Online Creative Writing Workshop for Chronically Ill Brummies: Still Moving

About Online Creative Writing Workshop for Chronically Ill Brummies: Still Moving

This accessible, online creative writing workshop has been funded by Birmingham City Council as part of Healing Arts Brum week, for those living in the Birmingham area*. Designed to address the unique pacing challenges that conditions like ME, CFS, fibromyalgia and other ELCs present, Char and Vicky invite you to join them in co-creating a beautiful, welcoming, safe community space. Numbers are limited in this workshop, to ensure safety, so do book early to avoid disappointment. No previous writing experience is necessary. Check out our FAQ section for information on access, or get in touch if you have any questions. This workshop gently guides participants through a series of prompts that engage with ideas of movement and stillness, the relationship between the two and how we might view, describe and embody both qualities, sometimes all at once. Each segment of the workshop will last around 25 minutes, followed by a break, and will provide a writing prompt. You will receive all the prompts in writing after the session, so if you need to leave before the end of the session, or if you would like to listen but not write, you can engage with the prompts at your own pace at a later time. *Funding from Healing Arts Brum Notes on Content and Participation: For all writing exercises, you are welcome to take breaks as needed -- you are not expected to write non-stop for the full time allotted unless you would like to and have the capacity to do so. You can write in whatever form works best for you, that might be lists, notes, poems, prose, or perhaps just thinking about the prompt if energy doesn't allow for writing on the day. The somatic exercise will ask you to think about sensations within your body, please feel free to sit out of the exercise if this will cause discomfort or distress. Timings are a guide and may shift ever so slightly on the day depending on questions and discussion. Schedule: Part one (25 minutes): Char will introduce the session, take participants through a short guided somatic exercise followed a 5-minute free-writing exercise in response, guided by questions. 5-minute break Part two (25 minutes): A writing exercise split into two 5-7 minute parts, using two objects/things that you have to hand, or can imagine, that represent stillness and movement to you. Char will prompt you to think about the quality of the movement and stillness, potential associations of emotions, history, story. 5-minute break Part three (30 minutes): A longer writing exercise in which you will delve more into the relationship between stillness and movement, perhaps looking at something that might appear to be both still and full of movement (like the body at rest). Optional extra prompts will be provided for those who would like to experiment with form and style. We will then have some time to share any writing you would like to or thoughts and ideas that came up!

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