Things I Never Thought I’d Write

So this Advanced Creative Writing course I’m on. It has made me try Something New (how very dare it!). Play-scripts! Aargh.
Not just scripts in general, oh no. That would be too easy, and after all, as we hapless students are often reminded, it is an Advanced Course. So, after some generalised work on the concept of script rather than story, we’ve had to learn the subtle differences between writing for radio, stage and screen.

Of course, I’ve written play-scripts before. With 8-10 year-olds. Who have learning difficulties.
Worryingly, I get the impression my tutor is looking for something rather more sophisticated.

My current assignment requires me to adapt the short story I wrote for my first assignment, into a play. Gulp. It’s been trickier than I expected. Just as scary is the prospect of, once again, writing a commentary on why and how I wrote what I…er…wrote. And rewrote.

But that isn’t The Thing I Never Thought I’d Write. Oh no. That thing occurred in the process. It’s a scrawled note to myself from this morning, and I’m left wondering what people will think if I ever, heh heh, become famous, and my notebooks are studied for posterity.

Because just before I dashed off to work, I wrote:

DO WE NEED STEVE??
could back-refer + swallow into Dan

Perhaps I should put that in my commentary. <Interesting how I always use the royal ‘we’ when I scrawl these notes. Perhaps it’s a subliminal desire for a co-author.>

(BTW – I rewrote the scene and Steve in now gone. Poor Steve. He is now only referred to, and has indeed been swallowed ‘into’ Dan. Which sounds dodgier every time I write it).

In Which I Am An Ungrateful Whinger

I’ve not blogged for ages. This is naughty. Life has been busy. And talking of things not done –

I’ve not really been into the competition-entering Thang this past year.  2010, as some of you  know, was very busy and stressful.

I did try. I abandoned a few stories that ran out of time (one soooo near to completion that I’ll send it elsewhere, soon). But then, almost on a whim, I entered a poetry competition.  Again. Even though I am Not A Poet – as I have explained to my OU tutor, the witty and wonderful Caron Freeborn. (Particularly wonderful today as she has granted me an extension for my assignment – backache has me doing the Womble Walk if I sit for more than a few minutes).

Wombles

The competition? Writers’ News, August. The brief? The theme: Generation Gap.

So I played for a bit with words, which is how I approach poetry. (To be honest, approach is too strong a word. I go for what sounds good. It’s about as technical as spreading jam.)

And lo and behold, today February’s WN catapaults through my door (yes, catapaults – my postie is very enthuisiastic – hello Phil), and I flick through the pages to discover that…
once again…
I have been shortlisted.

Now I know what you’re thinking. I should be doing the Happy Dance.
Can’t. Bad Back, you know.
But seriously, I am partly doing the Happy Dance, yet there’s a little part of me that’s whispering…

shortlisted Again…I should be delighted…but wouldn’t it be nice to, ahem…win?
Or even be runner-up?
Wouldn’t one win be more heartening, more impressive to editors, agents & the literati in general, than four shortlistings?

So tell me – d’you see my point, or am I just an ungrateful whinger?

Oh – and just to make up for no posts for ages, straight after I post this one, I shall dip into my drafts and drag out one that needs to see the light of day.
Need to stand up. Maximum sit-down exceeded. Womble walk, here we come.

Morris Dancers & Free School Meals

Well if you were searching the horizon, hoping to see steam from the boiling cauldron of creativity rise above the roof of the Runham household, then I’m afraid you were disappointed – unless it arose from the manga drawings Arty Daughter continues to plaster the house with, or Constructo Boy’s attempts to be comical when he wrote his spelling sentences homework this week. How he delights in taking the words and turning them into sentences that convince his teachers (whom I have to work with, mind!) that I’m bonkers and our family life is positively freakish… so much damage done in so few words.

In between helping ArtyD prepare for her English GCSE assessment and being madly busy with work (of the Proper Job variety), all the ‘free time’ (ha ha) that I’d earmarked for writing dissolved. I did get some of my coursework for A363 done at the weekend, but that’s about it. I’m hoping the next few days will be better, and holding out for Thursday – we adore Thee, Thursday, for Thou Art the Day without any Proper Jobs. At least the pesky tax return has Left The Building. Phew.

Meanwhile I’ve been gathering data on area stats for free school meal eligibility for a friend, and pondering how to put disappearing Morris Dancers (found here on Julie P’s blog!) and an exploding bass trombone (from a Darwin awards article I read!) into a story. Not necessarily together, you understand – there’s a limit to how much hilarity a reader can take… 😉

I’ve tried to sub to a couple of blogspot blogs today (including Julie P’s Article Antics), but found the ‘ol ‘IE cannot display…’ error. This is making me feel a trifle miffed and Needs Further Investigation.

Right. I must abandon the laptops, chase Constructo Boy to bed, and go back to making Arty D’s costume for the London MCM Expo (of which, more later!).

How Advanced Am I, Really? ;-)

It seems I’m about to find out because today a somewhat wet and bedraggled DHL driver delivered a bundle of joy to my door (lucky that I wasn’t Proper Jobbing today). Yay! It was my OU course materials for A363 Advanced Creative Writing.

It turned up at the ideal time, as I needed a break from the computer and wanted something to read with a cuppa before picking up Constructo Boy from school. So I settled down for a read on a sunlounger (upright). Don’t get excited, it wasn’t outdoors. It’s lurking near the patio doors in the vain hope of being allowed out of them again, looking uncannily like a dog desperate for walkies!

This was only after I’d reassured the DHL driver that no, I didn’t want him to hand me the sodden mass that was Arty Daughter’s newspapers (bundled in plastic, thank goodness). I tried to explain that she could shake them off later when she got back, but bless him, I don’t think his English was up to it so he just looked at them, rather bewildered, and walked away. 

So I’ve had a little browse at the intros in the course handbook and study guide, and can’t wait to start. I’m sure come assignment time, though, some of my enthusiasm might have worn off… 🙂

I have to write screen adaptions and plays. I have never done this before.

I’m sure it will be fine.

Gulp.