Fourth Draft

Finally, the short story is a) 2,200 words long after being in excess of 3000, and b) feeling OK, reasonable. No. 1 son - easily my biggest but most creative critic- likes it, although it's not the sort of thing I normally write.

It's ended up in four scenes, and the biggest weakness is that each section needs to start and end on a strong statement. Apart from that,I just need to listen to the music of it. It has some nice phrases in it, but they feel diluted down by the story a bit. It's drifted a long way from my sister and her own death now.

Now the commentary! I wrote 700 words but frankly, it's still very analytical. Then I checked the assignment brief and found out it had to be 500. Somehow I have to prune it down while expanding the emotional interpretation! This is confusing - but that's where I lost quite a lot of marks in TMA01. I'm going to have another go. The one thing that has really grabbed me from the course and section 2 is Flannery O'Connor, and I want to get some of her stuff in. Not to mention the difficulty of working out how to reference CD tracks and the BRB. Still ignoring the OCA assignment.... Ooops.

Second Draft of TMA02

I realise I had intended to send this off at the end of November, but I'm on the case now. The story takes place in four scenes, at the beach, with the police, at the deceased's home and at the funeral. Four scenes is a lot for 2200 words so I tried to work on the main three and leave out the house scene, but it didn't really work. The story is about finding out about someone now they are dead that you didn't know well during life. I remember being involved in my parents clearing out my grandmother's house, when I was a young adult. There were aspects of her life that were on show that I had no idea about as a child, although she was a regular visitor and lived close by. I ended up with a box of cheap china that I loved, so retro, but I realised it was a set you collected over time, piece by piece with either cigarette coupons or a magazine. It brought home to me how short of money she was. In my character's story, she was unaware how much this person that she judged and disapproved of was so loved, so popular. How much do we really know even our own family? My brother had a fortieth birthday this year, I would only have known a couple of people there. His closest friends and I hardly even know their names, yet we are reasonably close. Yet when we are together, he says things that surprise or baffle me, that make me realise how little I know about what goes on in his life, and how little he understands about mine. At one of our deaths - probably mine, I'm nine years older - will he find out things he never knew and I never thought to tell him?

Meanwhile, I forgot about the OCA assignment even though it's 90% done. So I did the TMA commentary in first draft, it's very technical and needs to be less cold, so I thought I would have some fun with the OCA commentary today. I wrote a radio play, my first, and hope she likes it. Now I have to go back and edit it into something warmer and more emotionally satisfying. Not to mention I still have Chaucer plays to write, which would all have been easier if I hadn't slipped into a four week depression during December.

The other thing that has been slowing me down is the realisation that I do understand poetry, a bit anyway, and can actually write it. It takes forever to write, that's the difference between knocking off a few adjectives and a bit of fluffy language and actually writing good stuff - which I am beginning to recognise. Slow process but I am gaining in confidence about TMA03 and starting to collect freewrites for it. This could be fun.

Writing what you feel as well as what you know

I've now got 4 perfectly good short stories, none of which is suitable for my TMA though maybe they would be better for competitions. So, going back to basics, the short stories that I know are the best are all from emotional experiences of mine or of close friends. Since I have an incredibly rare day all alone from 10 in the morning until midnight, I have run off a painful first draft of the experience of attending my sister's funeral, as a starting point. The contrast between the funeral of a loved one who had a death through illness, with all the expectation and professional support, funeral services etc. and the service in a mortuary with an unexpected death was my base camp, along with a chance encounter. We were clearing out my sister's house when one of her friends came to the house, freaking us out because I had only heard his name and never met most of my sister's friends. It made the day more mysterious and confusing, a bit like her death.

So I wrote 2.3k words in an hour, and it flowed really easily but painfully. Now I have to make some decisions. It wrote itself in first person - not my favourite to be honest. But I know from experience that going to third person omniscient can be difficult, I tend to water down the feelings involved, distancing myself from it rather than keeping the emotions in there. My voice character is rather prissy and easily shocked, not very lovable. I managed to create settings thinly but have to improve that. First person makes it hard to conjure an image of the speaker, too. The biggest problem for me is the showing not telling that my first drafts are weak on. I need to go through and highlight areas I can work on, but it's a couple f days work before it's ready to read out loud (my personal method of working!). Oh, and I need to work more suspense in there, that's for me, to ramp up the plot element. Did I mention that it has a very conventional beginning, middle and an end? It clearly needs to start at a high emotional point, but I'm not sure how to. At least, after weeks of limping along, I'm energised by my writing again. And I have lots for my commentary!

Not to mention I have material for a poem as well! TMA03, here I come.

Short story

OK, now I'm really getting into Xmas/solstice and still really need to do both assignments - I believe I was here a month ago! Maybe I need a deadline after all...I've written a short story (my fourth for this OU TMA02) and I think I'm onto the right kind of thing. The problem is, it's a good story, based on a true story, and that's where the problem is coming in. In telling the narrative, I'm struggling to put forward the quality of writing that my tutor seems to be looking for - there isn't quite room for in depth character analysis, descriptions, settings etc. I've got it down to three scenes really, the petrol bomb through the window (it doesn't go off though), the emotional distress of the person it was lobbed at, but the twist is, he doesn't care about the petrol bomb, he just wants to talk to someone he loves who hasn't spoken to him for many years. Sounds pants when I put it like that, but I'm trying to link up the emotions in the case. I'm trying to make you see the emotions and needs of a person who has put himself beyond normal sympathy through his deeds. It's a bit of a struggle! I'm back on draft 3 now - I get stuck at this point, usually. Back to the keyboard, in between cooking for the freezer. I promised Rosie could make the pudding - she's 10 so still loves all the drama of the steaming and cooking! On the downside, it's a giant pudding for 12 people so it's going to be 8 hours on the top of the stove... at least. I could write a short story in that time, and then I'd have 5 unfinished drafts!

Addicted to stories

As a psychologist I'm interested in why we do and like certain things. We clearly love TV, we watch hours a day. As a nation, we consume newspapers, books and magazines, we follow celebrity gossip and news scandals, we love film and TV. In the past, we were hooked on serial stories, radio dramas and storytelling in every form. I think my need for writing is a reflection of my need for stories. I have always told myself stories to get to sleep, and sometimes just need to write them down. So I've written short stories and much longer stories, but I was nervous about putting them out so I didn't get feedback. Now I'm getting the feedback and it's painful but I can't believe how much I have learned in this last couple of years! Working on short stories for my TMA, I'm distracted by the craft rather than the story itself. So I've decided to spend the weekend and early next week writing a short story for its story, then edit based on my new knowledge and the fiction chapters of the Big Red Book. I am feeling caught between 'good' writing and good stories.I've dipped into some 'good' stories and while the craft is beautiful the stories aren't always compelling. I've been reading some Bridport winning stories and runners up in their anthologies,and some of them are wonderful. Some are baffling to me, the stories take a back seat to the writing to such an extent I can't make head or tail of them. The characters are unlikeable so you don't care about them, so don't engage with the stories. So, as a novelist, I need to let up trying so hard to understand the short story thing and carry on doing what I do best - write long fiction with strong stories. So I thought I would take a bit of a plot in a novel and write it up as a short story, then edit as recommended in the BRB. I suppose I should stop talking about it and actually do it....

Two approaches to creative writing

I'm struggling but starting to see a way through my confusion at feedback from my two tutors. One likes my work, offers lots of practical tips but is very encouraging along the lines of 'get on and work on your novel'; the other is much more strict. She is much less interested in the story, or even the characters, but she's encouraging me to describe my characters better, worry about every word (do I need that word or this word). Although I got a good score, I felt very deflated by her feedback. She was fussing about spacing and punctuation, even tiny issues like whether two words would be better reversed. But I'm learning loads and working on the process of becoming self-critical and knowing what is good and what is bad. Meanwhile I'm working on writing a Christmas present for other half, and more Chaucer.

So, here's a dilemma - how comfortable is anyone writing sex scenes? Because I have to write one for the book....

Bigger Plot

I came up with a bigger plot! The problem is, it could easily become a novel. So, wrestling with my 'short' story, I thought I would help no.1 son with his A174 coursework, you know, stand and nod approvingly. His problem is keeping his very fluent writing down to a tiny plot and 500 words. So, talking to him has made me think again about mine. My character is going to be discovered doing something she shouldn't, and about 75% of the way in the first draft the husband finds out. Now I'm rearranging it so this is the opening line, then the rest builds up in the past. I suppose Kez could look at doing the same. Because we're doing the Chaucer project, he's in historical mode rather than his usually fantasy genre, so he's invented a character in a 14th century city.

Since my husband has given up his Saturday building me a tailored CD bookcase for all my classical CDs I have been rescuing music all day - and enjoying it. It fills a space in me, I can't explain why, but it also gets me writing. Since he is out at a music club this evening (Devon and their folk clubs!) I can settle down to some music I haven't heard in three years. And it makes me want to write different stories. I suppose some of the ancient sacred music makes me so melancholy I write about ghosts, empty rooms, lost loves, old age. Sammartini and Vivaldi make me want to sing, and all my prose is full of assonance and rhythm. 19th century music like Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky make me feel sentimental and later stuff takes me on a journey. At least I didn't have to chip away at the same old bits of music for days because it's such a fiddle getting new stuff out. I've been sorting and labelling all day - which is why my spelling isn't too bad!

The OCA assignment is hanging over me a bit. I must sit down and read my radio play tomorrow, see if it works at all. Then I can write the commentary. The commentary is the difficult bit for me!