Nagged By Your Notebook (it could have been a novel, you know…)

Apologies if you’ve been deafened by my manic laughter. It’s the heady feeling of freedom, you know. That’s what’s to blame. Yes! My advanced creative writing course – and Diploma – are now over. Done. Ended. Finito. Now I just have to wait with fingers crossed to hear whether I’ve gained the right to be an incredibly sad muppet who puts Dip CW after my name.

I fear most people will think it means Care Work and try to drag me round to Auntie Rose’s house to change her colostomy bag because it’s come loose and it smells funny. Sigh…

Meanwhile, some things never end. And one of them is my love of stationery. ArtyDaughter came back from town the other week with a delectable little bit-smaller-than-A6-size project book in different shades of blue. This will be perfect for my handbag – small enough to fit in snugly, and with those lovely dividers so that my random thoughts can be organised for easy access later! Perfect.

And a few weeks earlier, ConstructoBoy got a box full of Waldo Pancake goodies for his birthday. (Be still, quivering heart; how can I not have known about these things before?) Amongst these treasures was a notebook:

Waldo Pancake Notebook - I could've been a novel.

 

Yes, I know. The front cover is enough to make your writing procrastination guilt come hotfooting it through your door. But the worst is yet to come. This quote is unfinished.
And when you turn it over, you see the end.

…instead of a stupid little notepad, which is what I am.’

You see? It really is a notebook that nags.
And they have other weapons in their arsenal too, these Pancake people.

There are others, but these were a few that I thought all the writers out there could relate to… 😉  In case you’re tempted, you can buy them – and lots of other funky bookmarks, coasters etc – here

ConstructoBoy, great writer though he is, has not taken the hint and started a novel (though he did consider it. Bless the boy.) Instead he is writing down the details (lined pages) and drawing relevant pictures (plain pages) of a computer game he is designing. It features a lot of tanks of different kinds, and he is determined to get every fact right…

Thank heavens for the internet and Usborne’s Second World War cards 🙂

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.