Writing on the Dingle Peninsula

I signed up to do a writing course with a company called “Dingle Writing Courses” The courses are not actually in Dingle but who cares?!

They had a couple of courses running last weekend-poetry, children’s fiction and adult fiction. I opted for the Children’s workshop with Kevin Crossley-Holland, him of the famous and well loved children’s novels, the Arthur Trilogy and many more. He also happens to be quite obsessed and experienced in History, folklore and poetry. The course was set near the village of Ballyferriter, which is about 12 km from Dingle Town, or An Daingean as they like to think it’s called.

I was hoping it would invigorate me to write with…em…vigor and also be a bit of a break for me and my lovely, busy husband, Simon.

It did. We spent the weekend meeting like-minded people, writing obsessively and engaging in some interesting debate like:

“What is the difference between a children’s book and an adult book?”

“What are the main components of a children’s novel?”

and most importantly:

“Why is Twilight so damn popular?”

We were able to answer all the above but I think the answer to the 3rd question comes in 2 words: Robert Pattisson.

All meals were included in the price and Aine (she lives in Tig Aine, where the course was) cooked and baked like mad. Beautiful, old style roast dinners and butternut squash soup, meats and freshly baked bread and scones for lunch.

We cosied up in front of a turf fire to write and listen to Kevin giving us his wise words and looked out the window at the inspiring scenery and cuddled up hens on the window.

http://www.dinglewritingcourses.ie/

I’ve attached some photos of my experience.

What do you think? Does atmosphere enhance the writing process?

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