Writers Unblock Fiction Writing Workshop December 11-12, 2002 What is the work of a writer? How do ideas for fiction crystallize and grow into short stories... and novels? What is the daily regimen, and what are the exercises and observational practices that an aspiring writer needs to work out? How to make the 'writer’s block' into a piece of living textual sculpture? Meaghan Delahunt, Asialink Fellow and writer-in-residence at Sarai, will conduct a workshop on writing fiction through a series of imaginative and fun exercises that grapple with these questions. She will also share aspects of her own creative process as it was deployed in the writing of her first novel In the Blue House, and offer advice and insight into working with agents, publishing houses and other practical aspects of the writer's trade. In the Blue House [for more]won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Best Book category in SE Asia and South Pacific, and the Saltire Society Award in Scotland.

The workshop, conducted by Meaghan Delahunt, novelist and writer, was attended by twenty five people including students, journalists, filmmakers, television scriptwriters and researchers. Many of the participants were prolific writers used to different forms and styles of writing and had come to the workshop with the hope of overcome their inhibitions on writing fiction. The workshop started with a relaxing exercise - Meaghan played some music and asked the participants to write on anything that came to their mind by allowing the pen to flow. A few had trouble starting, others had jotted down random thoughts and ideas, a few others indulged in ruminations of the self while some wove stories around the associations thrown up while listening to the music. The exercise helped everyone to loosen up, it was also interesting to note how everyone was acutely watching their minds at work. Meaghan then discussed some quotes by writers on writing.

After lunch the participants were given everyday objects and asked to jot down their reactions to them and then knit them together into a story. These stories were discussed in smaller groups of three - the aim was to get the participants to cull out the positives from each other's efforts. This was followed by a discussion on some of the common blocks writers face. The evening ended with a short game where the participants were split up into three groups and asked to create collective stories by joining random sentences.

At the end of the first day many of the participants went back feeling quite positive about their writing abilities.

The second morning started with participants writing a short piece on a given theme. A discussion on what constitutes good writing followed and then an exercise that involved creating stories out of four-line matrimonial ads in newspapers.

The post-lunch session saw a one-hour writing marathon on themes oulined by the participants. The workshop ended with Meaghan sharing her experience of dealing with publishers. Shuddhabrata Sengupta from Sarai joined in with some insights into the Indian publishing industry. This small community of beginning writers felt that the workshop had helped them write more freely and overcome the writers' block and they decided to continue interacting and sharing their experiences through an email discussion list workshop@sarai.net.