Another Year

Any silence on this blog is a clear indication of how little writing I have done in that time, and I cringe to see that I last updated the blog in April 2013... but I have started again a bit lately. I'm rewriting Zack to take it into a completely new direction, because the last version didn't really work. It's around 12,000 words at the moment...

Though I haven't been writing much, I have been reading a lot. I'm currently reading a book called My Name is Mina, which seems to have been written to be used in a classroom. It's a bit polemical but it's full of creative writing ideas and would make a brilliant scheme of work for Y7 or Y8. I might have to develop it to teach next year when I go back to the PGCE... I still need to get to the end, of course, but I'm really liking it so far.

On that vein, I was looking into David Almond and I stumbled across this video. I haven't listened to it all, but a couple of minutes in, there is a wonderful quote from the man, which I have to repeat here:

“People say to writers: when did you start writing? But the question should be, for people who aren't writers: when did you stop writing?”

(David Almond)

He's making a point that all children have to write when they are at school. I may have huge gaps in my productivity, but I could never 'stop' writing! Perhaps the education system fails if it puts children off writing. So, if you are not a writer, when did you stop and why?