'09 Inspiration Constellation p3

The Ouseburn : Open Studios / OxJam / The Late Shows

These events down in Byker have been fantastic tours of bizarre industrial work spaces, basements and pubs full of art and craft and music. The Open Studio's are restricted to the Ouseburn - as it says on the tin, but The Late Shows include venues across both Newcastle and Gateshead. Really great to talk to all the artists while they attempt to persuade you to drink wine and eat pork pies. Anyway, highlights:

• Mushroom Works 20x20s - in which all of the participating artists create a number of 20cm square artworks for sale for £20. These seem to sell in minutes, so get there early!
• Cobalt's Ben Atkinson
• Barry Fox : Conceptual Piss Artist  
• The Discovery Museum put on a great set of shows, music, documentary and photography including the late Jimmy Forsyth.
  
• Squares and Diddly Squat at OxJam

Peter Dillon's Screen Writing course at the Tyneside Cinema

An extremely enlightening course by Peter Dillon at the Tyneside Cinema, relevant to any kind of storytelling, but specifically aimed at Cinema. This covered some things you kind of know but maybe forget to put into practice when writing. Some stuff that I should have really considered when writing Tales of the Hollow Earth, like that your characters are meant to want something and be active, not sort of just hang around watchin' stuff.

Very useful, and there's an advanced course early in the new year that I'll try to get on if it hasn't sold out already. This page should list it but hasn't been updated in a while. Good. I might still have a chance.