The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind.
Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand
Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand
We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin?
In the desert of Senlin must we live and die?
We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders,
Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry.
'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence
Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky.
From "Senlin: A Biography" by Conrad Aiken
Lesson 1: write what you know
- You must write!
- Use automatic writing to unblock or "create the kernel"
- Whilst writing what you know is a good thing, you cannot assume that just because it happened the reader will believe it happened. The writing needs authenticating detail - specificity
- Learn to observe - observe in words the way a photographer might observe visually
- Use things that stand out
- Use your imagination to augment authentic details
- Look beyond the obvious
- Use documents and diaries for authentic source material
- Look up words you don't know
- Use a notebook to record experiences or observations
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