Category Archives: weekly post

Dissertation: Week 1 – I’ve finally started ‘Granny Killer’ (provisional title)

I’m writing this to keep myself on track. I had a good first few days, until Monday. I wrote about 7000 words between last Wednesday and this Monday, but now I appear to have ground to a halt.

7000 words isn’t bad, I suppose, for the first draft, and I keep thinking of things that need changing when I write the second draft on my laptop. The first draft is hand written, in my notebook. The notebook has a fairy on the cover that looks curiously like Liv Tyler, but they added wings to make her less Arwen-like; probably for copyright reasons.

Sorry, back to the topic in hand. My dissertation. The creative piece has to be 13,000 words of consecutive prose from a new piece of fiction, and the creative analysis part has to be 2000 words. For that I’ll be concentrating on three areas – the conventions of crime fiction, the use of real crimes, criminals and detectives as inspiration by crime writers, and regionalism in crime novels – especially in Britain.

At 7,000 words I’m half-way there on the creative piece. I have arranged to do my dissertation supervisions by email, so I don’t have to travel to Lincoln. I can’t afford to; the student loan has all been spent on fees, travel, food, council tax, other bills. Basically surviving while attempting to study. Once a month I have to type up what I’ve written and email it to my dissertation supervisor for detailed, substantial feedback. That should be helpful. I hope.

Just looked out the window and noticed the bin. It’s bin day tomorrow and I haven’t had the bin emptied for four weeks, so I suppose I’d better go and put it out. And tomorrow is also my Post-Diagnostic Support Session with the psychologist. I don’t actually have official confirmation of my diagnosis yet and she wouldn’t even hint at it in her emails last week.

I’m anxious. If I get the suspected diagnosis of ASC – Asperger’s Syndrome, there’s nothing they can do to help, I’ll be passed on to a charity that might possibly be able to provide some information and support. If they decide on a different diagnosis, I’m back to square one, trying to work out why my brain doesn’t work the same way as other people and feeling like the odd one out all the time, with no explanation for my anxiety and depression, or my limited social skills, my dislike of changes to routine or plans, my pacing, fidgeting and tapping, and on a really bad day, rocking back and forth in my chair (sorry! everyone at uni, can’t help myself.).

It’s not uncommon for autistic women to be misdiagnosed as OCD or BPD, or ignored completely, and I don’t know what the psychiatrist’s qualifications or experience is, so now I’m wondering if he’ll dismiss everything he’s seen, heard and read because he’s one of those that doesn’t believe autistic women exist. Maybe I’m unnecessarily torturing myself, but anxiety lies and so does depression, so I don’t know what to think and I’m probably not going to sleep much and be a horrible person tomorrow.

Anyway, time to get offline and do something else. I’ve noticed a distinct increase in my anxiety whenever I spend more than a few minutes online without purpose, and especially if I go on social media. I had to go out food shopping this afternoon so I didn’t get my nap either, so I’m frazzled and tired. Also, my spelling is atrocious right now. Considering going up to my bedroom to cuddle with the dogs and Wabby, and have an early night.

Uni: Week 13 (I think?)

So today is symposium day. I’m nervous about the standing up and talking to people about my dissertation. I have notes for the ten minute talk but I’m not comfortable with it. I’m just going to look at the back of the room and talk to the wall, I think.

Uni Update: Week 11

This week we looked at the work of Gertrude Stein, the U.S. born writer who spent most of her life in France and hung around with Picasso. Her work is weird, and not necessarily in a good way. It made not sense but sounded like it should. Much more amusing, and nonsensically sensible was the response by James Thurber to hearing the same piece of work.

We had a go at writing something in the style of Stein, but I don’t think I was very successful.

The chicken on the table, little feathery dinosaur on the table in the kitchen, wings aren’t flapping. The wings on the chicken on the table aren’t flapping. The chicken on the plate on the table, the blue and white plate, on the blue and white cloth on the table. The chicken on the blue and white plate on the blue and white cloth in the kitchen, the wings on the chicken on the blue and white plate on the blue and white cloth on the table in the kitchen aren’t flapping.

Flapping, flap, flap, chicken, fly away featherless chicken on the blue and white plate on the blue and white cloth on the table in the kitchen.

 

Uni week 9

Last Wednesday was our last day before the Easter break, and to make up for some of the weeks lost because the tutor was ill, we had a extra session in the morning. The morning session cover basic grammar questions and pamphlet production, and flash fiction. The usual afternoon workshop covered ‘found’/re-purposed fiction. Can’t say I was too fussed by either workshop, but I had had an early start and a long wait between. I left at five in the afternoon, because it was a long enough day without staying and having to wait for the 20:02 train back to Grimsby.

Uni: Week 8

Finally got back to university today. The workshop today was ‘Revisiting Verse’. The tutor played us a piece of music and we had to write down our impressions, then write a poem. Not my strongest subject, but I gave it a bash. I wrote a narrative poem. It was okay, but I didn’t read it out.

I might try the same thing in future, if I get writer’s block.

Uni weeks one and two

Hey, I remembered when I got in from university this evening that I haven’t done my weekly update since I started back at university. I started back last week. It’s a long day, even though I only have one two-hour seminar. Trains and such stretch the day out. I discovered tonight that it only costs £4 to get a taxi from the station to my house. Since I’m in stupid amounts of pain right now, I was willing to pay out the money to get home quickly. I’ve got pins and needles in my left foot right now, so this is going to be quick.

Week one was an introductory seminar, we made mock-ups of A5 pamphlets and discussed the process of publishing. I got to do colouring in.

Today we covered experimental writing and read some of Richard Brautigen’s Trout Fishing in America then attempted to write something in the same vein. I didn’t do very well, but I’ll share them with you.

Task: Write a piece in the style of Richard Brautigan about Brayford Wharf:

The swan and the pasta plate

As I sat out one midwinter evening eating pasta on the wharf, a swan came along to join me. I thought he might like a taste, so I threw the plate to him.

It sank without a taste.

The waiter brought another. I had to try again, as the swan paddled on, lost in the gloom.

I hit her head.

The table rocked when I climbed aboard, the swan barged the chair.

The waiter brought another plate.

“I prefer bread.” The swan said as she turned away.

He really didn’t like the taste.

Food and Lego

Across the river there waits a warm pub with plates of food just for the dragon and I. Long travelling had worn us out and we couldn’t find the donkeys to carry us. Perhaps they’d gone to the beach without me? Where shall I put my bucket and spade. There’s an island in the middle, we could go and play there. Dragon and I found the bricks. Someone had played here before us, some barge child, bored. A little house and farm. Trees and cows and sheep. Lego pigs in Lego pig shit. I don’t want to go to Denmark thanks.

See, I told you they weren’t very good. I think I’m a bit too literal to do the sort of whimsical, experimental writing some of the others could do well.

Right, going to bed now. Pain is getting a bit much.

Night.

Uni Update: The last one for this year

That’s it, the term has finished. I should be relieved, it has been tiring and stressful at times, but I’m not. I’m anxious that I won’t see anything of the people I’ve met on the course now that it’s over. I’ve got half an assignment to finish writing and hand in on 26th, when I’ll see everyone again – we’re going for lunch. After that, who knows?

I’ll be back at uni in September to re-enrol, and then I have to wait until next January to start my final module before I do my dissertation. In the months between now and then I will be researching background information for my dissertation novel, and having a trial run at producing a booklet, which is the final assignment I’ll need to hand in, in a year from now before starting my dissertation.

Talking of assignments, I got 70% for my life-writing assignment. If I can get that or more for my ghost story, I’ll be very happy. I’m trying to get my assignment average results above 70%.

I’ve learnt some useful things this year. I’m better at prose than poetry, for a start. I have learnt to write reflexive essays, which were a complete mystery to me at the start. I have a vague understanding of how to write a script now. I got my highest mark in drama, although my 5000 word short story wasn’t far behind. Now it’s in third place after life-writing. I’ve had some useful feedback on my writing and I feel slightly more confident about it.

The next few months will be busy, as well as research for my dissertation, I will be finishing work on Hidden Fire, Fire Betrayed and Fire Awakened, and making progress on Fire Storm. I want to try to self-publish them. I made the decision based on a couple of things:

  • It’s hard to sell a series to an agent or publisher, and if I do sell the first book they might interfere with the rest of them
  • It can take years to get published the traditional way and I want these books out of my head and out of the way so I can get on with the other ones currently living in my head and demanding my attention. It’s very hard to focus on Fire Storm  when Thane of Lindsey, The Three Ladies, Wool Thief, Killer Granny and When the Fat Ladies Sing are demanding I write them, this instant. These are all provisional titles/nicknames, by the way. The first three are historical fiction and the final two are contemporary crime novels.
  • I want to share the stories with people

Probably not the best reasons but they are good enough for me. Right, there will be a book review, and three short stories later today, but first, it’s dinner time.

 

Uni Update: The end is in sight

For this year at least.

I’ve been ill, am still ill, with an awful cold. Today has been the first day since Saturday that I’ve felt like doing anything much beyond napping. I missed university yesterday because I just wasn’t up to it. Next week is our final seminar before the Easter holiday. We have to go back in in late April to hand in an assignment, and for the majority there will be meetings with dissertation advisers, but not for me. I have another year to wait before that happens.

Last week was fairly quiet. We read through each other’s work and gave feedback. My tutor suggested I try reworking the first ghost story I wrote as it was better than the second. It meant I had to double the length of the original story but I managed it on Wednesday afternoon and evening. Before the cold from hell felled me, I managed to get some feedback on the re-write and make some changes. It’s been really helpful having the support and feedback of other writers. I just have to write my reflexive piece now, but that can wait for the Easter break, when, hopefully, I’ll be back up to snuff, health-wise.

Next week, will be a symposium rather than seminars and workshops. Everyone else will be telling us what their dissertation project is, and then in the afternoon there will be a poetry performance. The uni are providing food and alcohol. After that, we’re all off to the pub for a proper buffet a la Erika.

Apparently, people got their life-writing assignments back yesterday. I’ll have to wait until next week to get mine, but I’m not too worried. Sam would have said something if I’d messed up completely.

Due to being half dead for the last week I haven’t been up to reading much so no reviews at the minute, although I have been making progress with a book about 19th century Russia called ‘Who’s To Blame?’, so with any luck I might have a review for you in the next week.

Sorry about being a bad reviewer; the last month hasn’t been great, what with going from one infection to the next and the new anxiety/depression medication. Which is beginning to work, by the way. I’m mostly having good days, except for the random anxiety days, and my usual ‘argh I’m doing something tomorrow, must panic about everything that could possibly go wrong’ anxiety and sleepless nights. It’s progress. And I’ve heard from the ASD assessment centre in Grimsby. I have a form to fill in, which I need my sisters to help me with, because forms scare me, and on a practical level, they notice the things I do that aren’t considered ‘normal’ when I have a sensory response to a stimulus. I’ve noticed, now I have my tentative diagnosis,  and people have been told about it, if I need to react to an over stimulating event I will, whereas in the past I’ve forced myself not to and become more distressed in the process.

So, apart from the review of ‘Who’s To Blame?’, what do I have coming up?

Later today there will be a report from the East Midlands Writer’s Conference that I attended last Saturday. I was half-dead and failed to network at all.

Next month, I will be hosting two author spotlight posts and two novel extract posts, thanks to Rachel Gilbey at Authoright Marketing and Publishing, who contacted me to see if I would be interested in taking part in their ‘Spring Reading Week’. The posts will be up at noon on the 14th and 16th April, with my reviews of the books. I am still waiting for the review books to arrive, but hopefully they will get here in plenty of time.

Other than that, there will be the usual reviews and one final uni update for the year.

Right, I’m off to get an ice lolly out of the freezer and go back to bed.

 

Uni update: Week ?

I haven’t done a uni update for a few weeks, have I?

Sorry about that. I changed my medication during reading week and I’m still adjusting. Since then I’ve had two days at university. In week six(?) we started talking about ghost stories; what makes a ghost story, why people read them, etc. and watched a bit of ‘Spirited Away’.

I had started my ghost story, I’d already written one but it wasn’t long enough so I’m saving it to enter in to a short story  competition, probably the on-going monthly Writer’s Forum magazine competition. I’m waiting until I have some money though, because I want to pay the extra for a critique. Over the weekend, between weeks 6 and 7, I finished a second ghost story, which I hope to use as my assignment piece, because I don’t have much more in me in the way of ghost stories, not at the minute anyway.

In week 7 we talked about ghost stories we liked, and I borrowed a Dean Koontz book from my tutor. I read it in one sitting. It’s called Odd Apocalypse, and is part of a series. I don’t know if you’ve read it? I quite enjoyed it. I think I’ve tried to read it before and couldn’t get on with it but this time I could. Interesting characters and plot, and a different take on the ghost story/haunted house idea.

Other than giving each other feedback, I think we’ve pretty much finished ghost stories. Half the lesson last week was about what to do next, dissertations, getting published, that sort of thing. I told our tutor I had three complete novels and another five (at least) planned. He asked what I was doing with them. ME: Nothing, because I don’t know what to do next.

I have decided to try to enter more competitions. So far I’ve entered the ‘Writers and Artists Short Story Competition’ which was free – that was in February, and last night I entered the ‘Writer’s Forum Flash Comp 186’, which was also free because I’m a subscriber to the magazine, with a little sci-fi flash I wrote yesterday morning and left to bubble for 12 hours before I edited and sent it off. I’ve started another sci-fi short story that I’m going to enter in the ‘Writing Magazine’ competition later in the year. One of their monthly competitions had a sci-fi theme, so I’m going to try to enter that.

I’m going to enter ‘Hidden Fire’ in some ‘first chapters’ and first novel competitions, once I get my next student loan payment. The entry fees are about £15 – £30 so I’m going to have to be selective.

This week we are supposed to be sharing the first part of our ghost stories in class; since I already have mine written and it’s 3061 words I’ve shared it with my classmates already so I don’t have to read the whole thing out but can still get some feedback on it. I’m hoping to get some decent feedback, and to get more insight into what the hell I’m supposed to do next with my novels.

On Saturday I will be in Nottingham for the East Midlands Writer’s Conference. It will be a long day, as I have to catch the train at 7 a.m. and I won’t be home again until half seven in the evening, at the earliest (depending on whether I can get a lift from the station or not). I am looking forward to it, even if the thought of sitting in a room with a hundred-plus other people is uncomfortable. I have everything planned, down to which tram to get from the university to the train station in Nottingham on Saturday afternoon. The train tickets have been booked and delivered, I have my information pack printed out. I should be okay but I’m prepared. The new medication is definitely helping with the anxiety.

 

Also, awesome writer and course rep, Jo, has started her own book review blog. Go and see her work at https://feedmebooksblog.wordpress.com/. Also, she has a YA romance e-book out on amazon.co.uk, called ‘Hello World’, which she wrote a few years ago. It’s good, and she’s an even better writer now, so look out for more of her work.

In other news, my friend Michelle Conner released the paperback of her new novella ‘The Bound‘ yesterday and the e-book is released tomorrow.

 

Uni: Week 5 – Last week of Life-writing

Yesterday was our last life-writing workshop; I think I’m beginning to get there, and so is everyone else. I’ve made a few changes to my piece and now I’m working through my essay. It’s about half written.

It was a quiet day other than that. I drank a couple of cups of chai latte, had a natter with people before the workshop, nothing exciting happened. I cried a bit during the readings, but then I’ve been a little low and emotional this past week or so. I’m feeling better now and I have a few more ideas for my essay, so I’ll probably work on it tomorrow afternoon.

Next half-term we will be studying ghost stories and have to write one as an assignment. I’m listening to ‘Turn of the Screw’, and I have a few other books to read, including M.R. James’ ghost stories, and a book about critical approached to ghost stories.