when i enrolled in Arnie Achtman's "Expressive Writing" class, i was given a lot of warning by his former students - strict, terror, stingy with grades. ah, my kind of teacher!
if Arnie didn't give a damn about my writing, i probably would have abandoned the craft. but at the outset, he raved about my characters, he showed genuine interest in what i had to say through my stories. "show me, don't tell me. make me stand right there wherever this scene is happening. i want to be there. bring me there!"
in his class we wrote mostly about our own experiences. he was most interested in small town life, how people in other parts of the world lived. in telling our stories, he made us show not only what the main character is doing, but the other people around him as well.
he especially loved my 'settings', how i weaved them in with my stories. "i feel like i am a fly on the wall watching all these things." he was especially taken with how i described my youngest brother in my stories. so when one day i brought with me my laptop and was showing him photos from one of the totally unknown writers festival, he told me to stop and go back two photos. i had previously downloaded a scanned photo of my brother taken when he was still a young boy and it copied on to the folder with the festival photos. "is that basil?" he asked after examining the photo. i smiled and looked at him and i replied 'yes!' he knew how my brother Basil looked from just my descriptions of him in my stories.
he taught us how to critique a story - don't just say you like it, say why you like it, which part in particular did you like. and then you tell the writer what was lacking or the missed opportunities by asking the questions that mostly didn't matter - what's he wearing? how's the hair? the colour of her shoes? the way she walks? the way he talks and gestures. he would say :"make your character alive in your reader's mind!"
when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2003, he worked hard so that all of us in our writing group could polish the two 'exceptional stories' that he loved from each of us. he handpicked those stories for publication. it was his swan song, his big project, the one that mattered, not to anyone else but to him. at the book launch of "this is what happened" he came, although he was very sick. he died a few months after the book launch.
the above photos were actually the front and back covers of the souvenir book/compilation when we honoured him at that year's Totally Unknown Writers Festival.
a few days before he died, i visited him. he was frail but lucid. "my one wish, for you, victoria, is to write that novel. don't change that chapter one, it's good as it is. go from there. promise me." oops, it's almost nine years since. i should really get my arse in gear, shouldn't i?
Well this posting is No 1! No 2 is to arrange time to start writing and get what you need around you. No 3 is to sit back and look at what you have written and remember Arnie! Get with it lady!
Arnie looks like a really nice guy in the pictures, and was obviously a great teacher, this is a lovely tribute. So when will the novel be finished?!!!
Your writing really does 'put me there' I've said it before. I really hate to encourage your writing, because I love what you are doing here. But... It is something you need to do.
Time and commitment! It's hard to keep them in balance. You would think that since I don't work I'd really be sinking myself into getting something set up. But it's too easy to say, "I can do that tomorrow". I'm heading towards a committed time to work on things each day- as if that was my job. And somehow the photography has to stay with it because 365 is so much fun!! I think your teacher knew what he was talking about!
