<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/creative-writing.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-4772" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/creative-writing-300x238.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="238" /></a>I've always enjoyed writing, let's not get into a debate as to whether I'm any good at it because that's immaterial, so I decided to sign up to a creative writing course.

Daunting doesn't come close to describing how I felt sitting amongst nine other people with varying levels of experience and ambitions. Several felt they had a book in them and were hoping to write a novel. All I wanted to do was capture thoughts and experiences in a way that would invite people to keep reading - what this website is about...

The first exercise was to establish a sense of place and so I wrote this:

<em><span style="color: #0000ff;"><a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cosy-pub.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-4773" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cosy-pub-200x144.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="144" /></a>It’s always a struggle to walk into a pub alone but the moment I entered I felt immediately at home. The open fire at one end warmed the room and within a few strides I was at the bar facing a smiling landlord. The locals gave a glance up from their conversations but were soon re-immersed in their gossip. As I looked around I absorbed the old beams, stained glass screens and the cosy, intimate booths. It was comfortable without being shabby and I thought “this is my local, at last I’ve come home”.</span></em>

This was based on the pub in Melton Mowbray where the family had lunch the day before. There's plenty of room for expansion in terms of description particularly around the pub landlord and the regulars but that would come in an edit if I wanted to take it further.

The next exercise involved mapping our teenage years in terms of place and so I produced this:

<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/teenage-map.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-4769" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/teenage-map-1024x725.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="453" /></a>

I decided to focus on the shop where I worked several evenings after school, straight from the station, and all day Saturday.

<span style="color: #0000ff;"><em>Not my decision! My mum had decided I needed to get a part-time job to earn some pocket-money and she even found somewhere that was looking for cheap labour. To start with I wasn’t a willing worker however as I entered the small shop, pretending to be a supermarket, in the mid 1960s I realised this could be fun. Yes, yes even packing shelves could be fun, I know it doesn’t sound feasible but to my great surprise it was fun.</em></span>

<span style="color: #0000ff;"><em>Enter through the back door turn right and up a wooden staircase to the store-room or turn left and immediately down a few steps into the shop. You didn’t need CCTV because from the top of the steps you could look over the top of the central row of shelves and the two narrow aisles. At the top of one aisle were two electric tills with short, narrow counters. Considering its size the range of goods seemed incredible even down to the pickled walnuts only ever asked for by one man for his pregnant wife.</em></span>

<span style="color: #0000ff;"><em>Apart from restocking the shelves very little changed. Same customers at the same time on the same days. In a teenage world surrounded by turmoil this was a place of constancy and ticked along with the regularity of a metronome.</em></span>

Writing this helped me to go back in time and experience those feelings I had as a teenager.