Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Sitting with a group of like-minded masterclassers who determinedly want to write something, anything really, but are unsure of how to do this at all, do it better, or do it just for the hell of it, can be very empowering, or intimidating. The chemistry of eagerness physically permeates the small room with a large table. It ebbs and flows with the stories and observations that people manage to insert into the relentless stream of knowledge, ideas and suggestions pouring from Catherine, the Head Gunna, liberally spiced with her fearless language and admissions.
You walk away with a hopefully higher level of inspiration and a lower level of excuses, and a better framed notion of how to translate those half-baked ideas lurking in the back of your skull into something tangible. A book or a blog. Writing or webpage. A relief or a revenge. And knowing that there are others wrestling with the same inspiration, demons, issues and excuses is only half the benefit. The real gain comes from sharing ways of nurturing your own open mind that brought you here in the first place, and topping this up with an enthusiasm for completion, not craft, inimitably communicated by the gregarious, multi-talented Deveny.
Seeping energy, fuelled by challenge, common sense and good food make this no waste of six hours of a life for those ready for it. Not at all a laugh fest, although laughs were to be had. Instead, an intense and generous sharing of journeys, roads travelled, techniques, tools and suggestions, laced with admitted failures, hit a cynical but fertile target absolutely dead centre. A panacea for excuses.
A much needed day away for any confessed would be Gunna who has been too long a source of ridicule and criticism by those not appreciative of the despair and frustration of having words and stories locked away, of what it really takes to put them on paper or screen, and can’t help except to exhort and sigh at the lack of anything eventuating. It renews the confidence and gives you ways of dealing with the well meaning encouragement from those we live with who have never set foot on the same road as the like-minded.