Moving in the write direction

So I don't know if you've been following the drama of the writers' group but we've been proceeding at a very leisurely and meandering pace, with things not having progressed much further than week 1.

Prior to last Tuesday Nicholas had written two scenes, neither of which really fit the play or any play I can think of. Meantime, as new writers' coordinator Bethany read them and said they were brilliant, which gave me a dilemma. Say nothing and just focus on my bits or try help Nicholas (or at least give my 2 cents) and risk whatever antipathy or hurt feelings may ensue. I decided on the latter, but as it turns out Nicholas wasn't present this week, it was me, Bethany and Nick. 

With Bethany back in her new role of writers' coordinator after 2 weeks of ill health things do seem to have moved up a gear, or maybe three. Bethany shrewdly observed that we can do this play like a group of friends having a laugh or we can get professional.

To begin with, I expressed my constructive reservations about Nicholas's scenes and Bethany agreed with my observations and made notes, which she later passed on privately to Nicholas. Of course, immediately there you have an unnecessary dumbing down of the communication process (why don't I talk directly to Nicholas?), but at least that's a step forward. With respect to her change of heart, Bethany later said to me that it was like when she watched the Last Jedi and thought it was amazing and then a week later thought it was a travesty. Go figure.

As for the scene Bethany and I were supposed to be collaborating on, that is already 75% my work so far, and will probably be more so as I finesse it. That's a pity but I'm happy with what I can get. The original idea was that this week Bethany and I would each bring our own version of a scene we developed from a recorded role play we did back in April and find a way to blend the best bits of each together. However, Bethany simply didn't do hers and I did mine (she had a whole month). Then when Bethany read my scene with Nick she said she couldn't top it and it was fine, we'd go with that.

We also looked at Nick's scene. (Nick is not Nicholas). It was ineffective. I suggested he scrap it and go back to MY ORIGINAL IDEA, which he was very happy to do. Bethany is reluctant to upset and said he could try and fix what he's got but I thought if you make the idea simple in the first place it's harder to mess up. What I've tasked Nick to do is write two scenes, one in which a person is kind and caring in public, then another where they are verbally and perhaps physically abusive to a spouse in their care. I suggested it could be someone at the uni who offers pastoral care to a bereaved student. Actually, the idea that appeared in my mind on day one was an old professor who rescues a dog from a lake and then goes and abuses his disabled wife. The students wanted their input on my initial character suggestions so in this particular case, the idea ended up getting changed to a woman who goes to a therapist to talk about how she goes out looking for fights, which sounds funny but is tricky to make work.

Also in that meeting I suggested we really need to figure out the plot, something I'd been urging Nicholas to do to no avail. However, Bethany was on board with this and just the two of us met on Friday to discuss.

And in regard to the Friday meeting, that was mainly me suggesting things and Bethany going along with them. This works very well, because I'm merely filling a vacuum- rather than trying to dominate- and Bethany is a complete pro who just wants the best outcome for the play. In all honesty, I'd like to be challenged more than I am being in this group. My scenes have flown through readings so far with barely a demur from anyone and I'd like help taking them to the next level; which I think will have to come from me being my own worst critic. We now have some shape to Act 1 and I suggested that the following Tuesday (today, but I'll write about it next week) the group role play scene 1.

I don't think any of the group realises yet, but this play is most likely going to end up a comedy. If it's curated and intended by as a serious play I think that will be the happy result.     

And that is about all I have to say about last week because as far as I know, I have no more assignments or exams. If I made some kind of error in that respect, or turned in work that didn't quite pass muster, I believe I'll have to do some re-sits in late June. Scary thought to think that my presence here next semester is by no means a given. 

The final summit

Last week was a good cliffhanger, I thought, but it’s not quite the end of season 1. My final task was to pass An introduction to medieval English. I don’t recommend giving yourself a week to prepare for a 2 hour exam from scratch (i.e., reading the Wife of Bath in Middle English for the first time) but it’s obviously doable. Essentially, I wrote two essays- about 1000 and 1200 words- and then memorised them to within about 90% accuracy within a day or two using a mnemonic I used to memorise long numbers with to show off to my Chinese students. Then I reproduced them in the exam, including some long citations. Of course, I wasn't actually masochistic enough to bother reading the whole tale in Middle English. I mostly read a faithful modern translation and memorised middle English chunks for citation. Not that the Middle English is so difficult, but time was of the essence. I gave good answers but not really to the questions asked (time constraints, my dear), so I expect them to be more in the B-C region than the A-B. My only complaint: I needed to ask Sarah questions about three times and each time she had her head down and I had to wait until she happened to look up. Or maybe she’d noticed me waving my arms frantically. I do like Sarah, though. She’s unfailingly kind (despite my skipping her lectures) and she tends to call me by name a lot, which is a sign she is aware of my existence. I mean, some people just call me hello.

So bar the final meet ups of the writer’s group, which is very much a casual arrangement (and was cancelled last week), I now have more than four months to do whatever I please. That’s nice but also a bit of a shame because this summer I could have been having a lot of fun. About £3000 worth of fun. What is that these days? A weekend in Las Vegas, a short cruise, a long summer in South East Asia. How is this a fact, you ask. Well, I could have booked the cheapest room, which would have cost me about £79 per week, or A cheap room shall we say, instead of a studio apartment which cost me £156 per week or £6,500. I would have had to have used a shared bathroom, kitchen and toilet but my room would have had a sink and the point is at the end of the year I would have been laughing, very loudly. Ah well, there is always next year. One year older and wiser I’ve already booked a more modest room in the older halls on the other side of town for my return in September. Unfortunately, the smallest rooms (now £80 per week) are gone, the next up are £96 but I looked at the floor plan and they look crowded. I’ve chosen what looks on paper to be a quieter and larger area at £103 per week (I’ll wear ear plugs) and sandwiched between a bathroom and kitchen. Of course, it won’t be so nice not having my own kitchen and bathroom but who knows, kitchen wise that may be a good thing, socially speaking. I’d like to say the £2500 I’ll be saving is going on a holiday next year but that is about how much I owe Tesco banking, so...

The hero's journey

This week I handed in three assignments and my two hour play with pitch. I put most of my time into the latter, I just did enough to get the assignments over the line (I hope). As it turns out, the pitch didn’t make it and the BEDS large cast play for next year will be Under Milk Wood. That is a little disappointing, as Under Milk Wood is perhaps not the boldest or most interesting choice, but I do understand they want a dependable play and if an improved version of mine is accepted in future it could certainly be a blessing in disguise because I think I can significantly improve upon it. The trouble is, I don’t know why it was turned down and I’m wondering if Nicholas and Bethany are holding back on something 'need to know'. I submitted the play to Nicholas just prior to pitching it and he said he was enjoying it but that was the last I heard. At the meeting on Tuesday he said nothing about it. Bethany was absent again but I messaged her on Facebook and said she would pitch it for me at the summer ball on Saturday evening but did not get back to me afterwards to let me know how the pitch went. So I messaged her on Sunday afternoon and she said there was definitely some interest in it but it wasn’t chosen. No reason given, odd that she didn't let me know before.

So that almost rounds off a disappointing year. My highest academic achievement will probably be the 80 I got for the Toyshop Essay but what does the fact that I didn’t attend any Toyshop lectures tell you? They might as well just give me the assignments on the first day of the semester and let me crack on with them. I’m already looking ahead to next year and thinking of skipping all lectures and taking the 5% hit on my marks. As for Diane's non-fiction class, this semester she has taught us how to write a blog post (feels familiar) and my end of term assignment is a travelogue (feels really familiar). But I've had the privilege of meeting Diane and that is enough.

Reservations about the course aside, All's Well that Ends Well, they say. You see, one thing I have learnt- I mean you can learn about it in all of about 2 minutes for free online, but it came up in my screenwriting course- is the three act structure. It's not fed into my writing yet, but it's made me think of it in relation to my own arc here at Bangor. Perhaps my "disappointing year" is the start of something good. Wikipedia describes the first act thus:

In the first act, a dynamic, on-screen incident occurs that confronts the main character the protagonist, whose attempts to deal with this incident lead to a second and more dramatic situation, known as the first turning point, which (a) signals the end of the first act, (b) ensures life will never be the same again for the protagonist and (c) raises a dramatic question that will be answered in the climax of the film.

The protagonist's story arc is sometimes called the hero's journey. So we could say my inciting incident was getting accepted at Bangor and the second and more dramatic situation was moving here. It was indeed a pretty hectic situation. The car was packed to the rafters, it was a long journey etc. Then came act 2, which Wikipedia describes thus:

The second act, also referred to as "rising action", typically depicts the protagonist's attempt to resolve the problem initiated by the first turning point, only to find him- or herself in ever worsening situations. Part of the reason protagonists seem unable to resolve their problems is because they do not yet have the skills to deal with the forces of antagonism that confront them. They must not only learn new skills but arrive at a higher sense of awareness of who they are and what they are capable of, in order to deal with their predicament, which in turn changes who they are. This is referred to as character development or a character arc. This cannot be achieved alone and they are usually aided and abetted by mentors and co-protagonists.

Ditto. I was getting away from my lonely life in Margate only to find Bangor wasn't the new social life I hoped for it was just as lonely in Bangor only with added humiliation (salsa, the den lesson, the aborted ghost hunt) and clearly I lack the interpersonal skills to overcome this 1980s dystopian body swap movie scenario without the actual body swap. So I've come against obstacles but about the mentors? Well, I consulted a medium in April virtually 20 years to the day after I last saw her. She didn't remember me, but she gave me some good advice the first time she saw me (if only I'd followed it) and she gave me some this time. She is my mentor. Bangor doesn't so mentors. Not yet. It does stuff like sending you copy and pasted emails- unless you count Kerrie, who helped me see my limitations. I don't know, I'll have to try and watch some films and understand the three act structure better. Suffice to say, I'm well into act 2 and if I am to succeed I must learn from my mistakes. Otherwise, it's just going to be like a computer game where you don't get past a certain level. And then you give up.

NEWS FLASH: This just in; after messaging Briony asking if she knew why the play wasn't chosen she gave me some info on the selection process. She said no feedback was given and she doesn't know what percentage I got of the vote but she spoke to actual human beings, with passports (I assume), platelets, hopes, dreams, irises, tibulas and fibulas who voted for my play. And she said she'd help me generate interest for the next pitch. Could Briony be a co-protagonist? Is she throwing me a light sabre?

Having fun

So that’s it. The assignment deadlines and exams are fast approaching but lectures and seminars are in our wake. That was virtually the year that was. Here are some stats.

Friends made 0

Pseudo-friends made 1 (A lunch with this person in Morrisons, a few brief conversations on the way to and in Morrisons)

Worst moment- Acute embarrassment when Laura told us to make a den (my problem) that felt very much like under-performing 1980s socialist primary school lesson filler, not a degree course exercise. (Erm, not that I can talk. I ran some similarly out of the box lessons in my TEFL days).

Best moment- Ehhh. Probably doing a roleplay with Briony.

Things I wish I knew last year- Studio apartment is an indulgence (I don't have guests), Bangor has very few mature students

Thing I’ll do differently next year- I’ll try and get more involved in societies. I've got to do something to enliven my experience here. This isn't living. This is a slow and comfortable death. The societies are overrun by the yoof of today and I don’t know if I’ll be welcome but there is no other direction to go in and there's just no room for negative and self-limiting thoughts anymore. Let's give complete faith in the future and not second-guessing an unbroken run for a while, and see where it takes us. I'm actually going to ban moaning in next year's blog, that is how serious I am. In regard to the society I did join I must admit it did provide me with some kind of a social life this year that I was definitely the gladder man for. That and my favourite comfort food. It helped that I hit upon the writer's arm of BEDS and that happened to be small, quiet and run by somebody who is living his own personal version of Ground Hog day like me (Nathanael, another eternal student) but was that was pure chance (if you believe in pure chance)or...could 33% of my time at Bangor been better employed?

Anyway, a quick rundown. I’m not spending time polishing this blog because I’m super busy.

Monday I skipped the last medieval lecture.

Tuesday I skipped more stuff and was very annoyed with myself. Michelle Harrison arranged an end of term party for Tuesday 6-8. I really wanted to attend, free food and drink (well, the taxpayer pays- people who never went to university, etc) and a subject for this week’s blog, but I plum forgot and instead went to the writer’s group meeting. You may guess what happened next. I didn’t need to be there. We discussed a scene I’d written for all about 5-10 minutes because nobody could find anything wrong with it and then- drum roll- we talked about Zoe’s play. Fortunately, only for about half an hour, which was pretty good going, but it was a word for word repeat of the first week. Gosh, it was horrible. Zoe asked if we could meet again in the week to talk about it more. Can you fucking believe that? I am not making this up. The human ego is a wonderful thing. Afterwards, I asked Nathan which way he was going. “Which way? Any way. Away,” he replied, as he hobbled off on his crutches. Zoe was left in the classroom getting her things together and still slightly shell-shocked that there was nobody who wanted to read her script. I must say Nathanael did a wonderful job of not showing the slightest shade of dislike of Zoe or consternation. That being so, God knows what he thinks of me. He’d make a great poker player.

I find it hard to hide my dislike of people and if you saw my body language you’d see I was sat looking ahead, rather than at Zoe and made no eye contact. Nick had his arms folded, Nicholas was sat behind the computer monitor in the teacher’s chair. Bethany was reportedly ill. Nicholas wants to play a part in the scene Bethany and I are working on – he says he can be a good unbiased referee/editor if Bethany and I have a contretemps about who writes what. Truthfully I think we can figure it out between us but as that desire is there I might be able to find a way to satiate it.

Anyway, if Zoe hadn’t spent so long describing background she had already described we could have had some fun reading the script and made creative suggestions. And who do we have to blame for this? Lyle, the professor who said there is a crisis in publishing and encouraged Zoe to complete the work. So what is this play, you may ask? Well it’s called Something about the weather and is about bi-polar people who all get very depressed and roll around in self-pity. Of course, you might think I am being insensitive but this is my little corner plot of insensitivity, indulge me...

Wednesday

Day off. Mostly working on my play, I think.

Thursday

A sad day. It was the last seminar with Diane who is done with me now but Kerry was in class today. We didn’t sit together because I hadn’t seen her at first. As we were leaving she asked which way I was going, I said Morrisons (as usual) she said she was going to halls but needed to talk to Diane afterwards, did I want to stay or walk with her? I said I’d wait. Turned out to be quite awkward. I waited about 10 minutes. First outside the classroom whilst she was still inside and then she came and Diane came and sat on the bench in the corridor talking for a few minutes. I tried to read something on my smartphone and then they got up and called me after walking half way down. Diane said,“James, we don’t want to leave you behind,” (I was trying to pretend I wasn’t waiting for Kerry) so I walked alongside them as they continued talking and parted at the English faculty. Diane turned to us and said ‘Have fun’. (I think that’s what happy people imagine other people are having, as if it's something you can order off a menu).

Have fun? Have fun? It was just a 3 minute walk to the turn off to Kerry's halls, nothing to get excited about. We said goodbye without ceremony but I doubt I'll see her again. I didn’t raise the subject of the ghost trip (which Kerry never got back to me about) but I did ask whether she wanted to go see Ghost stories, which is on at Pontio, and is another thing we had tentatively agreed. Kerry said her boyfriend might want to see it. Ahhh, her boyfriend. I think this is what all this is about. Now don’t get me wrong, Kerry is a good looking girl an all, but you have to understand I was happy with my one ice bun, which was the prospect of a ghost hunting companion and a fun day out. And the fact that Kerry said she wanted to go ghost hunting and then said again she did and I asked her if she was really sure and did she said yes, so I did a lot of research into it and then, silence: is just... Oh shut up. Right, what’s next...

Fun fact: Kerry was talking to Diane about her piece. I wasn’t listening very closely because its none of my business but it was hard not to overhear one detail, which is that she is doing a piece about her special friend's drug habit. Now what is funny is I think Diane was assuming that Kerry doesn’t have one herself. Diane was talking to Kerry about how someone she knows with a pot habit and it’s hard to get her head around it because this person has children (and should be more responsible). Well, in our lunch in Morrisons Kerry told me her special hypothetical friend, who is facing years in jail for growing the stuff as a business, (Kerry is going back to Kent as a character witness in a few days) gave her some for the remainder of her stay in Bangor and she was going to use it to spur her creativity.

Having been a potter myself at one point I advised that actually it doesn’t really make you more creative so much as silence your inner critic, so you can quite easily mimic the effect of pot by giving yourself permission to write rubbish with the added benefit that your inner critic will still be there to help you along the way. Okay, I admit that there is a kind of idea association that can be slightly freer with pot but that is perhaps more than countered by immaturity which can be hard to unpick. When I write I don’t even drink. In fact I’ve been virtually tee-total this year, and I’m more creative than ever.

On Saturday I saw a girl in a black dress which crisscrossed at the breast level like a tweated gown and an ivory body with her huge breasts and it looked like she had nothing else on. In Morrisons of course.

On Sunday I went to see a BEDS play, written by a student called Blood is thicker. I was twice the age of everybody else in the whole building and more or less invisible. Support from professors? Perhaps on another night (this was the last of three) but on this night none. Entirely a non-mature student affair. The thing is you can’t get away from the fact that the societies are an extension of the student social groups and I do wonder if this will impact my chances of getting my own play put on, but we'll see. A play cannot be put on if it doesn't attract students who want to perform in it but my guess is students will want to be in something their mate wrote.

The play? I honestly didn’t understand it. It was described as an emotionally charged play about toxic masculinity (from my POV, the evening was about toxic ageism) and seemed to be some kind of family get together set in the country that reveals dark truths, but I lost the thread very early on and watched in complete confusion. Like I was really stoned. It didn't in anyway feel like a coherent or sensical play about adults but it had its moments and felt like a play at times. I mean, what is a play? I liked the guy who played the father, he was probably the best actor (the others were over acting) and reminded me of James McAvoy. I also liked the girl who convincingly burst into tears, something many professional actors struggle to do. The writer (and maybe director) was invited on the stage at the end and given chocolates and flowers.

I’m too busy to do this but here I am

The minutes of the day are not fooling all the people all the time but I’m doing my best to turn in a day’s work. There’s no time to waste so I didn’t attend the medieval lectures or seminars and have nothing to stay about those, except I got my marks back for a mid-term assignment about the poem The Battle of Maldon. I got 62 (a B, same as 'To Autumn'), which is as I predicted. It says on the paper that I lost a lot of marks because I didn’t quote a historical source when I said that ‘so far as we might suppose’ the poem is an accurate description of the battle. There’s a good reason why I didn’t. The poem itself is the only existing source.

Anyway, this semester there is no final assignment for medieval English, rather a 2 hour exam, and I’m worried because I haven’t had a minute to look at the questions yet, but in theory the pre-submitted questions look doable.

Tuesday’s writer’s group meeting was...interesting. I should tell you about Zoe because although I said I wasn’t going to tell you anything about her she is more interesting than her play and if she would just walk around with a voice recorder in her pocket all day she would have the bare bones of one that is perhaps more interesting than the one she is keen to have produced. If she can just find a way of channelling her natural magnetism and nervous energy and become more empathic and self-aware I think she could turn that to good account. As life goes on one begins to see one’s own reflection...it’s called growing up, I guess.

If we scroll back about four meetings that was Zoe's first appearance and it was already well into the new group play. She came along and spent an hour talking about her play and everybody was ultra polite. To me it was a bit rich. Somebody who hadn’t bothered to show up to any other meetings gate crashed ours to talk about themselves for an hour. (On Tuesday last, before Zoe came, I briefly talked about my play for perhaps two minutes). So Zoe would periodically ask, “Am I talking too much?,” but having already told us that she suffered from severe bipolar mental disorder (we are frequently reminded) and that she hated bitchy people nobody dared say anything the least confrontational. For all I know, she may have spent another hour talking about her play. This was the day I was woozy from sleeping pills and excused myself. What I remember from that day was how she emphasised how incredibly disappointed she would be if her play wasn’t chosen.

The second time Zoe came the centre of gravity was as before. We had a long monologue, this time about her boyfriend and her hedonistic lifestyle and how she walked down the street topless (the other day) and didn’t see why she shouldn’t and it was all quite interesting but then we got onto discussing the group play she very quickly got bored and said send her the details because she didn’t know what we were talking about and left. What we were talking about was not complicated, it was a 1-minute-to-get-up- to-speed-on-it thing; but as soon as it wasn’t about her she was gone.

The third meeting (third counting from when Zoe first came) she didn’t show up to. It was in this meeting Nathanael said her play is not going to be chosen because she stated in the first meeting that she doesn’t think transsexuals are real women. I have to say, I think this is unfair of Nathanael and I didn’t realise it was in his gift to decide what plays do or don’t get put on (I guess it is). I didn’t see anything Zoe said that suggested she is unaccepting of transsexuals and their way of life, merely she doesn’t think that you can change your biology. (I guess you can a bit, but I think you’re stuck with your chromosomes). It’s just that her views about a specific doctrinal point ran contrary to Nathanael’s and we do tend to assume our political views are correct and suffer others to have different ones, until such as a time as others might see the light.

The fourth meeting Zoe showed up and spent another hour talking about her play. Note, this group is not really about our side projects... It’s more about our collaborative venture. And really the same speech was rolled out as before. She’d be devastated if it wasn’t put on, it would mean so much to her, it would mean the world and the producers would have 'total artistic control', but she didn’t want to pitch it herself because she was very very very anxious and she hated gossip and she was sorry about talking about others but she absolutely hated so and sos guts and she also hated such and such a person and she didn’t want to pitch it in front of them and she was a Wirraler (nice word) who lived 90 minutes away and she was no longer a student and probably couldn’t attend meetings in person in future but could she by social media? I don’t know how this lasted an hour, but it did. All through this time she never mentioned the fact that other people pitching plays might also have strong reasons to advance their cause (mine would be I’m 42 and it’s about time). The thing is, it’s what she really really really really wants and it would be so important for mental health, do we realise how many people on Bangor are on anti-depressants (yes, but how many really need to be) and how important an issue this is? She asked if Nathanael liked what she sent him. “Er, yeah. Looks good,” said Nathanael unconvincingly. She didn’t prize that open but seems to be aware it’s too long because she twice said she’d cut it down to an hour and Nathanael twice said “Oh no, 90 minutes is fine,” (because it must in fact be a minimum of 90 minutes) and she'd cut the sex scenes out of it because there was no point in having sex in plays, people were uncomfortable with it. 

Nathanael was actually very nice, making every effort to suggest all the possible options Zoe had for getting her play put on. In fact, it wasn’t until today that I realised just how flexible The Bangor University Writer’s group is. Technically, you don’t have to be a student or member of staff at Bangor Uni (Nathanael isn’t), you don’t have to attend in person and you can get a collaborator’s credit with the minimum of input. I do believe Nathanael himself would accept submissions from the coroner’s report of exhumed corpses. If the coroner said “We’ve found diamorphine in the body but otherwise she’s not saying much,” Nathanael would reply in his brisk, chipper manner “That’s fine. We’ll put some diamorphine in the play somewhere, not a problem at all.” 

As Zoe spoke I began to realise she is a likeable person behaving in a somewhat unreasonable manner and well, it’s just that sometimes you’re so wrapped up in yourself you don’t realise it. (I speak from experience). It’s not malicious, it’s just part of the process of self-development and she is two or three times more alive than the rest of us and if she just curb her tendency to speak endlessly...Or maybe if one of us had the courage to tell her let other speak. Maybe that’s it. I'm just writing a blog, take it with a pinch of...

Fun fact: Zoe tells us she was encouraged to finish her play by Lyle.

After Zoe talked about her play we read one of Nathan’s scenes (Nathan is not Nathanael), unfinished and Nathan absent. Nicholas, Bethany and I dived in and pulled it apart then Zoe essentially took over after being assured she would get a credit for the play and more or less made the scene hers and said what she wanted to do with it.

Anyway, after an hour and a half I made my excuses and left because we were off track. FYI, the play pitch is May 8^th and I’m entering an 18^th century tale written in Margate, except I’m going to double the length in 2 weeks, which is why I’m so busy, especially as I have end of term assignments, exam prep, a copywriting job and other business to contend with.

Thursday we had a happy seminar with Diane, though happy is a tremendously ambiguous word to stick on an infinitely complex series of thoughts, feelings and impulses that is a slice of human existence and I’m inspired by Buddhism to remember that I was still ultimately a suffering human being with little moment by moment ups and downs. But one ingredient of happiness is hope and the sunshine of hope was certainly peeping from behind a cloud. First of all, Diane had a spring in her step. She is never less than chirpy but she seemed genuinely pleased with our performance this semester. She started by saying that we had made tremendous strides forward in linguistic complexity and engagement, reflects very well on her if true. In so far as this applies to me I would say that was untrue, but it may well be the case with others. As I’ve mentioned, the course is about thinking outside of the box, novel approaches to writing and narrative styles and there was never a mind blown, didn’t think of that moment for me, in fact my hard drive is littered with novel non-fiction ideas, it's just a question of doing them. I guess it was nice to be reminded that I should do some of the things I do more often but it's kind of frustrating.

Diane said, “I just want you to know you are the A class.” For a moment I thought that was good news. Like we were going to get As for this semester. No, it just means that she thinks people who turn up to all the seminars will get As. I’m sure there is certainly a casual link between students who turn up to all seminars and lectures getting As but it’s not necessarily because they’re worth their while, rather because they’re serious students. I saw students on Thursday (in the screen writing and non-fiction seminar) I have not seen the whole semester and I think they’re onto something.

Anyways, Diane seemed tickled pink by a piece of homework I’d done and it was just me doing my James walking round commenting on his environment thing. If my best piece of work done for her was just of a piece with the sort of things I was doing in Inner Mongolia what does that say? It says to me that it’s time to put up or shut up for James. If I can write, write. I think I’ve always pulled myself apart.

Karen Rullens (poetry) was ill on Friday. Third time this semester  and she hasn't made the other two classes up. I hope she's okay. She's a fragile little thing but a treasure. There's something Oxbridgey about her although her teaching is very simple. Brings some poems in that people don't like and asks them what they think of them. That's pretty much it with some elementary remarks about form.

I’ll leave you with this email. Note, it’s not addressed to me personally and indeed I haven’t had a professional conversation with Zoe since about September. Other than that, I once passed her in the road.

Hello! 

I am writing to you as your personal tutor to invite you to a short meeting next week. There is a sign up list on my door on the second floor of New Arts, Room 311. 

I hope that this has been a happy and productive year for you. I would love to hear about any notable successes, or just about how things are going. If things have been difficult, please come and let me know about anything we may be able to help with. It is especially important that you let me know any information that should be passed on to the Examination Boards if things have not gone as well as you had hoped in your assessments. 

If you are in the second year and I teach you currently, you can raise any personal tutor issues when you come to see me about your portfolio. 

Best wishes, 

Zoë (but not the same Zoe as above, ed.) 

This is what makes me sad about uni. Even to your tutor your name is 'hello' and you might be in the second year, she's not sure. See you or maybe don't see you around.

Let a thousand flowers wither

In the last week of the holiday I attended a 5 day novel camp. It comprised ten writers, one of whom is a graduate teaching assistant (with PHD) and another who is a master’s student that takes the second hour of my weekly scripting writing module. I cannot, in good conscience, say that I saw what I felt to be a high standard of writing from my peers. Juvenile question tags (a lot of people grimaced in this novel), nonsensical use of question tags (even when in agreement), overuse of question tags (needlessly saying who spoke when it’s obvious who’s speaking), adjectives that only young writers who will perhaps never evolve into professional ones seem to use (‘smirked’), cinema reels of a character’s second by second interior world without interesting plot development, a lot of people hesitating before they speak for no apparent reason. Fortunately, I ended up writing by far the bulk of my scenes for my character but I had to fight to maintain a certain standard and it ended up not being quite as high as a solo effort. Collaboration at its best is always better than working on one’s own; other people have skills and perspectives one simply doesn’t have. Moreover, interaction can hasten the creative process and foster novel creative practices. Indeed, I am surprised more books aren't collaborative efforts, albeit that in some sense anything that goes through a publishing house is collaborative. Now, here comes the but. BUT, it’s heart breaking when someone comes in making very simple errors whilst at the same time not adding anything that complements the scene artistically. Even the editor in the final edit was coming and making typos and clumsy edits (though one or two sensible) and I had to secretly go in and sweep up after him.

At one point the coordinator, an American professor, said, “If there are any issues write them down on these cards, it’s a chance to let off steam, you can rant as much as you like.” So I took her at her word. I do believe it’s my rants that got me in hot water.

At the end of the novel camp we all got an impassioned speech (or hissy-fit, depending on your point of view) on patriarchy. Lyle said the men in the group were acculturated to be leaders and confrontational and the women were acculturated to be passive and let themselves be dominated. As men it wasn’t entirely our fault, we should forgive ourselves for being oppressive and move on. As women it wasn’t entirely their fault. They should forgive themselves for not standing up for themselves and move on. This was a very serious issue. There was a crisis in the book publishing, 80 % of the women are readers and buyers but men get all the success, because women will read anything and men will only read books by men and...blah blah blah. And if we’re going to be writers our work is going to be edited so we need to trust each other. Mentioning no names, but looking at me three times.

As far as I can tell, there wasn’t much truth in this. Maybe some, but not much.

First of all...if 80 percent of the buyers market is women...doesn’t that mean they control what is successful, even if no men are reading female literature?

Besides that, the mouthiest person and most confrontational person I had to deal with in the group happened to be a girl and the most flexible, self-effacing and gentle happened to be men (not me, admittedly). And in so far as I read at all I’ve been an avid reader of female novelists since I was a boy (Judy Blume, Jilly Cooper, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Sophie Kinsella) and the criticism in my index cards happened to be aimed at men. I repeat. I don’t mind my work being edited. It can be self-indulgent, wander off point and contain mistakes. All I ask is that if it is to be changed let it not be by somebody who has far less of a clue than I do. But I’m grateful to novel camp, because it made me realise that if ten people can write a novel in 350 hours I probably can alone and I might try it this summer. The downside is if it’s as bad as Ash in a Thunderstorm it might be a waste of time.

And so to this week. I’ve got a whole heap of assignments that are going to be due soon, plus a two hour exam, so I’m not going to say much. On Monday I had a late lunch with Kerry in Morrisons. I gave her a pink unicorn cuddly toy (freebie from Amazon). She seemed pleased with it and said she’d put it with her other ones, of which she has so many she’s lost count. I finally figured out a sensible ghost hunting plan. Simply choosing a hunt on a package tour that ends at 2 or 4 am and we can drive straight back from. I sent her some links to various options and she seemed interested but has gone off the radar this week, rather than get back to me on Tuesday, as she said she would. In truth, I think she’s got cold feet, and that’s a shame because I don’t often get the opportunity and I think it would be a fun trip.

Nicholas cancelled the writer’s group this week but I met up with Bethany and worked on a massage parlour scene with her in Pontio. We met for not much more than an hour but made good progress, voice recording three roleplays. I think Bethany is going to be a good writer. At 22 she’s timid and inexperienced, but she’s naturally sharp witted. No collaboration issues.

I don’t have much to say about the seminars and lectures these days. They are mostly a mild refresher of things I already know or don't need to. I attended a lecture on Piers Plowman on Tuesday but it was pointless because I’m not going to answer a question on this text in the exam and most of what we were told is obvious if one reads the text. Likewise, Diane’s non-fiction seminars are all about tactics for making your writing more creative but I don’t have a tactic supply chain problem. Perhaps a self-belief one, a where to focus one, but the actual tactics come naturally to me and have been absorbed from reading other writers. This week we had a girl come in and give us a short lecture on crime fiction. It consisted of her showing us two trailers, one southern fried crime and another somewhat darker. The whole idea was, there are different ways of presenting crime and had we thought about these and how it could feed into our own work? It really was that simple and I would humbly suggest that the tone of the lessons should be somewhat more advanced. Other than that, Diane has come in two weeks consecutively now gushing about how wonderful she thinks Stephen Hawking is and at the end of class she played a very loud YouTube video of some of Stephen Hawking’s dreary quotes turned into an MC rap which she thought was just the coolest thing ever. I don’t think she noticed that she was quite alone. I recognise the syndrome, because there were times in China where I thought I had a video or song which was the best thing since sliced bread and my students weren’t necessarily on the same page as I was.

The post that isn't a post

This is a post to say that I've been on the Easter recess since last week and as per the Christmas holiday I'm not going to blog the Easter holiday as it occurs. See you in a couple of weeks...