
Students read a number of different short stories, from different times, in different styles; they picked out features that made the stories interesting (from language, to themes and issues); they imitated some of the different styles before crafting their own stories; they had complete freedom to write about anything they wanted.
Most of the responses were fantastic and some were really outstanding. Some students conducted formal experiments (such as writing the whole story in the second person), some developed striking individual voices (writing from the perspective of an ailing, aged grandparent) and some explored complex emotions.
I would be really interested in collaborating with other departments on future creative writing projects. Some examples could include:
- Creating graphic novel interpretations of student stories
- Using work in other subjects as stimulus for creative writing (photographs, historical or geographical events, scientific theories - science fiction)
- Making / printing books of student creative writing pieces
Here is one example of the kiind of work that was produced:
Trust is a Many Flavoured Thing Alice Feilden
And therefore, I was able to conclude that I wasn’t following her after all. In fact, I had been ordered to escort her to the shop, whether I wanted to or not. But just in case, I silently insisted on walking just one step in front of her at all times.
“Loonie?” she called. “Where you going? It’s here.”
I turned round and followed her into Tillmans Bakery, where the queue was short and the smell just bearable. There had never been an apostrophe on the ‘Tillmans’. Things like that always annoyed me.
We stood in line behind an irritatingly fat man, colossal like the meltdown of London in the snow. The man was quarrelling with the young girl behind the counter because they were out of cream buns and he had ordered too many.
“Is this all you wanted to show me, Dhylis? Father Christmas getting angry?” I was not impressed.
She joggled her eyebrows in my direction. “Fast times at Tillmans Bakery. Eh?” and ordered a loaf of bread.
Next, I led her upon her command to Marks & Spencers. She seemed to understand that I didn’t want to be following her, so told me where to go and pursued behind. There, in M&S, she bought a tree of broccoli.
“It’s not a tree, you idiot.” she said self-importantly. “It’s a stalk.”
I held the stalk up to my face. Of course, I was already convinced that she was right, but I thought I might as well aruge with her. “A stalk of broccoli?”
Dhylis shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, it’s not a tree, is it? It’s smaller than my hand.”
“Whatever. Why do you want this tree anyway?”
“Stalk.”
I smiled at her. “Why do you want it?” I asked as we wandered out of the shop.
“It’s for you.”
I just looked at her, my brow furrowed.
“Oh, don’t get all ungreatful just yet, Loonie. It’s not ready.”
“What’s not?”
“You’ll love it.”
I rolled my eyes and we wandered to her house. Halfway there, she took my hand. Smiles exploded uncontrollably all across my face. Rainbows and unicorns and toffee apples skipped across the grey pavement in front of me.
“It’s your birthday soon.” she mused.
I looked at her, alarmed. “In four months?” Surely she knew that? I knew the date, day and month of every single member of her family’s birthdays. And there were a lot of them.
“Actually, it is only one hundred and four days away.”
I smiled gleefully, even wider, and not because my birthday was ‘only’ four months away.
“I know what I’m getting you as a present, by the way.” “Oh yeah?” I was positively revelling in the attention she ladled upon me.
“Yep. A can of Strongbow and a pair of boxers.”
“Strongbow? I don’t like Strongbow”
She sighed. “Loonie, you’d treasure a piece of squirrel shit if I gave one especially to you.”
True enough.
“Come on,” she said, tugging on my hand. “I have a surprise for you.”
I followed her home.
In her warm kitchen, Dhylis laboured over the freshly bought bread, carefully cutting two even slices like her life depended on it. I had already hung my coat up. Then she toasted them, getting the butter out of the fridge so that it would be spreadable by the time the toast was done. The broccoli was already cooking. She told me that she had timed everything perfectly, so the broccoli would be ready just after the bread, allowing time to butter and spread strawberry jam on the toast.
I just watched her, in a medley of confusion and awe. She seemed to be making some sort of sandwich. A few minutes later she presented the thing in front of me with a flourish.
“There you go, Loonie. A toasted broccoli and jam sandwich - my absolute favourite. Welcome to the good life.”
She laughed, and I did too. Sitting opposite me at her table, her gaze didn’t flit for a second.
I looked at her, then down at the sandwich and back at her again. She seemed to be waiting for me to try a bit.
Again, I looked down at the thing in front of me that seemed to have been given a plate. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You want me to eat this?”
She nodded, pleased with her creation. A cup of tea was entwined between her fingers. Only at Dhylis’s house do I ever feel jealousy toward inanimate household utensils. “Just try it, Loonie. It’s celestial.”
I frowned at her. “No, Dhylis!” I was truly shocked.
She sipped her tea – teabag left in for approximately one minute, two sugars, one glug of milk. Prescisely. I’m not that fussy.
“Look,” she smiled. “I’ve made you tea. Just try it and if you don’t like it, drink the taste away.”
“I’m not eating it.”
“Please?” There was something in her eyes, something that was asking me to do it, for her. But I wasn’t going to.
I shook my head. “No way.” There are a million things I would do for Dhylis, but confess my love for her was not one of them.
She sighed, upset. Her eyes penetrated mine, sad as the stone cold sea. Deep as my love for her.
“You don’t trust me, do you.” She wouldn’t even dignify it with a question mark. See, that’s why she’ll never hear it from me. Because she doesn’t even trust that I trust her.
“Yes, I trust you Dhylis.”
“I’m not going to force you to eat anything you don’t want to.”
“So what’s the problem then?” I asked her. I simply couldn’t understand.
She pointed at the sandwich with her little finger. “You’d eat that if you trusted me.”
“Bullshit. Trust doesn’t cover broccoli sandwiches.”
She stared deeply into her cup of tea. “But that’s just it.” she murmured, quietly audible.
“What is?”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Dhylis. I trust you, ok?”
“Then why aren’t we more than friends, Loonie?”
“We are!”
“Yeah, more than good friends.”
“We are!”
She didn’t say anything, but carried on staring to the bottom of that goddamn cup.
I sat angrily at her dining table, my fists clenched and my knuckles white. After a while of short, anger-filled, silent minutes, she pointed at the thing on the plate.
“Are you going to eat that, cos otherwise I’ll just throw it away.” She still wouldn’t look at me. Or couldn’t. I didn’t know. Or care. Or, for that matter, want to sit in a room where a mug of cold tea was getting more of Dhylis’s attention than the boy sitting in front of her.
I shook my head dolefully. “Chuck it.”
She shrugged, got up and scraped the food into the bin. I felt discarded, wasted, just like the repulsive snack. Without a word, I left her to the plate and slipped into my coat. I was not going to sit silently in a room with a girl that was willing to let the future of two people’s friendship rest on some kind of childish potion. She could eat as many of them things as she liked and I would.not.care.
At home, I went straight to my room. Or tried to, but Daniel was playing some kind of fun game. I.e., every time I tried to barge past him up the stairs, he blocked my way.
“Wass the matter, little brother?” he taunted.
“Move.”
“Dhylis the nut job getting to you again?”
“She’s not a nut job. Move.”
“Where are your manners, Lucas?”
I gritted my teeth. “Move, Daniel.” I smashed into his chest with my shoulder.
He yelped, and fell back to lean on the wall. I scampered past him as he grabbed for my ankles to trip me up. “You need to start eating a bit more, boy.” he called after me. “Fuckin’ bony shoulders.”
My bedroom door clattered loudly as I slammed it, but it wasn’t satisfactory.
Still in my coat, I lay on the bed. Mum was in. Dad was in. Daniel was in. Toby was in. There was noise coming from every single room. But it was alright, I had my coat. I wouldn’t take it off. It was my cushion, my duvet, my protector of everything sharp in the world. My shield against everything mean Dhylis said. In this day and age, with a shield like this one, who would ever be parted from it?
The minutes glided past. Nonchalant, un-noteworthy minutes. My jaw tensed and relaxed again, tensed and relaxed. I was hurt. I was angry. But most of all I was yearning. For her. Here. Now.
I waited for another hour in anticipation, for Dad to go to work and Mum to take Toby to his football match and Daniel to bugger off somewhere different. Finally, I hopped and skipped and jumped down the stairs. No disapproving misuses of my name, no prying eyes, no mocking brothers. I was as liberated as a mockingbird, for a short while at least. I took off my coat and hung it on the banister. Inside the fridge I reached for the broccoli. And the butter. And the jam. I would not be a discarded sandwich. I would be revived, out of the gutter. Dhylis and I would work. Someday.
We had only one piece of bread left, but that didn’t matter. I cut two stalks of broccoli off the tree in our fridge and heated them in our budget Tesco’s microwave whilst buttering the piece of toast. We only had apricot jam, not strawberry, but that would do. A boy of simple pleasures – my favourite meal being McDonalds, not goddamn Organic Farmhouse Royal Broccoli oozing with gloopy orange sugar, I knew I wouldn’t like whatever Dhylis’s creation was whether the jam was red or not. Either way, I slathered the bread with velvety, sugar sweet jam and pushed the steaming broccoli inside my sandwich with as little revulsion as possible. I did trust her. Trust is a many flavoured thing and if I have to eat one broccoli sandwich for as many types of jam in the world, then so be it. I wasn’t eating it because I was hungry. I was eating this so that I could run up to her tomorrow and hug her and tell her that I’d done it and she’d love me forever.
I held the promise up to my mouth. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to smell it. I swallowed my fears and bit into the rest of forever. Everything would be alright. I could feel it somewhere.
03/01/10
Thanks for this Bill. Some great ideas. I think many students would like the idea of an illustrated comic book. You could take a couple of thought-provoking photos or art works to trigger a narrative. Also, you might like the e-pubishing software ISSUU (http://issuu.com) which allows you to publish online full screen in a book format.
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