HOTHOUSE PROJECT 2010

(The Hothouse post-course summary from Charles Shaar Murray our award winning writer, teacher and writing life coach)

Teaching the first-ever course in The Hothouse Project has been one of the most illuminating and enlightening experiences of my working life.

In order to design a method of communicating to others what I’ve learned in four decades as a professional journalist, it’s been necessary for me to examine and analyse, for the first time, exactly what I do and exactly how I do it.

Not to labour the point, but throughout my working life I’ve never previously thought about it: I’ve simply DONE it. Ever since I first learned to read, I’ve had my nose dipped into books and periodicals, unconsciously figuring out what worked and what didn’t, how to reproduce the effects I liked in order to achieve my own goals. And after I figured out that ‘going public’ with my writing was just about the only way I’d ever escape a lifetime in librarianship or the Civil Service, I was sufficiently fortunate to be taken in hand by a succession of gifted and experienced editors who saw enough potential in my work to give me a coalface education in how to make the transition from promising amateur to employable professional.

So the object of The Hothouse Project was to ‘reverse-engineer’ the process by which I became the writer I am in order that others can become the writers they are; to pass on practical advice and craft principles and to attempt to reproduce in experiential form, via exercises and assignments, the ways and means through which you learn by actually ... you know ... DOING STUFF.

And, needless to say teaching The Hothouse Project for the first time was as much a leaning experiece for me as it was for my students. Happily, neiter of my two greatest nightmares didn’t come to pass. In the first instance, I was terrified that those taking the course might include some word-blind duffers with absolutely no aptitude for writing whatsoever, and that I’d be forced to have to find a way to tell them so. This was a million miles away from being the case: nobody who showed up was devoid of talent or promise and were I the editor of a magazine or website I’d be happy to commission ’em.

In the second: I was worried that the principles I was attempting to communicate might not be practical, and that the teaching methods I had devised might not be effective. The proof of the pudding was definitely in the eating: every single student who completed the course left as a better writer than they were when they arrived, and it was a joy to see their raw talent refined by an increase in technical skill and command of the craft. How well I succeeded in teaching – and they succeeded in learning – can be gauged by the work showcased on the Hothouse pages here on the Storm site, and I hope you’ll be as impressed with them as I am.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to doing it again.

Charles Shaar Murray

December 2010