Day Five

14 September 2013

After touring Tiwi with fellow writers, Kaye Aldenhover and Bronwyn Mehan we arrived at Kaye Hall’s muffin perfumed house and had a writing session.

We did three exercises writing for ten minutes for each. The first was writing to the question I was finding hard going as mentioned in the previous blog: Over all, what purpose do you believe poetry serves in 2013? Is it speaking a language that finally will be heard?

The second exercise we chose from random words we had all written being careful not to choose one of our own words.

The third exercise was taken from ‘The 3 A.M Epiphany’ Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform Your Fiction by creative writing teacher Brian Kiteley http://www.amazon.com/The-A-M-Epiphany-Exercises-Transform/dp/1582973512

Here is my ten minutes of writing from the second exercise. I chose the word PIANO.

As I child I knew I could play the piano, I didn’t need to learn. Just like my daughter years later, who didn’t have to learn to read, she could read already. She lay on the lawn her leg across her cocked knee, ‘The Water Method Man’ held above her head, upside down, blocking out the sky. She could read and I could play. I knew this although we didn’t have a piano in our house, I had heard pianos on the radio and seen the kindie teacher’s fingers dance along the keyboard as the class trotted or skipped or hopped and I knew I could play.

The opportunity to prove my skills came one holiday at my aunt’s house. Her piano was in the front room, there never seemed to be an occasion where this room was used for anything, entertaining was always done in the kitchen with the cricket blaring. Our ancestors stared down from the walls, a heavy curtain kept out the heat and the light. The piano was in the corner, dusty, keys cracked, probably untuned. I only knew I could play —nothing about tuning.

For hours each afternoon when the adults wilted with the summer heat and napped the hottest hours away. I opened the piano and played concertos, sonatas, lullabies. My enthusiasm grew, I created operas, film scores, wrote new nursery rhymes and love songs. I knew I could play. For one whole summer I could play.

Hopefully I will be able to add some of the other writing pieces completeded at the informal writing session.
Watch this space.

What happened in the night?  This appeared on Facebook at about bedtime. 
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