World Mountain Bike Conference 12-15 May 2009
The Original Bicycle Festival 9-24 May 2009
Write a monologue for a 19th century blacksmith who lived in southwest Scotland and invented the first pedal bicycle. The audience? International mountain bikers, tourism bosses, schools, local and tourist families of all ages, possibly in a forest. And a castle. And a 300-seater auditorium...
Creative constraints are brilliant fun. They force you to pare down to the essentials, and really think through the shape of what you're writing. With a blank page and every word to choose from (after all, you're only putting them in the right order, right?), it's easy to get bogged down and muddied.
Standing back and seeing the overall shape is the hardest thing to do as a writer, I think. We generally write in closeup, slowly, feeling our way through. But an audience receives the writing - read or performed - much more quickly. That's the speed we need to tune into for decent editing, which I reckon has little to do with typos, and everything to do with shape.
Luckily, Kirkpatrick Macmillan's story already has a great shape: rural inventor defies ridicule to make a world-changing invention - and then looks on as everyone else makes a fortune from it. Small consolation, but at least he's getting some recognition now!
Photo: Kirkpatrick Macmillan, Mark Beaumont and velocipede at Drumlanrig Castle. Original Bicycle Festival.
