The results for TMA3 are in.

Oh dear.

Ok, so it was poetry.  And I’ve never really read any poetry, let alone try to write any.  But I liked my poems.  My tutor obviously didn’t, even if she did say they contained ‘energy’, ‘humour’ and a ‘unique perspective’.

My marks are going down and down.  After being delighted with the score for TMA1, ever since, I’ve been disappointed.  Is it because I’ve got worse or because I need to work harder to even maintain a consistent score?  Or is it because I had a different tutor mark the first one who rated my work too highly and has therefore given me a distorted sense of my abilities or because my new tutor marks too harshly and is now destroying my confidence?

I don’t think I write stuff the OU want to read.  I write stuff I want to read.

Even if that means submitting work in the shape of a bagel and writing stories about girls getting killed on the way to their wedding and cats being decapitated.

I don’t want to write endless descriptions and have my work crammed full of metaphors no one’s going to notice unless I mention it in the commentary.

I just want to write trash.

To avoid being disappointed, maybe I should take a clichéd leaf out of Sophie Ellis Bextor’s book and become a pessimist.  I bet she hasn’t even written a book.  And if she did, it’d just get published anyway, what with her being famous and that.

Ok, plan B.  Get famous and get published and forget about stupid tutors and their ‘blah blah blah, you’re crap’ rubbish.

At least I can’t get a worse score for the next one.  Oops,  nearly forgot.

Must. Remain. Pessimistic.

TMA 02 is looming.  I have an extension until 11 January due to reasons of moving house and going on holiday but I’ve only just now picked up the BRB for the first time in about two weeks.  I’ve caught up insofar as I’ve done all the reading.  I haven’t done any of the activities though but I thought reading up on the coursework might motivate me to start on my TMA2 as the damn thing obviously won’t write itself (it won’t, will it?)

I had an inkling of an idea a few weeks ago but decided to trash that idea as I didn’t think it would fit into a short story as it was too convoluted.  I kept scribbling down a few ideas about a character I had.  I think I mentioned here that I wanted a character with a pink Vespa.  Now, today I’ve sat down and gone through my notebook and headed up some pages at the back of it with headings such as CHARACTER, SETTING, POSSIBLE INCLUSIONS, CONFLICTS/OBSTACLES, FLASHBACKS, etc. and under these headings I’ve started jotting down notes and ideas.  I’ve also got a heading called METHODS (for commentary).  I’ve started thinking about POV, the amount of time elapsed, to who the story is being told, where does it start and I’ve reminded myself to use all the senses.

So, a good start don’t you think?  I think it’s a good start, albeit one that should have been started about a month ago.  And then what do I do after making my late good start?  I sit down and write my flipping blog instead of making a start on the TMA.

Can someone tell me to just sit down and write the god damn bloody thing please? 

p.s.  Is god damn one word or two?

I’m a bit behind in the course.  I should be starting Chapter 7 (point of view: trying on voices) today, but I only finished Chapter 5 (character creation) yesterday and started on Chapter 6 (setting) yesterday evening.  Oops.

As part of character creation week, we were supposed to develop the history and background of two or three characters that we might like to develop further.  Someone commented on the forum that he kept devising characters he didn’t want to develop and that’s exactly the same as I felt yesterday.  I’d been inventing characters for a specific exercise, but not actually anyone I want to write about for anything else. 

I’m finding inventing characters a long process but a fun one.  I spent a few minutes on the internet looking at photos of men (damn, the things this course makes me do, shocking) and found an oil-painting self-portrait of a man with bags of character in his face.  Unfortunately for the poor bloke, I turned him into a divorced alcoholic when in real life he’s probably a very happily married tee-totaller.  Then I decided I wanted to write about a modern woman in her 20s or 30s.  I didn’t want to type “pictures of women” into Google (although Shaun’s brother helpfully suggested I do it, but on Shaun’s pc) so a friend sent me a photo of a modern looking girl who I’ve turned into a Sex and the City watching, wine drinking kind of girl.  Someone like me then.  How boring.  Although this lucky girl gets to live in Islington and ride a pink Vespa.  Hmm, maybe I can have some fun with her after all.

No, it’s not the sound of me busily typing away.  It’s the sound of my fingers drumming on my desk, while I wait (im)patiently for the return of my TMA.  I know it’s not even been a week since I sent it off, but others have had theirs returned and every time I log into the OU, I get this:

Bah.

Our tutor has been busy though.  She’s added a new icon in our tutor group forum.  It’s a picture of a cow.  Louisa Lemon said maybe we’ll be getting free milk?

Eek, I’ve just sent my TMA.  I worked quite hard on it.  Well, a lot harder than I did for my TMAs for A174 (Start Writing Fiction), so I’m hoping this will be reflected in the marks.  The freewrite can’t be wrong (if I understand properly what a freewrite is, although some people seem to be worried they’re not doing it right).  The main part I’ve tweaked and edited and rewritten and moved paragraphs and I don’t think I can do any more to it and I did the commentary this morning and although I’m not entirely happy with it I think I’ve got all the relevant points covered.

I think the worst bit was having to do it in Times New Roman and a ragged right margin.   Bah.

Just need to nervously wait for two weeks now and hope our tutor gives more detailed feedback than she did for the online tutorial (as you would expect some detailed feedback for £600, wouldn’t you?).

Wish me luck!

The first TMA is due on Friday and for the first part, we had to write a 200-300 word freewrite.  I’ve done that, and now I need to do the second part:  Write a 750 story or autobiography based on the freewrite.  My freewrite ended up mentioning a friend’s wedding on Hallowe’en and so I thought “aha, a ghost story then” and as I live near-ish Pluckley – the most haunted village in Britain – I thought I’d nip up there and get some inspiration.

So I’m happily sitting in the graveyard doing writerly things and I’m busy scribbling down descriptions of bright red trees against bright blue skies and doggy choirs going on somewhere in the distance when two ramblers I’d passed in the street enter the graveyard.  Just as I’m wondering if they’d noticed my pink bicycle when I went past and remember me, they come over and interrupt my scribbling and the woman says “sorry to disturb you” and so instead of saying “piss off and stop disturbing me then”, I remember I’m British and say “that’s ok, no problem” and the woman asks to sit down.  The bench is very small and there’s not enough room for two people who aren’t related to sit on it at the same time and so I stand up and let her sit down and she says something like “oh, have I stolen your seat?” and I think YES YOU HAVE, YOU EVIL OLD WOMAN and I say “no, I was going anyway” which I wasn’t as I wanted to sit on the bench doing writerly things and then she starts asking me questions like do I live round here and do I know where the pub is and she says she’s out on a three mile walk and I think “I don’t fucking care, you’ve ruined my day you old bag” and I put my notebook and pen away and I think if I had one of these,

then not only could I carry it around with me and do writerly things on it like, um, write, but I could bash evil old women ramblers who steal my chair around the head with it.

I’ve just got to the Daily haiku part in the BRB (I know, I know, I’m behind…) and I was looking forward to this bit as then I could see if what I’d been doing up to now was completely shit.  Well, obviously I knew it was completely shit, but I just wanted it confirmed.

A traditional haiku is one that captures a scene in nature or seasonal change arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables.

We’re told to focus on painting a picture in words but then the BRB loses my respect by saying not to exceed the seventeen syllables but we may make it less.  Less syllables? LESS?  Surely they mean fewer?  Bah.

Oh well, onto the haiku.  With seventeen syllables or fewer.

No. 1

Curiosity
Green eyes gaze out of window
Black fur meets sharp claws

No. 2

Blue skies and green trees
Clouds floating overhead
Fields are full of sheep

No. 3
Rubber burns tarmac
A distant rumble of cars
Rush hour traffic looms

Hmm.  How many syllables in “hour”?  One or two?  I’m thinking two now, which means my haiku is WRONG.

No. 4

A lonely cottage
Tiles fall and crash to the ground
Only brick remains

Would that sound better as “only bricks remain” rather than “only brick remains”?

This focusing on painting a picture in words thing is quite hard, as I’m trying to think in a deeper, more sensory way, rather than just choosing some words and trying to make them fit into 5-7-5.

No. 5
Treetops whispering
Their silent call to nature
Here it is tranquil

I think there’s too many small words in my haiku, e.g. “is”, “to”, “a”.  I need to cut these down.

No. 6

Bookmark scuffed and bent
A reminder of books read
Many more to come

Well, that’s neither a scene in nature nor a seasonal change but hey ho, I don’t think Bashô’s going to rise from his grave and come after me.

No. 7

White clouds suspended
Movement imperceptible
Like high up sheep

Ok, I’m getting into silly terrority now.  And I was doing so well with the nature thing.

No. 8

Black face peeks through fence
Chomping the grass on the ground
Looks up, says “baa”

No. 9

Mother brings the food
Kids are screaming “that’s my plate!”
Father takes a drink

I’m not sure if quotation marks are allowed in haiku.  Probably not.

That’s the end of today’s haiku.

We cover poetry in A215 and although that’s not until the New Year, The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry has been recommended by various people on the OU A215 forum.

While I was in Cornwall last weekend visiting Emily and Michael, I spied a copy of The Ode Less Travelled on their bookshelves.  “Ooh, I said, do you write poetry?”  I asked Emily.  “No, Michael’s sister gave it to me for Christmas,” she replied.  I said I’d been recommended it and promptly took it off the shelf and gave it a quick flick through.

I didn’t understand a word of it.  Ok, maybe the odd word like “a” and “and” but apart from that, complete gobbledegook.  I very ladylikely said “Bollocks to that then” and put it back on the shelf as promptly as I’d taken it off.

After returning to Kent, I went on the forum and said I’d had a quick flick through it but didn’t understand a word of it.  Someone sensibly pointed out that if I read it from the beginning it would make more sense.  Wise words, I thought, but didn’t want to splash out on it via amazon so logged on to my good old fashioned bricks, mortar and dust library’s website and reserved a copy, which I picked up yesterday.

This time, I started reading it from the beginning.  I hadn’t got very far (in fact only the third page in the Foreword) when Mr Fry says “While it is perfectly possible that you did not learn music at school, or drawing and painting, it is almost certain that you did learn poetry.“

Now, while I don’t consider myself an inverted snob or suffer from any class insecurities, I would like to point out that in my school we most certainly did learn music, and drawing and painting but most certainly did not learn poetry.  At least, from what I can remember.  What school did he go to where he didn’t learn music, and drawing and painting?  Certainly wasn’t an East London comprehensive, anyway.

What, you don’t think he went to an East London comprehensive?  Blimey.

No, I’m not talking in some kind of teenage (actually, I wish it was just teenage but far too many middle-aged people do it and I find it kind of creepy) internet/text speak, but the DHL man pounded on my door this morning bearing gifts.  Ok, not exactly gifts, but a package bearing the words URGENT – EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS ENCLOSED containing my OU A215 Creative Writing Workbook (nicknamed the Big Red Book because it’s … oh, you work it out …), an Assessment Booklet containing all the info for those scary TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments) that I will undoubtedly leave to the last minute, a Course Guide which contains handy tips like I’ll need a computer with at least Windows 98 on it and a 56kbps modem, a Study Calendar which tells me what I should be doing and when, a Study Guide which tells me how to do what I should be doing when I’m doing it, a TMA form in case I don’t want to send the assignments electronically (and if I had a 56kbps modem I’d probably take them up on their paper-based offer) and 4 audio CDs containing interviews and stuff with authors.

Three weeks, one day to go.

Not that I’m counting or anything.