Belfast reflections

JUST back from the Belfast Book Festival which has lots of interesting events and runs until June 14th. I was there to take part in one of the Literary Lunchtime slots with Nicola White and Kate Tough, authors of In the Rosary Garden and Head for the Edge, Keep Walking, respectively. We were chaired by Colin Dardis, poet, and editor of Lagan Press Online. We had a pleasant, receptive audience and some interesting points were raised by questions from both the chair and the audience. One woman asked how we felt about the growing need for writers to promote their own work through social media and taking part in readings. She thought we all looked 'very happy' sitting in the podium, perhaps wondering if we really were. My response was that I hadn't realised the amount of promotional work that writers are required to do. In my naivety I thought once a book was published the writer pretty much moved on to the next thing. Writing is a quiet, solitary pursuit, after all. However, as someone else pointed out, readings and panels do give you a chance to meet readers and feedback is invaluable.

For the same reasons that having people reading your work while it is in progress is helpful, hearing responses once it is complete is also useful. By that stage it is not possible to revise or rethink but it does give you a feel for what has resonated with readers and perhaps also what has not - all useful food for thought when embarking on the next project.

Discussing this point among ourselves later, I remembered a two-week, residential writing course I had attended in the States some years ago. Each of us had to submit our work to the writer taking the workshops. The work was then photocopied and everyone got a copy of the other participants' work. On the day your work was under scrutiny, you had to be completely silent and listen to the feedback and discussion as if not actually present. The idea was harsh but effective. You weren't allowed to respond to a query, "What I meant there was ...", nor could you introduce the work, set the scene. As such, you certainly found out what came across as you had meant it to and what had not. Invaluable, really. After all, when a reader opens a novel or reads a poem in an anthology you do not have the opportunity to pop up and 'explain' what the work is about. It has to earn its keep, so to speak, on its own merits.

Nonetheless, it is, as already stated, quite a harsh way of receiving feedback. I remember one person on that course was very upset and refused to remain quiet. Eventually they left the room, and fled the course. Perhaps the approach is best taken when the writer is allowed some comeback at the end of the workshop. It could easily lead to unfair and one-sided discussion in the wrong hands. I can't actually remember the nature of the discussion that so upset the writer at the course in the States. But maybe it was unfair, in which case having no comeback was even more unfair and potentially very destructive to the writer and the cultivation of their talent. Surely, the purpose of a workshop is to provide constructive criticism.

THERE wasn't much time to attend events in Belfast but we did manage to see Duke Special and Andrew Doyle discussing their new musical adaptation of Gulliver's Travels which will be staged at the city's Lyric Theatre by Youth Music Theatre UK. Duke Special (Peter Wilson) sang some of the songs from the forthcoming production, the lyrics of which had been written by Doyle. Special accompanied himself on the piano but the production will be orchestrated, instruments being played by members of the cast, which has recently been selected. I was new to both Duke Special and Andrew Doyle's work so their combined efforts came as a pleasant surprise. The lyrics were as witty as befits someone of Swift's gifts and the music an impressive blend of electronic and more traditional. It was interesting to learn that Doyle had created some new storylines for the production so that its narrative would conform more closely to that of conventional musical theatre. Gulliver is to be portrayed as someone searching to belong, thereby bringing cohesion to his journeys into the different worlds described in the original book. Sounds really interesting - would love to see the final product. Maybe I've just found a good excuse to return to Belfast!