The Portsmouth Writers Hub will be hosting their first meet up of the year on January 25th at the All About Tea tea rooms in Portsmouth. The concept of the meeting is
100 Fresh Ideas and the workshop is designed to fire up your gears after the Christmas break and have you writing some fresh new content.
The event is free for Portsmouth Writers Hub members, but the workshop is open to anyone. Tickets for non members are £5.98 including a booking fee. Tickets can be
purchased online through Eventbrite, members are encouraged to book online too.
How the Workshop Works
When you arrive you can grab a seat anywhere. Even if you're late, you just need to pop down somewhere that's available. The workshop will be relatively unstructured, with writing prompts rotating around the room, while writers sit in small groups. These prompts could be anything from a picture, a word, an object, a book, or even a scent. What you write about is all down to where your inspiration takes you. Use as many or as few of them as you like, the key is to have you leaving with a supply of new ideas, scenes and paragraphs.
The workshop will revolve around '
free writing', a technique where you write for a set amount of time, without focussing too much on mistakes or on a particular direction. You might produce a bit of nonsense, but the idea is that work created in a free writing session can always be developed into something more polished later down the track. Beginners and established are welcome at the event, but if you're a little nervous about free writing you can always try some at home with your own
writing prompts first.
Things will kick off at 6.30pm, but people will start arriving at the tea rooms around 6pm. This will give you a chance to have a chat to some of the other writers and grab a cup of tea of course. Cakes and other small bites will be available for purchase as well.
What You'll Need to Bring
You'll need to bring along paper and a pen, your laptop, of even a typewriter. As long as you've got something you're comfortable writing on, you'll be fine.
More Writing Opportunities
The Portsmouth Writers Hub recommends this event for anyone interested in taking part in their
Spontaneous Writing Booth at the BookFest Fair in March. The workshop can help with speed writing and help build more confidence for writing spontaneously - both of which are essential for the Spontaneous Writing Booth.
If you're interested in becoming a member of the Portsmouth Writers Hub, get in contact with the hub's coordinator, Tessa Ditner at tessa@newwritingsouth.com or check out a
joint yearly membership with New Writing South.