ВУЗ:
Составители:
Рубрика:
106
Text Three
You are going to read an article by a journalist who took a residential course for
writers. For questions 1 – 7, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits
best according the text.
On Monday, 14
th
November, it rained
all day ‘Is this a bad sign?’ I wondered as
I asked a local person for direction to the
venue for my course. As I was late, I was
glad his instructions were brief and clear,
but I thought he had a strange expression
on his face. “Danger of flooding. Check
your brakes,” read the next sign. The sign
after that read “Arvon Foundation”, where
my course was. It also said “Drive
carefully.” I edged toward my destination.
It was too late to turn back.
When I`d mentioned that I was going
on a writing course my friends` reactions
had varied from “Are you running it?” to
“You must be mad.” The latter was right, I
thought, as I walked into a 16
th
century
farmhouse just before dinner. I was shown
to a small room with three beds and a
basin. The only bathroom was through
another bathroom. For a journalist with
wide experience of 5-star hotels, this was
a shock.
I took my place at the dinner table and
looked at my companions for the next five
days; sixteen would be writers, aged 26 –
74. We had two teachers: Deborah, author
of ten novels, and Stephen, whose latest
work I had been unable to find in one of
the biggest bookshops in London. ‘Hi, I`m
Stephen,’ he said amiably, sitting down
next to me. Without thinking I confessed
to my failure in the bookshop, which
added to the strain of the occasion for us
both.
After dinner, our course in fiction
writing began. “What do you want to
get out of your course here?” Stephen
inquired, and we each explained our
plans. Mine had been a novel. When I`d
booked the course, I`d left lots of free
time to plot it out, identify the
characters and write at least one
chapter. But all this time was swallowed
by less demanding activities, like going
to parties. “Er, a shot story …” I heard
myself saying weakly, but at least it
sounded like something I could achieve.
It seemed less, so the next day I was
faced with the black screen on the word
processor I had brought with me. There
was nothing between me and my fiction
but writer`s block. But professional
journalists like me don`t get writer`s
block, do they? Wrong. Fortunately, no-
one else could get started either.
Towards the end of the morning, I
remembered that I had an ancient piece
of fiction in my machine. This was a
desperate idea but I had to have some-
thing to show the teacher before the
afternoon`s individual tutorials. Perhaps
it could be turned into a short story. It
didn`t take more than a quick glance at
it to convince me that it could.
Then it was tutorial time. We were
due for our 20-minute individual
session and nerves were frayed by the
threat of cruel assessment. We had
heard of idle tutors who refused to read
the students` work at all and of frank
ones who dared to tell the truth about
Страницы
- « первая
- ‹ предыдущая
- …
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- …
- следующая ›
- последняя »
