悉尼写作班 | 我的第一周作业
上个月一冲动，报名参加了Sydney Writers’ Studio的创意写作班。
上周四第一天上课（晚上六点半到九点半），接着就是连续六天的写作和同学之间的相互点评。
课堂掠影，找到我算你赢
这六天的写作要求创建好人物的姓名、职业、年龄和交往状态。然后每一天根据一个短语来开头，或是做启发，用这个人物（可以是同一个人，也可以每天换一个人）的角度去写10到15分钟，然后选其中不超过250字左右的内容（内容中不要直接透露角色的职业、年龄等），发到班级的交流区。每发表一篇，至少要给另外两篇同学的内容做点评（有专门的点评模板：要说明文字中表达和沟通的点；以及我喜欢哪三处，为什么），这样老师才会为你的文章做点评。
每一篇都要求手写，并且在下笔写之前要先进行4段呼吸+写作训练（闭目深呼吸，然后写一分钟的文字，分别以所听，所感，所看，所思为导向）。
这个课程名为Unlocking Creativity，为期四周，一共四节课，是短篇小说写作、剧本写作和长篇小说写作班的预热课程，也是必修课。
我所在的班级有二十个学生。大家的热情高涨，也多能遵守写作纪律。可以想象，到了今天，班级的论坛已经有多少篇短文了（我数了一下，大概有十五个同学保持每天写作的劲头，所以，就有九十多篇，再加上互评，以及老师的点评，密度高到炸裂）。
我参加这个班的初衷是两点，一是迫使自己练习一下英语写作，这一直以来都是我的短板（2012，2014，2018，雅思三次考试，其他科目节节看涨，但写作都是6分）；二是学习超越语言本身的故事创作技巧。
下面就是我这第一周六天的作业，没有经过打磨，完全是粗糙的石头……请无视雅思6分的语法和词汇量……
对于从来没有用英语写过虚构文字的我来说……真是吃奶的力都用出来了。
第一天
I remember
She had a very large red sweater with her too. Finally she found the card but the card was out of money and she asked the driver if she could buy the ticket, the driver said no. Then she jumped off the bus and said, “Now I have to run to my sister’s home. Thanks!”
After she left the bus and the next stop was where the studio I suppose to go. It’s very quiet outside of the building, a quiet suburb I thought. The weather was chill and a bit cloudy, you could barely see the new moon, which was in and out of the cloud. I started observe the building and realised it was a church. In daytime it must be quite extraordinary to see, as it has this grey surface and an almost cubic shape. The way I can tell it’s a church because it has the giant window at front with a rose flower shape. The studio had been advertised as a Writer’s studio and never indicates their relationship with The Rose. But as I had spend 50 minutes came here, I must go inside to see what they are trying to teach me there. That was the first time ever I stepped into a Rose church, and my first Rose journey started in the night. I guess that was a kind of bonus, because I had remembered all the folktale about how Red Rose’s behavior in the night time.
第二天
I don’t remember
The way she looked at me was bizarre. She didn’t just look at me but wanted to tell me something without speaking. I felt naked in front of her staring. White was the dominant one, green was everywhere, and her blue lip was moving. The wall seems enormous tall and wide. I cannot see the edge of it. And strangely I didn’t have the ability to tell the true distance between her and me. The thought was emerging from the heart but not the brain. I looked at the environment and wanted to find more real objects to help me clarify what is this place. I was trapped. And I had this struggling and desiring to know things. I thought I was like a small and helpless creature. I was not sure what type of creature I was. I realised maybe I am not who I am anymore. I was a piece of myself in the river of time. I was cut out from the continuous of me in the long time line. I was lost as a piece of me in here. I was an atomic of ‘I’ in time sense not in space sense. And suddenly I felt relax. I don’t remember ‘I’, but ‘I’ don’t remember me either. I was in this bubble, this slice of time. I enjoyed it now and smiled back to her.
第三天
I think
Bold, round glasses, grey uniform, a handful of keys at belt, couple of pens in pocket, my day, my life.
I think a lot about those books.
The ‘readers’ never knew. They read, returned and borrowed more of them. And I had to run between the bookshelves to open the locks.
They had the hope to find the book which could echo with their soul, but that was the maddest dream.
Who wrote? Why locked? Why I had those keys?
Dream or not, question and answer, I used to have those discussion with May in our first marriage.
第四天
I don’t think
“You better know what you are talking about!” He said, with a red flush on his cheek, his dark eyes reflected the orange haze in the room. His body was trembling and the wine glass in his fingers was waving, just like last night’s violet curtain, where Simon hid.
“This is not acceptable! I am not standing here to listen this garbage. It’s not my duty enduring this kind of insult.” He continued, with his lips pinked and twisted, his spit stayed in the air for 0.1 second. What could be a decent poem to describe the way Do-K-Ti people made their first approach to the NUDU? Which means: kiss with the first grass you saw in the valley. If you get it, you get it.
“I was invited to here, we are equal and absolutely equal for the sake of flat equality.”His neckline had a stain on it, a shape of round or a shape of tear? You think tear has no shape? Tell that to Na-Niu-M females, they would put you in their WAJA straight away. WAJA means an oven specifically for WAJIJI, a blue blood Kangaroo-like animal jumping on their small moon.
“You all hate me, and this is the worst day of my life!” He put his glass on the table and then found a bit funny, because he still wanted, wanted, WANTED to finish the wine. Jack was right about it, that is not a wine, that is a damn desire of finishing things. What is the word TI-IS guys use for this? “You name it, you shame it, you drink it, you don’t think it.” You either get their humor in those nonsenses, or you don’t get it then you better get your ass out there as M-EE-M as you can.
第五天
I feel
I feel boring. Bob thought. He tried not to roll his eyeballs to watch other colleagues in the office. They were so quiet, silent, like rabbits all retired and sat in their chairs harmlessly. He cannot even hear the keyboard tapping or mouse clicking. It seems they had the agreement all together.
The coffee machine made a long sigh in a distance.
A weekly meeting in 5 minutes, and another group call in 35 minutes, and two interviews in afternoon, plus a performance review at 5. He could feel there were about other four rabbits in the room had their head stirring for a second. No one is standing, or even pretending to.
A gardenia smell was in the air.
Bob felt he is shrinking, slowly but steady. He felt he is shorter and smaller. He had to stand on his chair and raise his head to see the monitor, the notebook, the plastic calendar with Rome background, everything on his desk. He tried to crawl on his desk. He felt the keyboard is huge, he literally jumping between the keys. He tried to write something down with his jumping. Not working.
He can feel the temperature of the internal mechanics of the keyboard now. He never knew that. He kept shrinking, and until he found himself small enough and he crawl into the mechanic structure underneath. He could hear the chorus of the electric current, the micro magnet, the tiny engine, the roaring data.
Apparently someone came to his seat and started using his keyboard. The keys now looked like giant mountains moving up and down at the edge of the horizon. The tapping now sounded like thunder echoing in the dark space. Every tiny electric current was running inside here as bright as lightning.
Bob felt no more boring.
第六天
I don’t feel
In front of the blank canvas, is me. I didn’t draw a damn thing for last 40 minutes. I just stood there; staring at the canvas, holding the paintbrush, listening my breath, and counting the evil number in my mind. I want to get out here; I don’t feel I belonged to this place.
I see a dragon with nine tails flying in the dark clouds. A storm is gathering around him and his dark green body is stretching. He looks tired and in the meantime also excited. He is ready to give a show; he is preparing his thunder, grunt and sneeze.
My canvas and I are two objects. We will never have any physical or spiritual connection until end of the universe. I don’t know what to draw.
An alien land is opening in front of my eyes. I think I am in a spaceship. The terrain is blue, not sure because of the haze, or the land. The sky is reddish, hard to look through. The world has thousands of details. I wish I could live there.
Too many noises are in my head, I want to avoid them and focus on my creation. I shouldn’t think anything else but what I am doing right now. This is very important and critical. Focus and then I shall achieve my goal.
The bubbles are beautiful, with endless reflecting sparking, flowing, and never stop for a moment. They have many different sizes. Tiny ones. Huge ones. Up and down, swaying and squeezing. Inside each of them there is a small figure who is holding a paintbrush, staring at a blank canvas.
I don’t feel I can paint anything today.
老师对我其中一篇（I don’t remember）的点评：
WHAT WAS COMMUNICATED?
A strange dream state, or a plane of existence between realities. “I” dissolves, and an initial panic at the sense of formlessness turns into relaxation and surrender. Was this her plan all along? Is this the purpose of the smile? I wonder whether this oblivion is bliss, or an illusion meant to disarm.
“I felt naked in front of her staring. White was the dominant one, green is everywhere, and her blue lip was moving.”
Who is she? And what does she want?
WHAT I LIKED AND WHY?
I liked very much how the images in this scene raised questions that left me wanting to read on. Was this dissolution of self good or bad? Who was this blue-lipped woman, and what were her intentions?
You painted a vivid picture on the page that was both specific and yet nebulous. We could see and feel what he experienced, and so I felt immersed in his POV, and yet, the nature of that experience was slowly eroding his sense of time, space and specificity.
“I was not sure what type of creature I was. I realised maybe I am not who I am anymore. I am a piece of myself in the river of time. I was cut out from the continuous of me in the long time line. I was lost as a piece of me in here. I was an atomic of I but in time not in space wise. And suddenly I felt relax. I don’t remember ‘I’, but ‘I’ don’t remember me either.”
I like how this description evoked peace and panic in equal measure. To be an ‘I’ comes with a burden, but what is it to be nought?
Beautiful and evocative work!
