There’s nothing like a car boot as inspiration to create a story. A rich resource for creativity and writing prompts, although I find myself pondering human life and our detachment from the natural world. If only we realised how transient life is, our attachment to ‘stuff’ is quite strange.
The verges on the way home to base camp were where I found the real treasures.
This week at Base Camp my son completed this epic picture entitled ‘The Circle of Life’ for a school homework project. It def has to be the drawing of the week!! ❤️
Who knew!? My friend William messaged me today to let me know he had seen my previous post on hermit crabs and to ask if I knew about Hermit Crab Fiction…. which I didn’t!
Hermit Crab Fiction is a term used to describe using a verbal template to write a story. E.g a recipe / board game rules etc – you can be as creative as you like. It sounds fun for a creative writing exercise, or a short story.
You can find more out about it here.
Hello…..My name is Emma,
In February 2020 I set off on a personal journey to complete a PhD using my skills in writing to create a contemporary Choose Your Own Adventure book, taking a reader through the experience of a mental health journey.
Why am I doing this?
I have worked in the NHS since 2001 as an occupational therapist, specialising in mental health and vocational rehabilitation. A lot of my job involves re-sparking inspiration in life and supporting people to re-structure personal narratives and perceptions of the world.
I want to write something that conveys the human experience of mental health illness and also aims to challenge the way we think and feel about mental health experiences. I am particularly interested in the way that the stories we tell about ourselves, and others tell about us, shape our identity and how we think and feel about ourselves in the world.
So far my research has taken me back to the beginning of mental health care, looking at historical aspects and also narrative theory in relation to my writing. I’ve been using auto ethnography to explore my own personal experiences and to begin to consider characters and structures that I would like to include in my writing.
In essence I’m at the beginning of world building. Something we all do in the creation and making of stories. My biggest challenge setting out in this journey is fitting in my job, research and home schooling during lock down.
I’ve been buying myself some time at Base Camp by setting the kids off creating their own fantasy worlds (see pics at the top of the blog) for anyone interested in doing this with their kids I can recommend this excellent book which gave us our inspiration: Fantasy Mapping, Drawing Worlds by Wesley Jones.
Goals for this week:
Adventures from Base Camp 