From "a" to "my" in an afternoon

Let me tell you about yesterday!

The 26 Treasures project has been part of the on-going celebration of the re-opening of the National Museum of Scotland, and yesterday was the day of The Alternate 26 writing workshop. The day we threw the 26 Treasures idea open to the public. The format was the same - each participant was randomly assigned an object to respond to, with a limit of 62 words to do it in. And the results were wonderful. I know, that's a pretty weak word, but I've sat here for ages trying to think up a way of describing pieces of writing as various as these were, as individual, as satisfying to hear, as fulfilling to be part of the process of (grammar aside) ... For now you'll just have to believe me, but sometime in the next week or so the pieces will be going up on the NMS website, and you can see for yourself.

One thing all the pieces had in common - besides wonderfullness - was the way each showed the writer grappling their object to them with hoops of steel (with the Bard's forgiveness). It was an exercise in moving from "This is an object" to "This is my object" - and I will never see the things written about in the same way again - or without connecting them to their writers. Many thanks to everyone who took part!

I've embedded the NMS video about the opening day last summer below, partly for your viewing pleasure, in case you hadn't seen it, partly because I wanted to show off that I know how to embed now, and partly because of the lad who said "I remember coming here when I was young ... that was 4 years ago ..."

The opening of the National Museum of Scotland from National Museums Scotland on Vimeo.