I’m Alan, Mr Training. I’m a workshop junkie: put me in a room with a bunch of strangers and a communication challenge and I come alive. Sit me at a desk in an office and . . . I’d rather not.
I love working with (groups of) people. They bring an energy to language problems that you can’t get from tapping away at a computer. Because writing is often about performing, in a group you can really hone in on the gap between what you’re trying to say, and what an audience think you mean. It’s all theatre. It’s never ‘just words’. And there’s always more to do.
As a clumsy, ham-fisted, slightly off-quilter kind of a person, I’m very much invested in the the pratfall effect.