Masterclass with Martin Day - The Writer’s Account

‘The Writers’ Account’ is a group of young writers which meets every Wednesday after school to experiment with words.  Most sessions begin with a warm-up exercise followed by a prompt with encourages the young writers to develop a longer piece of work.  Every few weeks however, there is a masterclass with a professional writer and these fantastic sessions mean that the members of the group can learn more about what a writer’s life is like and how to develop a career, as well as receive individual encouragement for their own work.  To date, visiting writers have included a content creator for the world of advertising, a ghost writer, a grime artist and a spoken word poet. This week’s masterclass was with a university lecturer in Creative Writing who wrote TV soap scripts and scripts for Hollywood movies for over a decade, and who is the author of the Doctor Who novels – Martin Day.  He encouraged the young writers to invest in developing a creative world view, quoting Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliant advice, “Practising an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow…Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." With no family background in writing, Martin kept sending stories into competitions, applying to everything he could, and making the most of every meeting he had, until he found himself writing full time.  His key advice was to listen to people talking around you and to keep notes for future projects, always keeping in mind something his friend and fellow writer Russel T Davies said, “All my life connects to the writing. All of it.”