Only Connecting

I was a student at High Pavement Sixth Form College in Nottingham. Local author, Mr Stanley Middleton taught at the college. Holiday in 1974, was awarded the Man Booker prize, jointly with Nadine Gordimer. This affectionate obituary to Mr Middleton in The Guardian written by Philip Davis particularly resonated with me.

At college, my friend, Michele Charlton and I were privileged to carry out an interview with Mr Middleton. At the time, I wasn't fully aware of the significance of the Man Booker, I was awestruck that a published writer lived and worked locally  - the extraordinary amongst the everyday. I am thankful to Mr Middleton for his generosity, kindness and wisdom. 

The interview, reproduced below, was published in our college magazine, 'The Pavior' in May 1979.

Mr Middleton and an admirer. 

Anthea Sutton, reflecting on her experience on the ScHARR Library blog says that she almost cancelled before going. I was the same. Cancelled. Almost. 

Why? I'd not done the preparation that I wanted to do beforehand and the idea was to write not to research. 

I had a file of some notes/articles for a piece I thought I'd do 'at some point' tucked away in a filing cabinet and I retrieved these for the session. 

Grabbing a cup of tea (obligatory), laptop and the file of notes, I headed over to the library to join six others intent on some focused writing tasks. Our session was facilitated by Andy Tattersall, Information Specialist and ran to a structured format: 

• Welcome and Introductions - and saying what we were planning to work on.
• Writing - 50 minutes.
• Break - brief check-in with each other about how's it going/comfort break.
• Writing - 50 minutes.
• De-brief - reflections, how did it go?

Stating our plans and knowing that we'd be reporting on progress through the session to each other gave some impetus to get on with it.  I'd already started to write before the introductions began. 

Initially, I ended up working on something different to what I said I'd do. I had started on an item the evening before and it was almost complete. It made more sense to finish that first.  In reality, it was much easier to get going on something that was already underway rather than starting a brand new piece. 

I really enjoyed the second half of the session. I thought that I would be using some of it to re-read the articles and notes that I'd brought with me. Instead, I just wrote from my head. A couple of times, I paused and looked up around the room but although I was aware of other people around me, I was oblivious to everyone. The absorption felt wonderful. Cocooned in this space for a short while. What surprised me most was being able to write an initial draft without referring to the papers and notes that I'd brought with me (I will be doing this as I continue to draft the piece). 

De-briefing with each other, everyone felt that they had been able to use the session productively. Some of the helpful aspects included: 

• structured, scheduled time to write.
• time constraints built in (not too long, not too short).
• being away from your own desk, but not too far away so that it becomes inconvenient.
• encouragement of being in the company of others - doing the same thing.
• being not too far apart from each other - working in a connected hub. 
• it is silent - no talking to each other.

Even in structured settings, it can still be challenging to produce as much content as we'd like. As one person said, 'it's a marathon not a sprint.' 

By the end of the session, I was reminded of the pleasure that writing brings. I am planning to schedule writing sessions on a regular basis. 

With thanks to colleagues in the Information Resources Group for co-ordinating these sessions. It would be great to continue these throughout the year.

 Photo credit: Karin Dalziel, adapted under a Creative Commons license. 

As 2015 begins, I am taking up the opportunity once again of writing in an online format. 

I have been contributing to project sites over the last few years, for the KT-EQUAL ageing research programme and now as part of the online presence for the School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield. 

This space is a scrapbook for my own writing, work in progress, things that interest me. I was prompted by blog posts from Iain Broome and through his blog to reading Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work! - to write and share more of what I do.