Ralph Allen Writes presents Rebecca Tucker

Unfortunately Ralph Allen Writes 2011 competition is now totally come to an end. Winners have been announced. Prizes have been given. Anthologies have gone on sale. I certainly have learnt a lot from it and I think the pupils involved have learnt a lot too. Being creative is not easy, you know. It takes a lot of work but all the pupils who entered the competition are now published writers, which is amazing!

There was one girl, however, that missed out on the opportunity to be published. I'm putting it down to some computer malfunction. So here for your pleasure is a story that's definitely worth a Creative Thinkers post. Rebecca Tucker's chilling tale, Trapped Forever:

“Beware of the ring! Do not put it on your finger or you will be trapped forever!” The fortune teller’s voice was cruel and emotionless. As Harry walked out of the tent his face was as white and blank as an icy lake. He felt quite taken aback! Didn’t fortune tellers normally say what you wanted to hear?

            Over time, Harry’s family moved house, into an extremely beautiful Tudor building. After the family had settled in, Harry discovered an archaic basement. Feeling curious, he decided to explore the dusty rooms. Harry found a small box and, feeling inquisitive, chose to look. Harry opened the lid of the tiny container and found a ring with a grinning skull. Feeling rather disappointed that it was just an old ring; he put it on his finger. After all it was pretty cool!

            Suddenly, Harry found himself falling through the clouds and realised that the ground was getting closer. Harry hit the floor with a thud. He looked round the room, flooded with light. It was as empty as an abandoned cave. Without warning the light in the room got blindingly bright and it filled with fire, closing in on Harry like a hungry tiger…

            Harry woke up. Thankfully it was just a dream! Rubbing his eyes he noticed someone standing at the end of his bed.

            “Happy birthday!” his mum exclaimed. “I brought you breakfast, it’s your favourite!” She held out an enormous pile of pancakes.

            “But my birthday’s a week away!” Harry answered.

            “Don’t be daft Harry!” his mum said, handing him the pile.

Harry stopped arguing and ate his breakfast. He had to admit, it was lovely!

            At school that day everyone was unusually nice to Harry: Mrs Turner had given him chocolates for winning a maths quiz, his mum had made him a special birthday lunch, Mr Wood had given him a cake with pink icing and a candle and his class had sung happy birthday to him!

           

Walking home, a sudden noise made Harry wake up from his daydream and, as he looked up, he realised that he had no idea where he was. The sky was filled with beautiful stars and Harry felt himself turning as he tried to see them all. The stars became a blur as Harry turned faster and in their place were terrifying ruby eyes.  As he watched, unable to move, Harry saw several monsters’ heads appearing out the darkness, then their bodies and, last of all, their hideous red tails. He heard a murmuring growl that grew into a furious roar of victory. Harry shut his eyes and covered his ears, hoping desperately that they would go!

            Without warning everything changed. The dreadful scarlet creatures were replaced by a flaming ring of fire, out of which emerged terrifying, headless zombies, dripping with blood.  Suddenly, Harry remembered something someone had said to him years ago. “I am trapped forever in my dream…” Harry realised as the Zombies closed around him, ready to kill.

To order a copy of the Ralph Allen Writes Anthology please email me. They are only £5 each with proceeds split between Ralph Allen School funds and Cancer Research.

Day 360: Bake off

Yesterday my sister, Becca came to Bath with two friends and the four of us decided to have a bake off. One team against another. Rules were simple; bake something we hadn't made before. Whoever's tasted best, won.

So we flicks through cookery books until we settled on ONE recipe each and popped down to Sainsburys. Once all the ingredients was bought, we were off. The baking began.

Grated carrot, roasted nuts, melted chocolate. You name it, we pretty much covered the kitchen with it before we were done.

But at the end, we had these to show for it...

A carrot cake made by me and Alice. Peanut fudge-centred muffins made by Becca and Grania.

Who won? Well, let me first explain that we didn't leave our cake in the oven for long enough, so it just kinda tasted of raw carrot really. Not quite what we were going for. Which means Becca and Grania won this bake off....

Day 353: Olympics 2012 Designer!

12 year old Hannah Clegg from Wiltshire has had her design chosen for the Olympic Park 'Landmark Garden' which will be created especially for the 2012 Games. 88 designs were submitted, but Hannah's beat them all and will be combined with the winning adult design submitted by Rachel Read.

What an exciting competition to win! Can you imagine walking around the Olympic garden knowing you designed it! Just think how many millions of people from all over the world will walk through it!

Because of Hannah's creative talents, the world will see her designs in action.

How could you get invovled in London 2012? Hosting the Olympics is an amazing opportunity that may never happen again in our life time, so we gotta jump on it and get involved, just like Hannah. Let's take inspiration from her amazing achievement and step up for 2012. See what you could do. The Olympics needs your creative talent!

Day 326: Royal Wedding Creative Competition Winner!

With true creative style, we are celebrating the wedding of the future King of England, Prince William and the beautiful Kate Middleton.

Rebecca Fowler is the winner of the Royal Wedding Creative Competition. She's made this cake for a street party she's attending. Fit for a king, I think!

Day 319: Royal Wedding Creative Competition!

As it gets closer and closer to the Royal Wedding the whole country seems to be getting in the patriotic spirit. Everyone's flying their Union Jack to show their support for Will and his wife-to-be, Kate.

This got me thinking about our flag and how it's used all over the place. You can get posters, t-shirts, mugs, cushions, I've even seen a sofa covered with it! Sometimes its in different colours or using textures. Sometimes there's flowers added or that worn leather look...It's been used over and over again, but the all the creative ways in which its changed astounds me. For a flag, it's a pretty elaborate anyway, so to use that as a base it a difficult one I reckon.

What would you do with it? How would you change it to make it unique? Have a think and a play, then send me your creative flag pictures and your name to emma.fowler@bathspa.org by 28th April 2011. I'll put the best one on my blog on the day of the Royal Wedding to celebrate. Have a go at getting creative and share it with the whole world at the wedding!

Day 316: David Gatward

So, I've written an article about David Gatward, the horror writer who is judging my competition at Ralph Allen Secondary School. It's on this website called blogcritics. Check it out if you want to know what being a published writer is really all about...

Day 310: BP Portrait Award 2011

Today this year's shortlist was announced for the BP Portrait Award held at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The finalists are:

Ian Cumberland
Wim Heldens
Sertan Salten
Louis Smith

They're all from different countries and all came to art in different ways. I think it's inspiring to see how wide creativity really is. It part of everyone in some way, even those people who claim to be without a creative bone in their body (whatever that means!)

Take a look at their entries.  My favourite is Heldens. I want to know what he's looking at. It's like a snapshot stuck in time. Why is he holding a pencil? Is he an architect? The intriguing title, Distracted makes my imagination fly; distracted from what, from who? What or who distracted him...? I'm pretty much ready to make a story inspired by it...

Which one do you think should win?

Day 260: Get invovled in your town's creativity

Being at a creative uni like mine is such an amazing place to be. As you may know I have teamed up with film students and graphics students in various projects this year, but that's such a small representation of what's going on.

On my way to Sainbury's today I saw a friend who is running a film competition. She gave me a poster to put up at work and I thought I'd email the film student I'm working with to tell her about it too.

Last night was knitting group, which was loads of fun. We had new people come too, so it was great to see them joining in the fun. Tonight I'm going to an open mike night with musicians, poets and comedians. This weekend sees the launch of the Bath Literature Festival too. So many students I know are invovled in some way, doing readings, volunteering and loads more.

Creativity is part of where I am and I feel really lucky to live here in Bath. It's just a case of being active and getting ivolved.

What's going on in your town? What about your school/college? Can you get invovled? If you can't find anything you fancy, why not start it up yourself? What's stopping you? Why not share your creativity with the people around you...

Day 241: Preparation alert!

Yesterday I had a meeting with two Graphics students, Fleur and Rhea who are designing the anthology for my writing competition and I found out there's LOADS of stuff I don't know about how you make an anthology! Do you know someone has to type up the copyright page and the contents page and the acknowledgement page...seems obvious, right, but I just didn't think about it.

Being creative is sometimes not that creative, you know what I mean? If you're an painter, you can't just paint all the time. You gotta make up your canvas' and blend the paints. If you're a book maker, you can't just make it. You gotta get all the measurements and materials ready...

BUT, at the same time, all of that stuff is exciting. It's kinda like running a race. If you don't do any training, you're be rubbish in the race. It's the same for my anthology. If I don't make sure all the text is the same throughout all the entries that are given in, the book is gonna look pretty shoddy, let's be honest.

So, all this prep stuff needs to be done and it's part of being creative. The exciting news is, Rhea (the cover designer) is going to make a super cool illustration for the prize winner. This project gets bigger and better and I can't wait to see how it all turns out. (But I will wait, of course. Prep and all that!)

How's your creative work going? Do you need to step it up, do that bit of prep that's in the way of starting? Believe me, in the end it'll be worth it.

Keep up the creative work folks!

Day 231: To be or not to be...is that the question??

Ok, crunch time. Today is the day I decide the theme for my competition...

And the winner is, Chaos and Curiosity!

BUT...Is that a cop out? Is it giving the competition entrees more choice or is it just me backing out of making a decision? As the organiser of this project, I want to do what's best for the pupils. I am, after all, doing it for them...

Isn't being creative tricky sometimes! Let's be honest, there are just too many decisions to think about at times, so what do we do?

I always talk to others and get their opinions, but at the end of the day, it's my creative work, so I have to make the decision.

In this scenario, I'm going to try turning it round. If I was going to enter a competition, would I prefer one word to two to choice from? The choice would probably open up more ideas, but then I'd get confused with which word I should choose to write about.

Am I therefore pushing the decision to someone else? Are the two themes a burden or a helpful motivation...?

To many questions! I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in all this creative confusion. Sometimes you need to know that, so here I am telling you.

Come back tomorrow and hopefully you'll find a more level headed creative thinker!

Day 218: Competition theme...?

Today, I NEED YOUR HELP!

I am running a writing competition at a school for 11-14 year olds and I need to chose a theme.

I've narrowed it down to three words so far, but I only want one. They are abstract nouns, so hopefully they can be interpreted in loads of different ways. The question is, which one would YOU like to write about the most?

Rumour

Curiosity

Reality

Please help me out here, guys. Just write the word you like the most by clicking on 'comment' below. Then we'll see which one wins! Oh, and feel free to do your own creative thing with these words...

Thanks for you're help.

Day 211: Pizza Express Winner!

This is a charming picture of my sister, eating the winning pizza from the Pizza Express Competition which I talked about on Day 66. People had the chance to submit their ideal pizza topping and now the winning topping is on the menu!

Did you enter? Have you tried the new pizza? Well, someone won, which just goes to show, you need to be in it to win it!

It's inspired me to get involved in a competition. Let's do it together. We need to get our creativity out there! So, find a competition and enter it (preferably creative, but anything really).

Goodnight and Good Luck!

Day 189: Elevator Pitch

What are you doing creatively at the moment? Maybe you're making an album or a series of paintings. Maybe you're writing a book or planning a massive creative festival!

If you were in an elevator/lift and someone asked you what you did (creatively) could you explain it to them in the few minutes you have with that person?

Or, perhaps more realistically, one of your relatives at Christmas asks you what you are doing with your life at the moment, could you confidently tell them about your creative work?

People like a confident, well thought out answer, don't they? Think about it today. How could you put what you do into a few sentences?

Here's my elevator pitch for my project:

I am running a creative writing competition for secondary school pupils, accompanied by workshops and one-to-one session to improve writing and creative thinking. All entries will be made into an anthology with proceeds split between the school and a charity chosen by the winner. An awards ceremony will follow with readings, prizes and anthologies on sale.

What does yours sound like...?

Day 186: A little help please...

Today I want to talk to you about a project I'm doing. I'm proper excited about it and all in all, it's coming on a real treat.

So, I'm going into a secondary school in Bath to run a creative writing competition. Anyone in years 7, 8 or 9 can enter and I'll run workshops and one-to-one sessions to help them out. All entries will be turned into an anthology sold at an awards ceremony with readings and prizes. Oh, and the anthology will be sold to raise money for the school and a charity chosen by the winner...

...but, I need a theme. That's where you guys come in. I want it to be an abstract noun like, risk, so it's not too concrete. That'll give people's imaginations plenty of room to floowwww.

Any ideas...?

I might use two contrasting themes, like love and hate (but not that 'cause it's been done a million times!) Then they can chose...interesting...

So, put your creative thinking caps on please and help me out! You know what to do, put a little old comment below!

Thank you and goodnight.

Day 163: Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2010

For the past four years this new award has been given to the funniest book of the year. There's two categories, aged 6 and under, and 7-14. As this is a blog for teenager, it makes sense to let you know who won the older categories this year...

Well, the announcements were made yesterday and the winner is...

Louise Rennison with Withering Tights.

Recognise the name? Rennison is the author behind Angus, Thongs and perfect snogging, which is now a hilarious film. But this latest teen fiction novel sets out to be a bigger success! It's about a boy-obsessed teenage girl who gets up to all sorts at her performing arts school. Michael Rosen (who invented the competition and is the top judge) had this to say about it:

'This is a witty, wry, inside view of what it feels like to be a gawky, witty girl who knows what's going on around her, is detached enough to comment on it all, but carried along in the flow all the same. There's a gag on every page with loads of funny situations and people.'

So there you have it. If you fancy a funny read, this book is the way forward.

One last thought, if you were to invent a competition, what would yours be...?

Day 112: David Gatward

Hey gang,

Today I went along to a school's event for year 7s. It was a talk by a new writer called David Gatward and let me tell you, it was hilarious! He stood up the front with the brightest climbing leggings you've ever seen, a purple velvet blazer, wellies and a red tie. Why? Well, to illustrate how he became a writer, of course!

He had this nugget to share with everyone; hold on to your dreams. If you want to be a best-selling author, a Pixar animator, a Royal Ballet dancer or even the biggest rock-star ever, hold onto that dream and keep going. David Gatward has been trying to become a published writer for 20 years whilst doing completely unrelated jobs like fish farming! BUT, he held onto his dream and now he's well on his way!

If you guys are into horror stories, you should definitely check him out. He's written 3 books now, The Dead, The Dark and The Damned (out next April). His covers are illustrated by Mel Grant who illustrated Iron Maiden covers! Cool huh! There are competitions on his website too.

So, be inspired by a man who has accomplished his dream job and keep going with yours...

Day 108: BBC Blast

I have found a REALLY exciting creative website for you guys to get involved in. It's part of the BBC and it's called Blast.

Blast is interested in YOU and your creative talents. Music, dance, film, animation, art, drama, fashion...everything creative! The website is FULL of info, downloads, competitions and loads more stuff you guys can get involved in. Check out this video which explains everything better than I can:



Add their website to your favourites now! The chances are something will pop up sooner or later which is just for you. Grab those opportunities whilst you can, you never know where it might lead...

Day 102: The Credit Crunch and BP Portrait Award 2010

It seems to me that the government is cutting more and more creative funding all over the place due to the credit crunch, so how are we supposed to get any inspiration around here? Can we be inspired when we don't have any money either?

Well, I am here to say YES! I spent the day yesterday visiting gallery after free gallery in London. It really is amazing how much free stuff there is to do in London. I mean, just walking around looking at buildings, people and soaking up the atmosphere is pretty inspiring.

First, I visited The National Gallery where I stared at old, old paintings of mythological scenes, aristocratic families and religious iconography. Its so cool how stories feed art and in turn, art feeds stories.

Whilst having my lunch on the steps in Trafalgar Square I watched a bazaar mechanical design piece called Outrace move around, flashing lights and making strange noises (I think it would have been a lot more impressive in the dark).

Then, it was onto The National Portrait Gallery, which had the BP Portrait Awards 2010 exhibiting. Intricate portraits by contemporary practising artists lined the walls with hundreds of people viewing them. Perhaps the funniest thing was the sight of  twenty school girls sitting on the floor in front of one painting , showing a girl with ipod earphones in. You literally had to hop over them to get past. There was also a little photography collection by Jason Bell, showing famous Brits living in New York.

On the way back to the train station (sort of) I quickly popped into The British Museum (which is massive and cannot be 'popped' into!). I only had time to look at the Egyptian collection (briefly), which was awe inspiring! I got told off by a 'guard' for touching this absolutely massive stone arm, once belonging to a Pharaoh's statue. In my defense, I had to touch it, people made that!

Check out this website which lists free comedy, art, theatre etc in London and see what you can do. There is SO much (despite the credit crunch) you can be inspired by, all for the price of a train ticket!

See what's in your local area too. There's bound to be a museum, gallery, local art/writing/dance group or something, somewhere near you.

Feel free to be inspired wherever you are!

Day 83: Calling all makers...

If you are into creating out of ceramics, textiles, wood, synthetics, metal or even recycled materials then I have found the exhibition for you.


Salisbury Arts Centre is calling all artists/makers over the age of 16 to submit their creations by Friday 1st October. Then ALL entries will be exhibited together in November and December. You are even in with a chance of winning £200!


So, what do you make? Don't think it's not good enough. Do you think Michelangelo thought he was good enough to paint the Sistine Chapel? You have to be in it to win it. Leona Lewis would not be doing what she loves if she hadn't started somewhere. Maybe this is your somewhere! Who knows where it will lead...? (Check out Day 69 to see how it worked for me.)

To find out more about it, check out the website and download the submission form.

Start small...think big!

Day 78: Any ideas...?

I've found another exciting competition that needs ideas from creative people like you!

Tetra Pak is a company that make cardboard packaging for things like orange juice. The great thing about them is they can be recycled so it's better for the planet. The difficult thing about them is getting people to chose them over other (cheaper) products!

So, they have teamed up with WWF (World Wide Fund for nature) to get you guys to send in ideas of how to get people buying environmentally friendly products. If they like your idea, they'll give you £1000 and spend £25,000 on making it happen! There are loads of other prizes to be woon too. Now that's an affective idea!

So it's time to put your creativity to the test. What ideas can you come up with? How can you change the way people chose things when they're walking down the aisle in Sainsburys? Why is your idea the best?

Check out the website to enter and vote on people's ideas.

My advise? See what ideas are there, gage the competition and blow them out of the water with your amazing idea! There's even a page to help inspire you with ideas.

What are you waiting for? Use your creativity to change the world!