Writing Camp

Finally got around to updating my blog after going on Writing Camp with John Marsden, the Australian author who wrote the "Tomorrow when the War Began" series, which I think allow westerners to feel what it is like to live in a warzone (it's about the invasion of Australia, but very accessible to UnAustrAliens). He's a good author, but this writing camp was brilliant.
The writing camp is held at his estate in rural Victoria close to Melbourne, and it holds some very old bushland and some historical buildings.

I arrived on Friday at about 10:30, and got settled in. We then had a short "get to know you" introduction, and then broke for lunch. One of the main things I liked a lot about the camp was that we had a lot of free time and still got to learn a lot, so we had about an hour of free time for lunch. We had chicken sandwiches for lunch, but with roast, recently cooked chicken rather than luncheon meat chicken(which tastes like nothing like chicken). At the next workshop, he taught us about how to "show, not tell" and I wrote the following passage to try out the methods he taught:

The poor soul in the casket had a massive cyst in his left eye. As Jack adjusted the corpse's hands, Jack brushed a scab against the side of the coffin, lifting it.
"AARGH! Gosh-darn it!" he yelled.
"Jack! Mary will hear you!" shouted Jennifer from the house.
"Aaah, you don't know a thing about the 'pox." he muttered, staring back at the corpse. The old man was to be buried in his uniform, which he had worn while fighting the British at Yorktown.

Then, we had more free time, and I went for a short bushwalk with two of the youngest kids, william and drew. After that, we had some afternoon tea, then had another workshop, in which we learnt about portraying characters, and also did some drama activities to learn about this. After the workshop, we had dinner, which was ravioli bolognase, then I played ping-pong with Drew.
We then had another workshop, which went till 9:00, and did more drama activities about advancing the plot, dialog, and portratying characters. Lots of fun. For desert, we had chocolate pudding, which was very good, then played Charades till about 11:30, and went to bed.

Woke up at 8:00 exactly, and had cereal for breakfast, and played darts with Jack. Then we had a workshop at 9:30, and did more drama activities, which were a lot of fun. The TV crew arrived at about 12:00, when we broke for lunch. For lunch, everyone else had frankfurts, but I had another chicken sandwich.
I played more darts with Jack, then we had another workshop with the TV crew filming this time. We learnt about how to distract our internal editor by writing a piece without using the letter "a". I may have use the letter "a" in the piece of writing, but one of the thing John was telling us that their is far too much fear of failing in human society, that there were no rules in writing, and it still worked to distract my "editor".
We then wrote a piece using only words of one syllable, so I wrote a piece called "Ship of Dreams".
We took a break for afternoon tea, and the ABC TV crew interviewed some people, but I was going to wait for tomorrow. Instead, I played squash with Jack, and then magnetic darts. At that point I was probably at my height of margnetic dart skills(the magnetic darts were poorly balanced and hard to throw). Throughout the next 2 days I became worse and worse at magnetic darts for some reason I do not know.
After that break, we had another workshop, in which we wrote about "interruptions to routine". All stories are interruptions to the routines of characters- if it's a normal day, you don't have a story. The story I wrote was of a mailman delivering a package like he does everyday, but today he finds a dead body in the office he's delivering a package too.
For dinner, we had stirfry, and then had Drumsticks for desert. I talked to John Marsden and the TV crew, then watched people play ping pong, played darts, and listened to Rob make a lot of jokes. That night's workshop included a lot of drama activities and not much writing. We went back up to the cabin, sat around, and played "spin the bottle truth or dare" for some reason. But, nobody ended up actually doing or saying anything truthful or daring, which was probably a relief. We went to bed at 12, and were kept awake by Drew's innapropriate sense of humour and me saying "that is wrong, Drew, really wrong.". He's 11 years old, for goodness' sake!
The next morning, we had woke up later, had cereal for breakfast, then had a workshop run by Scott Gardener, a different author who's daughter was attending the camp. He showed us how to take stories from life and turn them into "story stories". It was very helpful.
We took a break for morning tea, then had another workshop till 1:00, which was about portraying character voice and showing character personality. I wrote a monologue from the perspective of the Balrog showing that it was lazy.
Then we had lunch(meat pies = GOOD), I did an interview with the TV people (with some other kids- Drew and William"), and I played a hopeless game of darts with Jack. Combined, we maybe hit the board 3-5 times.
After lunch, we had another workshop with a lot of drama activities, which was a lot of fun, and didn't actually do any writing, but it taught us alot about creating the plot and portraying characters.
Then, we said goodbye, packed up, and headed home, which took about 2 hours.

In this camp, I not only learnt alot about writing and drama, but also learnt how to stop being afraid of humiliation and how to adjust my "status". It has taught me alot and should help me with writing for the rest of my life. I would wholeheartedly recommend the camp to anyone: great food, freedom, plenty of activities, and lots to learn. Check it out today if you live in Australia.

If you want to see all my writing from camp, comment on this blog, and I'll type it up, but right now I don't feel like it.