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!