SYDNEY MORNING HERALD ARTICLE

Written by the Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Ali Gripper, after completing Unlocking Creativity.

Roland Fishman is a journalist-turned-author who also happens to have a Midas touch with teaching people how to get in touch with their imaginations.

Unlike many who think there's magic or romance in writing and that it's a gift bestowed by the gods on a special few, Fishman adheres to a far more pragmatic approach.

He believes writing is a craft that can be learned, with techniques and tools that can be applied, like chisels, to characters and scenes. He's convinced that all of us can write a novel or short story that people want to read.

The biggest barrier is learning how to silence our inner critic that tells us we have nothing original to say, and trusting the creativity of our unconscious minds instead.

"Creativity is strangled by caution. Everyone who's done the class has hit that magic point where they can produce something we can all relate to," says Fishman.

This comforting formula has seen his classes mushroom nicely.

Here's a snippet of how it works.

Fishman sits at the front of the class, fixes you with his surfer's stare, glances at his watch, and says: "Right. I want you to write about Bondi. You've got three minutes, starting now.

"Don't let your pen leave the page. Keep writing, even if its, 'Yuck, yuck, I'm stuck. stuck.' Don't stop, evening if a bomb goes off or someone knocks on the door. Just keep the pen moving across the page. Stop trying to write well, let yourself write junk."

And we begin, in frightened little steps at first, and more out astonishment than anything else.

We'd come expecting to analyse a scene from Tolstoy and to be sent home to scribble something in private for next week.

Instead we are being asked to write - right now, right here, whether our ideas are good or bad, whether we are in the mood or not.

We had the feeling of slipping into dream time, slinging words about on the page, jumping backwards over the chasm and meeting up with our childhood friend - fantasy - was wonderful.

"Wow. How did I write that?" I remember the woman sitting next to me asking herself.

A lot of it (certainly this reporter's) was junk, but it made all those years trying to be reasonable, analytical, critical, seem like a long trudge across the Sahara.

The second half of the course is about the craft of writing.

The best writing, Fishman says, is not about showing off but rather communicating something.

The most memorable characters are those that go on an emotional or spiritual journey, and learn to love, or to love themselves.

Think of Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking, who finally learns humility before he walks to the electric chair.

Think of the Terminator, the automaton who learns to love.

Think of Emma who, when admonished by Mr. Knightly declares: "Until this moment, I never really knew myself."
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