Reflections

I'm very close to finishing reading a novel, in bed with lemsip and cigarettes and trying not to get ill again. It's taken a long time (a month) to read this novel, and I've enjoyed it. Thus, I want to finish it. But I can't! I'm thinking about writing.

I'm half way through the course now and I didn't even notice it. A 12 month course and I'm half way through in 2 months. Thats the way, uhuh uhuh, i like it, uhuh uhuh...do do dooo do do dooo do do -- DO --

A review, post haste:

Part 1: spent the whole time rewriting exercise 1 of about 10, possibly 15, forgetting that the rest existed. Ultimately, my assessments were made up on the spot. 2 poems and 2 pieces of prose born of pure necessity.

I learnt: to use all five senses when creating a scene, to free write and then highlight what I wanted to keep, underline what needed to be improved, and isolate those nuggets to be reworked, i.e. metaphors to be made more lyrical, more poetic.

Part 2: I did all the exercises and had about a week to do the assessment, which was jolly good n' whatnot.

I learnt: to use a thesaurus - to expand upon my lyricism with selective words, to get to know my language and to get an understanding of why i've used that language, of the bigger picture involved. I learnt how to echo character in place and place in character - vital.

Part 3: I'm half way through. Its dialogue, so completely new to me. I'm learning to expand what I've learnt previously, to build on it - to tell the story through different characters points of view, still using scene to inform the reader of whats going on. I know need to learn to mirror character in place in dialogue and dialogue in character in place etc, to turn all these elements into plot.

I've been laid low since my last assessment with weeks of illness, and my prolificity has been mediated by it. I need to work through these exercises so i can spend time on the assessment at the end, like I did last time.

Now, I aint a bad student when it comes down to it, but it isn't in my background or experience to organise myself as effectively as some other manage to organise themselves. I had to learn from each of these previous parts of the course, to develop my habits through them. The first thing I learnt was to do all the exercises and give myself time to do the assessment at the end. I still do most of the exercises at least twice, and take at least twice as long as is suggested to do them.

Now I am learning something important: I need to keep track of what I've done. This blogger -- is shit. Its a bad lay out, doesn't print well, I can't see my entries back to back, nor flick through them. I need a hard copy. i am now thinking I should revert to a paper journal for these entries, since the media - which would more be more appropriate for a common place book - has dried up. When it comes to it, I can "paste" (using PritStick) anything i print into the book.

Further, my folder of drafts is my saving grace. It has kept everything together.

My common place book is the weakest part of my skillset, since it is abyssmally scattered between here, a file, a book, face, my draws, my walls and my floor.

The most important points in all of this are thus:

1. Keep things together, and make a hard-copy learning log. I need to be able to see my work-over-time laid out clearly.

2. Sort out my common place book. Do more research on the people and places I'm writing about.

3. In each part of the course, use EVERYTHING i learnt in the previous parts.

4. Keep taking at least twice as long to do everything, and doing it at least twice (although I've done the last exercise 5 times now, which is becoming a common occurrance).