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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