
• Variety of different tasks to enable exploration of mood, tone and character
• Variety of tasks to stimulate and manipulate ideas
• Plethora of books and magazines to inspire and provoke discussion
• Entertaining anecdotes and honest appraisals
• Numerous handouts that offer clear explanations and examples of what not to do
• Plenty of time to write and attempt implementation of the skills explored through texts and handouts
• Well researched theories on the craft of writing
• Different teaching methods employed and an ability to be flexible with the tasks set
• Intense and enthusiastic approach to writing
• Value for money.
• Lovely accommodation, full days of work and tasks (but the opportunity to opt out if it’s too much), convenient café for brunch and dinner just ten metres from the front door, lots of resources, handouts to take away afterwards, debates and humorous anecdotes, numerous computers available to work on and time to write and relax with other like-minded people.

Course Feedback

I recently returned, exhausted but happy, from one of Alex Keegan's face-to-face writing courses. For three days we wrote, and discussed craft and all sorts of other things, into the early hours. There is nothing nine to five about these courses. Alex is ready to work until the last person says enough. Generous with his energy and writing expertise, he never instructs then sits back. He writes alongside the group, usually with enviable ease but sometimes, reassuringly, he struggles like anyone else.

I was apprehensive beforehand, thought I wouldn't be good enough, but needn't have worried. The ethos is one of respect for anyone who's serious about improving, whatever their current level. I got lucky when Alex used one of my stories to illustrate the editing process. His blue pen slashed through words, sentences, paragraphs - highlighting my particular weaknesses, and showing us all how we can strengthen our writing.

There's flexibility in what's looked at (Openings, Dialogue, etc) but also in how much writing is done. One evening I was too tired, my mind a blank, so while the others wrote I sat on a sofa in the corner, browsing through books of photographs.

The spaces within the Chapel have been created to allow withdrawal from the group whilst still being able to listen in to any interesting chat. There's the large table, great for laptop users or anyone who prefers sitting upright to lounging, and then there are several comfy seating areas with low coffee tables. The Chapel is well-supplied with all mod-cons, beds, computers and showers, a great place for any writing course, retreat or holiday. Just across the road is the very reasonably-priced café in which we ate most of our meals. Down the road is the sea and behind the village are hills and mountains, including Cader Idris.


I left on Sunday afternoon having learned a huge amount about writing, and sorry to have to say goodbye to new friends. I will definitely be back, just as soon as I've done enough writing to deserve another great weekend away.


Margot Taylor, Somerset

July 05 Prompts (01)

Unshoed, I was travelling, but steadily

Yes, I was hungry

We are in little houses

The way blood flows in the bath, whatever else it’s beautiful

Death-Watchers

I am dancing. Not for money, for the music

Where clocks stop

Boxers once practised on me

Swimming to America

I have my toothbrush, one or two condoms

Out of the blue, could they owe me five hundred?

How cluttered an office gets

We’re all going swimming, apart from the kids and me

I was tricked into living and I regret it

An awful lot of jellyfish

The puff of a flash gun, no other sound like it

The signals come. Only the mad are tuned in

Most of us smile at the machine-gunners; it’s so personal.

Sobbing like a widow over spilt milk

Imagine yourself as my Kryptonite

You haven’t heard the first of this, what you have is impure

July 03 Prompts 1

When the day comes, and it will

Staples

Balancing his work, his lover, his writing

We woke up face to face like lovers

A small dark dot, someone is waving

We are waiting for the drowned man

Stand still a moment, listen carefully

The endless emptiness when they are gone

Something has come to our attention

Facing backwards on the escalator

Full of professors and so-o-o-o American

An Orang-Utan, his dog

A stitch of want below the throat

NAIL

In a filthy alley just below

It’s small things, the unreturned email, the pauses

Belching out the Devil

When I am blind I will feel sunsets

I am glass; you shimmer, you are light

The history in a single grain

I am not much looking forward

I look at this scar, long, incredible. I was wide open once.

July 02 Prompts (2)

I place my hope on the water

GRANITE

Put in mind of my father and moved to tears

BOLT

What knots my belly now is hope

CHINA

I am an old, beaten dog

GLASS

I am a woman, middle-aged invisible

FLUID

Touch my lips with your spirit

PEA

They have found a way to crack the sky

MOON

So perfect it's ugly

TIN

A girl with her back to me, a girl on fire

FAT

This is one way to remember

WIRE

When all this is over, I will try to write

BUBBLE

Second hand, second-class, grey

CHEW

He wears boots, a dress, drives a shopping trolley, eats in the caff.

LIGHTS

July 02 Prompts (1)

The way she walks, The way she talks

She showed me a picture of a man in a hat

Twenty-Five Airmail Envelopes

Vauxhall Victor 101

Why do dark stories illuminate?

Remembering Tom

I looked up the meaning of your name. It means shit-head

I am a fish, desperately coming up for water

When I think of you, I see flickers

I'm in bed and you're in bed

A bowl can't but a tin can.

It's an interesting ward

I have never been happy

Wild Horses, muddy water

The Devil's Blog

A secret full of houses

It's set in Miami. And Nantwich

Let me know if you want to continue

I need a better name, something Polish or Romanian

I could try joining it up?

PROMPTS 2 (11:36 Wednesday 1st July)

In another room
When Daddy came home
And it’s too, darn, hot.
Like Wolves Upon the Fold
Among the Dead Cities
I am trying not to be here
The light of an almost morning
All the fun is in how you say a thing
Circuit
What I think about when I’m making love
Red Brick
An end to running
Perhaps, if I don’t try so hard
Smoke in the valley
The Girl of My Best Friend
A small airfield in North Africa
How we pretend
You were here before me

JULY COLD TURKEY WRITERS

SOME OF US had a very successful June "Blasting" but nevertheless probably wasted too much time on Facebook and other places.

So here is the deal for JULY

Join my Facebook group (JULY COLD TURKEY WRITERS) to write every day, BUT (here is the rub) other than getting your prompts, you must not look at emails or the web AT ALL until you have completed your daily minimum word-count.

SO if your minimum daily WC is 500 words, no internet access until you've written the 500


Trust me, your productivity will ROCKET

Join my group but only if you seriously intend to try this.

July 01 Prompts

Prompts for July 1st



The Complete Book of Knots

The mortal lady of our tale

Distantly related to the more famous Stan

Blackpool in December, Jesus Christ!

I am in my workroom

Tail-End Charlie

52 Ways of Looking

What We Believe But Cannot Prove

Spectacles, Testicles, Fags & Matches

I fell in love with an enigma

and the prompts below



Hands
A Nightingale Sang
Seven Uses for a Hedgehog
Hello Vera
The Bodyshop
As You Like It
Glow in the Dark
Eating out of my Hand
Paint Stripping
Twins, Bodies
Do You Want Chips with That?
Silver Water
Chocolate Purple
Indian Summer Days
The Beach Hut
The Rattle of Stones
Not About my Father
Up to My Ears
The Tutor
Feet

Connections

I am not religious, not even sure I believe in God, but I AM getting more and more "spiritual" as I age.

Things seem to happen to me in too many mysterious, amazing ways that they do not feel like accidents.

One partial example. My Dad is dead now but years ago, when I was still a dreamer, I asked him, "What did you REALLY want to do with your life, Dad?" and his answer, without any historical context was mind-bogglingly odd.

"I always wanted a little small-holding in Ipswich."

Pardon?

This was a steelworker from South Wales! Why a small-holding in Ipswich?



Part II


A few months ago I had a phone call from a woman asking if my Dad was "Ron Jones, RAF, born approx 1918"

He was all three.

"Well," said the lady, "My mother was born-out-of-wedlock from a liaison between HER mother and this RAF chappie..."

Gran was a WRAF. Are we getting warm here?


So I do my research. Gran served in East Anglia, but nobody knows where. BUT my research (I got my father's war records) suggested he never went NEAR Ipswich.


Then, while teaching a creative writing course in Wales,I got an email from a chap who served in my father's unit in WWII. This chap was actually on the same Landing Craft as my Dad going in to North Africa.

Interesting, spiritual, warm, life-filling (but no Ipswich)


Then accidentally I deleted the email and emptied my trash.


Took a week to find the guy again and we chat on the phone and he says, "When we were posted FROM IPSWICH to Loch Fyne"

I get an out of print book on the 3202 Servicing Commando from Alibris and there, sure enough, they trained at Ipswich before their commando training in Scotland.

Oh WOW, I may have a half-sister somewhere.


I once won a story comp (£300 thank-you) and the story title was, "Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet & Watch"

The name of the book I bought?

"Spectacles, Testicles, Fags & Matches."

SHORT INTERVIEW

Here

http://oldenoughnovel.blogspot.com/

Digging up Old Stories

I was talking about various things and remembered a story...


This was PUBLISHED 12 years and two months ago (first in the Southern Ocean Review) so I may have written it 13 or more years ago.



The Mistress


Tom is watching a movie with his mistress when something in the story-line touches him, and breaks through his well-constructed façade. His defences breached, he thinks of his son and his small daughter. He begins to cry soundlessly. When his mistress realises her lover is upset, she tries to be kind, but her kindness makes the guilt worse and Tom snaps at her. She doesn't understand.

They see out the film, leave, go to a restaurant. The waiter is an old friend, and Tom nods to him, orders garlic bread, then fresh Turbot. He also orders a litre of red wine, and a malt which he will drink while he waits for the bread. His mistress is tentative. She takes one glass of the wine and nibbles at it. When Tom has drunk his whisky and a glass of wine he reaches out a hand to her and she takes it. Tom squeezes her hand and he mouths, "I love you." He means it absolutely.

When they leave the restaurant Tom and his mistress walk a short distance arm in arm; to a little and expensive Victorian town-house. Inside, the door barely closed, they kiss and things progress. They fuck royally on the lowest stair but only when he has virtually eaten her, and she has mewed her delight, and he has felt so proud.

But then, when they go up to bed, Tom's mistress says nothing. She knows that every gesture of affection and any word of love can remind him. Sex is their shield. Tom's mistress walks a razor's edge but where it is sharp their life is still tremendous. They still lust after each other, like neither has ever lusted before, and when they reach their bedroom, still silent, she strips naked, stands above him, then drops down. She swallows him whole and tastes herself, then she climbs aboard him, controlling, to rock him to sleep. Afterwards, he slides into a special darkness which does not quite satisfy. He will not remember his dreams.

Tom's mistress would like to cook for him, but Tom doesn't like to stay in. Instead, they eat in good restaurants and joke with waiters. Once Tom loved the meals his mistress prepared, their quiet nights, the candle-lit nights, but now he doesn't want her to cook, he doesn't want to soften. And when his mistress dresses or undresses, though Tom is aroused and desperate, he prefers her simple, the lights dim. And when they play music, let it be the CDs they bought together, nothing older, HMV, Virgin, their times away in London, Paris, Amsterdam.

They never watch television now. Occasionally he will read and his mistress will curl up with the telephone, whisper to a friend, sometimes laugh. He pours her wine, himself a whisky.

He had realised long before it finally happened, but he loved his children almost as much as he hated his wife and he had thought himself capable of control, of strength. But then one day he was walking with his mistress, who was not then his mistress, towards Margaritas, for yet another lunch-time pizza. Innocent of course. They were walking behind a friend called Mike and some lady called Pauline down the crisp off-white pavement by the park.

He spoke quietly. His hand was inside her elbow, gently slowing her. He watched the back of the other two. Mike was happy, his arms everywhere, telling another outrageous joke.


Tom felt mature. He said, "Claire, I've got a problem;" then he hesitated and for some reason changed sides, moving outside her, nearer the road, "Claire, about lunches, about spending all this time with you. It's not just lunches now. I don't think of you as just a friend any more."

She had taken his hand. She had squeezed it, lifted it to waist height with a second firmness, then gently released him.
"If you want to stop going..." he said weakly.
"I don't," she whispered, "let's just carry on."

The lunch was a dream and when Tom spoke he heard himself. He had sat the same side of the table as his mistress, now his mistress, the inches closer that couples sit, sensuously, in each other's private space, their arms brushing, their thighs achingly close, shared moist air between their separate bodies.

By dessert he was turned towards her. He had a foot on the rung of her chair, his knee up as he talked lightly and sipped a liqueur. Occasionally, as she talked to the others, she would rest an arm or a hand on the muscle above his knee.

Later, when they had returned to work, he made mugs of coffee and scattered them round the office with precision. Claire got hers last. She was typing like a machine gun and breathing deeply, sensing him, waiting for him to come near.

He had rehearsed casualness. "Coffee, no sugar," he said close to her ear, but it sounded more like, "I love you!" His mistress took the mug and clasped it two-handed in front of her face, steam rising from it to lick around her glasses. Tom left and went to his office but his voice fluttered when he phoned and spoke to clients.

He fought for a fair time, aware he had fortitude but neither real courage nor strength. He knew he could no more avoid being with his mistress than he could give up loving his children, but he could, for a hopeful, self-deluding while, avoid fucking her, as if this act of non-action somehow excused him from the everyday crime of loving her and hating the mother of his children.

But oh, how he dreamt of his mistress, avoided her! How in the pinewet dripping forest he ran too hard, so long, so punishingly that his feet bled! And how he painted things, built things up, took things down, and read and argued and drank and sang, anything, anything, but spare himself the dark imagination, the scent of her, the eventual deep heat of her, the suicide, the giving up.

And he knew he would know the look, that look in her eyes, the timid power blurred by tears, that massive victory, that, he would remember. The late explosion, when it eventually would come, would be a comma not an exclamation, and he would remember only falling.

It was winter when Tom and his mistress finally got together. One night, she had cried, and he had simply not gone home. The next day, by phone from work, he told his wife. He was ashamed, and on the following Saturday his wife met him with his children in MacDonalds. He couldn't speak without shaking. His wife explained in front of him, that Daddy would be away this week, then she said they had to get back to the car and to hurry and kiss their father goodbye.

She left him an alarm clock, clean underwear, shirts, and a photograph of him with the kids. When the children hugged him, behind their backs he saw his wife's face, the cruellest victory barely masked, a whirling, bursting joy at his terrible mistake, so filling her up he thought she would explode into laughter.

That night, that first night, when he and his mistress had made love, if you could call it that, on a borrowed blanket on a borrowed floor, by a dying fire, in the cottage of her friend who suffered their mistakes and didn’t like him, it was love, at least love was there, but her partner had hovered, his wife had hovered, and the friend’s bedroom had creaked. The love act, it was something that had needed to be done, so had been done, some rubber-stamp, some symbol, an act to parade, a red flag to make something elsewhere absolute. He knew he had wanted to make himself leave.

Of course there were times, sober, quieter times, when Tom tried to explain to his mistress why they no longer laughed. At first he thought to blame the business, how, raging with success like a rampant cock he didn't have the time. And the money, the power, the two of them, drunk with the blackness of it all, driving through the ruins of the half-lives of others, ignoring amber lights, the warning signs, getting things done, all that, he said, didn't leave room for the petty, mere laughter.

"But," he said, "I love you and I could not love you more."


***


And they settled, they found a one-bedroomed place and he found whisky. Then one night, her face dark red, she screamed that he disgusted her and that he was fat, and he stopped drinking whisky and went jogging. The next night, when they made love he was cruel and hurt her and she told him she loved him and nothing, nothing was as good as this. And they took another holiday. When they came back they found the Victorian cottage, bought it quickly, then bought a good stereo system, talked about another holiday.

That weekend, Tom's children visited the new house. They were polite and they shook his mistress's hand. Then she went shopping and Tom's son played with the new stereo. When Tom's mistress returned the children had gone. Tom said he was thinking of taking them to Disney World. His mistress nodded. She cooked him creamed chicken and rice but didn't eat hers. Afterwards, they drank two bottles of ice-cold white wine and sat in the dark, listening to Elton John. They went to bed. In the morning she told him the holiday was all right with her, but one week, not two and he said a week was lousy value for money, but OK.

Orlando was hot, Disneyland crazy, and he was ardently foolish, dressed down to be like his kids, trying every ride, eating lunches at The Hard Rock Café, pizzas at night. His mistress swallowed her pride, fought the tears and laughed, went brown in the sun, went swimming with his boy, took photographs of the three of them, made love silently in the night. But when Tom was alone with his daughter, his daughter would shake her head, pull up her knees and ask, "How Dad? Why? She is so ugly!"

And Tom would shake his head too, and then smile sadly at his daughter and explain yet again that his mistress did not cause him to leave their mother. He just fell out of love, that was all.
But his daughter knew different.


After Orlando, Miami, even hotter - they had compromised on ten days - and in the islanded Keys he was wilder, even more child-like trying jet-skis, deep-sea fishing, even a barn-storming red biplane that sprayed him and his son with a faint film of hot oil. And for the first time she mentioned the money that poured through his fingers and his voice was raised in anger, not sadness and he said, "I love my kids, is that so hard to understand?"
And she looked at him differently, paused, then said, "Yes."


At the airports she walked fractionally behind the three of them, and she flinched when she heard Tom say they had to do it again. For the first time she wondered about David and how once upon a time, her life had been so simple. She had to remind herself that it had been unhappy too. She looked at Tom. Vaguely, she considered what having his child would be like, but as she looked at the back of his head she knew it would never happen.

Then one night Tom explained. He loved her absolutely. It was not them. He had never loved anyone so completely, so deeply. It was not them, it was the shadows, the others, the shadows of the things he had once created, the echoes, the ripples, the whispers; his wife's parents, her friends, his friends who liked her as much or more than him, the prickled skin of his children, the politeness that burned and left the air tainted with civility. He wanted to relax. He wanted to relax, that was all; he said. He hadn't known that love could be so painful or so wearing.

And he thought, "This is because you are my mistress, this is what they see. They don't see you, not the woman. You are a thing, a thing set apart, the cause of others' pain."

Then he spoke aloud, "But you're not, Claire. It's not fair. We fell in love, that was all. It was nobody's fault."
"Not what?" she said.
"It doesn't matter," he said.


And slowly she began to bend under the weight of his family, her bright, proud head lower, her eyes faintly dimmer. And though they still fucked well, and though they still fucked often, it was all of a sad darkness now and the explosions were painted red, and she began to wonder, could she walk away, even now, even after this third anniversary, could she walk away? And she thought, only if I can make him angry, only if I can make him say it, and she started to ask it, "Are your children more important than me?"

And every time he would say no, and they would drink and hold each other, and she would dream dark dreams and he would think I must suffer being in love still, and though he contemplated his own death he knew he could not accomplish it, not until the children were sixteen, and instead, he would whisper her name and slip his hands between her legs, and on the lower stair they would fuck again and he would sleep a while.




2,277 words

Not Enough Hints for Mrs Golightly

Thinking of Bridport (deadline tomorrow) I recall this article of mine from a while back and published in the Internet Writers Journal.

Please note the article is not sour grapes.


Not Enough Hints for Mrs Golightly

I recently picked up a second prize in a magazine competition, then in the issue announcing the winners I read from a subscriber: "Dee, A Dancer stood head and shoulders above the other competition entries. It's the only time I have ever been moved to give nine out of ten for a story."

PS, this is neither about "my writing" or "my story"...

Another reviewer wrote: "Dee, A Dancer gets under our moral body-armour and imparts an unacceptable feeling which robs our black- and-white judgment of absolute certainty...sensitive writing. A third reviewer wrote "I like the neutral tone to convey powerful stuff," another thought Dee was the most enjoyable story, but awarded marks to another for originality. Then a fifth reader said, despite awarding top marks: "the husband doesn't know what's wrong, fair enough, but I was frustrated that he, the writer, couldn't have dropped more hints that the reader could make sense of".

Yet, to others "Dee, A Dancer was insubstantial." "Depressing and self-conscious" and another "didn't understand the end. Was it only this reader or did others think that the last paragraph had slipped in from another story?" And third critic said "Dee, A Dancer tried confusedly and unconvincingly to relate."

If I ever actually understand that last sentence, I promise to let you know, but ignoring that, the whole experience leads me to wonder and to worry about the state of much of the short-story market. I have talked in the past about the "disease of competence" and at least three editors have confided in me that they daren't "push it too far", that they often dare not print material which taxes the reader at all. They tell me wanting quality is all very fine, but not at the expense of a readership. Though I might pretend to understand this, what this eventually means is that the safer (and often lack-luster) "decent" stories, find their way into the magazines, competitions are often won by these safe and easy (but smoother than the others) stories, and the readers think this is the norm, the top end of the mid-quality literary canon. Beginners imagine these are the story types to aspire too. The result? More blandness, and yet more authors dropping in hints that the character wouldn't know (terrible art, but we must keep Mrs Freda Golightly of Chiswick happy. She votes!)

Alice Munro would struggle, Borges would be laughed out of the room, Carver would be dismissed probably because he was "too thin".

My question is, where, below the top five-six American magazines, and the few dozen magazines based on American University campuses does a writer go if she wants to push beyond the easy-to-swallow general fiction that is often seen in many of the small British magazines?

I can take three of my stories, one near my best quality, rich and literary, a second, lighter, less ambitious, and a third a lightweight, relative failure. If I enter these three in a competition I can predict the outcome. The best flops, the mid-range is short-listed and the make-weight gets a prize! This hasn't happened just once, it's happened maybe five, six a dozen times. Why?

One why is "readers". Many volunteer readers for competitions, those who narrow down four thousand entries to a more manageable couple of hundred stories, have been raised on the mid-range "easy-to-swallow" magazines I've already mentioned. Many are writers or aspiring themselves. Often, I think, they choose, not the best work, not the most enjoyable, but the best works that they could imagine themselves writing. That is, if it's tough, if it's something currently that bit of an extra reach for them, it's dismissed as "arti-farty" or "intellectual junk" or perhaps "self-conscious" or "MFA stuff".

The result? Even if the final judge is Saul Bellow, what he gets to see are those stories where we've put in the crude make-it-easy-for-Freda bits, removed a few allusions, kept it under the glass ceiling. The poor judge gets two-hundred plain vanilla me-too stories, stories that (ask any judge) he can't remember a month later.

But does Ray Carver's "A Few Good Things" get forgotten? Do people forget the baby in "The Shawl" or the abortion scene in "Differently," the fisherman's boots in "The Ledge"?

I know the owners of magazines have a terrible dilemma, but doesn't something need to be done? Reader, ask yourself. Think of the copies of little magazines you have on your shelf, or the ezines you've read. Now close your eyes. What stories do you remember? Which ones got under your moral radar, which ones subverted you, changed you, even if only for a while. Can you remember ANY of the stories?

Someone once said, "Be one per-cent different and they call you a genius, be two-percent different they call you mad; five per-cent different and they kill you." The problem with much of the short-story market, particularly the competition-driven market is "different" never means "tougher", different never means asking the reader to think, to move through emotional application, into a greater realization, change. Different means, the same plus a one-liner, what I can do, with a twist.

Feedback on Capel Bethel Course

I have learnt more in one weekend of Alex Keegan's Bootcamp then I have in all my writing practice to date. Bootcamp equals action. From morning to night, there are endless discussions on writing and life. These are filled with intensity, laughter, the dawn of understanding and plenty of writing. Bootcamp is focused and directed, unfocused and indirected - the two complementing each other to give writers the perfect approach to the craft. Alex is a wonder and I'm booking my place on the next course. I've also connected with other writers and found new friends.

The chapel which is right in the centre of Llwyngwril is a beautifully converted space. Upstairs, you'll find a large open plan living-kitchen space where writers hunker down around the 12-seater table or sprawl about on the many sofas. Distractions include: Wifi, Bar billiards, a massive TV, books, DVDs and music. If you want to preach then the pulpit is yours for the taking. Downstairs there are bedrooms with comfy memory foam mattresses, bathrooms with power showers and an enormous roll top bath. There are books and pictures everywhere.

A hill stream rushes down through the village of Llwyngwril to the sea. The takes ten minutes to walk from the chapel to the beach - there are also other fantastic walks all around. There's a village shop (with cash back and booze!), post office, cafe and pub. The village also has its own train station and you can get a return, if you pre-book with Virgin trains, to London and back for about £25.00.

Runners Who Write; Writers Who Run

Morning Folks.

I am on Facebook as AlexBootCampKeegan (all one word) and I have just started a group called

Runners Who Write; Writers Who Run

The following is a note I've posted on FaceBook about it. If you write ad run (should be BOTH, that's the point) then why not join me?

I have only run three hours in the last 4-5-6 months but I was a serious veteran club runner AND I WILL BE RUNNING TODAY.


Imagine going on a writers retreat where you ran first thing in the morning and everyone was so ALIVE!




I have just finished a weekend of teaching creative writing in a very intense atmosphere, up around 0600, going to bed around 0100. That intensity was on the back of almost thirty days of non-stop, heavy-duty writing and too many late nights. I went INTO the course dog-tired.

Once upon a time, as an athlete, I would have been overjoyed at the surroundings of the chapel. All those fantastic runs, with great views. This time I went, only just recovered from an injury having done no exercise whatsoever for six weeks and abusing my body with too-long days, too much time at the computer and too much (I drink when I write a lot) wine.

But one of the ladies on the course was out first morning, out there running with the sea air in her face. Day Two I HAD to go out.

I was three stones and more (as much as fifty pounds) over my racing weight, unfit, slightly upset tummy, hungover, mentally running on empty AND WE WALKED-RAN FOR TWO HOURS.

We didn't exactly hammer things. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that our mile-running pace was nearer ten minutes than nine, but we walked up those hills, ran along the cliffs, saw an amazing blue lagoon, came back sweaty (and I was sore) but the day FLEW by and I was twice as good a teacher, full of energy again.

This is what I remember when I was running a lot (up to seventy miles a week at my peak).

The physical, mental, philosophical side-effects of running are fantastic. When I'm fit, especially through running (and carrying a lot less weight) I feel younger, sharper, cleverer and insights come so fast I can't catch them all. I used to say running "empties my head of fat".

So, I want to form a group of people who firstly consider themselves writers (whether professionals or serious non-professionals) people who wake up and 19 days out of 20 are immediately thinking, "When and where today will I get my writing space?"

Ability and publications is NOT the point, desire an seriousness, and how you define yourself is the mark of "writer". I was unpublished when my son Alex was born. On the birth certificate my wife, unprompted, put my profession down as writer. That must mean I was, even if the 350-400 publications I now have hadn't started.

And running?

Well, the definition of writer is above. My definition of runner is similar. Do you get up evry day WANTING to run? Is it your main way of being fit? You may or may not be super-slim or fast, but at some time in your past you ran seriously (say 4-5 or more days a week) and raced a bit (even if you finished way down the field.

You own running shoes, shorts, vests etc and you get somewhere and you want to run, want to run, want to run.

You might be like I am right this minute (but watch this space) grossly overweight and maybe a bit ashamed, with short-term and long-term injuries. Running might now make you breathless. You aren't supple, you may not be quite so young. There's no way you are going to enter the next County Cross-Country, and the idea of The National, try to stop laughing.

BUT, like with me last weekend, someone was going running and you HAD TO try, because that's what you are, even if you're a fat old fat, you define yourself as a runner, you want to be fit again, want to feel that sharpness in body, brain and soul.

You quite like the idea, a year down the line, of a half-marathon where every person in the field is a writer. Wouldn't that be glorious?


JOIN ME!!



PS

If you write and don't run, START.