Writing Competition

Submit your entry online.

Aims:

Gather a truthful picture of how individuals within the university view their bodies.
Give students an opportunity to express their thoughts and opinions regarding body image.
Allow students to benefit from the cathartic process of writing their story.
Gather material for the public performance.

Why enter?

Acknowledge and articulate repressed stresses, emotions and experiences.
Express yourself freely without being judged.
Unburden your mind from overwhelming thoughts.
Let out what is difficult to say aloud.
Reflect on your life and values.
Give yourself time out from external stresses.
Communicate your opinions concerning body image.
Improve and develop your creative writing skills.
Practice communicating and expressing yourself through words.
Opportunity to have your material performed.
Help others develop their understanding of the issues surrounding body image/ eating disorders.

Entry Rules

Entry through online form only.
Include your university, name and email address on submission form. This will only be used by the production team for relevant communication.
On submission form state whether the entry is to be credited as ‘anonymous’, otherwise entrant agrees to have the entry credited with their name.
Body Gossip on Tour cannot accept responsibility for any error, deletion, theft or alteration of entries.
Entry should not have been professionally commissioned, published or staged.
Submission must be entrant’s own original material and not breach copyright laws.
Entry must not be an adaptation of any published work.
Entrants agree for their work to be edited, stored, performed and distributed publicly.
Submissions must not reference personal details such as names or treatment centres.
Submissions must be no longer than 1400 words.
Body Gossip on Tour cannot return submissions to entrants (so keep it safe on your own computer).
Entrants agree for their work to be shared with the Body Gossip on Tour production team.
Body Gossip on Tour cannot guarantee confidentiality for work submitted.
The Body Gossip on Tour production team are solely responsible for the selection of entries to be used in the performance.

Getting started: Ideas to help you start thinking:

If you are not receiving sufficient entries then you may want to hold a writing workshop with students/actors. Below are some activities you could use to inspire Body Gossip stories:

Look at newspaper / magazine / internet coverage of body image and write a piece in reaction to these. Comment on images as well as text.
Write a letter to your body.
Write something positive about every part of your body - people naturally focus on the negatives!
Compliment every person in the room about their appearance.
Run a publicity event in your cafeteria asking students to write down their own Body Gossip. These comments can then be combined to create a script.
Use case studies to reflect on social / personal issues.

Create a character (name, age and background) and consider

How do they feel about their body?
Why do they feel this way?
How do they treat their body?
What do they want their body to be like in the future?
How do they feel about the media’s coverage of body image?
What pressure do they feel in regards to body image?
What advice would they give to others about body image?

Examples

And I Will Be Winning

Dragging myself along, weighed down by imperfection. Too wobbly, too fat, too wrong. All wrong. All wrong with no explanation. Tears without reason. Unexplained sobs. Change what you can. Cut out the crap. Just healthy. Seek perfection. Take control. Lunch time smells of pizza and chips. Resist. Just black coffee, diet coke and cigarette.

And I will be slim, and I will be smiling, and I will be winning.

Not enough. Not yet. The scales say I’m smaller. Body still screaming. Crying out. Too big. Shouting in shame at its reflection. Sinking lower and lower into denial.

One apple, one cracker. 9 hours of dance. ‘It’s enough. I ate before. I’m not hungry. I’ll eat tons later.’ Keep going. Pain means its working. Surely. Enjoy the hunger, the growling sensation, the shakes, the dizziness. Drink it up, savour it. The clean clear feeling of control.

And I will be light, and I will be numb, and I will be winning.

Stark lights scream fear. Medical terms manipulate the air. Needles. Drips. Glucose and forticips. No control. Missing out. Missing life. Missing. Just a shell. No substance. No energy left for life. Losing.

Break it down, make it safe.

Observe. Calculate. How many calories? Round up not down. Be safe.

Add pepper. One sachet.

Breathe. 40 minute time limit.

Peas. 20 forks. Two peas on each. One on the end of each outer prong. One pea left. Odd numbers don’t work. Let it ‘slip’ off your plate.

Sip the squash.

Potatoes. Boiled. 4. One at a time. Split into half, half the halves, split those again. 8 pieces. Times 4. 32 bites. One piece at a time. Chew slowly. Count the bites, 18, 19, 20, swallow.

Sip the squash.

Vege sausages in onion gravy. Too many ingredients, don’t panic. Think logic, structure. Structure makes it safer.

Separate the onions, one piece at a time. Eat the smallest first. Work your way up.

Sausages. 2. Cut off the ends. Split tham in half. Slice all the way along. 5mm thick. Not too big, not too small. Eat the vegetables from each slice first. Then the rest.

Sip the squash.

Summer fruit crumble. With custard.

Custard first, get it out of the way. Clean it off the crumble. The tip of the spoon yellow. 32 yellow tipped spoons.

Fruits. Blackcurrants- 4. Raspberries 5. Odd numbers don’t work, break the last one in half. Make it 6. Apple. 2 pieces. Too big, cut them in half.

Crumble. 5 pence sized pieces. No more. Keep it slow. Notice. 18 mouthfuls. Keep control.

Sip the squash.

I will cry, I will shake, and I will panic. I will be terrified, hating every mouthful. I will keep going; forcing myself to continue though the tears because I refuse to let you win. I will be eating. I will be fighting. I will be winning.

Body Swap

GIRL 1      Look at her over there. She’s beautiful isn’t she.

GIRL 2      Hmm [sceptically]

GIRL 1      Oh she is. Look at her hair ... thick and silky. She could be a model on one of those TV adverts.

[She hums a tune from one of the adverts and swishes her hair around in slow motion sarcastically. They both laugh]

GIRL 2      Well, I guess so.

GIRL 1      Her legs are amazing too. Long and thin, a bit like that Heidi Klum. Just as boys like them. My legs are more Dawn French – short and stubby.

GIRL 2      [After a short pause] She’s very funny though.

GIRL 1      Who ?

GIRL 2      Dawn French. And she’s got a really pretty face.

GIRL 1      Yeh, but short and stubby legs. I bet that’s why Lenny Henry left her.

GIRL 2      [After another short pause] Do you recon that tan’s natural?

GIRL 1      I bet it is. An all-over tan no doubt. And her skin looks fantastic. She wouldn’t look so confident if she had acne like mine. My face looks like people have used it to stub out their cigarettes.

GIRL 2      Oh you do exaggerate.

GIRL 1      And look at the way her teeth sparkle.

GIRL 2      But she’s obviously had them whitened, teeth aren’t naturally that colour.

GIRL 1      Who cares? Mine are stained and wonky. I know which I’d rather have.

GIRL 2      She does have an impressively flat stomach – I wonder how hard she worked to get that?

GIRL 1      Don’t know, but I’ll never look like that. My stomach seems to have natural undulations that are probably inherited from my parents. Darn those parents!

GIRL 2      Her boobs look too big though.

GIRL 1      Too big? How can anyone’s boobs be too big? Unless you’re a bloke of course.

GIRL 2      But they’re not in proportion to the rest of her body.

GIRL 1      Better than my uneven mosquito bites. I’m definitely going to get a boob job when I’ve got enough money. It’s only a few thousand quid. Might even be able to get them on the NHS due to the psychological damage caused by being an AA cup.

GIRL 2      So ... would you want to swap your body for hers?

GIRL 1      Absolutely!

GIRL 2      What everything?

GIRL 1      Well wouldn’t you? She’s perfect!

GIRL 2      Not sure I’d want her nose – it’s got an incredible hump.

GIRL 1      That’s true – she can keep that!

GIRL 2      And what about those sticky-out ears.
[In a whisper] Or should I say, what about those stick-out ears.

GIRL 1      [Also in a whisper] I don’t think she can hear you.

GIRL 2      And if I was her height, I’d be taller than Jake.

GIRL 1      Good point. She does look freakishly tall. I wonder where she buys her clothes?

GIRL 2      And I bet there’s things you like about your body.

GIRL 1      Well ... I do like my eyes, they’re quite an unusual shade of green. And I really like the shape of my shoulders – they look rather good in a smart jacket. I don’t need to use shoulder pads, so I stuff those down my bra instead.

GIRL 2      And I don’t expect you have problems finding clothes that fit.

GIRL 1      It’s actually great having small feet because I can always find shoes in the sales.

GIRL 2      So what you actually want to do is to mix-and-match – take the best bits from you and the best bits from her. But everyone feels like that.

GIRL 1      I guess you’re right. My body does have some redeeming features.

GIRL 2      Well I like you just the way you are.

GIRL 1      Ahh – thank you. Anyway ... I bet she’s a bitchy old cow!