::mslexia workshops::

The Blank Page #1
a writing workshop with Margaret Wilkinson

THEME: INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

THE BLANK PAGE is like the little black suit I've been looking for for years. (You probably think of the page as flashing white, but bear with me.) It's an elusive gabardine suit, probably ‘Dry Clean Only’, absolutely stark and simple. It exists, in its perfection, only in my head. Like the magic garment that it is, the minute I start shopping for it, it disappears.

For me, the blank page is the same: perfect - until I start writing on it. There are lots of techniques for overcoming the perfectionist's fear of, and longing for, the blank page: for finding a place to begin, for heating up and cooling down, for not thinking too much at the beginning, for postponing the self-critical eye.

That's what this column is about: unusual starting points; quirky writing exercises; writing games and improvisational techniques to use by yourself or with a group. Ways of wedging your foot between the jamb and the door of writing, and getting yourself inside.

This first exercise is good because it's very straightforward. If you follow it exactly, it will guide you. Its strength is in its simplicity and tight structure. You don't have to feel particularly imaginative to do it, either. All you have to do is seize a fleeting moment.

What surprised me most in the workshops I've led was how unique and (paradoxically) how similar the various responses to this exercise were. For all their differences, every woman in these workshops imagined herself in 30 years’ time surrounded by others: partners, children, grandchildren. Not one imagined herself alone. Is this universal? Part of a bigger picture? By projecting themselves into the future did they learn something about themselves today?

The exercise isn't particularly meant to be therapeutic, but I think it is. In answer to Question 5 (How are you dressed?) everyone described sloppy, comfortable clothes: baggy jumpers, loose trousers. They were obviously tired of ‘Dry Clean Only’.

Odd that. In 30 years' time, I picture myself in the perfect little black suit: like a sloping shadow. If I stay on the ball, I'm sure to have found it by then. Grey hair. Black suit. Edgy smile.

EXERCISES

30 years on

Imagine a photograph of yourself, 30 years from now. Pretend you're actually looking at it, and describe what you see. In order to help you visualise it, respond to each of the following questions in two complete sentences of prose (no more, no less). Don't give yourself more than a few minutes per question. (If you're doing this exercise with a group, one member could ask these questions out loud.) Your responses should all be written in present tense. Present tense helps you focus on the here and now, making your writing more concrete. Don't forget to answer in whole sentences.

I used this exercise recently with a group of new writers. They quickly produced exciting prose pieces that held together and read fluently with virtually no poking, preening, or re-drafting. The key is to remember to answer each question in whole sentences. When you try it yourself, you might decide to re-write later, but the initial magic seems to be in the quick results: the quality of what you can come up with immediately, and how plausible it sounds, grounded as it will be in concrete imagery.

Now: imagine the photo.
1 Where are you?
2 Is there anyone with you, or are you alone?
3 Describe your face, the expression on it.
4 What are you doing?
5 How are you dressed?
6 Describe your hair and how you wear it.
7 What's in the background? What colour is it?
8 What are you holding in your hands? How
does it smell?
9 What single detail in the foreground is the
most interesting?
And finally,
10 There's one thing in this photo that's surprising, that doesn't belong. What is it?

Once you've completed this exercise, you might consider extending it by deciding what happens next (by concentrating on the unpredictable Question 10, for example). Or turning it into a poem. Or varying the exercise by imagining a photograph of yourself in China, or as a baby; in a uniform or in love; during the Crimean War when photography was first invented. (You could go back even further in history, before photography. But you must remember to freeze the moment, as if you were looking at a photo. The photograph is just a device to stop time.)