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Second-year BA Creative Writing student Tilly Hollyhead speaks about her past struggles with motivation and the techniques that she has learned to use to deal with them.

I love writing. Ever since I discovered that I am semi-decent at it, I have loved being able to create different stories and to express my opinions. It’s a therapy, an outlet, an escape from the outside world.

But making the time for it often seems impossible.

It’s not like I have that much going on. I’m doing a Creative Writing degree and yes, it teaches me a lot, but perhaps most of all it encourages me to better my writing. Most of my lectures are ultimately about how I can better myself, prepare myself, how to then get my writing out there, one way or another, and let everyone know that I’m here. Yet writing still seems impossible.

There have been times when I have been lying in bed, knowing that I have to get something done. I know that there are so many things I could put on the page, yet I can’t find the strength to pick up my laptop.

So, what have I learned to do about it? I wouldn’t be writing about this if I hadn’t found some way to get through.

There’s no nice way of putting it – I have learned to force myself to do it.

I still procrastinate for a few hours here and there – brushing my hair, or scrolling through TikTok. Then, I tell myself that it’s time to get to business and I will not be leaving my desk until it is done. No matter how much I want to turn off that screen and binge-watch the latest Marvel series, I decide I will not take myself away from the task at hand.

It’s not a sure-fire solution, not by any stretch of the imagination. The words that I pump out during those times are never my best, but I know I have something rather than nothing to work with, and I still feel a sense of pride. I’m able to tell myself that I hit a wall but I managed to find a way over it, and it’s one of the most rewarding things I can think of.

Struggle is one of the defining traits of being an author. Ask anyone who is one! But easing that strain by sharing our ideas, collaborating, being a cohort, is what brings writers together. So, I’ll share a few more things that I’ve begun using.

First off, if I need to meet a deadline, setting myself a mandatory word count for the day – the Graham Greene or Sarah Walters method, apparently! –  never works as well as setting a timer. This a trick taught to me by one of my fellow writers.

I think we’ve all had moments when we tell ourselves that we’re going to get started on a project, only to then tell ourselves that the deadline is far away, that it can wait. By setting a timer, you’re giving yourself an immediate deadline. We all know that nothing will happen if we don’t write to the best of our ability when the timer ends, but there’s something about it that motivates us to do our best.

Another thing I find useful is writing in groups, or with company. We have lots of opportunities for this on the course, but I also get that in my university accommodation.

When I’m trying to get my work done and I find myself slipping, I move into the living room. Sometimes my flatmates will be in there, working with me, and at others they’ll be passing through, but they’re helpful just by being there.

It’s like a positive form of peer pressure. If other people are in the room, I find myself wanting to work. Their prescience makes me more focused, especially if they’re doing something alongside me. Once I’m relaxing in the evening and looking back on the things I’ve produced, I find myself happier with what I’ve managed to accomplish.

And, for my final and perhaps most obvious piece of advice, I’d encourage everyone to get involved with writing prompts. It’s that simple!

A lot of my better ideas have come from writing prompts and thinking bout how to take them, and myself,  in new directions.

One of my recent favourites is a prompt in which the protagonist wakes in a hibernation pod to find that humanity has reverted to medieval times after almost being wiped out by an unknown force, and their inventions have been mistaken for magical artefacts.

Prompts, good ones, provide the perfect balance of instruction and freedom. They help you work on something new, or a new way or doing something, without it feeling like a chore.

Forcing yourself to write is great when you have the creativity but struggle to get it out. When it’s the other way around, sometimes all you need is a little push in the right direction. A fun little challenge is like a little kick to the back of the legs, I think. It’ll make you jump and get you moving again.

A wonderful thing about writing is that no one can write what you do. Nobody is you, and your writing can grow to reflect that. Whether an idea is entirely yours in conception, or came from a prompt, the way you look at whatever it conjures is unique. That is something to be treasured, no matter how long it takes for you to get the words down.

Julia Hodson graduated from the MA Creative Writing at NTU in 2020. In this blog post, she discusses the lasting friendships she made on the course.

Apprehensive, anxious and terrified: three words that describe how a postgraduate Creative Writing student feels before workshopping a precious piece of writing for the first time, I think. Yet as you walk away from the graduation ceremony with your MA certificate furled in your hand and return to a world without workshops, I’m going to suggest that constructive critical feedback on your writing will be the thing that you miss the most.

As a member of the 2018/19 MA Creative Writing cohort, I was so lucky to connect with fellow writers from who wanted to continue to critique each other’s work after graduation. Covid restrictions on physical contact were easily surmounted and a group of us continued writing and critiquing via Zoom.

We had been that group that sat on the front table next to the lectern for the core module’s lectures. Admittedly my collective noun for us was the ‘misfits’, for we were a gloriously diverse group of students. I needed to be near the front so that I could hear and see everything; others had their own reasons, but I am glad we all sat together.

And to the outsider we continue to look like an interesting bunch when we sit in cafes clutching pieces of writing and waiting for feedback after coffee. The respect that we feel for each other makes sharing writing and participating in feedback not just a privilege but a joyous experience. If one of us is ‘stuck’ in our writing, we engage in ideas generation and generally – in fact, almost always – a solution or a better fix is found. We listen, we empathise, and we laugh. Appropriately, of course. The fear is gone, and the nerves have ceased to jangle whilst waiting for feedback; instead, there is a flutter of excitement about what opportunities for improvement will be stimulated.

We have supported each other through births and deaths, successes and failures, self-publishing and keeping on trying to publish, being unsuccessful in competitions, and having material performed in theatres. One of our dedicated cohort-from-a-cohort is about to submit a PhD thesis. Oh, and I have been collecting my state pension You’re never too old, nor too young, to write.

Together, we have travelled the road most frequently travelled by writers, that of self-doubt and procrastination. We challenge and support each other. We listen and encourage each other. We trust each other.

So, I have a message for anyone currently studying: go forth after your graduation and embrace that which you once feared. Seek out fellow students and become long-term friends that support one another – not just one another’s writing, but with all that life brings.

Words by Julia Hodson, with thanks to Tracy, Jennie, Sunita, Lauren and Riley.

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Find Julia on insta @minersprog, and hear her on the podcast Specs Drugs and Sausage Rolls on Spotify.

Picture 1: Riley and Yashka
Picture 2: A Christmas lunch get together

Final-year BA Creative Writing student Eloisa Herron describes her journey towards taking the course, and her feelings about having done so.

I had never considered myself a writer, not in the slightest. I have long enjoyed reading, acting and drawing, but had never contemplated sitting down to write a story.

I enjoyed English just fine at school: I liked to study the various pieces of literature and I considered myself relatively good at the English Language side of things. But a very boring (and unsupportive) English teacher made for a total loss of passion for the subject, if not the broad subject matter. I underachieved in my English GCSE, which didn’t exactly make me jump at the idea of doing it at A-level.

I decided to study Business BTEC and Psychology, two things I had never done before. I had never really had much interest in business, but felt it was ‘safe’. That’s what I liked about it. It was a safe option that would, surely, open up lots of future prospects.

But I wanted more than that. I wanted to wake up every day inspired and passionate about what I was doing with my life.

When we went into lockdown, I had applied to study business marketing at various universities. I was accepted at Royal Holloway, which felt like a huge accomplishment. But still, it didn’t feel right. I wasn’t excited. My thoughts were consumed by doing this degree and the prospect of then spending my life behind a desk doing what I feared would be underwhelming work.

However, being at home all day every day for months opened up stacks of free time. So, I began reading again. I had read books before, of course I had, but this was different. I would pick up book after book, and venture into online stories: fan fiction, romances, thrillers. The turning point was when I picked up Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman. I remember the moment I finished it, closing the last page and thinking how changed I was. The way is made me feel and the impact it had on me. I thought ‘I want to do that; I want to make people feel how this book has made me feel.’ I wanted to learn how to write as beautifully as this author, and so many other authors.  

A week before A level results day, I was researching universities that offer creative writing courses. I was panicked by the prospects of trying my hand at this art. The idea that even if I tried, I would never be good enough, that it was so easy to fail. But this made it more exciting. It wasn’t ‘safe’ anymore. It was thrilling and made me feel like my life instantly had more purpose. I may never make it as an author but hell, I am going to try. And sure enough, on results day I phoned up Nottingham Trent and asked to be part of the course.

Three years down the line, I don’t regret a single thing. I am about to write a dissertation and finally throw myself into a bigger piece of work. I have achieved so much already and am so proud of how far I have come.

So, for anyone unsure: Do it! Take a risk if it means you get to enjoy what you do every single day. I have never felt more like myself, and I wish everyone could feel like that. Never be afraid to chase something you want.

I had never considered myself a writer, but now, I wouldn’t consider myself anything else.

Archie Peters, who completed our MA Creative Writing this year, has just started a new teaching job in Japan. In this blog post, he gives us some first impressions of his new home. He is in the process of developing his own travel blog, which you can follow here.

After fourteen hours of staring at the images of clouds below me from onboard camera, alternating with patches of uncomfortable sleep – the kind from which you wake less rested, with a twisted and cramped neck – I had arrived at my destination. Tokyo.

During my travels time had jumped twenty-two hours ahead: I had left in the afternoon and arrived in the evening of the next day. My head felt as if it could roll back off my shoulders at any moment. But Tokyo is the city that never sleeps, right? So I decided I wouldn’t either.

Me and a few other Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) from my Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme, headed into what we thought was central Shinjuku to find an izakaya. A good friend from my time as an undergrad, Alfie, was on the way out, after a year in Japan, so he joined us for his last night and our first. We sat snug in a little booth, shielded from the rest of the izakaya by a curtain with prints reminiscent of Hokusai’s Great Wave, and I had my first taste of Basashi Sashimi. I was no longer at home, after all, and had decided to try any food that was put in front of me. The menu said this was horse, but the man who called us in off the street called it beef, so I thought it must’ve been a translation error. Alfie, well versed in the way of the izakaya, assured me it was horse and proceeded to order a plate. Now, if you told me that a certain supermarket chain had sold me ‘beef’ which was horse, I’d be horrified and would seriously debate whether to finish the Bolognese I had created with it. However, when this was in front of me, a tender red over a large green leaf I do not know the name of, I could not resist. It was delicious.

Another surprise came shortly after when we realised we had not in fact gone to central Shinjuku. We were, as it turned out, in a small neighbourhood fifteen minutes away. It should have been impossible to miss: Godzilla is there, surely, poking his head out over the neon-clad towers.

Other than basashi and incredibly tall towers, my few days in Tokyo, before my job started away to the south, was mostly spent fighting off exhaustion in full suit and thirty-degree heat as I listened to orientation session after orientation session to prepare me for life in this country. I was then back to Haneda to fly down to Ehime, a prefecture covering the northwest of the island of Shikoku. I slept, less fitfully this time, and woke to see a sparkling, still sea (the flat Seto Inland Sea), with island mountains in their thick green coats breaking up the blue. To compensate for all the views I had missed on my short flight, I then glued my forehead to the window of the car as I travelled through the Ishizuchi mountain range on my way to Saijo, my new home.

The mountains here never seem to end. Even when you look out onto the sea, they’re everywhere. They spread along the horizon, and the clouds scrape along them. Ishizuchi, the highest peak in Western Japan and the one behind my house, is a sacred mountain, one of seven in the country. I ventured to the Shinto shrine dedicated to the mountain, which was not hard to find thanks to the gigantic torii gate followed by an equally large stone one signalling the entrance. Beyond these is another gate, two shishi lions guarding it, and with two large tengu – long-nosed yōkai (supernatural entities) with wings, who used to inhabit the mountains – waiting behind a sheet of glass. There is a tree with a shimenawa, a type of rope carefully bound with shide (the lightning bolt shaped paper), dangling from it. These, I learned, trap spirits inside, or ward off evil, marking sacred spaces such as Shinto shrines. A bridge, roughly halfway up the shrine, had a communion of koi collecting just below it, as if they’d been trained to beg for food like puppies. At the top, after countless smaller shrines, I found myself in a large open space, another, bigger shrine, with a mighty view of the whole of Saijo, the Seto Inland Sea, and various islands between me and Honshu. I turned away from this view and looked up, realising that, after all those steps and slopes, I’d only made it perhaps five percent of the way up the mountain.

It is said that when, 1300 years ago, Kozumi Yaku climbed Ishizuchi, he prayed, purified his mind and body, then unsuccessfully tried to reach the summit. As he began to descend, he encountered an old white-haired man, intently sharpening his axe in Jojusha Shrine, and when he asked why, the old man answered, ‘I will sharpen this axe until it is a needle.’ These words motivated Kozumi, for some reason, so he decided to resume his journey to reach the top. It is said the old man was Ishizuchi Omikami (essentially the deity of the mountain), and that after meeting with him, Kozumi’s wish came true. This shrine is revered as a shrine for the fulfilment of wishes.

I do not know what I will wish for. Maybe climbing Mount Ishizuchi will be enough to motivate me to try even harder for my dreams. One thing is for certain, though. If the shrine, for whatever reason, does not grant me my wishes, I’ll return home with further inspiration for my writing. For me, that is enough.

Second-year BA Creative Writing student Tilly Hollyhead discusses the challenge of facing up to the blank page.

All writers, I think, have a common enemy. It has plagued us ever since we could pick up a writing implement of some kind, and it will continue to plague us when we begin writing using the chips implanted into our brains, or whatever we might end up using to create stories in the future.

The blank page.

No one knows why a blank screen or piece of paper has so much hold over authors. It should be a thing out of our wildest dreams. It should be a space where we can draw out all of our innermost thoughts and share them with the world because we are not confined.

However, those thoughts seem to leave me the moment I sit down, and I know I am not alone. You grab your pen and your water bottle. You settle down in a comfy spot next to the window so you can gaze out of it whilst contemplating your ideas. You open your notebook or laptop, hands poised to write your masterpiece.

Then, the ideas don’t come. It’s just you and the little voice inside your head, asking you why it’s so hard to do what you’re good at.

That blinking cursor has haunted my dreams ever since I began taking writing seriously two years ago. Even while writing this blog post, I have stopped writing most of these sentences halfway through because I have no idea how to finish them, nor what will come next. The notion in my head cannot quite form the full idea on the page. Ideas slip away and I can’t grasp onto them, leaving them to fall into the back of my mind. Whenever I do remember them again, there will always be the risk that the cycle will repeat itself immediately, all because of my archenemy.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been ready to get in my intended daily word count, only to leave my desk with one hundred words and the worst case of imposter syndrome I’ve had since last time.

So, how are we meant to battle against this beast?

If this mystery has bothered the likes of Philip Larkin and Stephen King, how are we meant to do any better?

Well, we can’t.

When I began thinking about writing this article, I wracked my brain to find an answer to this problem. I was never under the illusion that I would solve it through writing a single blog post but I had thought the ideas would come to me.

The blank page is something that I – that we – will never defeat because, in many ways, the struggle that we have against it is what makes us writers.

The fact that we go against all odds to create our pieces is what makes us proud. It is what makes us sit back after writing a good paragraph and allow ourselves to be proud. It’s what makes it exciting to text our friends, telling them about the idea that we had and growing more excited as we continue bouncing ideas off each other. It’s the joy we feel when we realise we’ve gotten into a flow, somehow, all of a sudden. It’s the focus we get out of nowhere when the words begin falling onto the page in waves, unexpectedly and perhaps rarely.

None of this could have happened without that first struggle. It’s the first hurdle that we need to jump and it will not be the last.

There will be many more daunting foes than the blank page. The only reason it’s so scary is because it is our starting line. It’s represents a commitment to finishing a piece, to not having a blank page, no matter how frustrating it becomes or how long it takes.

It pushes us off a cliff and sends us down into the depths without warning, once the first word hits the page. We hate it for what it does but we can’t exist without it. Writing is discovery, and you can’t discover something you know already.

So, my only advice is to get ready for pain. Prepare for your back to ache like hell. Prepare for your eyes to strain. Because you will never kill the blank page. You will only learn how to become brave enough to face it.

Laura De Vivo

(BA Creative Writing)

When I think about my mother at my age, her desires, her perception of herself and where she fit in the world, it is a far cry from the choices I am making for myself and where my place is as I begin my slide towards fifty.

My choices in the mid-nineties in no way mirror those of most of my present-day counterparts. At the tender age of twenty-two my sleepless nights were the result of a teething baby, not the submission date for an essay.

I by no means regret my youthful decisions: opting for the “I’ll still be young when they’re off my hands” angle. Now that my responsibilities are off making lives of their own, I am free to refocus my attention on myself, armed with the maturity twenty-five years has given me. Re-entering a world I had long since left behind was a brave step. Sitting on the opposite side of the desk at forty-two was no easy adjustment (I had spent my working life as a teaching assistant) and remorse from not having tried harder at school plagued me. Little did I realise that the first day back as a student would set me on the path of rediscovery.

Two years later I was clutching two GCSE certificates and looking for the next thing to get my teeth into, my head already turned by the prospect of an A level.  I found I had become addicted to learning. I was a sponge. I just couldn’t stop. Once the A level was in my arsenal, there came the next question: do I take a degree?

Friends and family asked, “why do you want to put yourself through that?”

 But it wasn’t an act of self-flagellation, it was a question of ability: I was staring myself dead in the eye and laying down the gauntlet. Beyond a certain age it is all too easy not to question your standing in life, yet in a modern age where reinvention of oneself is widely accepted, I was free to be anything I wanted to be.

On the day the acceptance from NTU dropped into my inbox, a new feeling took over, one I hadn’t seen coming. I had a resounding, gut wrenching feeling of imposter syndrome. I mostly kept it to myself, embarrassed to shout from the rooftops about something that had taken me five years to achieve, and I had a strong feeling of parental guilt: one of my children was still in the education system. Was I stealing her thunder? Should I have stayed in my ‘mum box’?

 However, with the full approval of my children, I attended the open day, feeling a whirlwind of emotions: I had the same trepidation some other students were displaying (or hiding), with one key difference: I looked like one of the parents. I walked across the Plaza on Clifton Campus, my heart pounding, faking confidence, and swallowing back my lunch. Had I bitten off more than I could chew this time?

Then, the first day arrived. A swarm of students filed into the Playhouse, me included, together with the only other mature student on my course. We listened to enthusiastic speakers, and I wondered what relevance this had for me. Could I have the things being offered to the younger students? But I’d come this far after all, so why not?

I am now at the end of my first term, and I have realised there is an advantage to attending university as a mature student. There is no shellshock from leaving home (we mostly study in our home city). There is no need to extrapolate ourselves from personal insecurity like some younger people must, or walk the unpredictable minefield of learning who we are for ourselves: that has long been established. We are not shackled by any of the potential burdens of youth. I feel liberated just to enjoy the experience of higher education. 

According to UCAS, 40% of mature students are over thirty, proving that we have a thirst for learning beyond the conventional expectations for education. We have a great deal to offer with the wisdom of our years and experience, before returning to the workforce in a stronger position.

Joining university as a mature student isn’t like gatecrashing a party. There is a plethora of societies to get involved in, more than happy to accept the more mature, and there is a thriving community for us too. Age has not felt like a barrier at all! I’d be lying if I said all the trepidation had melted away, and of course I share many of the same concerns as every student. But university has not manifested into the monster I’d feared, and the technophobe in me has no need to struggle in digital ignorance either. I have found the library to be a great resource, along with lecturers and students who are more than happy to assist. Alongside the degree, there is an opportunity to learn a language ­– I am taking advanced Italian – and other skills that will future proof me and, I hope, make me the best-educated version of myself I can be.

I will graduate the year I turn fifty, giving myself an exceptional gift that I had never considered could be mine.

Vashi Deva

Vashi is a student in the first year of her BA English degree at NTU. In this blog post, she discusses some of the challenges and opportunities she’s faced, and how she’s turned them to her advantage! She has some advice for anyone who makes a comparable decision: to study at NTU, having come from another city as a young adult.

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Entering this new, thrilling phase of life, it’s likely you’ll lose yourself in the chaos of the university experience in no time. You’ve possibly already associated this time in your life parties, a crowd of fresh new faces, and a list of deadlines. It’s easy to forget what I think is the best and most important part: the chance to reinvent yourself. You’re given a blank page and the freedom to draw whatever you want on it. To make the most out of this experience, you should use this newfound freedom to shape your identity on your own terms. Here are a few pointers.

Making A Comfortable Space                                               

Create your space as an embodiment of the new you. Wherever you’re going to be living is likely where you’ll spend most of your time, so being attentive and putting in the effort to create an aesthetically pleasing living space for yourself has countless benefits. It mentally and physically elevates your day-to-day life, giving you the opportunity to explore your individuality through your interior design skills. You may think you haven’t got any, but trust me, you do.

You probably won’t have an immense amount of space. I suggest keeping it simple so that your room isn’t easily cluttered. In fact, decluttering has direct links to good mental health, making you feel less stress and anxiety. You don’t want to look around at your space and feel overwhelmed, and you’ll want to have room to do your university work. Put up subtle reminders of things that make you happy, like books, posters, photos and at least one picture of a figure who inspires you to strive towards academic excellence above your study desk. Now, every time you look up from your laptop while cramming for that assignment, you’ll find some encouragement from that figure – perhaps a little voice inside will say, ‘if they can do it, so can I’. It’s also wise to change things around every now and then: you don’t want to grow tired of looking at the same things every day. Creatively changing your space around from time to time can motivate changes in your mind which may contribute to you feeling less burnt out and stuck in a rut. It’s easy to fall into that cycle. Prevent it! 

Your City

 Whether you’ve travelled far from home or not travelled at all, make your city your best friend. It’s the place that will inspire most of your creative impulses during this period. Be open minded, explore, and see your city for its elusive charm. Familiarising yourself with your new (or old) home will help you spark up fresh interests and ambitions, and it’s one of the things that makes the university experience so worthwhile. You may find a local spot to eat which isn’t Nando’s or Dominos, new thrift shops tucked into alleyways, a go-to nature reserve for some down time, museums, hidden art galleries, historical sites. Visit the places you wouldn’t normally think twice about visiting because you’ve already labelled them boring, and you may find that there’s more to your city than just the nightclubs. It’s a great way to refresh your perspective on the world and retreat from old thoughts and ideals that may have been holding you back. In other words, it’s a great way to reinvent yourself. you don’t want to leave here one day and think you never really got to know the place, its people, and its idiosyncracies.

The Social Realm of University

It’s evident that the years you spend at university can reward more than just a degree. You can develop many new skills contributing to your transition into adulthood, including your social skills. It’s guaranteed you’ll see a lot of new faces on your course, and you’ll probably meet new people on nights out. But the stigma that university social life revolves around partying isn’t completely true, and socialising is more than just partying. This is the perfect time to build strong network connections that you’ll thank yourself for later. These will contribute hugely to your social well-being, and you’ll benefit from the professional and personal relations you build. You may feel shy at first, and almost everyone does even if they don’t show it, but the key to building important connections is putting yourself out there and opening yourself up to different types of people, even people who you may not normally approach. Make an effort to start conversations with people in your building, and people at your university (even if they’re not on your course), attend university events, and even get to know your lecturers. You’ll likely find some common ground with most of these people, and you’ll find yourself surprised once you’ve stepped out of your comfort zone.  Remember, your lecturers are experienced in the field you’re interested in, so gaining knowledge from them will be worth your while. And you never know, you can spark up a lifelong friendship just by starting a conversation.

Learn A Useless Skill

When Steve Jobs was 17, he dropped out of university and let his curiosity lead him to a calligraphy class. He said, ‘none of this had even a hope of any practical application to my life.’ Ten years later, he designed the first Macintosh computer with the multiple type faces and proportionally spaced fonts that he had learnt about all those years ago taking that ‘useless’ calligraphy class. So, learn that useless skill that you think is so stupid and pointless. Now that you’ve got a new sense of independence, you can prioritize spending your time on things that interest you. Whether it be fashion, cooking, yoga, kickboxing, music, graphic design, art. They say, ‘a jack of all trades is a master of none, but always better than a master of one’ Anything that you’ve felt like you’ve always wanted to try but never found productive or worth your time, now is the time to try it. You may find yourself looking back ten years later, glad that you had the courage to at least try. But don’t drop out of your course!

Elmo Moorby

The history of little magazines is extensive – and though it isn’t my aim to give you a history lesson, I feel it is necessary to at least set the scene. Short-term periodicals have been a staple of fringe literature since the late 1800’s and continue to act as a platform for all sorts of writers to this day. Historically, little magazines attract new or controversial writers, as well as those who experiment with structural forms considered less marketable. As a medium, zines and magazines are now ridiculously accessible and easy to produce, with webpages and blogging sites providing free accounts on which to host anyone and everyone’s content. So, there’s little wonder why little magazines are everywhere.

After learning about the important history of these small publications myself, partly through the Magazine Publishing module on my BA Creative Writing at NTU, and producing one at the end of that module, I found myself fascinated with the concept, and the possibilities of a self-made space.  With no boundaries or limits set by a looming editor or financial benefactor, complete creative control was passed over to those of us who marshalled the work. The possibilities felt almost endless. So, as summer approached, I began the journey to produce a magazine that was wholly my own, born from the chaos of Uni life and my passion for the creatively absurd.

To give you some context, I must take you back to the start of my first year at NTU. We were at the tail end of 2020’s summer lockdowns, and a freshly 18-year-old me was trawling through the depths of the Facebook NTU Freshers page for others taking my course. After finding no one – but knowing plenty were indeed out there to be found – I created a WhatsApp group and posted an open invite on the Freshers page. Here spawned the Creative Bastards. The title is, I like to think, a moniker for all Creative Writing students in my year group, as well as honorary members who unfortunately (!) chose to study for an English degree instead – the two cohorts are quite close and share some modules. We attempted projects as a group through years one and two, though these lasted a few weeks each before fading into nothingness. The idea for a literature and creative arts magazine floated around in January 2022, when our module-produced magazines were publicly launched, and over the following months I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

This brings us to May 2022. With the help of my course mate Rebecca Eaton, we set up an email and social medias for the project and began to build up a profile – our aims, our goals, our purpose. I liked the idea of a changing theme for each issue, and we settled on ‘Monsters’ for the first. The theme gave way to numerous interpretations, from familial relationships to childhood fears to reinterpretations of Greek myth. With the help of in-house and public submissions, the concept morphed into something bigger than we could’ve imagined. By mid-July, I had submissions from all over – Nottingham, Canada, the USA, Belarus, and Iran. Once September arrived, I bit the bullet and got a student Adobe Suite subscription: a friend who works in Graphic Design sang its praises for magazine formatting. Who was I to turn down a professional’s recommendation? Over the course of the next month, the magazine began to take form. The staple yellow blobs adorned the pages, along with illustrations and artwork from skilled course mates. Before long the many, many elements merged to form a cohesive piece of visually stimulating art. Though I had aimed for the project to be finished before October, I would consider three weeks over the mark as pretty good for a first independent attempt.

I sent off for quotes on printing. The single most important thing at this time was for all the contributors to have a physical copy, be it to show their friends and family, or future employers. I ordered sixty copies. This may have been an ambitious move, but if I sold the extras at £5 apiece, it would make back the printing cost, and could be put forward to fund the next issue.  

I can vividly remember the bright yellow covers, shiny, grand-spanking new in that little cardboard box. I shot a message off to one of my editors, Elle Jacobson, who had indicated her interest in organising a launch event. With the new term now kicking in at NTU, I accepted her offer, and after a few weeks, we were at The Playwright on Shakespeare Street, shouts and cheers making their way through the door as the first game of the World Cup played out one room over.

The event went great! Nick, Andrew, Antonia, Nathan, Elle, Rebecca, Megan, and I read out our pieces to a buzzing audience of twenty-five. My bones shook as I gave little speeches at the start and end, knowing that without the people in that room, the project would not have been possible, let alone successful.

Creative Bastards Magazine – Issue 1: Monsters, is now available via our website. Check it out at https://www.creativebastardsmag.com/

Elmo Moorby is a third-year BA Creative Writing student at NTU.

Rebecca Eaton

Writing has been a passion of mine since I was around six years old. Now, at twenty, it’s still my main source of joy.

My writing has taken many forms over the years, both through choice and because of the multi-genre nature of my course; given the choice, I tend to bounce from poetry, to novels, to fanfiction and back. But the one thing I focus on in all my work, no matter what form it takes, is characterisation. To me, characters are the single most important aspect of writing.

In writing fanfiction (and for those of you who don’t know, fanfiction is where you write stories about characters and scenarios from already existing media, like Star Wars), characters are always my focus. I want them to be interesting, complex – for readers, and for me, to feel like they have further stories to explore.

In my own original work, every story I come up with focuses on the characters. The characters are the story. When I begin to work on an idea for a novel or short story, I usually begin with a loose, one-sentence scenario in mind: “A coven of all-female vampires”, for example. From there, I let my imagination run wild, giving me traits and names and personalities – never, at this stage, fully formed. But they pass through my mind and a character grows as a result.

What I’m saying is that, when writing, I plan. Planning is a key part of my process, and the reason why I’m able to have so many projects on the go at once. The way my mind works means I get new ideas almost every day, about different things, with different themes and different characters. Because of this, when I get my one-sentence idea, I put it in a notebook and leave it. And I come back to all my ideas when I have an idea for the character(s).

Those characters then drive my plots. I have an idea, then I make a character or two, and when I’ve drawn up a full profile, I start developing a plot. Take my idea from earlier (a real idea, one I’ve worked with): “A coven of all-female vampires”. From there, I created my two main characters, Ada and Rosaire. And once I’d given them names, families, looks, personalities, back stories, I began thinking of the plot of my story.

Do you see my process? I know everyone has a different one. But sometimes I feel we are prone to forgetting just how important characters are. They are what connects us to stories. If we get attached to them, when they cry we feel sad, when they fall in love we feel joy, and so on. A good plot is nothing without good characters. And I don’t mean good as in morally good, I mean good as in well-rounded, fleshed out, interesting, or fun. They can be morally reprehensible, but they must be interesting.

Back to my coven of female vampires. After settling on what they were like – did they burn in the sun? Did garlic affect them? And so on – I began to think about my main character. She would be kind, intelligent, rather awkward, I thought.

And from there, I began to craft a character profile, researching for the perfect name, making a family tree, giving her the perfect background. Making sure to include small details that may seem irrelevant but helped a clearer picture of her, of Ada, to emerge, until she became more like a real person, like a friend, rather than a fiction.

I can picture her clearly in my mind right now: pale brown skin, dark and wavy hair and grey eyes, a small, kind smile. She speaks with a hint of a French accent, and stands tall in a gown of deep blue. I can hold a conversation with her about her favourite books, know what she would think about, say, Liz Truss. She’s a person, wholly-formed, and so can carry the plot of a story, and make people feel connected to it.

Rebecca Eaton is a final-year BA Creative Writing student at NTU.