Writing the last bit of the dissertation

I've been kidding myself. I'm scared shitless of finishing the rationale for my dissertation. Three thousand words of carefully researched prose on why I wrote the book, and how. Then I hand it in...and am judged and found wanting. I will get a D in red ink. It's giving me nightmares. (I think the book being back with the agent is doing the same - I'm worried that will come back with a D too). When I was doing edits, I slept like a log. In fact, I slept in every morning I could. Now I'm back to waking in a panic at 6am after several nightmares.

I'm looking at why I did what I did, and it is a useful process, I have to (reluctantly) admit. I am interested in the collision of belief and science in the sixteenth century, so have inflicted it upon my readers. I'm fascinated by how outsiders find their way in society, since I feel like one. I don't really have any filters, I tend to say what I'm thinking as I think it. This gets me into a lot of trouble. I am also intrigued by death, having observed people dying a number of times (in a work-in-a-hospice way, not a serial-killer way).

Reflecting on how the book has evolved has also been interesting, for a YA book to a supernatural thriller to a book club book. It's also grown like Topsy, now bulging at 99k words. But actually writing this all down is agony, and I'm only 750 words in. Perhaps I should just redirect my tutor to my blog posts?

Boasting Over - Back to Work

Actually, that's the transition I have to make, to work. Writing used to be a major part of my job. You may have come across my leaflets: What to do when Someone Dies? and my favourite, Living with an Indwelling Catheter. Alternatively, I wrote handouts - seemingly thousands of them. I realised a few years ago I was turning out 150-200k words a year just for work, then about the same in my hobby writing. Last year I wrote almost half a million words, some of them here. That's a whole book, half a new one, a children's book, twenty odd poems and a blog. The hour a day spent tapping on the computer has progressed through the MA to 5+ hours a day writing, editing, or sketching out scenes or poetry. Add a couple of hours research and reading, and I've got a work day. The problem is, because I've been thinking of it as 'hobby writing' I haven't taken proper time off, which is why I keep getting repetitive strain injuries.

I need to think of it as a job, like I did during the MA. I had strict deadlines (assignments), strict word counts, and five days a week completely alone, from 8.30am to 6pm. This novel/agent thing has suggested to me that I need someone to give me deadlines and set me challenges, and that will help me get something of a work mindset.

The Mslexia competitions for poetry collections and children's novel are very inviting, especially as I have so much ready from the MA. Looks good!

I have been the cause of poetry in others

While I am presently inspired to write poetry, and make my family sit down and read/listen to successive drafts, I hadn't noticed my eldest son, quietly scribbling himself. I come home from class each week, waffling about what I've learned and Kez soaks it up like a sponge. He started showing me his poems, and I've been astonished. They are good. They are really good. No wonder he's my first choice of editor when I want to present fiction for workshopping. I took most of his comments on my fantastic fiction piece to heart, but disagreed with two of them. My tutor picked both up as problematic. Now I'm more consciously sharing some of the ideas I'm still absorbing, and he's listening to my ideas on editing. 

The MA has been a terrifically steep learning curve for me, I haven't got an education in literature to fall back on, and I come away from each class with my head buzzing. I have found the cost - being away from a husband and the rest of my children - has been high but the benefits have been spectacular. Not just for my writing, but for the two boys I have down in Winchester. I will miss the ideas that float around the class, sometimes too many to grab and scribble in my notebook. Consequently, I'm trying to get everything in, the reading, the classes, talks. I'm also hoping to go to the Winchester Poetry Weekend (11-13 March) to see Neil Astley and Francesca Beard on their sessions. I think I might drag Kez along.   

Inspired by Philip Gross

Last night we met Philip Gross, the poet/novelist. He read from his books, all of which were wonderful poems in their own right, but I mostly enjoyed his comments on how he came to write them, what context they came out of. Having been moved to tears by his sequence 'The Wasting Game' (I really recommend the book they are reprinted in, Change of Address) I was then amazed by his poems from a collaboration with a photographer called I Spy Pinhole Eye.

Philip's poems started out more solid, with less white space on the page, less indentations and much longer stanzas. Now, his poems are more spaced out, more considered, and he uses punctuation like musical notation for the spacing in time of the words. His book The Water Table won the T.S.Eliot prize for 2009, an honour he described as a year long distraction from actually writing.

One of the provocative questions he posed was taken up by a fellow student on our course blog, Writers Ink. What, at the core of us, makes us write? That was the question that seemed to keep a fellow student and I standing in the gloom on a street corner discussing big questions like: 'why write' and 'why do an MA?' That's a hard one. I'm not desperate to have a book published, I primarily wanted to do an MA because I love teaching and would love to move into teaching creative writing - not especially for people with masses of talent but people who want to explore 'self' through writing. I suppose I'm still thinking in terms of mental health and therapy. What I do know is, I would still write even if I had no interest in publication, but I do want to get published, I just don't have a burning need to do so. Philip Gross struck me as a man who writes what he wants, what he loves, and ignores the savvy, business side of writing. He's found a lifestyle that suits him, is paid to write and talk about writing, and has an expressive outlet. That sounds perfect.

A363 also had an assignment, an outline of the EMA we have to write for May (which is going to be a very busy month). I sent in my ideas for the first chapters of a book, and one question my tutor asked was - what is the big idea at the heart of the book? What question are you trying to answer? That flummoxed me (fabulous word, flummoxed) as I really couldn't tell you. Having thought about it overnight, I've decided it's a book about second chances. Now I have to concentrate on poetry and get that out of the way before I can go back to novelling, as the two parts of my brain don't work well together.

Starting the Publishing Project.

A quiet start to the MA proper, just 6 of us sat around looking at the publishing project module. In addition to the actual assignment, there is a class anthology to create, with work submitted from everyone to be edited and squeezed into the booklet. It's not that difficult, but I think editing an anthology will be a lot of work just at the time when we need to be working on assignments. Which means some people will have to be editors etc. of other students work. The other option is to look after the course blog instead. I'm happy to have a go at that, it's in blogger which makes it even easier. Then all I have to do is submit something for the anthology, which is, after all, a showcase of our work. Seems straightforward, but because the group is in two parts, I have to wait around to see what the other half decides, and they might all want to take on the blog... They can't make me edit the anthology. Can they?

Meanwhile I have to do something creative (OK) and then write a rationale about it (Ah). I'm assuming this is a bit like the commentaries I've been writing, and I've got a fair amount of helpful suggestions from the BA poetry module handbook. But words like 'write a critical essay on your creative blahdy blah' trickle into my head like lumpy soup and just sit there, indigestible.

If I'm going to write an essay I need a big question and a load of research papers and books. 'Can traumatic labour produce PTSD?' (The actual question was a lot longer) was a pushover for my MSc. 4000 words summarising the relationship between the triggering trauma and the effect it had later, coming up. References, sure, pages of them. Case studies? Check. Clinical experience? Loads of it. Easy peasy. I even got a distinction and it only took a weekend in the hospital library and two days to write. (I'm showing off at this point). But 1500 words of Rationale (see, it mysteriously has a capital letter) is terrifying. I would hate to write something really creative and then fail on this thing I can't even identify!

People assume I will be doing fiction but I really want to do poetry. The thing is, I probably won't ever get another chance to take a poetry course and while I am learning loads in fiction, that's much easier to keep pushing forwards. Oodles of books, I even live near an Arvon centre. I'll be putting in a big chunk of the book for the dissertation and so I want to capitalise on all the help the course has given me on my poetry. The poetry module is pushing towards publication, so it will be good research for the publishing project too. I'll learn all about selling a book in class and about selling poetry in the other class. I think it's an opportunity I don't want to miss. I'm rambling, that's how insecure I am at the moment. Everything seems a bit like it's slipped its moorings and the tide's going out... 

    

Back to School

Next week, the new semester starts so I have sharpened my pencils, bought a new notebook and am ready to start. Being overly anxious I have also read 80% of the reading lists including the poetry and am having sleepless nights about maths tests I haven't studied for and not being able to find the right rooms. This is all about meeting new people, really. I'm starting to think asking to sit in with a poetry class for no earthly reason is a bit daft but how else am I going to get ahead in poetry? And it fits with A363. Oh, seem to have answered my own question.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll start poetry, Tuesday afternoon is full-timers publishing project and Wednesday is fantastic fiction. Incidentally, I have just read Cliff McNish's Breathe, a ghost story for children with tougher skins than me, apparently. It scared me half to death. Excellent read if you keep the light on anyway. My mind seems to either write poetry or fiction, and it needs a week or so to change gear, which is a bit of a challenge. I seem to be less flexible now I'm older, in all departments.

Meantime, the time away has given me time to think about what we want to do after the course ends. Of course, I will have a dissertation to write and an EMA to hand in for A363 but then we need to settle down to another strange year. No. 1 son's final year at college but first serious look at university, older daughter's year away travelling, no. 3 son's first year at the local college, middle son's middle year at university (yes, kid, now the work begins!), youngest will hit her teens next year... the house we bought for us and a batch of tiny spongers is now bursting at the seams with all these young adults and their partners and friends. So going home means long talks, looking on Rightmove for new houses, falling in love with our present house...it's all very confusing. Kids leaving home is difficult, but them not leaving home appears to have its problems as well. I'm looking forward to the distraction of studying again, as soon as I can get back into it.

Language again

Last night we enjoyed looking at language, its origins, the way that written literature is structured by looking at the classics. We ended up on a big discussion of metaphor.

Personally I think metaphors evoke sense memories. I could describe someone in adjectives (he was unemotional, distant) or in terms of his actions (he spoke in monosyllables, sticking to the facts) but 'cold fish' (even though hackneyed) says it all. 'He was an emotional mackerel' says it too!

This class always leads me back to poetry. I fell in love with Billy Collins' Aristotle and that flavoured the whole discussion for me. I loved the poems of Sappho, the metaphors there lead to sense memories of trembling and matching it to passion, delicate fragments of very persoanl poetry. But the Iliad got me the most, Chistopher Logue's poetic arrangement is lovely, a real epic poem.

We then had to make up creation myths - this one for music. Apologies for this first draft!

At the beginning, the world was silent. Rivers flowed like glass, like ice. The wind tiptoed between the trees and the animals creeped. They saw the perfect, silent world and feared shattering it. They lived in the silence, as if it was dark, as if they were still.

Animals bred in silence with other animals. Mice mated with fish to produce toads, worms mated with lizards to produce snakes. Finally, a squirrel and a grasshopper produced a baby, all hands and feet and tail, which climbed and swung and jumped all day. It was the first monkey.

'Mother,' smiled the monkey, 'where are you?' But the mother was hiding discreetly in the canopy, and did not see her.
'Father,' waved the monkey, 'where are you?' But the father was hiding discreetly in the grass, and did not feel her.
The baby couldn't wait any longer. She opened her mouth and filled her lungs with sweet air. She screeched, a noise so loud it shattered the silence into tiny pieces, to blow away like dust.

All the other animals called back with squeaks, chirps, clicks or howls; the rivers started to tumble in their new sounds; the leaves played with the wind and the music of the world was born. The fish liked their bubbly, splashy music and made only more fish. The birds liked their singing or shrieking or hooting and made only more birds. Of all the animals, the monkeys and his children and grandchildren made the most music, and prospered in the new world.

Fiction module

Ouch. That was much harder work for me. I like the tutor enormously, but the cosy little group from Mondays has been added to by the second year part-timers from last year, who are an established group and a bit territorial. Lots of group dynamic stuff going on, shuffling roles. We had to do a writing exercise from a prompt which was very tricky anyway. I don't work that way, I usually do a free write, come up with a conflict of a point of tension and work from that. Being started with a first person perspective and a song was tricky. I did manage to read without stammering so that, at least, was good. Next week we are all taking in work to share and then we are on a schedule to bring more developed work to have workshopped. I volunteered to go early in the schedule, partly to get it over with and partly because I work better with feedback for structure, pace and voice rather than language. I don't need so much dissection of the actual language. Apart from my lacklustre piece, there was a genuinely creepy piece which I enjoyed immensely and a rather funny, snappy piece from another. Anyway, the exercise broke the ice.

These workshops are for two pieces of work over the semester, and reasonable big (2-4k). They can be any fiction from beginning of a novel to short story. The tutor suggested we would need 4000 words to write a short story but I love really short short stories so that might be a problem. If you hand in something really small, I wonder if it would get put under the microscope. I've got time to work something out.

A363 came on line today. Having done most of the work, it seems friendly and easy, though the standard of writing it has pulled out of me is better. It's so structured. I found the drama fascinating but difficult. I'm still wrestling with film. That strict structure is a bit of a  straitjacket too, but this way I have the freedom to use anything that wanders off into a bigger, better piece of work for the EMA (end of module assignment) or the MA. I shall put A363 comments and reflections on my other blog, except where they are general writing observations. I've received a lot of encouragement to do this year, for which I am really grateful. It's a lovely thing to be able to do, and for that I have to thank my family who have given up the most. (Suddenly I'm at the Oscars, dazzled by the lights. I shall try not to cry.) Anyway, now I have completely befuddled myself as to what I have to do when so I'm about to go out and get a proper diary to keep everything in order. The rest of my whole life is in my Mslexia diary. 

Started the MA!

Yesterday, I went along to my first class, called theories of creativity and writing. This module, which was the one I was mostly concerned about, turned out to be completely bearable! We are going to be exposed to various theories, and our assignment asks us to draw on that theory in a creative way. So we could have two characters discussing a theory, or parody a style, or do anything that draws on what we have looked at. The theory doesn't have to be something discussed in the course, it could be beyond it, so maybe a psychological theory will inspire a bit of creative writing. We are starting with the classics: Aristotle 'The Art of Poetry', a bit of the Iliad and Sappho's love poems (which I love). I love anything Troy and have read the Iliad and the Odyssey several times, and the Aristotle gets quoted everywhere. Lovely stuff.

The other module the tutor teaches is online, the Writer's Toolkit (which I think is a funny name). It's a series of weekly tasks we work creatively on. This week we have to pick a favourite author and research their theories about writing, looking for ideas on aesthetics and practice. Basically, what can we say about their aesthetic ideas from their writing? And how can I use that in my writing? Manageable stuff. Again, each week we are supposed to come up with a creative piece and at the end of the semester, submit 4000 words of the best/most interesting ones. The two modules complement each other, and he's going to teach them alongside each other so we can use them to inform each other.

The group was very quiet but hopefully will warm up over time. We did some writing exercises but didn't read anything (thankfully, I was so nervous!). Some of the time was taken up with people stressing about the assignment. The tutor is cool with it though - no rationale (unless we want to write one), no fussy formatting and presentation, just make sure it's neat and tidy and got your name on it! Fiction tonight. Plus I have week 6 off, so can go home for an extended break, which will be lovely because I feel disconnected with my other life, the one I'm going back to at some point. I ned to immerse myself in autumn and make jam and the solstice cake. I feel like the Devon house isn't mine any nore, I need to reclaim it.

I woke up full of a new start for the 'other novel', the grown up story I'm working on alongside the YA story. I wrote it down immediately and I think it does the job, introduces a lot of background without loads of scene setting. Here's a (very first draft) sample:

We went back to Chancel Hall in our funeral blacks, our shiny shoes. The police were waiting there. Tim stepped forward and put an arm around me. We hugged briefly, but I was conscious of his hand held in Samantha’s; her shiny new ring entitling her to share in even the private moments between us. Then the faces circling us, some tearful, some blank, a few accusing. As a policeman took my arm gently, murmuring something about time, my eyes found Rory. He was sitting under a table, already filling himself with the cakes my sisters had brought with them. And finally, Marley, eyes on my every move. Her eyes filled the world, so like Sorcha’s yet so alive, so intelligent. She lifted her chin, we had rehearsed this. But as people stared, it was me who broke down, sobbing in the arms of two police officers, at the thought that not only would I never see Sorcha again, but maybe Marley and Rory were lost to me as well.  

Starting the MA

I stood in line for two hours to enrol on the MA, after which we met the faculty. Everyone seemed very friendly, and it didn't feel like going on the MSc, which was barely a step up from a BSc, we were still students being thrown information and theories, just expected to write way better assignments. This was what I was looking for, a chance to work on my creativity and improve my skills, but one thing the programme leader said was 'don't stop writing.' Since I've been fairly blocked for the last six weeks from doing anything new, I was surprised to almost feel as if I was being unlocked, and I have written 1000 word synopsis of 'Borrowed Time'. (Look at me, writing a plan!). Can't wait to get back into it.
My partner is coming down to Winchester tomorrow, so I can't wait to see him, and tell him and show him everything (look, shiny ID card! Course handbook!) and hopefully I will get some work down as well to show him. My daughter is coming down on Friday for a night, so we will be able to celebrate my son's 17th birthday (mostly) together. Then they go back on Sunday and the course begins on Monday. I can't wait to get stuck in, to be honest, even if I have to read and understand Mrs. Dalloway, which I am strangely resistant to.... I'm rather enjoying the student life.

Starting to understand commentaries

OK, I haven't been blogging much but starting life in a  new town, looking after a couple of very apprehensive sons and missing my partner have reduced my motivation somewhat. However, I have been diligently working my way through a textbook by Amanda Boulter, and am now ready to apply myself to A363. In chapter 12, she talks about the commentaries we are supposed to write about the process of creating our fiction / poetry or whatever. This is the main area I fell down in in A215.

Anyway, applying my knowledge to 'Drowning', one of my short stories, I can deduce the questions I should, have been asking were:

• Did a real life event or reading prompt this story? What was the initial spark?
• Discuss the political / social issues around disability in children.
• Analyse other fiction on the subject of euthanasia / childhood disability. What research did I do?
• Discuss theories of narrative. How did they help me focus the story?
• Reflect on any other theories (e.g. philosophical) that inspired the story.
• Consider the planning and structure of the story, and the creative decisions I made e.g. POV character, tense, time.
• Explain the motivations of the characters.
• How did I anticipate the reader would experience / interpret the story?
• What feedback did I receive and how did I use it?
• What didn't work (also what did) and why?
• What have I learned through writing and rewriting this story?

Having been on my university's mature student's course, I can now identify the library and the main buildings. All I have to do now is enrol on Tuesday and head off to my faculty's welcome meeting. I feel a tiny bit better prepared.

Working on material for the ECA for A363 and MA

I know no-one ever takes advice but if I had one piece for students it would be, think ahead, don't just react to the course as it goes along. Treat assignments as if they were commissions. Find out as soon as you can what's involved and start thinking, planning, researching. So when the assignment comes around and you go blank, at least you made some notes when your brain was halfway normal. A363 has an ECA, so does the MA in the form of the dissertation. I know I will have the option of writing a substantial piece of fiction or a critical essay for the MA, I know I will take the fiction option. I know in advance I will take the beginning of a novel option for A363 too. So, even this far back in the process I am looking at what I can start writing for these important assignments. Unlike A215, when building my confidence was important, A363 just needs a good pass for my sanity, I can live without the 90+ marks I was going for before. I just want to do well on the MA, I don't need a distinction. I mostly want to create a good advanced draft of a novel.I've decided to look in detail at the YA novel I started, work on that.

I'm feeling strangely homeless as we wait to hear if we've passed our checks, if we can go to Winchester and rent a house there. The process has been so difficult. I'm wondering what it will be like to set up a separate home, to walk into a university full of people the same age as my children, and face a cliff face of learning how to write, how to read differently. I've asked my daughter to stay a couple of extra days, to help me pack the right things to make the house good for the boys, for me.

Meanwhile, the writing has stalled, in the practical difficulties. So, today, I get back on with writing new stuff. I've set myself the task of writing some new words, even a first draft of a short story or poem, that's actually new rather than redrafted old stuff. My magpie rescue is declining gently, and I have to make the decision to put him down, soon. All part of moving to Winchester, I suppose. I am going back to basics, and writing a freewrite about the bird.

New laptop and life writing

I am a writer (that still makes me feel weird, typing those words!) and I have created a proper 'study' (come animal rescue centre come laundry room) and now, I own a real laptop. With daughters 1 and 2, we bought laptops when they went to university. This year, we bought son no. 2 one, because he is off to the University of Gloucestershire. Now it's my turn, birthday coming up, university place sorted, and so we stretched our paper-thin finances another four hundred pounds and bought a laptop. I remember the first short stories I submitted were on our old typewriter (I really mean old, it was antiquated even in 1978). Typing was physically hard work, and because I am not a touch typist, it was full of mistakes. All had to be tippexed out and retyped, and on the worst pages, lots of neatish biro additions and corrections applied. I kept carbon copies, a messy business of lining up a sheet of carbon paper between two sheets of A4 in the typewriter and then trying to hit the keys evenly (too hard and they went through the paper, too lightlyy and they didn't register on either copy). My daughter was born and ill a lot of the time, so I mostly wrote newsletter articles. I didn't get an electronic word processor until 1991 - it had floppy discs to save work on - fantastic. I picked up an old PC (pre-windows 3.1) in the early nineties and then, finally, to study my psychology degree, a 'real' PC in 1994. Now I have a laptop. Mind you, I'm used to XP and was a bit intimidated by Windows 7. Still, I mastered all the others so this should be a doddle!

My creative writing has slowed down a lot. It worries me, though some part of me needs a break. And the autumn is going to bring a lot more challenges and a huge workload, so I feel the need to get on and at least break the back of the A363 assignments. I have completed a first draft of TMA 1 and 2 and need to look at the next piece of work I could be doing. Part of me wants to have a play with the poetry option for TMA05, but I know from experience it just takes so long to 'knock out' one poem, let alone 80-100 lines of something. Also, that TMA is heavily weighted, so I really ought to stick to something manageable and that I know I do well. On the other hand, I'm only doing it for the diploma so just need a pass. If only I wasn't so competitive with myself...

One source of inspiration is the process I'm putting myself through. I looked at my partner the other day when he was doing one of the mundane things that a parent has to do, and thought how much I will miss him. He hadn't noticed I was watching (or even that I was there) and I had time to think about the strands that hold us together. We share so many threads - obviously the children and pets and the house. Woven into that are all his family and my family, his friends, our friends, my friends. But beyond that is the big strand of emotion that we have for each other. Most of the time, it's submerged into everyday life of sock baskets, peeling potatoes, shopping, parenting, work, moaning about the kids, moaning to the kids, paying bills. But when we go out for a meal we have time to look at each other and wow. There he is. The person I fell in love with. As I happily stretch some of those strands very thin - I need a break from being a full time mum, housekeeper, cook, animal nurse -  that 'love' strand is going to be stretched too. Lots of people have struggled to understand why we are doing this, and even suspected that we are literally breaking up. I wonder how that will feel emotionally. Fortunately we are both fairly resourceful emotionally - you have to be to have survived a lot of losses. And I'm only four hours by car away, I'm not heading to Italy or the US. But holding onto that experience might be stressful so I thought I could write a personal journal about it that can be a source for other writing. I have just read Blackwater Rising by Attica Locke. Apart from being a cracking good story she added a rational for the book in the last pages. The experiences she has included reflect her parent's lives as well as her own. At the same time, I just saw a brilliant TV programme on BBC4 called To Kill a Mockingbird at 50. It was by Andrew Smith and evoked memories of how I felt when I first encountered Nelle Harper Lee's story. So much of the character of Atticus Finch came from her own experience. So perhaps writing more of our own experiences is the raw material for fiction, even if it seems self-indulgent to me at the time.

Anyway, to meander slowly to a point, the life writing option of TMA 5 and maybe the ECA, is available, might be fulfilled by writing from diary material from this adventure back into education at a late age. Other people think it's extraordinary, maybe I can see if I can find an interesting way to write it.

PS If you haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird, read it now. Go out, pick up a copy, read it straight away. Then watch the 1961 film with Gregory Peck. Think of it as part of your emotional, social and spiritual education. Then spend the rest of your life working towards writing a book that is that poweful, that evocative and that popular. You may not get there (few have), but aim high.

A363 Chapter 2

I have taken exercise 2.2 from the new course and written a short story. It's about a woman cleaning a floor in an empty flat. Predictably, she's musing on the identity of the deceased, elderly owner when she discovers a tiny clue that might explain her unnatural demise. Immediately I wrote it, I applied chapter two and realised that her speculations could become more dramatic if the person she realises may have committed a crime actually walks in, if only to check whether the flat will be ready for the estate agents to begin viewings (he's very keen to get his inheritance). So I can move the story up a gear and this is the big, plot edit that I will get on with today. Then I can work on the language another time.

For activity 2.2 I also played around with the Uncle Fred blog entries and a theme immediately presented itself from the week I picked randomly - Fred waters his mother's grave, itself a very retrospective look, and there's the added dimension of the seventy year gap between the diary entries and the blog. And if course, Dunkirk rumbling in the background.

He waters Mother's grave
Plants geraniums and petunias
While Dunkirk guns echo through
The night-time air

He walks along the railway path
Rain softening his day
Buys Dinkey's food while desperate men
Crush into the grey sea

He washes the sashes round the back
As they rattle with the echoes
Of the Dunkirk guns,
An walk over dusky Cannon Hill

Warm sun on the new blue suit
The first rose blooms, startling
In cerise, scarlet, ochre and yellow
An explosion of colour.

OK this is just the raw material, but I'm amazed at the juxtaposition of the Dunkirk drama unfolding (which he, of course, wasn't as aware at the time as we are now) and the normal life that had to go on just the same. All from four diary entries! Go A363...

We've got a date for the boys college interviews - my attendance at Winchester is somewhat dependant on at least one of the boys getting in - otherwise I would have to go into halls or share a house (gulp) with someone else's teenagers. And we have to find a house - if not then, at least in July. It helps that the long list of requirements we had for this adventure are being ticked off - I have a car (tick), Carey has passed his driving test so can co-pilot (tick) I'm in at Winchester (tick). Now I just have the other hurdles of getting funding for the boys, them on courses, packing, renting, moving and saying goodbye to the bear for weeks at a time. I love my bear, I miss him if he goes away for one night. This is going to be tricky for both of us.

I'm in, I'm in! (to the MA at Winchester)

Huge relief all around, so much that I promptly got a migraine. I'm very pleased to have a place, especially as I don't have a literature degree (or even a BA) only a silly old science degree. I suspect some of the English stuff will be a steep learning curve, but I have bought a couple of books (one written by a tutor on the course) so I can do some valuable reading over the summer. I've more or less finished my ECA but am still looking through the commentary which is where I will lose the most marks, I suspect.

So now I can relax a bit and make concrete plans to rent somewhere in Winchester with the boys (nos. 1 and 3) while no. 2 heads off to university. It will be nice not to have so many other people to consider every day, there's been seven or more here for the last month and it gets tiring thinking who eats what, needs what, is going into/coming back from somewhere and worse, the horrible, horrible paperwork that goes with one child at university, let alone two, and me, and the two boys at college on residential bursaries and grants and EMA and ALG...forms, forms. Not my strong point. Thank goodness for form friendly husband.

I've taken a couple of days off to do something non literary, and I've really enjoyed it, but the habit is hard to break so here I am writing away. I try and write 500 words minimum a day, even if it's just morning pages or rambles or freewrites or poetry or blog. That's the single biggest change in my writing, the exercising of my word-finding muscles. I must admit, I am a bit nervous about the workload, I have to keep reminding myself I won't have this house and the whole family to look after and the boys will mostly be at 'school'. That's a new experience for me, the kids going out all day and being in the house on my own! I hope I don't enjoy it too much, or it will be a bit of a shock the next year.

Anyway, to celebrate Winchester I have taken some time off to start a patchwork quilt, another form of creativity. It's nice to be back making something and it's for our 'new' bedroom, when we get the best room in the house and tart it up for ourselves. About time, really!

The end of the course is nigh

My final TMA is in and awaiting marking from Friday onwards. My tutor is so brilliant she usually turns them round in days, and with so much feedback. She gives just as much help even if you've got in the 90's, she just pushes a little harder, and she was so helpful to one of the students who did quite badly, she suggested asking for it to be re-marked by another tutor in case she's been too hard. Very fair. I can only hope I get such a good tutor next year - my husband's tutor is slow to mark and really unhelpful with the TMA's. You never knows what she wants! I sent in a short story, with commentary, as if it were for Riptide magazine. I will put it in to a magazine, see what happens.

The ECA is nearly done too, a short story and a piece of life writing. The commentaries don't work together, I think I'll do something that brings in the whole course and what I have learned over the last eight months. Meanwhile, my last university place is being debated by Winchester and all my fingers and toes are crossed. The sheer convenience of walking to it or going on the bus and being able to go to the library, would be better for me. Plus, I think it will be a better course for teaching creative writing in the long run, which I would like to do. An added bonus would be that hopefully, fellow students would be close to Winchester so we could meet up. Still, I love the idea of the Portsmouth course too.

I've also signed up to A363 because it's the only time you can do it for the diploma. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into lots of creative work for that, some of which might be useful for either course. I haven't submitted the same work to two different courses yet, although I did rewrite the piece I used for TMA05 from a magazine entry, so hopefully I should have plenty of starting points for work for the MA. I find that I'm full of ideas until an assignment is looming or someone puts me on the spot.

The sun is shining and the prospect of doing an MA is becoming real.

What am I doing? This is a question I keep asking myself, I feel torn right down the middle. On the one hand, I'm about to cost my family a small fortune and split them down the middle to develop what has mostly been a hobby. On the other hand, I was making a career as a writer before Léonie was born and want to go develop my writing.

It feels like I'm breaking my family up, leaving the man I love more than anyone else in the world and setting up a second home as a single parent. Just for writing! It doesn't help that I've got two unconditional offers from universities but not from the one I wanted to study at for practical reasons. Actually, I think Portsmouth would suit me best as a course.

Anyway, while we agonise over how we split up the furniture, the kids and the finances, I still have assignments to do. TMA 4 is off being marked, life writing over. I have learned one very valuable lesson though, it's really really powerful. Using that intensity to bring fiction to the reader has to be good. Hate the experience though I did, I have a lot more respect for those who do life writing and I am starting to read bits of it.

I'm most of the way through a short story for a competition, about a Viking funeral. It's nice to be writing something less complicated again! I have one assignment left for the OCA so I must send that off. I am a bit lost about what to send, I have some short stories in the pipeline to edit (and could use the editing part of A215 to do it, I suppose!) but as always, I'm in love with what I am writing. I so enjoy writing first drafts, the subsequent edits are just painful! I expect I'll do the first chapter of the Chancel Hall book. I could do with a bit of a break really. I'm supposed to be planning a trip down to the Island (Wight) for a bit of relaxing camping but I'm not sure we can afford it. I need to sit down with a spreadsheet and work it out.

If there is another novelist out there, gently banging their head against the desk like me, can I recommend a book? The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman is an amazing exposition of all the major cock ups we make - that translate through the whole book. I'm lost in it at the moment, it's making me review everything I write in a different way. Fantastic little book for £8.99, looking at all the reasons your book is rejected within the first five pages - or paragraphs - or even sentences. It's a whole course in a book, fantastic.