| Creative writing story The Kassel-Patchwork-Group on its way to Achill Island Gerlinde Kühn |
In October 2000 the fictive characters of Gerda Huebsch, Heiner Maier,
Lily, Tom, Jenny Herz and Georg Mueller/George Miller sat together in
Kassel-Volkshochschule and tried to work out the stages of the journey
to Achill Island. In order to connect with the other members of the project,
strewn all over Europe, the English language and the Internet were used.
The original situation of each project member in Kassel differed a lot, some group members succeeded in writing wonderful stories without knowing the English language, others expressed weard ideas in bad English in their stories; (others didn't manage to contact the others while working in a separate unit?). Finally, (Barbara Benedix) was the wonderful person who supported each group member to realize its own plot protagonist by bringing the stories together as a watcher/coordinator and connecting the different plots to a unit.
In the end only the nucleus of the group succeeded in writing a story being composed logically; other group member failed in understanding the system and others finally managed to integrate into the group.
Quite a few group members needed the support of others to reach a climax in their stories. In general, we made the distinction between so-called "hard stories", having a relation to real life, and so-called "soft stories" taking place in a dream. Most group members preferred "hard stories" and I asked myself why many hesitated to write a story taking place in a dream world (BOD and his paintings).
Another problem exited in the limitation of people who could actually go to Ireland. The EU-project (www.inter-research.de) only handed out the invitation to four members of the Kassel group. Therefore I asked myself whether the EU-Project was addressed basically to young Europeans who were fond of ("The European Idea"). I am convinced of the "European Idea" too! This project gives us the chance to learn and to get to know Ireland, the Irish way of life, and, last but not least, to get into contact with the other project members.