Blog 92 – Now we really are 60 … by Ms Paige Turner – be the first to spot the deliberate mistake and you’ll get a free assessment of a poem up to 20 lines – value – £10.

Well, there’s no use denying it. Ms Tea Tree Oil, my long standing and beautiful beauty therapist told the world on Facebook last Monday. And gratified I was to receive so many birthday wishes now the internet makes it so easy to send them. I got the fourth assignment results for my Masters degree that day too. So it was a big day in more ways than one. I hadn’t looked forward to this particular birthday. My father died a couple of months after he had this one and it always seemed so far off.
But here I am and I spent it not widely but deeply. Mister Justin Case and I had been to see ‘The Fault is in Our Stars’. It’s a pretty mushy, saccharine kind of movie. YA genre – which is big now in literary terms. When I started writing Young Adult there was a notion that the target market didn’t exist at all. It certainly seems to now. The film is based on John Green’s novel about two teenagers who have terminal cancer. The title is a twist on a line taken from Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’
Cassius says, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (I, ii, 140-141).
But for Green’s star-crossed lovers, the fault is not theirs. It is in their fate. Hence the spin on the title. I quite liked this film. I will read the book. The film makes the point that in this celebrity crazed world that it’s better to be loved deeply than widely.
I spent my 60th with the people I care most deeply about: Mister Justin Case, Miss Trial and Master Mind.
Then three other people made the first week of my seventh decade special. Mister Red Hat put the finishing touches to my new website which he had been building. I met an old school friend for coffee in Baker Street to interview her for our school alumni magazine. Chrissie Thomas is Gavin Extence’s mum and Gavin came to speak at Creative Ink last November about his first novel ‘The Universe versus Alex Woods’ which has picked up all sorts of prizes. But he better watch out as his mum’s got a novel on the go. I’m doing a series of features for the alumni magazine which is produced annually, interviewing the 90 girls from our year. I don’t think I’ll get round to interviewing them all.
Oh and the third person was Mrs Carrie Oakey: my best friend. We laughed and cried together the whole of this last weekend. Exhaustion set in. I slept 11 hours last night and it’s why my blog is a little late.
Tuesdays: Get Inspired – from September 16th – 3 places left.
Thursdays: Get that Book out of You – from September 18th – 5 places left.
Email me for a syllabus.

Last bi-month’s teaser. Yes, Di Morrish – it’s Causley’s ‘Timothy Winters’ who had eyes as wide as a football pool. Hand out sheets coming.

Joking Apart – Blog 91 by Ms Paige Turner
I forget how nervous new creative writing workshoppers can be. Last week I was taking a workshop in a present Creative Inker’s house. Catherine has been organising these highly successful soirees for the past year. She does it all with wine and canapés so do email me if you are interested. Anyway a new workshopper turned up and said, “I’m so very nervous. I’ve never done this before.”
I said, “Oh. Well. It’s a good job the film crew didn’t turn up then.”
The new nervous workshopper’s eyes widened bigger than Timothy Winter’s football pools and then she smiled and said, “Oh, it’s a joke.”
I was workshopping The Serious Business of Humour and realised she thought my response was a teaching tool. I had to explain, no, this wasn’t a joke as a few hours earlier I had been contacted by the National Film and Television School asking me if I would like to take part in a documentary about writers getting inspired. I always say ‘yes’ to these things and when they discovered I had a workshop on that very evening they were camera ready. I did think to ask Catherine’s permission. It was, after all, her house. She promptly phoned back and said, “Pas possible.” She’s not French. I just threw that in as I love the way the French say, “Pas possible.” And rightly so. Catherine didn’t say, “Non!” She was very polite but it wasn’t possible. When I thought about it, anything can end up on You Tube these days. Not that the NFTS would do this but new workshoppers don’t know this. I’m always so gung ho about being filmed but maybe we should think carefully about such exposure. Anyway, the workshop went down a hoot. I think I did the Bulgarian Snake Dance and I only ever drink sparkling water when I’m teaching. I did an interview for the NFTS the next day, only I fear it will be a meta-film. There was no soul stripping story of mine I was going to reveal and the whole thing ended in a poem I wrote and now this blog. So there you are.
I think it’s worth thinking about how easily we are exposed and what we publicise on blogs. There’s still some places on September Creative Ink courses, so email me for a syllabus.
Re-creative fiction is what is also termed as non-fiction but that sounds negative with the non! It’s anything which isn’t made up: fact. And if anyone knows which poem and which poet wrote about Timothy Winters and his football pools then there’s three hand out sheets or a feature of mine on Creative Writing for them.

Starting Out Under a Streetlamp – Blog 90 – by Ms Paige Turner

Last Thursday was a good day. I posted my fourth and final re-creative fiction for this year down the Cambridge Masters chute. Then I went out to play. I met Amanda Hatter for coffee after a workout. Earlier this week I had attended her book launch rubbing cappuccino shoulders with present and past Creative Inkers. Amanda (aka AC Hatter) has just published her children’s book ‘Callum Fox and the Mousehole Ghost’. Within days it’s hit the number 2 spot in its category on Amazon eBooks. I know Amanda and Callum well. Callum was born in Creative Ink classes, so I feel a little like a midwife. But Amanda has an extraordinary story to tell about her and Callum’s journey to publication. I won’t spoil it for you. But if you would like to come and hear it, and if you are in any way interested in publishing a story then you must come listen to Amanda’s on Thursday 16th October at 11.00am at the Fitzwilliams Centre. Email me.
Amanda and I talked about the joy and tears of our published projects but we both felt that there was nothing like the feeling of starting out; when we had it all ahead of us and little thought of making money from writing words. I had been reading my beginnings. I started writing in 1988. It was rather good. So if you’re thinking of putting pen to paper or fingertips to keys then do come join our Creative Ink for Writers’ classes in September. Tuesdays – Get Inspired and Thursdays – Get that Book Out of You are definitely running but there are still some places. Five week courses. Email me.
Then I went off to see the ‘Jersey Boys’ film. We’ve seen the show about eight times; lost count. Our daughter Miss Trial and son-in-law, Master Mind had a Four Seasons’ cover band at their wedding so we are aficionados. We have been aficionados so long I now know how to spell the word. From previous blogs some of you may remember that I shook hands with Frankie Valli at the Royal Albert Hall at precisely this time last year. In both the show and the film Valli says that there was nothing like the starting out before it all got serious: four guys under a streetlamp. Makes sense of my blog title, eh?
Then Mister Justin Case and I went to lovely Jean Leung’s Chinese restaurant in Beaconsfield. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day and so relieved the re-creative fiction has been dispatched. It’s a theatre journal about the making of the play ‘Blackberry Promises’ so look out for it on this blog.
What’s re-creative fiction? Be the first to inbox me on my blog and get the right answer and I will send you a hand out sheet of your choice on any topic related to Creative Writing.
www.achatter.co.uk
www.jasmineofbeaconsfield.co.uk
Well done Michelle Gunner who came third in the Rhyme & Reason prose competition with a story workshopped at Creative Ink.
Well done me for being highly commended in the Words for the Wounded prose and poetry competition.

Back on Track – Blog 89 by Ms Paige Turner

Stranraer

Dawn yawns.
My plump feet on platform four where
porters swoop,
gulls beckon.
London nightmares forgotten.

Ferry flurry
for Larne crossing
and the smell of morning
spreads like salty butter
on ten o’clock soda bread.

Old summers live on
in my giddy head.

Serving Bluebird Pie £2.06 On Amazon Kindle
– – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Serving-Bluebird-Pie-ebook/dp/B008VVQYIW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345826443&sr=1-1
I’ve been to Belfast, my dad’s home town in the last couple of weeks so those ‘old summers’ on the sleeper train from King’s Cross to Stranraer and then the boat across the seas to Larne in Ulster have been much to the front of my mind. Planes do it so quickly these days. I’ve also been on my fourth residence at Cambridge and completing my fourth assignment for my Masters so busy, busy. I was very pleased to be highly commended in the Words for the Wounded Prose and Poetry comp this year.

My blog is back on track with a new host and less spam.

Enrolments are being taken for Creative Ink for Writers’ autumn classes beginning Tuesday 16th September – Get Inspired and Thursday 18th September – Get that Book Out of You – for five weeks. Classes have enough numbers to run. Email me for a syllabus and enrolment form.

Where there’s a Will …by Ms Paige Turner – Blog 89

I know. It’s a daunting prospect. But I like to think you just do it and put it in a bottom drawer: a lot like my writing process.
We’d made one before: Mr Justin Case and me. Just in case our falling off of the perch was synchronised when our daughter Miss Trial was a teenager and rendered an orphan. But now we were moving the will from London to somewhere local, we told the young Kylie Mynogue look alike, in suitable black suit, with her modern upward rising inflections; because we planned to die locally.
Did you know that if a couple fall off their perch together, or not as the case may be, the estate goes to the family of the partner who died last, in the event of there not being offspring? Miss Young Kylie Mynogue Lookalike asked if we wanted to make provision for this. I said, “Oh, no, that doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Then she asked if we wanted a particular hymn or reading at our last send off. I thought for a moment as I like to run my own show but then thought better of it. Miss Trial had said to me when I suggested writing my own eulogy, “Oh, thanks, Mum, just one less job for me to do,” but I haven’t got a round tuit. At least I wouldn’t be asked to stand up and deliver it. And anyway, I can’t bear the thought of running a show I’m never going to see. The live ones are enough trouble.
Anyway, back to the task in hand. Once Miss Young Kylie Mynogue Lookalike totted up the damage, I was almost comatose. “How much?” I heard myself saying. It almost gave me a heart attack. Then Miss Young Kylie Mynogue Lookalike said, “I’ll try and get this in the post tomorrow.” It’s Thursday. “But,” she says, “there won’t be closure on this until it’s all been signed and sealed and I’m on holiday next week so appreciate if you could survive that long.”
This old bird is holding on to her perch and her breath. I do love euphemisms.

There’s been a delay in getting this to you as the hosting has changed but my blog is now resurrected and bi-monthly. It took a bit of doing but you know, where there’s a will … Hit the button at the top right hand corner for updates.

Creative Ink for Writers’ classes start again Tuesday 16th September – Get Inspired and Thursday 18th September – Get that Book out of You for five weeks. Both classes have enough numbers to run but still some places left. Email me.

Congratulations to Galit Gibson and Philippa Brewer who have both obtained literary agents with books they were working on at Creative Ink. Always send me your news.