Where are my photos?
Answer
Type in the tag lines. At the time when you return you know the place the year and the people. When doing a search for a photo in a year's time you will need to use those details in a search.
The tag lines will also help you to caption pictures.
It is a week's holiday in summer. (If you haven't the time, they offer spring and autumn weekends.)
The Hobbs family, Gerry Hobbs and others, run this holiday. One of the family will collect you from the station which is at the bottom of the hill. Lots of people walk up and down every day during the holiday for exercise and to see the shops and museums below on the waterside. However, when you arrive on the first day or evening from London or a mid-point in Wales with your suitcase of clothes - and books to sell, if you are an author, you will be glad to be met by a person with a friendly face who will take you to the door of your destination.
The hotel is perched on the hillside with a view of the bay below from the front terrace. The bar has newspaper cuttings and typed texts about films (movies as the Americans say).
The writers are mostly from all over England, Scotland and Wales, but a few from Europe, America, Australasia or Asia.
Choice of Courses For First Half Of Week:
I have been going almost every year for a decade or more. Mention my name, Angela Lansbury, and I get a small discount on my course so you will be a friend for life of me as well as the family who run the course.
If you extend your holiday before or after you will be able to visit some of the museums which are open during the week, and not necessarily at the weekend, without eating into the time when you could be on your writing course.
Not In The Mood To Write
Most of the courses you will be listening or discussing and working in groups, with writing you have done previously or in the evening homework to discuss.
Tips
If you have poetry or stories already written at home, bring them along. You may be able to swap with another writer. Most teachers and readers don't have time to read your work in between the courses they are teaching and they are inundated with requests. So you are more likely to be able to get your work read and critiqued by another delegate, especially if you offer to read their work in return.
Often on the last session you have a chance to read out what you have written during the holiday. That depends on the site of the group. In a group of only half a dozen, there is probably time to read two or three in the first morning session, with comments by the 'teacher' or course leader. As a courtesy to others, you might want to divide your work into shorter chunks, and shorten your life story introduction for the first day.
Practise your own introduction. Look up the teachers and try to read something they have written. If you can mention that, say that you are on the course because you have read their work, that will endear you to the writer and impress other would-be-writers and be a conversation opener.
Be prepared with specific questions about what you want to write. For example:
"I'd like to learn how to write a sonnet."
You might find your teacher or another poet can direct you to a website. One year the teacher, Alison Chisholm, altered one of her sessions to include the type of pem I wished to learn. We then had the chance to look at and discuss the two or three types of sonnet.
I went back to a local writing group, Watford Writers, and gave a session on sonnets and other poems. In order to prepare for questions, I had to print off a reminder to myself of all the other kinds of poems, in case I was asked, How many syllables in a haiku? Is it five then seven? I can never remember. I ended up printing a book for my own use, and selling it to others at my writing holidays.
Here's another question I asked at a writing holiday"
"My young couple get married in the first chapter. How do I make the plot more exciting?"
Jane Pollard who was running a novel writing workshop had an instant answer. "You introduce a love rival!"
You have a rehearsed reading of poetry written during the course one evening, so if you've forgotten your work, never mind. But it's a good idea to load up any of your old stories onto your computer and email them to yourself.
Warning. The internet connection is intermittent and is in parts of the hotel, not others. You might find it more fun to work on the landing, in an area by the hall or an outside wall where there's a a better connection, to plan phone calls home in the intervals, to print off your work at home in advance.
If you or a partner don't want to write, you can do a painting course, sit in your room, socialise, snooze, and just turn up to any of the afternoon tea and evening talks and activities.
The cost is only £499 for the accommodation, food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee and a biscuit mid morning and mid-afternoon). Drinks are extra, apart from a drink the first night at the evening welcome reception and introduction to the course leaders before the convivial first evening dinner.
Tables are for two, four or six.
www.writersholiday.net
Tel: 01633 489438.
email:gerry@writersholiday.net
New day delegate all-inclusive rate only £299 (if you are staying nearby at another smaller hotel in Fishguard or pupping in whilst on a tour of Wales).
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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