Drafting behind the scenes...
What I got up to in a writing workshop
I have got something so perfectly ‘Drafting’ for you today that my fingertips are practically dancing whilst I write. Earlier this week, I went to a writing workshop held by
. It was focused on short story writing and we spent the time doing some exercises before launching right into it. I thought it would be fun to share what I came up with in the workshop in its raw, untouched and unedited form. The most Drafting of all possible Drafting things!The first exercise landed us each with a feeling or mood, a place and an object. Mine were nostalgia, the garden and a deck chair. We then had ten minutes to write, starting with the sentence: When she looked at the [OBJECT] she felt…
When she looked at the deck chair, she felt nostalgic. Standing at the kitchen sink looking out into the garden she could just about see the legs of the chair poking out at the edge of the window. The wood was all rotten now and peeling away in random places. Shedding its skin of times gone by. The cover’s been changed not once but three times in the last twenty-five years! Her heavy-handed sticky-fingered children made sure to make good use of it.
Of course, this will be the first summer none of her children will be at home. They have all “flown the nest” as it were. Her little birds. That deck chair saw it all. Every barbecue, every party. The children making forts out of clothes on the washing line. Holding each other’s hands running through the garden sprinkler with glee. Her oldest took his steps right there on the cool morning grass, so many years ago now. “I even breastfed them all from that chair!” She thinks to herself, as she mindlessly continues to wash the dishes.
It was a wedding present of all things. There used to be two but her petty husband demanded to take ‘his’ one with him in the divorce. So for the past three years, her chair has sat alone…
It is not an amazing piece of work. First off, it’s completely unfinished! There are also things I would change or improve that I clocked even just from typing it up. But it exists, I wrote it and that’s still something to be proud of. Your best work stands on the shoulders of all your other work and every first draft you committed yourself to.
The next prompt was to simply look at a photo and start writing for eight minutes…
She woke up to the smell of cigarette smoke filling up her nose. Her head was pounding and her mouth as dry as hot sand. She allowed her eyes to adjust a little. The light looked more confident as it flooded in through the blinds. It definitely wasn’t early then. She rolled over slightly onto her side and there he was, sitting naked at the end of the bed next to her feet. She’d been so drunk when she got in she hadn’t even bothered to take off her clothes before falling asleep.
Eight months of this and what were they even doing? She still had no idea how he truly felt about her. She felt like she barely even knew him at all. His bedroom was so sparse it gave nothing more away than what he’d already told her. What was his taste in music? What did he like to read? What did he do when she wasn’t there? The only thing of note was that stupid photo of himself he had pinned above the bed. A photo taken by his ex. A photo she’d stare straight into when she was on top of him. “I’m breaking my marriage up for this?” The thought ran through her mind each time…
I know Nan Goldin but wasn’t familiar with the harrowing story behind the photos in The Ballad of Sexual Dependency exhibition, so I suppose I was able to write more freely without context. I enjoyed having a photo as a writing prompt because little details kept jumping out to me. I didn’t clock the wedding ring on her finger until towards the end and wanted to weave that in somehow too.
So, there you have it. A little peek behind the scenes of what Drafting’s all about! Constant chipping away and practice. It all matters.
William Faulkner — 'Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything good.’
