INTRODUCTION; GETTING STARTED: POETRY AND PROSE; Redrafting - Some essentials; Response partners; The Teacher's input; Cliches; Use of adjectives; warming up - Some useful techniques; Make your confession; Total mega embarrassment; Feeling frightened; Crossing the river; Poems for two voices; Dreams; Strange hobbies; A special place; Your worst journey; Pirates; Teacher for sale; Freestyle writing - Imagine a person; GETTING MOVING: MAINLY POEMS; People and situations - Characters from the past; Phantom figures - On ghosts and spirits; Take an idea and s-t-r-e-t-c-h it - Similes and super creatures; Making the familiar scary - Writing a performance piece; I've forgotten something - Revealing a cache of memories; Place names - What's in a name?; Positives from negatives - Making a silk purse; About Noah's Ark - Don't miss the boat; Creature encounters - Springboard for a story; Amazing facts about animals - Outlandish but true; Pick and mix - Learning by example; From the Celtic - Of the big and powerful; The power of simplicity - Locust tree in flower; The power of metaphor - What would I be?; A sense of loss - Focus and feelings; Shorts - Good and bad; That's nonsense; The Sound of Music; Beginning, middle and end; Serious issues - Share a date; GETTING AHEAD: MAINLY PROSE; Creating a character - Am I realistic?; Creating a setting - The hills are alive; Plot - Cinderella plus; Dialogue - Trapped in a lift; Descriptive writing - You need hands; A room with a view; Who sleeps in a room like this?; Conflict - Is there trouble brewing?; Point of view - From short journeys; Suspense - Fantastical phobias; More about cliches - As red as a colour; The magic garden; All cut up about cliches, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Presenting, performing and publishing; ENDWORD; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX OF POETRY AND PROSE; SCHOOL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS