Writing is a world of enchantment, where a writer holds an equivalence to a creator. However, conventionally this world of numerous possibilities has been tightly encircled. There are limitations to what is accepted and how a piece is to be written. Regardless of freedom, there is little experimentation. My experience with author Gaurav Monga in a 5-week creative writing workshop was nothing short of eye-opening.
My affinity for reading and writing has pushed me to read and meet all sorts of writers; be it at a seminar, workshop, or an open mic. Never before have I been introduced to a style that felt so astounding.
Due to a clash in previous commitments, I was unable to attend the first session completely, but there was something about stories that he said that kindled a fire to commit and learn for the upcoming 5 weekends. He told us a one-liner about 2 men meeting coincidently and asked us what we infer from the line. We let our heads go on a wild goose chase, coming up with one situation after another. That is when he revealed that the beauty of a story is not in the length but in the story’s ability to relate with the reader (not necessarily in the way it was originally thought about by the writer).
Throughout the course, we learned a lot such as previously disregarded ideas about writing. There was a sequence of experiments and feedback. However, one exploration that I found very interesting and creative, was that of pictorial representations for words. Sir read his book to us. The front page of it was this-
A simple black dot on the page. No title, no alphabet. A simple dot, and the inferences many. This was one of the most unique styles of writing I encountered.
Every week, we discussed pieces, read ours, received feedback, and worked on them, until we were able to create an amalgamation of our pieces which were based on ‘school life’ in a self combined document titled ‘School Diaries’. Our entire group collaboratively worked on the document.
CAS strand/stands in focus- Creativity
LO1- Identifying strengths and weaknesses was an important aspect of the workshop since we were aiming to put together a book which would be a collection of well knitted pieces. We identified them by reading our pieces out loud and receiving constructive feedback upon it. One of the feedbacks I received was that my pieces had difficult vocabulary which was hindering the reader’s ability to to correlate with the piece. At first I was a little unsure about how to take the criticism but with guidance I was able to understand how to work on it. In my next pieces I specifically worked on it and found that my fellows were better able to relate to my work.
LO2- Understanding criticism and being able to adapt to new styles of writing was difficult. Additionally, there were people in the group that were able to produce much better output than I was, so sometimes I would feel the need to push myself further. All though I am very passionate about writing, I have never co-authored before, nor written a book about writings related to one particular topic. Taking new challenges helps me develop as an individual and a person. This experience helped me stretch my limits, and gave me the confidence to stretch them independently.
LO4- This activity required patience and persistence throughout the 5 weeks to continuously work, write, revise until the pieces were suited to be compiled. It required consistent effort to write pieces and arrange them in accordance to the plethora of school assignments. I even faced a writer’s block during the 3rd week, which I had to cover for in the 4th week. The commitment was easy since it was something I cared and associated deeply with.
LO5- Usually, I am not the biggest advocate of team work, but for this experience particularly, the diversity brought along with the collaboration was what brought out the ultimate product. Handling the feedback was a little difficult at certain times, also there were great discussions about the title and so on. However, we were able to divide roles and work together with convenience. Infact, sir had handed me the opportunity to edit the pieces of my fellows for the the final document which was indeed an honour. It was the individuality and interdependence that brought out the best out of the final document and workshop.
In a nutshell, the experience was nothing short of memorable. In fact, I even asked sir to be a guest speaker for the school’s writer’s club to further give the same sense of inspiration to my fellow school writer’s that he had given me.
The final document is attached below-
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RrZkWHD7jgMKqNClX_fbAqfAjQ0xc93PGK9VyUBF3x8/edit?usp=sharing
