Air and light and time and space

I came across this wonderful poem today by Charles Bukowski, a reminder for me that any excuse I find to not write (or create) is not good enough...

AIR AND LIGHT AND TIME AND SPACE

”– you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,

something has always been in the

way

but now

I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this

place, a large studio, you should see the space and

the light.

for the first time in my life I’m going to have

a place and the time to

create.”

no baby, if you’re going to create

you’re going to create whether you work

16 hours a day in a coal mine

or

you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children

while you’re on

welfare,

you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown

away,

you’re going to create blind

crippled

demented,

you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your

back while

the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,

flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space

have nothing to do with it

and don’t create anything

except maybe a longer life to find

new excuses

for.

My first two Kenyan creative writing workshops

Story Jars

I have finally set the ball rolling and have given my first two sets of creative writing workshops here in Kenya (because really, I can't sit around all my life waiting for my novel to be published, can I.)

Last week I went to a suburb of Nairobi called Kiserian where, in a low-income school, I worked with two separate groups of 9 and 13 year old's who created ideas to go into story jars, brainstorming lots of characters, places and situations which served as the inspiration for stories. This week, I went to a British curriculum school (about 90% non-Kenyan)  and worked with two groups of 7 year old's, using the theme of Halloween to write spooky poems (It is hugely helpful to have a 7 year old myself as I tested my workshop out on her the night before!). I loved both experiences, I really loved them. I feel like I have so many ideas and am very grateful to these two schools for essentially taking a gamble and letting me come in.

It was interesting as well to work in two such different schools because I obviously needed to think hard about subject matter relevancy to the vastly different life experiences of these children. But they all came up with some wonderful writing and now I'm just looking forward to being invited back and, hopefully, for more doors to open into other schools :-)