A rotten time to get sick
Oh, no!
I have a terrible head cold.
It started Monday evening with a roaring sore throat.
On Tuesday I was really miserable and the throat became worse.
Yesterday the sneezing started – every five minutes. And then the nose started running and the head aching. I’ve been going through tissues faster than a dozen girls watching a romantic comedy or a family of spinsters at a wedding.
I guess that there is no really GOOD time to be sick, but this has to be a rotten time for me. You see, I have seven assignments due in the next three weeks. This is for my Master of Arts in Creative Writing. All I feel like doing is sleeping it off. At least I managed to get quite a large portion of a novel read today. I have to read it before next week’s lecture. Good thing it was interesting – at least the first half was, but it’s taken a turn for… I’d better not give away the plot. Bit silly saying that, actually, seeing I haven’t mentioned the title.
I’ve been reading The Well written by well-known Australian author Elizabeth Jolley who died last year. Sssssh – don’t tell me the ending – please.
In reality I have been really blessed with NOT having any sore throats or colds or the flu for over four years. I’ve been clear of all that since retiring from classroom teaching. When still teaching I’d pick up some bug every four to six weeks or so. I was beginning to suspect that I was allergic to children, school, work – or all three. So I really can’t complain.
Still – this sneezing is taking it out of me – probably the best place too – so don’t stand too near.
Good (achoo!) writing folks!
Writing success – magazine article
It is always nice to have a writing success – even if that is a modest piece of success.
This week I received a copy of a magazine which featured an article written by me. This article dealt with how I coped with the stresses of teaching in the few years before I retired. In one sense, writing this article went a small way to helping me heal from those challenging years.
Having my deepest feelings hung out in public was a little confronting, but I’m pleased I did it. It’s not the sort of thing I would ever publish here, nor often comment about. All I can say is that I sometimes find that writing can be a significant part of the healing process. I especially find that with my poetry.
Good writing.
Save all your draft writing
One of the things impressed upon me by the lecturers during my Master of Arts in Creative writing course is the importance of saving copies of all draft writing. I have never been very good at this. I guess that since much of my writing is now done using a word processor I have become a little lazy. As I edit or proofread or even rewrite I tend to do it all on the one copy. My original draft copy eventually becomes my final – and only – copy. I just keep on saving newer versions and replace older versions in the process.
Since starting my course I have starting saving multiple versions, or drafts, of the story I am writing. Saving word documents takes up so little space on the hard drive and is so easy to do that there are no arguments against this process. If you are printing out each draft that is another matter, but I tend not to do that until the last draft. I then check this draft in hard copy and then print the final copy.
It is so easy saving each draft as you go. I tend to use the title plus the draft number. For example, a story I started a few days ago is called Shifting Sand. My first draft was actually hand written. It was just several paragraphs done during a writing workshop. On typing this up I made a few subtle changes and named it Shifting Sand 2nd draft. The hand written copy is the first draft.
The next stage was to write the back story, that is, what happened before those first few paragraphs. This became Shifting Sand 3rd draft. I read it out aloud making a few alterations as I went and this became the 4th draft. I then took it to the lecture and presented it to my critique group in the workshop after the lecture. I will take some of the group’s suggestions – including a wonderful new ending – and do some more major rewriting and new writing. This will become the 5th draft.
During the coming weeks I will email the story to my lecturer for her comments and suggestions. This story may well go through four or five more drafts – perhaps as many as another ten drafts – before I am satisfied with it and submit it as one of my assignments for the Creative Writing: Prose Fiction unit I am studying.
Why save so many drafts? As you go through the writing process, you may get to the point where you have discarded sentences or even whole paragraphs and want to go back to them and use them because they were better than the newer versions after all. If they have been deleted it may not be easy or possible to rescue those words. You can also look back over earlier drafts and see the progress the story has made over the time you have been writing it.
Good writing.
More writing success
I am currently about a quarter of the way through my Master of Arts in Creative Writing course at Tabor university in Adelaide, South Australia. I am undertaking this course to hone my skills in writing and to focus my attention on giving my writing career a solid basis on which to grow. I am tackling writing projects that normally I wouldn’t bother doing, like writing essays on set topics.
A few days ago I received back two essays I wrote last semester. Both were written for the unit of study called Literature and Christian Faith. This study looked at various major English texts ranging from Chaucer to Shakespeare through to Beckett (Waiting for Godot). The tutorial paper I presented was to look at the Christian and Biblical themes of George Eliot’s novel Silas Marner. It had been some 40 years since I last read this novel and I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it and studying it. My tutorial presentation went over well with some good discussion between others in the group. I also enjoyed writing the paper and I received a Distinction for it.
My major essay topic requirement was to pose a question of my own choosing. Because I am a graduate I did not have to address the set questions. I chose to write an essay on the theme of condemnation based on a verse from the Bible (Romans chapter 8 verse 1). In my paper I assessed the portrayal of some of the characters included in the following texts:
- The Canterbury Tales by Goeffrey Chaucer
- Othello by William Shakespeare
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Silas Marner by George Eliot.
My main focus was to assess how the characters either condemned themselves or each other through their words and actions. I found the whole exercise both stimulating and inspiring. I was very pleased with the result – another Distinction. This means I gained distinctions for all three papers for the unit, giving me an overall Distinction for the subject. All that effort was worth it.
Writers must also be readers. Writers can gain so much by reading the classics. By reading and studying good examples of writing, especially those that have stood the test of time, writers are able to improve their own skills.
Good reading and good writing.
What shall I write About?
I have 60 years of living an interesting life to look back on so I have no shortage of writing ideas. I’m not going to exhaust those ideas very quickly either. I have many experiences and ideas to call on – sometimes choosing can be a challenge. Don’t be discouraged by this if you are quite young just launching your writing career. Even young writers have a wealth of experiences to dig into to discover those little gems to write about.
I read the following quote a few days ago:
‘If you’ve survived adolescence, you have enough to write about for the rest of your life.’ Flannery O’Connor.
How about a few hints and ideas to get you started?
- Write about your most successful achievement so far.
- Write about a time you were very angry with your parents or siblings.
- Write about the time your parents were very angry with you.
- Write about your most embarrassing experience.
- Write about your proudest moment.
- Write down a list of your strengths and weaknesses.
- Write about your goals, ambitions, dreams and even fantasies.
- What needs to change for you to become a writer?
- Write about the person you admire the most.
- Write about the person who has influenced your life the most.
- Write about the things that inspire you.
- Write about the things that anger or disgust you.
When you have written several paragraphs using one or more of these ideas, think about how you can turn this into an article for a magazine. Perhaps you might use your piece of writing as a starting off point for a fictional story.
For example, say you wrote about your proudest moment. Take that experience and turn it into a short story. Because this will be fiction, you can change the details. Also change the names of people involved – to protect both the innocent and the guilty parties! Let your imagination soar. Give your character problems to solve, crises to survive or conflicts to resolve before that ‘proudest moment’ occurs.
Good writing.
Related articles:
- Short story starters – heaps of articles with dozens of ideas for short stories.
- Writing hints – plenty of articles giving hints and tips for writing.