Two weeks ago I started my new course at Queens University in Belfast - 'Developing Your Creative Writing Skills'. And my first impressions - what a course, what a tutor, what an amazing, enthusiastic bunch of fellow writers. As you'd maybe expect being in proximity to other creatives, it should 'rub off', but I was sceptical at first how this would impact me. Would I be able to speak or write in their prescence. Quite the contrary, it seems to have released many of the reluctances to simply write - let the mind go 'off on one'. In the room there's a non-judgemental feeling and this helps. I wrote something the other night when offered the opening line - 'That smell reminds me of'. The result went like this:

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That smell reminds me of Loganberry. A place where the comforts of coffee spill onto the street, enticing you into an atmosphere where friends and foes are at the ready, but equally, where the finest Sigafredo is faultless and non-judgemental in its willingness to revive even the latest of nights or the general downtrodden mindset any rainy morning can imbue.

If you wish to delay the milk steaming its always possible to book an ad hoc seat at one of the many drop in surgeries taking place, usually with the same faces day in day out. Here, usually at the same tables meetings are finishing off or clever minds are awaiting their next business appointment or social catch up. But always the coffee holds the backbone of this pretty shop and the mindset of the loyal patrons using its many talents to prop up the grey matter at unruly hours, times of tiredness or when, quite simply, the diary is empty and not much else takes your interest.

TBC