Caroline Reid Writes

a page from my scrapbook I woke feeling emotional after many dramatic dreams with crowds of people in them, heads on wrong bodies, travel, bus, movement, black and white movie kind of feel followed by bursts of vivid colour. It had rained heavily during the night. The morning was warm and steamy. I’d written b4 bed the night before and was happy with it but was still feeling nervous about not knowing where the story was going. The workshop started at 10am and focussed on descriptive detail. We talked about using scrapbooks to explore the worlds of story. MargoLanagan was a participant in the workshop and she showed us some of the scrapbooks she created during the writing of Sea Hearts – she used 5 all up and said she used them when she was still feeling her way through a story. They were all images, no writing - images of groups of girls with spooky overtones, dark imagery, watery pics, groups of boys and a fantastic leather glove like a snake on the front comer....

The gorgeous writing room at Daku Thanks to Arts SA , I’ve just returned from Fiji. Not just a holiday (though the snorkelling was excellent), but as a participant in Jan Cornall’s draftbusting workshop , a week of writing, reading, sharing, getting feedback and being inspired. I’ll post a six part series here summarising what we writers did each day as well as some of the writing that came out of the meditations and writing exercises. We stayed at Daku Resort , host to a number of ParadiseCourses (not just writing – there’s yoga, singing, painting, quilting – yes, quilting). Daku is about a mile from Savu Savu on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island. Beautiful location and we were welcomed on the first night by Kenni and his family via a traditional Kava ceremony. We were then referred to as ‘family’ and every meal was eaten at a communal table. This was a powerful symbol. It helped to bring the group together. Writing is such a lonely business but this retre...