Bang the drum!

Celebrate life in these creative writing exercises from Jenny Alexander

January is Celebration of Life Month and, as all writing is a celebration of life, what could be a better topic for a bit of free-range writing? Poetry and prose, fiction, non-fiction and memoir, they are all ways of taking pieces of life and crafting them into shapes and forms that please us. Writing makes art out of experience and creates beauty even out of ugliness, so craft some of your own memories, thoughts, feelings and ideas with these free-range writing forays. Stick to the timings – short, timed pieces mean you just have to get stuck in, so there’s no room for over-thinking or procrastination.

Memoir

When did you experience moments of pure pleasure? Write a list, just whatever comes to mind. Don’t only think in terms of big ticket events, such as weddings or wonderful holidays, but include those little moments when you have been surprised by joy. The September day when a fox stepped into your path and stood his ground among the fallen leaves, holding your gaze… the night you did a crossword by torchlight in your tiny tent with your grown-up daughter.

Then write a list of difficult experiences that seemed terrible at the time but turned out to bring fresh blessings. The breakdown that made you leave a job you hated, the big bust-up with someone close that brought you closer.

Include smaller examples too, like the time you had to abandon a hike because of a fall, but instead diverted to the nearest beach and spent the day telling stories over a bottle of wine.

Choose one of these memories, a moment when you were surprised by joy or a difficult experience that you can see, in retrospect, brought something good. Write the story. Take twenty minutes.

Fiction

It isn’t always easy to celebrate life, especially when the things we normally enjoy are taken away, such as during the coronavirus pandemic. In this story, someone can’t do something they were looking forward to because of lockdown measures – maybe a big family wedding has had to be postponed, or a holiday, or a conference or course. All of those had to be crossed off my calendar last year, and by late summer I wasn’t feeling much like celebrating.

Write some notes about this character and their circumstances – where do they live, who with, what are the things that normally give them pleasure in life? What is the particular thing they have been looking forward to that is now cancelled? The last straw for me was losing my winter writing residency in Shetland.

What happens that reminds them life is still good – something that would not have happened if the event had been able to go ahead. I received a surprise parcel of Shetland goodies from a kind friend who read about the cancellation in my newsletter and ordered them for me from the Peerie Shop in Lerwick, to cheer me up.

Write the story. Take twenty minutes.

Non-fiction

How do you celebrate life, what gives you joy? For example, baking a perfect scone, tending your allotment, taking a favourite walk. List some things that give you pleasure and make you feel that life is good.

Choose one and write an article in the first person – ‘I’ – about your personal experience of it. How did it start? Who helped you? How has it developed over the years? How would you like to develop it, going forward? Give some specific instances.

Include some of the lovely features of non-fiction, such as a tip list or fact box, a recipe or how-to section. Find or make a few visuals, such as charts or illustrations.

Take as long as you like – indulge yourself! Enjoy shaping the ideas and crafting the words, celebrating one pleasure with another

Poetry

There’s a wonderful poem by Pat Schneider called The Patience of Ordinary Things in which she celebrates, among other things, the way that clothes wait ‘respectfully’ in the closet and soap dries ‘quietly’ in the soap dish. You can find it online.

What do the things you surround yourself with give to you? What quality might you ascribe to them? The objects in my house are holders of my archive – they carry pleasurable memories of the places and times I found them, or the people who gave them to me. They all have a story. They bring beauty too, because I love colour and choose to have things around me that are bright and harmonious.

Write a poem about the things in your home, their character, your relationship with them. Give it a title that indicates the unifying theme, like Schneider’s ‘patience’.

Take twenty minutes.

For inspiration, check out Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s positive poem about lockdown,