Liberation of the Mind: Writers' First Step

On the bright and early morning of 14 March, members of Writers’ Circle gathered in school for their annual March camp. The day was destined to be packed full of icebreaker activities, workshops and finally, the main event, a visit to the National Gallery, where the members got to create and strengthen bonds between one another and hone their writing skills. What a wonderful time indeed!

[Workshops]

[Press workshop]

At 11am, all members disseminated into their respective workshops allocated to them. There were two workshops planned: press and creative, for our writers to gain a fresh perspective on writing and practise it through various activities both individually and as a group.

The press workshop was conducted by Singaporean writer and editor Clara Chow. Clara Chow has had close to 20 years of journalism experience writing for The Straits Times, the South China Morning Post and more. She has also published a debut collection of short stories inspired by imaginary buildings, Dream Storeys (Ethos, 2016). 

To lighten the mood and spark some excitement, members were tasked with a few writing exercises throughout the workshop to ease into the writing process. The exercises included imagining themselves and their surroundings in the kitchen when they were 3 years old, as well as interviewing their partners on their dream buildings. Though strange at the beginning, students later shared their pieces with Ms Chow and were able to receive helpful feedback.

After warming up, Ms Chow focused on creative nonfiction writing, a style that many were not introduced to before. With a passion for both creative writing and journalism, creative nonfiction serves as a bridge between the two as it encompasses texts about factual events that are not solely for educational purposes, and includes an imaginative spin on the piece. Members read a few excerpts from books as well as articles which consisted of creative non-fiction to familiarise themselves with the concepts. Some included Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, and The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Anne Beard. These stories adopted a similar notion to journalism with descriptions of the places and people from the author's travels. However, a unique touch was present as the author added an individual point of view, providing their thoughts and feelings whilst presenting the facts. Previous confusion about the idea of creative nonfiction grew into curiosity about the ways this technique was applied, and students started to engage with Ms Chow further. 

Ms Chow ended her workshop by encouraging all students to continue writing whenever they can, even if it may only be 10 minutes on the bus ride home from school. “As long as you write, you are a writer”, she remarked.

[Creative Workshop]

For the prose workshop, members were enlightened on literary imagery by Mr Daryl Qilin Yam, a Singaporean writer, editor, arts organiser and co-founder of the literary charity Sing Lit Station. The main focus of the workshop was on the different methods to evoke imagery in poetry, namely, metaphors, similes and symbols, along with the differences between each method. After explanation came application, as members made their own metaphors, similes, and ended up splitting into 2 groups to make their own group poems, starting each line with the phrase “Release everything”. The results were…interesting to say the least. For example:

“Release everything 

that you keep within and unleash them as you see fit 

Release the flatulence brewing

Release that breath you’ve been holding with every step you took.”

The creative workshop finally ended in high spirits with a Q and A session, mostly about the life of  Mr Daryl Yam as a writer in Singapore.

Behind the scenes, the EXCO faced one of their hardest challenges – getting the right people to do the workshop. One of the EXCO, Sreshti Pendyala from class 23S63 explained, “[The writers] had to be available at the right time for us and it had to be based on what we thought was best fit for our writers and what we want them to get out of it. For the press side, a lot of our writers are currently dual wing but they are more inclined towards creative, which is why we got a writer who is a creative non-fiction writer to just give them one, a fresh perspective, and two, ease them into non-fiction writing and journalism in a way that combines both of them (creative and press) to show them that ‘Hey, it’s not two entirely different things, there is a possibility where you can combine these two things.’” In the end, it seemed like their pick of writers was wise and it worked out.