Tutorial 1 Part 1

A senior admin assistant and a bread roll.

He sits and looks at the object,

regards it from every angle.

Decides that it looks inedible so,

picks it up and throws it out of the window.

Then, realises that he has performed a selfish act,

takes off down the stairs at the speed of fright,

pushes open the fire-doors,

emerges into the daylight

and hears the alarm he's just set off.

Then gesticulates wildly as security start to question him

and, pointing to the bread roll, now squashed in the road

Looks sorry.

And cries.

Tutorial 1 Part 2

Write a central character monologue based on the earlier scenario which should have involved nothing but actions. 

'And what are you looking at eh? Think it's funny that soon I'm going to be living in a poky flat with a landlord treating me like a student, surrounded with furniture bought off eBay, or from clearance auctions or liberated from recycle centres or gifts from charity minded people. What do you have to worry about - wrapped in your cellophane envelope and your sickly looking innards spilling through your sides? Ham - it'll be that watery stuff she always buys - looks like meat, acts like meat - isn't really meat, just pink fat and utterly tasteless.   Lettuce - brown at the sides, like me, showing its age. Lettuce bloody pray. Someone ought to pray for me for Christ sake.  Why on earth did she make the thing for me if she wants our marriage to end?.  "I've left your sandwich on the kitchen top - just next to the toaster." . she shouts down the stairs this morning with her hand cupped on the speaker part of the phone.  No doubt making plans for the day with her new best friend Shelia she met at spinning class.   Plans that don't and never will involve me. . Yeah, well, why did she even make you if it she hates me and wants to move on, find herself,  have 'me' time instead of 'us' time. What the hell is 'me' time anyway? - doesn't even work, 'me time' - makes me feel sick. 'Me time' - too much day time TV, too many of those life style shows - too much talk of self-empowerment and confidence building and I-will-survive-crap she's been drip fed by her chattering friends at that bloody book circle thing she goes to.  Most of them are divorced or have new partners. Partners.  Everyone has a partner these days, Whatever happened to man and wife. Old fashioned I guess. She thinks the same. I'm no longer required. Defunct.  I'm yesterdays news - like you, like a  bread roll. If I eat you, you're gone. As gone as I'll be. If I throw you from the window you'll be gone.  Maybe I'll follow you out of the window and we'll both be gone. Maybe we should both make a pitch for our own little bit of freedom, Maybe we should both look for a little bit of fucking 'me' time and go window flying. "Your sandwich is on the counter next to the toaster."  I should've left you there. '  

Tutorial 1 Part 3

Write a piece of dialogue involving the central character and one other - neither of whom are capable of saying what they really want to say.  

Admin Assistant:  Mr Breckenridge, I was hoping that you’d had time to sign the…sir are you all right.

Senior AA:  (distracted)   Uh-huh. Sorry Jenny I was just… what do you see there?

Jenny:  Where sir?

Mr Breckenridge:  On the table, there – what do you see?

Jenny:  Well nothing – just your sandwich, is it?

Mr Breckenridge:  No Jenny it’s not just my sandwich, it is in fact the last meal of a condemned man, wrapped tight in an invisible skin, just like me, ready to be consumed. As I am. (looks at open window)

Jenny: I’m sorry sir I don’t…

Mr Breckenridge:  No.  Course you don’t.  Course you don’t.  Everything all right with you, Jenny, is it?

Jenny: Oh yes Mr Breckenridge. Going out tonight with my friend Hannah, can’t wait – we’re all meeting at the skate park and going on to that new…sir, are you all right?

Mr Breckenridge: Yes Jenny I’m fine – you run along to that umm – skate park with ahh…Leona, is it? And, I’ll be along directly.

Jenny:  Mr Breckenridge?  Sir?    No, I what I meant to say was that I’m going out tonight with my friends not going anywhere at the mo -.  You are all right aren’t you, Mr Breckenridge?

Mr Breckenridge: She’s leaving me.

Jenny: Who? (longish pause). Who…’s leaving you Mr Breckenridge?

Mr Breckenridge: You see that bread roll Jenny – ham and lettuce, my favourite fillings. Mrs Breckenridge made that for me this very morning. Left it on the kitchen top. By the toaster.

Jenny:  I… don’t understand.

SAA: Nor me Jenny.  Nor me. More things in Heaven and Earth eh?

Jenny: I’ll just leave these on the desk if that’s all right Mr Breckenridge. (exits nervously)  

           

Activity 2.10

This is the consequence of Activity 2.10 which I posted on my tutor forum. Apart from the tutor who's paid to look and comment,  it's been met with a stony silence from everyone else. Can't say I blame them, I've yet to comment on anyone else's  work - surely this is that hardest part of this course: peer critiquing . That said it is a  part of the course and you won't pass it without getting involved in one another's work. Activity... 

Two voices one agitated and pissed off the other a model of calm reasonableness. The idea behind this activity is to practice putting together two opposing viewpoints. This is my first go.  Any resemblance that might be detected from within my own life is purely coincidental.  

'The mother in law has threatened to come and visit next Sunday. Christ, she must realise that's the only day Jane and I have to catch up with our busy lives. Sunday is our day, in my mind at least, and I wish I could protect the day from the unwanted interference of others.

I include the whole bloody lot of them. All the kids have left home. About time too. Now it's me time, or rather 'us' time. It sounds insufferably selfish I know, but I'm fed up with sharing Jane with everyone else. They'll all be bringing their problems with them on their week-end visits between now and Christmas and expect us to spend time solving them, talking through their problems with them, spending quality time with them. But what about me I say. Us, Jane and me. When do we get good quality time? I work all week in north Wales and watch telly or read a book in the evenings sometimes ending up climbing the walls with boredom. She's in Aberdeen all week staying in a hotel. The week-ends should be our opportunity to rekindle our friendship and try to reignite the fire in our relationship. How the hell can we do that when we have the cast of Ben Hur (figuratively speaking) waiting in the wings for our attention every bloody week end.

The dog goes mad every time people come into the house, jumping on the furniture, and given his advanced age for a springer spaniel he's now taken to relieving himself on the hall carpet or even in the lounge with the utter excitement of it all. Dirty bloody thing! And as for the mother in law, how long before she gets to that stage? Already I have to help her up the stairs and have to carry her bags to her room like a bloody Sherpa . And she's going deaf which means the TV has to be turned up to an unfeasible volume whilst we sit watching crap like the Antiques Road Show because 'mother never misses it!' Give me strength!

*

It is nice to have an extended family. It's such a cozy affair when everyone rallies around at the week-ends and we get to catch up on each other’s lives. This is what family life is all about. Jane and I understand that we have to take the adult lead and sacrifice some weekends to help support the others who are still finding their way in life, in the case of the children, and the mother in law, who has recently been widowed and doesn't enjoy the best of health really likes to see us and, to be fair, when else can she other than on the odd week-end bless her. 

Apparently she’s ordered hearing aids; I've told her people will think she’s in the secret service if she wanders around ear-wigging people’s conversations in supermarkets which she’s said she’ll do once she has her new ears attached. She’ll probably be furnishing me with story plots before we know it.  Quite a character the MIL. Frank next door will be relieved, he’s no fan of the Antiques Road show, but pretty much hears most of it through the walls when she stays. He says he doesn't mind, his own mothers addicted to Deal or No Deal which he says is far worse as you don’t get to see Fiona Bruce.  Have to agree with him there.  

She never comes empty handed either. Always fully loaded with cakes for us and biscuits for Rufus who adores her so much sometimes he can barely contain himself. He's not long for this world now so we all take it in turns should he have the occasional accident. All part of being a pet owner. All part of the buy in as they say. Jane and I don't see as much of one another during the week due to professional commitments and getting stuck in different and awkward geographical locations, but we compensate for those absences by having at least three holidays a year and dedicate all the time when on holiday to each other.  This is called being a responsible adult and we often laugh about it together knowing that our time will come.  Frankly at the moment I don’t think we’d have it any other way.  

TMA01 is almost finished. An inspired pieced culled from my memory and imagination, the result of which is part life writing part fictional story. Like all stories I guess. I shall demur from describing it too much on the basis that it's just too early.  But I'm happier with it  than I thought possible. I seriously couldn't think of a damn thing to write at the start.

*

The question I have to ask myself as I progress with it is, can this be dramatized?  If so how would I go about it?  And how will I refer to this and other developmental ideas and means of progression? perhaps i should have asked myself these thing prior to writing it, but that's not really how I roll. On a positive note i put together a little piece on commentaries in answer to someones query about why they should be done, and what a commentary actually hoping to show and achieve.  This is my response.  Not too pompous I hope.

'I think for me I see the commentary as something that provides an opportunity for the OU to see students showing an element of academic proficiency (as it is a component for certain suitable academic degrees,) how the learned techniques of successful writers as discussed in the (degree level) course book and other material, and how your own individual inspirations and creations can all come together to help you  create a ‘what works for you and how’  writer’s mind-set,  with the creative work submitted as a demonstration of this.

The commentary then is a series of parts synthesised into a whole which would include the likes of:  I had an idea from this; I thought I would try that.  I tried this technique (on page?) but didn't like it. I tried this idea from my notebook and thought it better, then realised it was similar to a technique discussed (on page?) so really went with it.  I liked the technique used by this writer (on page ?) which made me think of a dream I had or line I read I which prompted me to write this sentence, paragraph, poem,  or about that theme or in this manner.  Etc.  etc.

To that end, for the commentary to be valid as an integral part of a university course in creativity, it has to focus on the process rather than the work. You could say that it puts an academic spin on the fictional nonsense we write. Which sounds unkind, but I guess that’s the way students of physics, geology and mathematics might put it. The commentary pulls us back closer to their world by actually suggesting that there is an academic drive behind the creative arts and if you can’t always see it in the creative work itself, it’s because its primary focus is probably one of entertainment. 

So, here is the explanation of the work, also known as the commentary, which shows the inspiration, the research, the experiments, the successes, the theories, the highs, the lows, the laughs, (and particularly for me!),  the sweat, and the tears behind its creation.  Having to write the commentary and then looking at what it should include shows that being creative on a creative writing course is no picnic.'  

*

Well it got me thinking at least. I didn't post it as a reply though because it seemed a little bit too swottish and  made me sound like an agent working for the OU, rather than someone who probably should be seen and heard taking an adversarial view point more often. But I think I can see the point of commentaries. 

Ideas

I groan audibly when I hear or read that a fellow student has an idea for a TMA. I never have an idea.  Yes you read that correctly. Never.  I have to do that Ian McEwan thing every time and just write until ideas emerge whilst on the page and then develop and grow, or not, as I progress. I can honestly say I have never felt that sense of fizzy anticipation as I sit down to write having hatched in my sleep or down the gym or whilst watching telly a really good  idea. How dies this eureka thing work?   Why don't I have it?

My latest offering for a TMA involves a little bit of developed life writing.  I just thought about describing a work place, put myself in it, sort of remember how I felt about being there then started thinking about how I might have acted if I'd been a little more impressive than I actually was. At the moment it's crap with a capital T like this C not this T.  Not a great eureka moment is it?

Another way I've heard is successful for some is to invent characters first then let them ask you to be placed in a story line. It all sounds a bit deep and psychological and perhaps a little overly decorous in the case of the characters - 'we're here, how would you like us to disport our duties kind sir?'  Could it work?  I don't know.

Free Write

I think I can say now that I have formally started A363 having introduced myself on the student forum page. Introductions are always a struggle for me for some reason, whether orally or in writing. There always seems to be something po-faced about it. I would like to avoid it completely, but perhaps it's a necessary evil.

I think it's time for another free write about another of those stated prompts as I see this month as a lead into the first TMA rather than anything else (aside from re-finding the writing muse that is)  A free write can only help put a metaphorical fire-cracker up my arse and maybe when I come back down to Earth I just might be where I was at the end of 215.  

So, we've had a look at knots and clean sheets what's next? A cloister. Defined by Chambers as a covered arcade forming part of a monastic or collegiate establishment, a place of religious retirement,  a monastery or nunnery, an enclosed place. to confine within walls.  To confine within walls suggests prison and prison life provides potentially rich sources of imaginative ideas when writing stories.  A prisoner could be contemplating something in his cell.  The enormity of his crimes. Or feelings of penitence. Does he repent for the things he has done now that he has so much time on his hands to think? Or is he in prison due to a miscarriage of justice.  How about thoughts that he is a victim?  

The man sat in the middle of his cell, his feet fettered, his clothing torn. The cell was small, no bigger than the room he called his bedroom in his lodgings.  But this was now his whole world of private pain and desperate delirium 

'How many years did the Judge say? 5? 10?  I cut the heads as best I could.  Not my fault that the blade was blunt. How did I know. They said I was complicit. The Duke? he suffered bad! Had to finish him with me knife. Snap those strands like I was finishing off me latest fish gutting. Stripping a Rabbit. Stringy little bastards.  They say I made the Execution painful  for a pay off. Pah! I was a professional - professional to the last that's me. Never. Bungled? What a word to use for a Craftsman. One who takes pride in his work!  One slice is all I ever needed. Someone else s hand is behind this - switched blades behind my back. blunt one - lacking weight. Told the Judge I hit him square - that line between back and neck hair-taper - takes years to get to get that right. Target. Aim. Sniper-style. Steady hands. Pride in me work. now here I am sat cold and innocent in this cell.'

FREE WRITE

If I were to write a blog about knots I might go some way towards getting an idea for this initial TMA.The word 'Knots' is one of the provided prompts - like charity shop was for the last course TMA01. That one worked well, so maybe will this one will too. Knots is just one word, but think of all the associations that might start me going: knots in wood - whirls in wood that are weaknesses,  flaws perhaps, in  what would otherwise be firm and solid material.  Perhaps we could extend this into a metaphor - move the word from its arboreal roots so to speak and develop it into the figurative - the knot in their relationship was certainly the consequence of Peter's affair.

True it was six years ago, but the solidity of what was once a partnership cast in solid substance, unwavering, fixed, redoubtable - had never look much more than frenulum-fragile and slivering-shaky since Peter strayed whilst he was on that electronics course down in Newcastle Under Lyme.

A knotty problem is a tricky problem.  Something that might require a great deal of guile and thought to find a solution. But knots are nearly always evocative. 'Tie a knot in it' used to be an old saying said by men when giving advice to boys about contraception - a love knot might be a symbol for undying love - such as the Algerian love knot worn by a bond girl and identified by Bond on his realization that this particular Bond girl may not be an easy conquest. Balloons require knots to seal in the air. Shoes, boots, hoods, and waist cords require knots to secure a fastening. Lorry Drivers and sailors receive tuition in tying knots as it is vital to their profession that they understand which knot is appropriate for which task. Mountaineers rely on knots to scale mountains and rocks and at the same time to save their lives. If you want to be rude to someone you may chose to invite them to get knotted (which at least is more polite than telling them to get fucked).  What is meant by the former as an expression, indicating that the object person needs to find themselves in a position from which they cannot bother the subject person, in a literal sense, is not entirely clear.

Slip, hitch, half-hitch and sheep shank. Noose.  Some one once tried to teach me how to do a half-hitch.  I thought that he'd lost his mind. What an absolute boggle of a procedure. Plenty of people have half-learnt how to make a noose before making it one of their last acts. Others have failed and paid the price of their incompetence with unwanted survival and recrimination. The granny-knot is one that's close to my heart. A rag-tag and bobtail, semi-abortion of a tangle that's guaranteed to stay knotted for all eternity simply because its configuration defies logic, physics, and everything else in between.   It's a bundle of mess, the extrication of which could take centuries to work out because it doesn't conform with any rationale - it's a bugger's muddle of plaited nightmares that could be tossed out and left twisting in the wind like one of Hardy's heroines. Why is it called a granny knot?  Why knot. I'm reminded of that other unconquerable knot, the accidental hitch. Throw a hose or an electric cable round a building and see how long it takes to snag on something. Pull at it with the strength of eleven elephants and it's going nowhere. It's a fucking good knot and no-one thought to tie it there. 

And I've got this far without straying into fable and myth - the fabulous Gordian Knot from which everything that might kill you is becoming steadily unravelled before finally its release and your demise is assured. 

Back to Study and A363

I have finally started to look through the course material for A363. I suppose that means that technically I have started the course, though this is really early days and I need to do a few things before I feel right about things  For the last course I had a nice big desktop and printer at my place of work which I comfortably worked on throughout the day when I had nothing much else to do which was pretty much all the time towards the end as I stumbled my way towards an early retirement. But here's the thing, I no longer have access to those resources within that environment  and I don't feel ready to attack the course in the same way as I tackled A215 partly because of these changes.  I'm now on a lap top now which sits on a cramped table with it and me squeezed into a smallish bedroom study. Somehow I feel less able to be expansive with my writing because of these apparent physical constraints.  I guess the only cure to these concerns and  misgivings is that I write a lot more from now on and get used to the new systems as quickly as possible. I really need to become familiar with the smaller screen and the slightly less natural feeling this change of venue and equipment seems to be having on me. I don't need to have any other impediments to writing on this course as it looks to be challenging enough.

Loads of things getting in the way of writing at the moment. Impending redundancy; family life; holidays pre-booked (before knowing about redundancy presumably, I here you say, - actually no, I expected, in fact, volunteered for it, so no shock experienced here); car needing new engine and gear box due to the wearing and crushing distance between my home and my place of work over the last five years;  new oven and gas fire purchased and, generally apropos all that, trying to get my financial situation in order. Looking for jobs, writing CVs (writing after a fashion I suppose though the only creative element there is in the lies and outrageous exaggerations that are woven into it.)  Yes, loads on. Poor old writing. But wait, here I am writing a blog. I haven't gone away completely.  And, the marks for the A215 EMA are due within a week or so.  That's going to have an effect one way or the other when the marks have been read and assimilated. Will I be hitting the bottle in celebration or will I be hitting myself over the head with the thing? 

Meanwhile many of my fellow students are writing poetry and submitting their efforts to publications and writing flash-fiction like their lives depended on it. Whilst I, sit back and have a nervous break-down about matters employment and financial and wait for A363 to start despite having prepared by reading one or two film scripts, half a novel and a few extracts from a couple of plays. Desultory preparation at best wouldn't you say? But I am staying in the right frame of mind - he says writing in cliches one after the other - I'm keeping my words keen and my mind open. I'm even thinking that a new job might inspire me to write with new settings as backdrops.

Maybe I should take a job down at the local police station or in the hospital where all human life can be found, where human interest stories unfold every day and myriad characters come and go.  Raw material everywhere. How about the local funeral parlor? Think of the sights, textures and smells. I know this sounds bad, and it feels bad just thinking about it,  but all this does sound like grist to the writer's mill. Even the baddest stuff. Could I though?  Could I take jobs just to broaden my writer's imagination and fill my writerly indexes with new showing opportunities? expand my repertoire of experiences whist earning farthings. I don't really need the money - though I'm by no means rich, and I certainly don't need a new career - I'm saying goodbye to one that's 30 years old.

So maybe I should make a point of spreading myself around like a kind of undercover operative  - care homes to see what brutality really does goes on; zoos to learn about animal's habits and odd human beast interactions; factories to experience tedium and the destructiveness of tittle-tattle and gossip; customer services, to speak to loads and loads of strange people and tackle my understandings of why I like and dislike some of the characters. 

 It's certainly a thought. Don't look for a job, just do work as research for your real job as a writer. Then you never need to be ashamed of being a shit house cleaner, litter collector, assistant road sweeper, traffic warden, bus conductor, or Ian Beale's body double. 'I'm doing research for my latest book, poem, play' would be your unspoken thoughts - 'then I'm off cruel world, to write some good shit about it all and show you, get it show you all what I'm really about.  A couple of little wage packets will supplement my pension and keep me in paper, toner. pens, pencils, notebooks and even a little extra food perhaps - for thought of course!

Few thoughts about A363 and preparation

I have just read quickly through the Assessment Booklet for A363 and I am terrified. Why? The sheer volume of work that is required. And the extent of the diversity of forms you are expected to master. Fiction, poetry, life writing forms the basis, but critiques, stage, film and radio scripts are all part of the course, together with more formal poetry which I haven't touched on (given that A215 was all about free verse though for me even that had mixed results at best).
I don't remember feeling anything other than excitement at the start of A215.  I don't feel excited about A363 at all and I'm left wondering if I haven't made a big mistake signing up to it. That said let's look at this a bit more objectively:
Fiction: I might not have excelled in this part of A215 in that I drew heavily for the appropriate TMAs 01 and 02 from episodes from my life for both, serving as unexpected precursors for the later life writing phase.  But I scored well. And, following the process of writing both of these assignments I now have a much better grasp of the technicalities of fiction writing, even if I have resisted writing a single story since. What I will need before the course starts is a list of possible subjects and ideas about story possibilities and story telling. I have time to make this list - currently I don't have one so the prospect of writing fictional stories is more daunting until I have a list of prompts sitting at my shoulder acting as a helpful reference point and guide and drawing the sting from this cold start anxiety.  I do have a few false starts on the various blogs I've written about character and situation ideas. Leonard Wickets the drug-taking, aging hippy and failed Lothario sign writer; Edward Blessington the overweight sports playing slightly misanthropic vicar; and Matilda Mayhurst the snippy racialist war widowed wheelchair bound martinet are just three characters I remember profiling - and as I recall once I' d profiled these and other characters, stories almost presented themselves to me, rendering me breathless and interested and writing at full pelt.  That's got to be a plus.

Poetry: Remembering my poem A Face in Time. It didn't break any score records but it was well in the 70s which at the moment sound fine going forward.  I absolutely loved writing it once I'd mastered the conventions and expectations of free verse and received quite a bit of praise for my use of assonance (one of the most important technical devices in free verse) alliteration and use of echoic sounds,  pace and diction. Also the poem I wrote together with the less successful Sea Keepers which still had huge promise) were both story poems which look particularly relevant in style for A363.  Again I loved writing both.  The caveat must be the formal side of poetry as I have noticed as the course progresses there is a requirement to write poetry using some of the forms taught: pantoum, sonnet... sestinas for Christ's sake.  Until I try I don't suppose I will know but to head off too much pre course anxiety I should look into those forms and see what I can do. But again it's from the ideas where most success should flow.  Come up with ideas and I'll be able to do all these things I'm sure.

Life Writing: I still have stores of ideas left over from A215. It's worth remembering that Easter Lilies which was submitted as my examinable component was just a casual idea originally destined to be a fragment of TMA04 Life Writing, and perhaps arbitrarily I chose to reserve it for a longer piece of work once I realised I was well over the word limit for 04. It was then developed into a 2,500 word EMA which I think (though I don't know as I don't have my EMA mark back yet) is a good piece of work - and it came from virtually nothing growing as it did organically. I had no idea where it would go aside from a few basic ideas at the beginning and a loose framework to hang the whole thing from. My life writing work which is proven in 04 (scored 85) and EMA (expecting similar) does develop throughout the editing process and I end up going down routes I would never have expected  - this may be a skill of mine and I'm sure will be there waiting for me all over again for A363. (Don't forget I'm trying to give myself confidence here, none of that pride comes before a fall stuff).

Of course I have never written scripts but I'm already in beginning to read a few plays and film scripts to get a feel for the form and by the time the course starts I'll have an idea at least how each of them should be presented and maybe even some ideas that could be developed.

Critiques: They don't frighten me.  I did some on A215 which I was hesitant about, but only because I didn't feel confident that I should be doing it as I was only learning myself. In this course it is part of the learning process and a vital part of passing so I'll have no such inhibitions here. I think I'll do quite well in this area. The one thing I wil have to do to ensure success is to really read through peers' work - I had a habit of going off half-cocked on A215 as it was not an essential part of the course and often I felt sligtly begrudging about doing it. Not for this one I'll be reading peers' work closely and be expecting the same treatment bestowed onto my work.

Additionally: I haven't been sitting on my hands completely since A215. For the poetry and to a certain extent for other forms of writing I have been working on improving my word power to counter one of the mantras on A215 and doubtless will be on A363,  strive always for originality of expression and the avoidance of hackneyed expressions and cliches.  In fact avoid anything that looks formulaic, everyday, and recognisable whenever you can. To this end I have been compiling dictionaries of lesser known words.  Admittedly these will be of greater use for poetry than other forms, but it's a vital form of preparation I think.  So much criticism and comment on A215 was generated by the use of vocabulary and in particular, poetry. Surprise is, it seems  always welcome, perhaps even mandatory if you want to score well and perhaps produce something that might one day be publishable.   I have a stock of surprise words that will be wheeled out conservatively.  Surprises aplenty. Incidentally I used a couple Old Dorset words in one of my poems and Old Somerset in the other. Positive comments were offered in both cases, it really is a no -brainer.  To extend the use of the English language really does make it look like you are going deeper into your emotional reserves which reflects positively in your poetry.  Prose also, but with greater care.
So perhaps there's much to be confident about as well.  Little bit of nerves won't hurt. Arrogance is the worst attitude at the beginning of a course, thinking you won't struggle because it's all stuff you know. Thinking about itpre course nerves may well help to ensure I will be properly prepared for the challenge

TMA05 Submitted!

Well that's 05 submitted. My choice for TMA05 is, to say the least, somewhat risky. I'm back to poetry despite doing very average the last time I tried it, scoring 77% for 03 which pretty much put paid to getting a distinction average at the end of the course as I now need to score a minimum of 86% for 05 which though not impossible, is unlikely given my score in 03. Obviously I still need to get 86% for the EMA which might also be a tall order, so I'll think no more about that. 
     Anyway it's not really about scores it's about writing - it's funny how we all get caught up in the rush for distinctions and 2.1s or even in some cases rather average sounding  2.2s depending on students individual targets. Perhaps it's unsurprising given it's a university course.  Maybe it would've been better for all had if A215 creative writing had not been. That said I guess the academic achievement at the end of each course, the earning of 60 points and a university credit  means that even if you don't crack it as a writer you're picking up some useful additional education merits to put on your CV. 
     Doing poetry for 05 might strike some as a strange choice for me. I've scored the equivalent of straight 'A's with my prose, and I have the opportunity (now that I've done the mandatory poetry element) to stick with prose until the end.  And I particularly like life writing which was available to me for 05 and remains so for the EMA. But I feel I have unfinished business with poetry that transcends the scores of this course. That said, I want to see if I can get a decent score for a poem before the course ends, and 05 is the best place to try. I already have a safe prose piece in the bank for the all important EMA so it's a kind of now or never situation. 
     I might rue the choice of poetry when my score for 05 comes through, but I can justify it in other ways. 05 is all about producing a piece of marketable work and finding a publisher for it. As much as I love my life writing pieces - including my EMA which is going through its final edits, I simply cannot imagine any outlets wanting to read about my appendectomy or my torrid time in the school Army Cadets.  Who on Earth is going to buy into that. So it's possible that I could write my best piece of life writing ever for 05, and score poorly on the basis that it's completely unmarketable.  So maybe choosing poetry is not such a bad strategy. Even if my confidence as a poet is not as high as it might have been pre 03. 
     The other thing is, if I can do poetry, and I think I can - though the evidence to support that theory is a bit scant at the moment - I'm more likely to write poetry at the end of this course than I am great swathes of prose.  I'm not particularly keen on fiction writing.  I can do it, did it for 01 and 02 and scored high.  But I get a bit fussed over points of view and the notion of plots.  It's probably me being lazy as usual. Christ, what would it do to stop me being lazy? It's a form of self-sabotage if ever there was one. If I put my mind to it and wrote some decent fictional pieces, I know  they're even more marketable than poetry. I don't know of too many millionaire poets, do you?  Biographers, yes, but I've yet to show myself as capable of that area yet since I keep defaulting to autobiography in the life writing options. 
     The poem I submitted is a forty line free verse, split into stanzas of roughly 8 lines with an experimental italicised sea shanty sat in the middle to break it up. I've gone for line-break and enjambment to give it its poetic feel completely ignoring all forms of rhyme, assonance and alliteration. The richness I hope is in the poem's purpose and its diction and it'll stand or fall based those two things.  The idea behind it is based on young people drinking  heavily in seaside towns and ending up carousing around their town's wharves, jetties and harbours, falling in and dying.  Well there has to be an inspiration behind every poem doesn't there?  Just because I don't do jolly or love, or animals  doesn't mean I can't do emotion.  There's a stack of emotion in it, just not the usual - if there's a usual. Anyway I believe in it irrespective of how it does TMA wise, and I intend to submit it to either the identified market expressed in the accompanying commentary, or it'll be flying its way Bridport. 
     As for my EMA masterwork, I'm really liking how it's shaping up. I've done my usual - defaulting into humour which pace 05 might have been my undoing had that not been so serious. 01, 02, and to an extent 03 all had humour, that notoriously subjective thing to do with tone that can work brilliantly if your readers are with you (for readers read tutor) or drop you like an anvil down a well if they're not. Another risk. 

The Incurable Diarist

This is my TMA04 effort which earned what appears to be developing as my average score: 86 percent.

Beginning

When we were about 8 and 10, always at bedtime, and providing she left her door open, I’d watch my older sister sitting on the side of her bed with her legs crossed, hunched like a crab, writing something into a red leatherette covered book. I'd watch her peering through her little Gandhi spectacles, writing in that round curly lettered handwriting of hers as her plaits dangled in front of her. Then she’d dart the page before locking the book with a little in-built padlock and attach the key to her constantly worn charm bracelet. My interest in this item grew from bored curiosity to a maddening need for answers. It was the lock that did it.

She had a money box too; like a miniature bank cashbox – an ugly black square thing that looked like it had been made from left over armoured plating from a tank factory, totally immune to the hairgrips and paper clips I’d used to try to get it open. But I knew the contents of the box amounted to little more than three apple snail shells, a folded picture of Cliff, and a couple of defunct farthings. Compared to the book, this was only of passing interest, fuelled mainly by brotherly menace.

After several attempts at stealing this mysterious book thing from her desk and prising open the pages, nearly breaking my finger nails; and a failed attempt to obtain the key once by slipping her charm bracelet into my pocket after she’d left it lying around outside the bathroom, she informed me that it was her 'secret diary.’ After allowing for this exotic fact to sink in, I dug out my ongoing Christmas list and looked at the items listed, staring at it with new eyes. I then scratched out the number one entry: ‘Magnetic Robot ‘and inserted the words ‘lockable diary’ in its place.

That Christmas, I got one. It wasn’t lockable; instead it was a ‘Scout’s Diary,’ full of kids doing stuff I didn’t do like tying knots and earning merit badges for good deeds. But it was a diary. My initial disappointment that it wasn’t lockable waned when I found a loose floorboard in my lair and a secret cavity in which to stow it. I could now record my life in complete secrecy; I’d write in it every day and one day show it to an astonished world.

School

Thursday 18 October 1968.’ Dear diary, I felt poorly at school today and had to sit in the assembly hall with my sister. She was made to sit with me until I told the truth. Spangles is always suspicious if we say we feel ill in class.’ (Age 12)

My sister sat and glowered at me. Her hair now brushed moodily forward, tumbling over her suspicious face where her girlish plaits once hung sweetly. I was her brother; therefore I was a liar as well as a thief. And here I was, lying my way out of lessons. She was relieved and skipped off to her friends when Mrs. Spangler, who made no pretence of her dislike of boys, exasperated, sent me home. The hobble home wasn’t a tough, sports injury limp, it was one of those clutching belly, ‘I feel fragile’ hobbles. I felt sick and depressed. One light however shone my tortured route home: it was a Thursday, and my new Tiger comic would be waiting for me.

Very little interrupted my comic obsession, whether sadness, illness or pain. I’d stuck with my Tiger through crippling migraines, breaking off only to stumble to the bathroom to release the headache demon by inducing warm, sour, throat-scoring vomit that filled my nose with the sore-stink of acid. But, eyes still fizzing, my mouth sluiced and sweetened, I’d be back to the comic. Even when the words wavered, and the superheroes looked like smudges, I’d carry on. Comics were my solace and my comfort, a sublime private entertainment no matter how I felt. On new comic delivery day I’d be almost paralysed with delight.

Home at last, stumbling through the door, I looked across the hall and saw my Tiger, sleeping on the worn mat in the porch; pristine, lit by a dusty ray of late autumn sunshine, shimmering with seductive newness. I took it to my private lair, slinked away with my prize as a real tiger might, then sat on my bed to inhale the inky flavours of its print, its pictures and its promise. Wrestler Johnny Cougar would face another terrible adversary, Skid Solo would be racing against cads with superior technology, and the opposing football team would be out to knobble Roy of the Rovers. It didn’t matter that I knew this. It was the familiarity that I craved the most.

And then the unthinkable happened. My interest waned. I was page flipping, not getting to the end of the stories. Suddenly Roy of the Rovers didn't seem quite as captivating. I closed the comic and lay down. Put on my pyjamas and sat in bed clutching my belly. I looked at the comic. The strength of my feelings for the comic now locked in battle with my pain. I picked it up again and read the cover. Then I was flipping again, backwards and forwards. Finally, I dropped the comic to the floor and it flapped lifelessly to the carpet like a flattened hero. My eyes felt full. Fluid rattled in my nose. I didn’t feel like being brave. Further down, my appendix grumbled, preparing itself to explode and fire poison into my blood.

Work

‘Monday 11th August 1972. ‘Dear diary, the reason I stood today in a carpenter’s workshop wearing my new blue bib and braces overalls with four corned beef sandwiches and a flask of tea with sugar, stowed in a tartan duffle bag slung over my shoulder, was because this was my first day as a proper adult.’ (Age 16)

‘Am I in the right place?’ I said to a fat man wearing a brown overall as I wandered into the yard. This turned out to be the foreman, a notorious hater of new apprentices, due to, as I later learned, their callowness and youth being disruptive to the old guard of grizzled ex national servicemen who preferred to work grumpily alone. The scrappy remains of his hair were tar black but greying bits were fighting through and looked as stiff as wire wool. Filaments of hair poked from his collar showing despite his bald head, hair was thriving everywhere else. Spiders legs crawled from his eyebrows and his heavy-lidded eyes were as brown as the bundles of teak stacked by the door. I noticed a stumpy pencil behind his ear, conveniently placed like a cigarette stub.

‘I’m Mike,’ I said, putting out my hand as my dad had said I should.

‘Good for you,’ he said, ignoring my hand. ‘Stick that thing in the grub room and meet me by the mitre saws.’ I nodded. The 'thing' was my duffle bag. I was never that keen on it myself but never thought of it as a 'thing'. I looked at it now in a new light, my old PE duffle bag, a reminder of the recent cross-over from childhood. I didn’t know what a grub room or a mitre saw was, but didn’t want to ask too many questions so early on.

I guessed the grub room was the place I first went into where two old guys were sat slurping muddy looking fluid from dirty looking flask cups and reading red topped newspapers. What the Hell a mitre was, was anyone's guess. The only one I could think of was the tall hat I wore in drama when I stole the role of Archbishop of Rheims from Melvin Foreacre after auditions, due to being slightly taller, and impressing Miss Strummer with my high, flat toned diction when reading aloud. It felt a long time ago now that I was 16 with no school kids anywhere, just old guys slurping coffee and talking about mitre saws and grub rooms and pursing their lips at pictures of naked women.

On my way home I’d mused about my strange first day in the timber yard. ‘It’s not wood,’ I was told, ‘It’s timber, it’s always timber’. I thought about those workmen and their odd insularity, particularly their Page 3 obsessions. If I’d wanted to see a naked female body, I thought, I only had to ask Samantha to take her top off, which she would, if her dad wasn’t home, and if she was in the right mood. Sometimes I was even allowed to take her bra off, a devilish task of finger trembling complexity that reminded me of those obsessive travails with my sister’s lockable diary and money box about eight years earlier. I’d thought about my diaries as well. I was an adult now and thought perhaps I should end them.

Today…

I’m sitting on the floor of my lounge reading through a box of really old diaries. There’re boxes everywhere with diaries that date right up to today. I’m reflecting on my incurable nature and my need to write. Still, plenty of oddments for my future autobiography I suppose.

1541

TMA04 Commentary

My starting point for this TMA was from the Tutor Discussion Exercise (Exercise 4, 2012) - the listing of four self describing words. I thought this would be a good basis for TMA04 should I choose the autobiography option of life writing and use these words to demonstrate events from my life and show why the words were chosen.

In choosing autobiography I felt I needed a ‘developing self’ structure which could span a number of years. (Workbook, p.271) One way I thought might achieve this would be through a presentation of snapshot recorded diary entries with prominent events that have stuck in my memory. I thought this would provide something of my life story – stories showing my obsessions – obsessive being one of the descriptive words I chose, and provide creative writing opportunities such as sensory detail. Additionally I would acknowledge the word ‘diarist’ which was one of the words I used in the exercise, with diary entries used to hold it all together.

Although these vignettes can be seen as snapshots because they could stand alone (Workbook, p.295) there are also ‘through-lines to be found. I am the central character, I remain a diarist, and my slightly obsessive nature which is gradually revealed might be seen as a ‘universalising theme’ (Activity, 20.2 p.296)

Two of the incidents came from an activity that asked for us to write about three separate incidents then link them. (Activity, 21.2, p.296). The ‘Beginning,’ is a description of the start of my diary interest; ‘School,’ covers my seeming obsession with comics, (Diary, 1968.) And, first day at ‘Work,’ (Diary,1972), should link the diarist in me throughout, and also show progress in the ‘developing self’ through introducing elements of the Bildungsroman form, as a confession of my faltering steps into adulthood. (Workbook, p.304)

The word limit forced me to drastically revise an early draft which included ‘Learn to Swim’ (Tutorial 4, 2012) and ‘My First Born’ (Workbook Activity) which would’ve connect two decades. The final paragraph which divided opinion on a Private A215 Group site concluded the piece with me in the present, sifting through diaries as if in preparation to write an autobiography. I hope this closed the piece satisfactorily.

As part of my research I had read authors who appeared to ‘relish in their subjectivity’ (Workbook p.282). I noticed how Patrick Kavanagh in his memoir: ‘The Perfect Stranger’ developed his ‘self’ through recreating specific phases of his life. (Kavanagh, P.1966.) I also read Laurie Lee’s, ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ (Lee, L. 1969) and admired his use of sensory detail and not sparing the descriptive process of his short two years’ memoir while still managing to keep the narrative going forward despite this focusing on the ‘sparrows, coffee cups and ham sandwiches’ detailing. (Goldberg, 1986, inWorkbook, p.338). Lastly, Jenny Diski on CD3 and in her book: ‘Stranger on a Train,’ (Diski, J. 2002), reminded me of the importance of ‘events’ and of the effect of ‘thoughts at the time’ for a memoir, which I tried to do in my ‘musings’ about Samantha in the later section.

515 words

References:

A215 Creative Writing Audio CD3, Life Writing (2005), The Open University/ Pier Productions.

Haslam, S. (2006) in Linda Anderson (ed.) Creative Writing: A workbook with readings. Milton Keynes/Abingdon: The Open University in association with Routledge.

Ragan,M. (1968) Private Diary dated January – December 1968. Not published.

Ragan,M. (1972) Private Diary dated January – December 1972. Not published.

A215 Creative Writing, Part 4, Life Writing, The Open University, Tutor Forum: http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=955343 accessed: 30 March 2012

A215 Creative Writing, Part 4, Life Writing, The Open University, Tutor Forum: http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=925684 accessed: 30 March 2012.

Lee, L. (1969) As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. Penguin Books Ltd. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.

Kavanagh, P (1966) (1985) The Perfect Stranger. First Published by Chatto & Windus Ltd, Fontana Paperbacks, 8 Grafton Street, London. W1X 3LA.

Diski, J. (2002) Stranger On A Train, London, Virago.

A215 Student Blog Group – Private http://a215bloggers.blogspot.co.uk/?zx=2e4fc98861d95bd8 accessed 30 March 2012.

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Tutor Forum Exercise

I haven't posted onto this blog for ages. What's worse is that I haven't done any exercises from the BRB since the poetry phase. I have been working on an idea for TMA04 and have an embryonic idea for the dreaded EMA, but no exercises. So, the tutor has woken me from my exercise slumber and given us a couple of exercises to do.

The first exercise involves - tell you what I'll copy the damn thing here:

The aim of this exercise is to tap into memory and recount an experience using vivid sensory recall.

Make a list of six intense physical experiences you have had. Here’s an example of the things you may include (I’ll leave it to you to work out what you can’t include –see note on ‘powerful’ material in the Assessment Booklet, p7!):

• Repetitive work on a factory line;
• Travel sickness;
• Giving Birth;
• Falling in love with someone’s voice;
• Being part of a festive crowd;
• A dramatic haircut or restyle;
• Learning to swim;
• Singing in a choir.

Select one experience and write an account of it, including as much sensory detail as you can about sights, sounds or smells, as well as what you thought and felt.

Post your piece in reply to this thread.

I selected learning to swim as I thought it offered plenty of opportunities for sensory detail. Now I'm wondering whether to reproduce it here as I'm conscious of TMAs to come. Notably, 05 for which I have no material whatsoever. It's a shame this business of not being able to stick work on your blog in case there are loftier intentions for it later. As a compromise I'll reproduce the second activity which was, I think, far less impressive.

The aim of this second exercise is to get you to experiment with pacing, a particularly important skill in life writing because you will constantly have to choose what to dwell on, and what to summarise quickly or omit.

Summarise ten years of your life (or your subject’s life, if you’re choosing to write biography) in a paragraph or two. Then pick one event from of those ten years and write a paragraph or two only about that.

Post your 2 – 4 paragraphs to this sub-forum.

This second exercise was about through-lines, though the term as you can see, is not used in the above text. My first effort missed that point so it wasn't particularly well received - typical shit sandwich deal, plenty to like here, but... you know the drill. So I refashioned it to reflect what I hope was more of what was looked for:

Because I hated school for reasons I now cannot fathom since I've loved learning ever since, I left as early as I could with very few academic qualifications. This meant that I became a job drifter (this was the early 1970s and it was possible). During this period I worked on building sites, garage workshops, timber yards, farms, shops, offices and factories. It really was quite simple, when I got fed up, I left. If I didn't like someone there, I left, if I thought I could earn more somewhere else, doing something else, I left. Finally I shook myself up and realised that I was on verge of becoming a loser, so I joined the RAF and asked them to get a grip of my life. But I was not easy to lick or kick me into shape.

Before I knew it I was fully kitted out in ill fitting dungarees, a backpack with a sleeping bag badly buckled to the top that threatened to topple over at any moment, and a pair of stiff new boots that we were told to urinate in before wearing, if we wanted to avoid blisters the size of golf balls half way round the perimeter track we were going to be force marched around. I could feel the dampness around my feet as the march started. I could smell the acid mixing with the sweat and the mustiness of these old uniforms. This was the start of the weeding out process. Those who couldn't hack it would be on the next train home. I walked faster than I'd ever walked - felt my shins stiffen immediately. Pretty soon it felt like I was wearing splints. My helmet was spilling over my eyes one minute, biting into my skull the next. A little man a full six inches shorter than me wearing stripes and whose sole aim seemed to be to break our spirits, pushed his face into mine as I walked and gasped and sucked in air trying to stay within touching distance of the leading group. He called me a useless fucking twat for falling slightly behind. Even under this physical trauma I noticed the tobacco stains on his teeth, the flecks of spittle at the corner of his mouth and the mock hatred in his eyes. He was acting, but this was no game.

Travel? Might be an idea for 04.

The reading activity which shows Dervla Murphy and her travels on a bicycle in the Workbook seems to encapsulate the writing I would most like to do for this section of the course and perhaps going forward. It's the notion of 'experiences along the way' and recorded with a writer's eye for detail that impresses me most about this genre, and I feel that is where my strengths might lie. (Poetry? hmm, I'll take another look soon).

I have some evidence to support this with small travel pieces tucked away here and there that I have already recorded, such as my experiences in places that should have been holidays but in the end more closely resembled mini-adventures in for example, southern Spain, Prague, Slovenia, Hamburg, Helsinki, Tunis, Turkey, Cyprus, New York, Peru, Thailand, Budapest, Tallinn, California, Lithuania, most of France and closer to home trips to Ireland and the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, even the good old Yorkshire Dales. Each of those trips, in small ways were to me quite fascinating - and I have already written about them with my own brand of enthusiasm: the people I have met and things I have seen and done.

Now I'm no Dervla, that's for sure. I've had the small matter of having to keep working to pay the mortgage and feed the family, provide a home and so on. If I can retire soon I have much more to do. But, I'm sure I can dig around and find a few things from my travel diaries.

I once hired a convertible in San Francisco and drove down the Pacific Highway to LA then across the desert to Las Vegas a before breaking down on the outskirts of a dump called Barstow which was just after we'd broken down close to Death Valley, in 100 degree heat and short of water. Then into Yosemite and full circle back to San Francisco.

I've taken a night train from Bangkok to Chang Mai on a single track which was within bandit striking distance of the Burmese border in the most horrendous electric thunderstorm. And a freezing ferry from Estonia to Finland in a snow storm over the Baltic whilst huddled up with Latvians wearing knitted bobble hats and faux-mink coats, sharing paper cups of undrinkable tea and smoking Russian cigarettes.

I've walked to Switzerland from France up and along a mountain pass which looked like an escape route from WW2. And I've walked through Cusco in Peru on my way to Machu Pichu with a wife who was so sick with altitude sickness she had to choppered to hospital for life saving treatment. And that was after surviving a horror night in Lima where we were dumped by our taxi driver at a hotel in the middle of a slum area.

All these trips I have written about and could again for the purpose of life writing - even if I'll never quite be able to match Dervla Murphy's experiences. As they say it's about enlivening the mundane - something we all need to be able to do unless we're war correspondents, dodging bullets whilst disguised as women and surviving arrests and beatings. Then I guess we're recording the absoulte truth in as much graphic detail as possible. But wait. The Workbook does make mundane references to visits to supermarkes and doctor's surgeries. This is where the skill of the writer overlays the intensity of the experience. That's why writers always have something to write about. Otherwise they're not writers. Simple as... as they say.

TMA03 Commentary

The subject of this poem came from a notebook entry under ‘short story ideas’ which included an old memory about going on a terrifying ‘first date, at Taunton’s Market Square. I thought the ‘story idea’ would convert neatly into a poem believing it could be refined to focus on emotion, mood and reflection and would work well with the brevity of poetry. I’d read Hardy’s poem The Convergence of the Twain about the Titanic/iceberg and their (arguable) inevitable meeting and added the quote to my notebook after Workbook Activity 12.6. I wanted to develop this predestination theme to describe a ‘collision’ between a clock and me, (see epigraph), as this also had unfortunate consequences due to misreading the time with that ‘glance.’

Having read the Workbook activity about photographs and how they inspire ideas, I remembered some old table placemats depicting the Market House in various historical settings. I thought these images good sources to show back-story and ‘life’ to the clock and could link with the contemporary, slightly scruffy 70’s town, with its late buses and gruff bus conductors also providing opportunities for show over tell. I wanted the poem to begin with a breathless, incantatory, inner voice to convey the poet’s anxiety and the late bus not helping. Then a staccato, jittery rhythm in S2 to reflect the poet’s frazzled nerves. I drew inspiration from Auden’s Night Mail and Belloc’s Tarantella as both emulate the rhythm of events through language, punctuation and line. I used alliteration to help show mood and internal rhyme to bring in sounds, particularly some recurrent initial letters and language and line breaks in S4 to show the tense poet’s steps as they synched harmoniously with the clock’s imagined ticking.

The first draft was sketched out in free verse block as I thought too much metrical discipline would inhibit the richness of the ideas and language. Later I included a sprinkling of local dialect to add originality, (see glossary). I wanted to be free to introduce rhythmic changes to reflect some of the action: inner voice anxiety S1, nervous feeling of S2, the fidgety anxiety of S3, halting and striding, S4, and the slower reflective tones of S5 -S6. I structured it into broadly even stanzas to break the poem into story-like chapters and aimed at rhythmic flow whilst eschewing a rhyme-scheme which I thought might appear too jaunty.

After listening to Douglas Dunn’s critical comments about free verse on CD2 I tried to reverse the poem into iambic pentameter to demonstrate competence in the form, but thought too many of the lines looked ‘forced’ rather than natural. I wrote several lines in iambic pentameter based on Herbert’s ‘I think I’d rather like a cup of tea,’ which I’d pasted above the draft as reference; but this poem didn’t work well with iambic metrical feet given the language and the effect I wanted.

Finally having read the tutor recommended compilation volume ‘Saving Lives’ and noting the positive feedback between tutor and students during poetry tutorials, I felt more confident about free verse as both the book and the tutorials showed how versatile and effective freer verse can be. I tried to ensure however that despite the poem being in free verse the 10 syllable lines helped tighten its feel whilst not inhibiting its freedom. (550 words)