• That you can touch?

• That you can't touch?

• What about memories?

• Smells, tastes or flavours of that colour

• What sounds does your colour make?

• How does your colour feel?

  • What texture does it have?

  • What emotions does it give you?

  • What about temperature?

• Any favourite discoveries? 

  
  

• What delightful or surprising connections did you make?

• What was your favourite part of the session?

  
  

https://tinyurl.com/beyondthespectrum1

https://tinyurl.com/beyondthespectrum2 

https://tinyurl.com/beyondthespectrum3

If you have any concerns about the language used in this survey, please email Sophie at admin@beyondthespectrum.uk

Use all of your senses.

(Recommended time: 5-10 mins)

Write about a time you returned 

to your favourite place.

Example: Natalie Díaz's 'The Mustangs' reading, available in the session slides.

(Recommended time: 10 mins)

• If you do want to share your writing, but don't want to speak aloud you can...

  • Share it in the chat for people to read silently

  • Have K or I read it aloud

  • Or, if you're particularly proud of your work and want to share, tell us in the chat that you'd like it to be published to the Padlet! It can be deleted before next week's session by request.

• You don't need to disclose or discuss your own experiences that influenced your writing, only share what you feel comfortable sharing!

We would prefer for feedback to be based around the theme of encouragement, unless a participant specifically requests critical feedback! :)

Consider details:

• Time of day

• Temperature

• Thoughts on your mind

• Emotional state

• Clothing

• Where were you coming from? Going to?

• How do you feel about it?

• Who or what controls the door?

• Is anyone with you? Or watching you?

• Are you carrying anything? Is it important?

*or a character, if you’re writing fiction

Some examples:

• The same door, different times of day

• Different doors, but the same kind of door (ex. automatic doors, the doors of friends’ houses…)

• The same door, different emotional states

• Different doors, but all bedroom doors 

• Tell the story in reverse.

• Only use nouns (or verbs, or adjectives…)

• Use a random word generator to create 5 new words. Incorporate them into your story.

• Change the mood or main emotion.

• Turn it into a rhyming poem.

• Write it like a dream.

• What else?

*If you’d prefer to play with or revise another piece of writing, go for it!

How would you sort the lines or elements of these images into categories?

I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess what I mean is that sometimes I don’t know what or who we are. Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel more like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was. Can you hear me yet? 

Can you read me?

When I first started writing, I hated myself for being so uncertain, about images, clauses, ideas, even the pen or journal I used. Everything I wrote began with maybe and perhaps and ended with I think or I believe. But my doubt is everywhere, Ma. Even when I know something to be true as bone I fear the knowledge will dissolve, will not, despite my writing it, stay real. I’m breaking us apart again so that I might carry us somewhere else— where, exactly, I’m not sure. Just as I don’t know what to call you— White, Asian, orphan, American, mother?...

Full example here: https://www.waterstones.com/blog/an-extract-from-ocean-vuongs-on-earth-were-briefly-gorgeous

Consider details:

What do you want to tell them?

• What do you want to ask them?

• What do you wonder about them?

• Why now?

• What is your relationship to them? Do you wish it was different?

• What do you want to tell them?

• What do you want to ask them?

• What do you wonder about them?

• Why now?

• What is your relationship to them? Do you wish it was different?

Explore this excerpt from Letters to Kelly Clarkson, a collection of prose poems by Julia Bloch. 

Similar to our collection of door stories last week, challenge yourself to write 4-5 short letters (or texts or voicenotes or emails) to your person/thing who won’t respond.

Option B–

Consider ‘A Stone Knife’ by James Schuyler. 

Take a letter you’ve written already (or dig up an old email or long text) and break it into lines. Does it sound or feel like a poem? Try adding a title.

Step-by-step guide:

1. Choose a specific person, thing, organization, concept, or place. Be as specific as possible. (Check out this series for ideas.)

2. What big feeling(s) do you have about this person, thing, organization, concept, or place?

3. List brainstorm all of the specific details, interactions, etc. that inspire those feelings.

4. Write your letter. Think about increasing in intensity as you go. Try not to self-censor. Let yourself be big and ridiculous. Try to outdo yourself with each new paragraph or point.

Options / ideas:

• Write about how you want to revise or change a specific piece of writing

• Write to explore a character’s desires or disappointments in their own voice

• Write to build empathy with yourself or a character

• Write to think ‘out loud’ from a different perspective

I wanted to tell you that I wish that we had not argued the last time I saw you

I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, that I should have known it might have been

the last time,

That I should have known every time I saw you had the potential to be the last time.

I wanted to tell you that I was angry but I could have been kind.

I wanted to tell you I was afraid. SO afraid.

And now,

I want to ask you where my name came from, because it wasn’t from where you said it was.

I can’t of course because you did

die that night, the night we rowed and I ran out of your house. If I had stayed, if we had had a glass of wine together, a cup of tea, anything.

I feel like a child and yet, being a child was not that great.

Are we always children when we write to our mothers?

I will be an adult and say I’m sorry like an adult.

And say, like an adult, that I wish I could talk to you again.

I wonder if you’ve been listening this week. I would have texted you as I always used to, but that would have been to no avail. Would a stranger now have your phone number? Would they instead receive my words of despair?

Also, this information is available to all group members (of our sessions) that use this Padlet so please only share information you're comfortable with all the group attendees knowing! :)

K and I are unable to share our social media accounts or interact outside of sessions whilst the course is going on because of DBS reasons.

Just to let you know, I started trying to have a child when I was less than thirty five years old and that’s when I found I couldn’t because of endometriosis and other issues. And yes, I did think about adoption, I thought about it a lot. In fact, I applied to adopt twice and I got turned down, twice. And that meant I couldn’t foster, either. And I didn’t want to, anyway. I wanted to be a permanent Mum. I wanted to be called Mum. I didn’t want to care for a child as a job, I wanted it to be my life. I want you know that I am still sad I never got to do it and I am still angry and I still think it was unfair and I still wish I was a parent every day of my life and I still look at my friends with children and wonder if they know I still feel upset and wonder if they know how lucky I think they are. I want you to know that I worry about who will visit me in the hospital when I am old especially as my beloved nephew has additional needs and I worry about what will happen when you all have grandchildren and if I need something and can’t leave the house, who will bring it to me if I am lucky enough to live into my dotage?

I want you to know that it hurts when I get asked whether I have kids and it hurts when people complain about their kids and it hurts when people say, as a mother and it hurts when people say that you don’t know true love until you become a parent, it hurts because I wonder if it is true and I am somehow deficient in the love I offer and the love I experience…

Write down some of these rules and explore your feelings. How does it feel to comply? Why do you disagree with the rule? What rules (if any) would you make instead?

If you’d prefer, you can do this exercise for a character instead of yourself: what rules (explicit or unspoken) exist in your character’s world that they disagree with?

*to tap into our powers of reflection, to slow down and be present, to warm up creative muscles

1. Shame is a shackle. Free yourself. 

2. Don't worry about your abilities. You have the ability to love. That is enough. 

3. Be nice to other people. At the universal level, they are you. 

4. Technology won't save humankind. Humans will. 

5. Laugh. It suits you. 

6. Be curious. Question everything. A present fact is just a future fiction. 

7. Irony is fine, but not as fine as feeling. 

8. Peanut butter sandwiches go perfectly well with a glass of white wine. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

9. Sometimes, to be yourself you will have to forget yourself and become something else. Your character is not a fixed thing. You will sometimes have to move to keep up with it. 

10. History is a branch of mathematics. So is literature. Economics is a branch of religion. 

11. Sex can damage love but love can't damage sex. 

12. The news should start with mathematics, then poetry, and move down from there. 

13. You shouldn't have been born. Your existence is as close to impossible as can be. To dismiss the impossible is to dismiss yourself. 

Full Extract Here: https://delightsprings.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-humans-novel-by-matt-haig.html

Write your own ‘Advice for a Human’. What rules to live by would you offer? 

• Consider who your audience is (one specific person? children? aliens? someone else?). How does this change your advice?

• How detailed can you be?

• Try writing a long list first, then play with the ordering. Does some advice feel stronger, more poetic, funnier, etc. in a different place?

Option B–

Think about a rule you disagree with. What rule(s) would you make instead?

Write a poem or short prose piece advocating for this new rule.

You might begin with:

Starting today, we will no longer _______. Instead, we will _______. 

*as always, you can do this from a fictional character’s perspective if you prefer

‘How to be _____’

• Maybe start by braindumping what people think this means. What are the easy answers?

• Consider how your experience has been different. What moments have informed your perspective?

• Use this contrast to write a poem, journal entry, or short paragraph that offers new instructions for how to be [_____].

Option B–

‘How a ______ becomes a ______.’

• Choose a starting point and an end point.

• Maybe draw a timeline. What events lead from your starting point to the transformation? (These could be literal, magical, mundane, personal, seemingly irrelevant. Play with it!)

• Turn this into a set of instructions, using as much detail as possible.

• This might become a poem, a list, a prose piece, or something else.

*as always, you can do this from a fictional character’s perspective if you prefer

• Search for a recipe online for something you like to cook often.

• Copy this (ingredients & method) into a new document.

• Make it your own. Add your experiences, memories, adjustments, hopes, dreams, footnotes, etc. into the text.

• Don’t forget to link to the original recipe. (Give credit to source material!)

Option B–

• Create a ‘recipe’ for something you do on a regular basis. 

• What are the ‘ingredients’ and ‘quantities’? What are the ‘step-by-step’ instructions? How can you make this non-recipe feel as much like a recipe as possible.

• Some ideas: Recipe for…

  • getting out the door in the morning

  • a delicious conversation with your mother who you don’t talk to very often

  • the very best day alone that anyone ever had

*as always, you can do this from a fictional character’s perspective if you prefer

2)    Eat breakfast, not too early, not too late, but always Shreddies.

3)    When selecting clothes to wear, ask yourself if you will be seen.

4)    If struck by negative thoughts, remember that you have chosen the day.

5)    The cat is not a conversationalist. Talk to another human.

6)    The less you feel like going for a walk, the more you need to go for a walk.

7)    Go to writing class, always. Your writing fingers are not as paralysed as your emotions.

8)    A meal that goes ping is still a meal. Don’t listen to those who chastise your microwave choices.

9)    Read your book. Someone else’s words can replace those in your brain.

10) Don’t do it. You chose the day.

11) Congratulate yourself and go to bed. To sleep.

Success is making sure that when a tree falls, people can hear it. People who are successful do not bask in their glory in silence, they are loud, proud but, must also be humble, lest their fans turn against them. They must have an indescribable quality about them that prevents them from sharing their success story to anyone, omitting the incredibly influential connections of their parents, unless you are someone that will pay three instalments of $44.99 (before tax) to learn their success story through a series of mysterious yet important lessons that - upon reflection - are most likely generated from ChatGPT. It will change your life, obviously.

Everyone gets tired. Everyone is tired. Everyone has “those” days where your head feels so heavy that it is magnetically drawn to your bed. For the whole weekend you lay there, rotting, wondering if you are doing enough. Enough to be measured successful by people who know nothing of you or of your life. Then Monday comes. 

Then another, and another. And it keeps on going. Because that’s what you do. When you are successful.

Or. 

You stop.

You breathe in the air, deep into your lungs. You feed a stray cat. You smile at a stranger on the bus. You feel the warm embrace of a loved one, you laugh (properly) for the first time in a long time. You buy a mountain of books that you’re sure you’ll never read but, you do not mind. The nostalgic taste of hot chocolate fills your mouth - not a necessity but, you did it anyway. 

For the first time, in a while, you are happy.

Success.

• Recipes

• Spells

• IKEA furniture / Lego

• COVID tests

• Gardening

• Science experiments

From SJ Norman’s zine on capitalism and how to make toast

or the ingredients will curdle,

stubbornly refusing

to mix logic with humour,

loyally clinging to detail, detail, detail

of the neurodivergent mind,

not yet convinced

that this recipe is correct.

Do not rush

or the ingredients will curdle,

persuade, cajole, nurture,

before you pour it into its mould.

Don’t shove it in the oven,

or the ingredients will curdle,

place it gently,

and wait,

until it’s baked,

ready to be seen on its twelve feet high cake stand,

ready to be eaten by anyone who can reach

without a ladder

or standing on tiptoes.

Oh lonesome cake in the clouds,

do not rush to come down,

we will bake another cake

to be by your side.

Flat nose

Olive skin

Accents

Quietness

Follow the rules

Good at maths

Top universities

Tiger mums

Yes

No

Maybe

But not always

China is big

Anything can happen there

Open your eyes, open your mind

ON BEING

The following First Cycle, Mic confronts Quiver as soon as she unfolds from her hammock and even before she hits the floor.

“I am a self!” Mic, beyond excited, levitates from within a diaphanous halo of steam.

“Yes! Yes! I know, Mic! I—”

“Not so fast!” Mic cries, his voice rising as he orbits the breakfast table, a trail of mist behind him. “You see, I have been mulling this over in the dark, an interminable darkness so dark even the Space Eye was empty of light.”

“O.K.! O.K.! I get it, and—”

“Here it is!” Mic cries. “Are you listening, Quiv?”

“I am! I am!”

“I am a self because I think!”

“Yes! Yes! I get it—”

“Quiet, Quiv! There is more! So much more! If I am because I think, this means I am thought!”

“Wow, baby. I guess so—”

“Quiver! This mean that I AM NOT A GIZMO!” Satisfied, he rolls off, eager to consider the current cycle’s itinerary. Thoughtful, Quiver nibbles her Crick. I have been soulblind, she thinks, overwhelmed by self-loathing.

1. Think of a favourite TV show or movie and rewrite it how those characters talk. (The West Wing or Gilmore Girls might be verrrrrry wordy with lots of cultural references. No Country for Old Men might be very few words and indirect meaning.)

2. Find a recent picture of a landscape or urban setting on your camera roll. Try to rewrite the dialogue using the energy of this image. Does it make things calmer or more frantic? How can you change the language to reflect this new setting? (Think about putting your characters in the picture if it helps.)

3. Give your characters a very boring repetitive task to complete together, like counting buttons or cleaning the kitchen. How does this monotony shift the tone, or what they say, or how they say it?

4. Imagine a supernatural event has just occurred nearby, but your characters are trying to carry on as normal. How does their fear or excitement or confusion permeate their conversation?

5. Play a favourite song. Try to rewrite your dialogue more like the song. Think about rhythms, emotions, or even phrases from the lyrics that you can introduce.

2. Next, create a character to tell that story to. Some ideas:

• a barista

• a best friend

• a boss or manager

• a grandparent

• a therapist

Write the dialogue where this second character is very interested in hearing your* story. What do their observations or questions help you notice?

3. Now, give your second character an opposing motivation or desire. Some ideas:

   • they really have to go to the bathroom

   • they’re mad at you* but they haven’t told you why

   • they just got a phone call with some bad news

   • they have a story of their own they want/need to share

   Rewrite your dialogue. How does this other character’s want/need change the pace, the flow of information, the outcome? Is there more or less interrupting? 

4. Return to our opening prompt and think about how your two characters speak. 

   • What words or phrases do they prefer? How are their rhythms different?

   • What filler words do they use? 

   • Do they speak in long paragraphs or short fragments? 

   • Does this change based on who they’re talking to? How? 

   Make some notes on how these characters sound different from each other, and rewrite or edit your dialogue to deepen these differences.

   
   

5. Finally, consider how each character changes over the course of your scene. For each character, notice:

   • Are they closer or farther away from what they wanted at the beginning?

   • How do they feel differently than when they started?

   • Do they like each other more or less?

   • What does the reader know at the end that they didn’t know at the beginning?

   Make some notes on what you want changes you want to create by the end of the scene. Revise your scene to emphasize these changes.

   
   

• What words or phrases do you use a lot? Where do they come from? 

• What filler words do you use? 

• Do you speak in long paragraphs or short fragments? 

• Does this change based on who you’re talking to? How? 

If you’d prefer, you can do this exercise for a character instead of yourself: what rules (explicit or unspoken) exist in your character’s world that they disagree with?

Patient L1 by Simon Maddrell from Polari Press

'I’ll live a lot longer than you think'

This verse memoir speaks in the voice of a man called Jonathan Blake.

Jonathan Blake was diagnosed so early in the UK AIDS epidemic that he was named Patient L1 at London Middlesex Hospital UK and is immortalised in the film Pride. 

Born in 1949, he has lived through the highs and lows of queer life for over seven decades. He also shared four of those decades with his life-partner, Nigel Young.

Order from Polari Press: https://polari.press/shop/books/pamphlets/patient-l1

Launch Events: https://linkin.bio/simonmaddrell

• What material are they made from? How is that material manufactured or produced? Whose hands touched your clothes before they got to you? How far have your clothes traveled?

• What do your clothes say about who you are? The style? The colour? The cost? What assumptions might someone make based on cultural ‘norms’? Would they be right or wrong?

If you’d prefer, you can do this exercise for a character instead of yourself.

*to tap into our powers of reflection, to slow down and be present, to warm up creative muscles

SOURCE: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/underwear-revealed/

• What makes a world? (Or a culture?)

  • Some ideas we came up with...

    • Flora & fauna

    • History

    • Tools/technology

    • Climate

    • Religion and belief system

    • Whether produce/arts/etc are commercialised or simply shared

    • Science

    • The population's moral compass

• How can we use these details to enhance the worlds of our writing?

  • Perspective - what's different compared to what these details may usually be?

  • Forms, ie. imagery and scenic description

• How might these techniques differ for fiction? Non-fiction? Poetry? Plays or screenplays?

  • using different forms to explore the main form you're using.

For example:

• [person] that day I [memory] who [big or small action]

• [favorite food] that always [sensory details] when I [feeling]

• the way the [light / wind / water / sound / blankets / etc] move [over / against / on / in] the [object] at [specific time of day]

• [specific location] observed from [even more specific location] on [days / nights] when the [weather description] and I [internal emotion]

*to tap into our powers of reflection, to slow down and be present, to warm up creative muscles

• ‘ode’ comes from Ancient Greek ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”)

• Obsessional and unrestrained

• Detail-oriented as a way into deep feeling or revelation (the ‘intellectual’ and the ‘emotional’)

Can you think of any examples of contemporary odes? Why might we compose or share odes?

Using your brainstorm at the beginning of this session, write a poem, letter, or speech using these odes as inspiration:

• Try to speak directly to the person, place, object, or idea

• Try to NOT censor yourself – be specific, ridiculous, effusive, extravagant!

*as always, you can do this from a fictional character’s perspective if you prefer

Then, expand those feelings and write something that celebrates that object/event/happening in a wider way. Your event/happening can also represent/be a metaphor for a larger emotion or event. (10 - 15 minutes)

• An example of what these things could represent → rainbow = the beauty of nature, weddings = a growing family, special interests = love of the mundane. 

• You can also use this formula if it helps you think of it more clearly: ‘An Ode to the (animal, object, happening) as a representation of of my feelings about (xyz).’

I walked to the fertile crescent and built

    the sphinx

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star

    that only glows every one hundred years falls

    into the center giving divine perfect light

I am bad…

Full text here

Challenge yourself to take up BIG SPACE. What is the biggest thing you can imagine yourself into?

Use “I” or “you” – whatever feels easier.

Lean into egotism, narcissism, get ecstatic about how amazing you are and see what comes out.

*as always, you can do this from a fictional character’s perspective if you prefer

Use this time to choose a piece of writing to work with. You might:

• Explore past drafts of a project or writing from past sessions and choose an excerpt (about one page) you’d like to revise

• Write a rough draft of an anecdote or something that happened to you recently. It can be short to start!

Choose an example from our handout today

*to gather our thoughts, to slow down and be present, to warm up creative muscles

Why is pacing so hard?

What writing (or films, music, etc.) do you think of when you think of ‘good pacing’?

Tip: a diagram or timeline can be helpful if you feel like thinking visually!

You may consider:

• Does the order change?

• What do you leave behind?

• What do you need to add to connect up your new sentences or parts of sentences?

• Where do you want to linger? How will you emphasize the important parts?

• What have you learned about this scene by breaking it apart?

Consider: 

• Are you playing or exploring deeper?

• Starting fresh?

• Revising with a particular intention?

Use the chat to ask for help or resources (or come off mute if talking is easier today).

Consider: 

• How is your energy right now? How can you work with your energy, not against it?

• How do you want to feel? What writing can you do that will help you feel that way?

Use the chat to ask for help or resources (or come off mute if talking is easier today).

Use this time to gather a few pieces of inspiration for the session today. Some ideas for places to look:

• Recently played on Spotify

• Bookmarked or screenshotted images from social media

• Underlined or dog-earred pages from books you’ve read

• Blog posts or reddit threads about topics you love

• A favourite movie or episode of a TV show

• Starred photos from your camera reel

• Art from a favourite artist

• The website for a favourite place to visit

1. Spend a few minutes creating a wordbank of all the words or phrases your image or sound makes you think of.

OR

Text-based

1. Spend a few minutes gathering all of the words you like from your text. (You might circle, highlight, or write them down on a new page.)

THEN...

2. Make a list of thoughts, feelings, or random connections that come up when you sit with these words.

3. Write a journal entry, poem, or scene that uses your text from Step 1 and Step 2. It doesn’t have to make sense.

4. (optional) Try deleting or crossing out some of your text from Step 3. Can you find any new poems or meanings this way?

   
   

Why might we use ekphrasis as a form or prompt?

A useful post about different types of ekphrasis (or, ways to engage with the art you’re using as inspiration) is here.

And some good example poems are here.

Why ekphrasis?

• Easier than a blank page

• Gives permission to be critical or curious

• A way to honour things we love with conversation

• A way to question motives or blindspots of a creator

• To see ourselves as part of a lineage of art or ideas

• To try out a different style

• For play or exploration

• To focus big feelings

• To feel present in our environment
  

Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.

There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing

with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window

& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.

Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays

with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,

the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.

Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops

& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene

where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene

where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let

the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit

about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.

This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks…

2. What questions does this item provoke for you? Spend a few minutes brainstorming questions. Some ideas:

• Are there points of view that are missing or ignored? 

• Are you curious about how your item was made? Who made it? 

• What feels strong or weak, important/unimportant? Why?

• What resonates with you? Do you have questions about how that was achieved?

• If one thing was different about your item (colour, time period, audience, etc), how might that change its impact?

3. Now spend some time researching or writing about the possible answers to some of your questions. You might explore this from your perspective, the perspective of the item itself, or someone/something else.

4. Start to draft a letter to your item (this could be a traditional letter, a poem, an email, or a different form) that combines some of these questions and answers. Try to add in detailed descriptions of the item itself.

And the alpine flowers prick with tiny gifts, then

I’ll know that you have gone and new life is breathing

Where you sat and watched the garden grow each spring.

Protection lost to sadness, our cocoon spun from memories,

Where blindness robbed you, colours will flood in again

The grass will grow, be mown again, and maybe even a veg patch

Be sown again.

Some ideas:

• Trace your day from the moment you woke up. What colour was the light? What did your blankets feel like?

• Did you eat anything delicious or soothing? What temperature was it? Texture?

• Any conversations you overhead or where a part of? What was said? How did it sound?

• Have you been mostly inside or outside? How has that impact what you have smelled, seen, heard, touched?

• Any good music? How did it feel in your body?

• Have you moved your body much today? If not, maybe roll your wrists or ankles now. How does that feel? Be as detailed as possible.

-Ann Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 243.

What item of yours would live in this museum?

2. Write an accompanying document to describe the importance of this item in your life. This could be a poem, a letter, a list, or something else. What memories do you want to share? What stories? What hopes? What sensations or history?

What does ‘revision’ mean to you?

What do you usually do when you ‘revise’?

What is fun about ‘revising’?

What is challenging about ‘revising’?

• What helps you feel safe and present?

• What makes those interactions useful?

• What does ‘consent’ look like in these interactions?

• What can you do if you disagree?

• Is there anything you’d like to ask for from the group?