Our wee club has been busy as ever lately with a number of speakers encouraging our members to experiment with different forms and genres of writing. Whatever your style, we’re sure you will find something useful in the following recap of some of our recent sessions!
Scots Language with Stacey Campbell
I had the pleasure of hosting a session with the aim of introducing members to using Scots language. To sum up, please find the key takeaways below:
- In the 2011 census, 1.5 million people said they were Scots speakers
- Scots is, indeed, recognised as a language with its own unique grammar, syntax and vocabulary
- The language is spoken on a continuum – some people speak more or less Scots, and many speak Scots interspersed with standard English.
How do we write in Scots?
- Listen to the sound of the language; spell phonetically and don’t get too bogged down in what is the ‘correct’ spelling (certainly if you are just beginning)
- No apologetic apostrophes
- Writing in first person can help create an authentic character
- Use discourse markers (such as ‘so I did’) sparingly and avoid too many repetitions (very natural in our Scots speech; not so much in writing)
- Imagery, sentence structures, use of idioms can help colour the language and add to its lyricality.
We had great fun with our writing exercise which was to write in the voice of a Scottish alter ego. Great participation, as usual, and I’m very grateful to those who came along. As I said during the session, Scots is ‘the language ae princes and poets and plebs. Ma kindy language’ – hopefully we all have a bit more confidence to experiment with this beautiful language of ours!
Beyond Form Creative Writing with Tawnya Selene Renelle
We were treated to an engaging session by writer, academic and business owner Tawnya Selene Renelle. Tawnya has been in Glasgow for six years but after completing a PhD in Creative Writing, decided to start her own online creative writing business – Beyond Form Creative Writing. Tawnya offers courses, mentorship and one to one coaching for a number of writers. The idea was born after rejecting academia in favour of carving her own creative path.
With two poetry collections and one zine, Tawnya is currently working on a memoir and seems busy with a number of exciting projects. In terms of her advice for writing she offered members a number of key things to consider when undertaking the writing process.
Process
- Trust yourself
- When arguing with your inner critics, yell at them ‘shut up’ as a way to deal with the dreaded imposter syndrome
- Don’t limit yourself in terms of genre – push boundaries as something new and exciting can come of this generative process
- Experiment in different forms eg. novelists write a poem
- Let go of the idea that your book has to look a certain way.
Thank you, Tawnya for such an inspiring and engaging session!