BANISH THE FEAR OF THE BLANK PAGE, the flier on Queen St W read. Low-grade Toronto advertising could not be more effective; as last year I was enticed into a short course at the School of Philosophy. This year, it seems, I was to be lured into a course designed to wean me off being scared of white space.

Writers’ Bootcamp, this one was called.  FIND YOUR VOICE, it also promised. Of course again in capitals, which is the apparent style of any vaguely self-improvement-related-endeavour advertising.

The flier had those little tear-off strips at the bottom. I tore off a strip to find out the details of their open house session.

Writers’ Bootcamp – or writers’ workshop, as I started calling it when, ya know, I didn’t wanna sound like a wanker – is group writing. The “class” sit in a circle, and the leader provides a prompt. The prompt may be a sentence, a word, some props, a poem, someone else’s work – and you’re instructed to write about whatever it makes you think about. It may be a direct continuation of what’s presented or may be something obtuse or even completely unrelated; whatever you think of, that’s what you go with.

You’re given a set time limit – 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes – and at the end, you’re invited to share your output with the group by reading it aloud. The group then provides feedback – what they remembered, what stood out. The feedback is guided by one strict rule: no negative feedback. It’s a rough draft, crafted on the spot, so it wouldn’t be fair.

It was a great class, and I’m now sitting on a trove of about 30 stories that I’d like to share on the blog because WHAT THE HELL it’s not like I’m using it for anything else? Feel free to give your entire unfiltered feedback.

Yes, that means you can slag it.

I’ll post them in chronological order. The quality increases as the weeks bang on, some prompts resonated better than others anyway so some stories are naturally better, but in the spirit of baring all I’ll put them all up.

startwriting.ca