Getting Started...

A new journey in nature and writing

I am not a great one for New Year’s resolutions as it always strikes me that the darkest, wettest time of year isn’t the best time to make a change. This year however, I have made an exception. In 2023 I would really like to write more, and to build a habit of putting pen to paper. In the past writing creatively has been an important part of may life but for several reasons it has not been a priority for me over recent years. This year I would like to revert to old ways, and find more time to think and to write.

The challenge that I have set myself is to take a green space that I love close to my home and to use it as a space to drive my work. I hope to find inspiration through the seasons, observing the changes that happen during the next lap of the sun.

As a person whose roots lie in theatre it is my feeling that pursuits like this are much more fulfilling when undertaken with others. On this basis I am making an open invitation to other folk who may want to join me on this creative journey. I will promise to share a new prompt every week or two, and to share some of the work that I create from time to time. In exchange I ask that people who decide to participate agree to respond to prompts when they are able to, and that they share some of their creations if they would like to.

What do you need to do if you would like to get involved? Firstly you need to sign up for this newsletter to receive your prompts. You don’t need to be a good writer, or a writer at all. You just need to be open to the idea of looking more closely, and to the possibility of trying to capture what you discover in words, however clumsy or clunky these words may feel.

Then, more excitingly, you need to choose a place that you would like to use as inspiration. This place could be large or small, formal or informal, wild or cultivated… It’s up to you! The most important thing is that it should be easily accessible for you and as close to home as possible. It could be a park, a woodland, a scrap of wasteland at the back of some shops, a garden, a smallholding, an alleyway, an allotment, a back yard… The choice is yours to find a place that you are interested to connect with and observe over the coming months.

Maybe this challenge leads well onto a starter prompt. Can you create a list of ten things, which share some information about the place that you have chosen? They don’t need to be about why you have chosen that place, but facts about the place itself. Things that make it interesting or exciting and that other folk may like to read.

Here is my list:

1.    This is the place where I have seen more kingfishers in the last five years than I have seen in the forty years that went before.

2.    It is a spot where two rivers meet and where, when the water is high, metres of the soft riverbank are washed away.

3.    The huge water pipe that connects Lancashire with Merseyside runs right under the middle of the woods and the meadow.

4.    Each year sand martens nest in the riverbanks. They come here from South Africa in spring, and on summer nights they swoop over the water and the meadow. It is a magical site, and their journey blows my mind.

5.    One day, many moons ago, Romans crossed the river here.

6.    The cobbles in the woods are where the factory owner used to have his stables, in the gardens next to his house. This is an unusual thing; historically it was rare for a factory owner to live on the same site as their factory.

7.    In the evening hundreds of crows gather to roost in the highest trees in the woodland. The racket and spectacle of this is magnificent.

8.    Over the river you can see the Ees. If you are lucky you may spot deer over there as they pass over the little hill where prehistoric folk built camps and fires.

9.    In summer the river is so low that you can easily wade to the island in the middle, and then on to the other side. In winter it can be so high that it would wash you down to Radcliffe in the blink of an eye.

10.  In the late days of summer and the early days of autumn bats swoop between the trees on the access lane like cars speeding along the motorway.

So that’s my list. What will be on yours?

Thank you for taking the plunge to get outside and write with me. I look forward to reading what you create.