A Writing Dig: a course proposal for writers looking for new ways of beginning with Sally Bayley and Laetitia Rutherford
Sally Bayley’s Vision for a Writing Dig
Beginning a new writing project (a book, an essay, a short story, a play, a poem, a painting, a drawing, even arranging a catalogue) feels like going on a long dig. And it is. Writing is archaeological: you have to go digging to find the trove underneath the layers of soil.
And so I have been consulting with museum catalogues and holdings, small museums with their Anglo-Saxon trove, and I have dug up an escutcheon: a 7th century hanging bowl mount finely decorated with millefoil and pelta or peltae; that is a small light shield used by Greeks and Romans in crescent or elliptical form; in the shape of a finger nail or a tiny moon. And so I have found my new body of language, a way of digging deeper, because language and ideas are necessary forms of obstructions or layers we must move through, peel back, to find the story. Already my character is digging; he has his hoe. Pond Man is moving his body back and forth across the soil, leaning forwards then backwards, again and again; and so I have my rhythm, my movement, my primary gesture. I have a basic physical and mental iteration. An embodied plot.
But how do we know what we want to write about, and how do we focus our subject? Go quickly towards the specifics, the particulars, the unique marks and attach them to your character even if that character is a stand in for you —- they will shift and change —- and you will soon relocate. Keep with that essential gesture: the body leaning over across the soil, over the dry earth.
It is June (it is always June when you begin writing, the mid-point, near the equinox as your body begins to stir towards the second cycle, longing for the long days to remain long forever, for the sun to always shine? This is childish. Put her away). It is June and so the soil is dry; there has been little rain. And so Pond Man must lean heavily; drag the soil over with more weight and feeling; drag his hoe with him. The draw hoe with her rectangular blade which drags across the ground the pebbles, the stones, the dead rhododendron leaves, the sand blown up from the beach, the silt, the granite. Lifts, sifts, draws back the earth, drags away the skin. And so he begins to uncover, to unveil, to show . . . hits something — a small rock, a hard object - he stops dragging and punches the hoe deep into the soil. Leans and looks down, bends towards the ground. Further down fingers the top soil and rubs her; she crumbles. Throws a palmful away, then another and another, his hands moving slowly a Pond Man lowers himself to the ground. Crick, the back of the knees go. Crick. Here, down on the ground the soil is warm; the sun rests on the back of his neck. ‘What have we ‘ere then?’ Pond Man digs and his hands scuttle back and forth; the earth flies up and around behind him. Grey, brown — he flicks away the soil — bends closer and closer to the ground. Down on his knees now. Not a rock, not a stone, but a piece of lead? Hard, warm, round. A pebble? He rubs. Red, yellow, small faint lines. Tiny hemispheres, ovals etched, faint spheres; the shape of a womb, a foetus, a child? Pond Man tips back his head, leans backwards then forwards. Crouches, bends — primitive man on his haunches — and his hands hit something hard again. Metal?
Writing is digging. Sometimes the objects we dig up are not clear even to us; and so they must be identified, located in time and place; given an historical frame, a backstory, some yield, a provenance. And so move her around — your sacred find == transfer her to somewhere else so she can change and alter. Revise her circumstance. All imaginative movement is this: digging her up, pulling her out. carrying her somewhere new. And so I have carried her to a field in France, to Northern France, to Picardy, where, amongst maize and corn fields, three sisters live in a farmhouse down a remote farm track that peters out . . . to offer a strange crooked house, a house off-kilter. Too many inhabitants and one must be got rid of — but first, there must be a discovery, something found, a new object (or self) to tell stories over and around.
And so I send away an aspect of myself to a foreign place where not everything is known, where little is known, because I wanted the feeling of being on a gap year; a time in between the everyday world of clock time with all her exigencies and burdens. That feeling has led to a fable: a story of three sisters living in this remote corner of France where there are few marks of identity except the place itself which I researched; the place from which I pulled up shards, fragments of history. Images, words, geographic locations, historical moments — because in the tradition of the fable I wanted the place to be radically open to alteration, to metamorphosis, to an unexpected encounter with —- the farmland, the crops, the history, the terrain itself; the history of Picardy and the Port of Calais. They all became my characters, animate and full of energy, as history and geography always are if you move them along through time. The time of the fable which has its own unique set of coordinates. While all the time I was thinking of this object underneath the soil; this small shield covered in a strange marks; the traces of a set of features: snout, eyes, brow, nose. A pig, a goat, a horse, a cow? I must decide. In the meantime, I have carried her off to another place, to this small town by the sea along the southern coast which is familiar to me; carried her back to Pond Man, to his hoe, his hands, his history. We move discovered remnants around and we embed them in a place with a character (s); and so we find our story.
With this in mind, I would like to propose a course for writers beginning a new project; writers in search of their sacred object; it maybe quite an ordinary object, but it stands in for that essential interruption of something extra-ordinary into what might otherwise be quite an ordinary matter. I am proposing a writing dig. An intimate, small group course for 6-10 participants run collaboratively by two writers &/writing tutors: Laetitia Rutherford (writer, writing tutor and literary agent) and me, writer and teacher, Sally Bayley. Writers will be encouraged to bring their own object or curio to the opening session as a starting point or prompt for the beginning of an object-biography. We will then try to attach your object to a character or narrator. Subject and object will meet and form a relationship even if only for a day or a few hours; an extended historical moment you may wish to transpose elsewhere. Position, plant out, your story world.
A sketch of the prompt drafted by Laetitia Rutherford:
Consider your written work as a three dimensional object. It may not be written yet. You may be just at the beginning. It will run in several directions, forwards and backwards in time and circled and striped with running concerns and emotional threads. What is the nerve at the centre of it all? What is the raw point, around which everything else must be balanced and baked?
Some initiating questions:
How will they occupy a room (or other space) space together?
Think of a formative experience that has defined or inspired you
Think of the arc of generations that bind your family together. What is it that binds you, or separates you, or both?
What is it that no one wants to mention in the stories you have grown up with? No need to say it out loud! Respect the secrets and the reasons they have been guarded. But what hidden energy can you tap and channel to inform your story or composition?
What in the world today or in history do you want to speak out for, even in a latitudinal way, or in a form of your own invention?
Think of 2 characters: 1 and then another, brought together by anything that jumps off any of what you have just surfaced.
What physical gesture will they make to each other?
What will they say to each other?
What will they do, when alone, and when together?
See where this takes you in 500 words or more.
More information to follow. Drop me an email if you are interested in reserving a place: sally.bayley@ell.ox.ac.uk.
Laetitia Rutherford is a writer, mentor and literary agent. Over her 25 years in publishing, she has continued to learn, read widely, and increasingly write and teach. She works with a wide range of writers in fiction and creative nonfiction, from all walks of life, and is particularly known for fostering close editorial relationships. With 2 Masters degrees as a mature student, one in 20th Century Literature and one in Creative Writing, she has recently provided workshops and seminars for Creative Writings MA students at Kingston University and has co-created a free online writing course with Indie Novella. In September 2024, Laetitia is beginning a PhD at the University of West London to run part-time alongside representing a select list of authors. Her written work includes her memoir Our Hearts Hang from the Lemon Trees (Short Bools, 2013) and since 2021, her short fiction, poetry and reviews can be found in various online magazines under the name Laetitia Erskine.