Friday, June 30, 2006

Story Club #5

We have a busy day today, and yesterday was full too, leaving me little time to write. Yesterday evening was the 5th story club. Liam read a couple of sections of his, then Clare read, then I read some of Kieron’s and some of mine, then Liam read a rather long section of Brendan’s. This one particularly blew us all away. It was about the hero of the story meeting up with a legendary Titan, and the Titan’s Lear-like tale of his sons’ rebellion against him. Brendan’s “book”, started when he was fifteen and ending when he was 17, displays a trajectory of his increasing writing ability, and this part was a benchmark.

Afterwards Clare’s friend asked the boys how they came up with their ideas and how they planned. Brendan described what he calls a “plotline” — what he does to plan is write out a simple narrative of the events. He said the first plotline he made was simple a run-on sentence separated by commas but now he’s a little more precise, he says.
I think this is a good idea…. I may try it.
Yesterday, I was a bit humbled in feeling that my story came off quite low on the scale! Liam and Clare and Brendan can really write. I have lost some of that story-writing intensity (through my own grievous fault) and it’s hard to get it back…. but rewarding to see the teens doing something they love, working together as colleagues. It is a good thing. I wanted to write it out briefly though I wish I had time to write the account of the whole day, a day that “walked in beauty” . Maybe some other time….

Wonder is a word that gets stale from overuse but the concept is an important one and worth trying to capture in words

But this is not my day to do so since I now have to scramble into practicality and get two little ones and their equipment ready for a trip to homeschool group and then to town to shop with two teenage girls!

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