I handed in my dissertation last Friday.
Wow, that's scary. A whole week.
And what have I done since...? Well nothing productive, it seems.
In my defence, it was my birthday on Tuesday, thus apparently giving me the excuse to be lazy for several days either side. I attended a hen party and had a meal with friends last weekend... but other than that, I've not been up to much this past week.
I've been doing a little reading, finishing off a book I read for the dissertation and reading a few others I got for my birthday. Nothing especially exciting in any of that.
I also wrote a plan for the rest of Hide and See. I figured, up to the end of my dissertation, I'm a little under halfway through the novel. I do (at the moment, anyway) want to finish it, and then edit it for several million years until it's decent enough to maybe publish one day. I say 'at the moment' because I'm sure that as soon as I get my dissertation marks back I will once more hate it and never want to see it again.
Me? A pessimist? No.... I like to think of it as being a realist.
I can't help but feel frankly terrified by the prospect of getting back my marks for the dissertation. Every single mark I've got back for the MA has been a disappointment. I know I'm looking at it from a geek/over-achiever/perfectionist point-of-view but the fact remains that I've just not looked at a mark this year and been happy with it. I really don't know where it all went so fantastically wrong and am thus dreading getting my results.
And so this is why I am resolving to get as much of Hide and See written as I can before the results are given. After writing the plan for the second half of the novel I feel quite excited by the idea of writing it. I had a vague idea before of where I wanted it to go but now that I've written out a more specific timeline I think it's got potential - at least in terms of plot. I should imagine my darling characters will still be defying me at every turn. *Sigh*
I'm starting to get that grumpiness from not having written in a while. Methinks I'll have to get down some words this weekend - in between all the dreaded job hunting. Ugh, I miss being a student already.
Friday, 30 September 2011
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Technology: How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways...
It seems a little like taunting a wild beast - going *poke poke* with a pointy stick - to write a blog moaning about technology. I expect at any moment the computer will shut down, preventing me from spreading my grievances across the interwebs. I swear it has a consciousness - why else would it bollocks up so spectacularly on the one freakin' day I need it to work?!
So much for handing in my dissertation today.
I planned to print it off this morning to hand in this afternoon. Not much of an extravagant hope, surely? It was when it comes to me and technology. The first printer never even got going and the second printer managed to print all but ONE BLOODY PAGE of the first copy of my dissertation. Then I had to drive down to Argos to buy Printer No. Three which managed to finish off copy number one... it printed copy number two... then, with 119 pages to go of copy number three it ran out of ink.
As there was no printer ink available in the entirety of Rotten Totton, my father (computer fixer extraordinaire) drove us into Southampton to buy the cartridge. It took us three different shops, but we found one.
Finally, at 3:30pm, the last sheet was printed off. It's just a shame that the Faculty Office shuts at 3:30pm. So now it'll be tomorrow morning to get it bound and submitted. Unless of course my computer decides to randomly blow up during the night, destroying all my printed copies but sparing my life just so I can feel the agony of my loss in the morning.
Don't even get me started about the internet connection. It took me two hours to get a telephone number.
Yeah, technology pisses me off.
So much for handing in my dissertation today.
I planned to print it off this morning to hand in this afternoon. Not much of an extravagant hope, surely? It was when it comes to me and technology. The first printer never even got going and the second printer managed to print all but ONE BLOODY PAGE of the first copy of my dissertation. Then I had to drive down to Argos to buy Printer No. Three which managed to finish off copy number one... it printed copy number two... then, with 119 pages to go of copy number three it ran out of ink.
As there was no printer ink available in the entirety of Rotten Totton, my father (computer fixer extraordinaire) drove us into Southampton to buy the cartridge. It took us three different shops, but we found one.
Finally, at 3:30pm, the last sheet was printed off. It's just a shame that the Faculty Office shuts at 3:30pm. So now it'll be tomorrow morning to get it bound and submitted. Unless of course my computer decides to randomly blow up during the night, destroying all my printed copies but sparing my life just so I can feel the agony of my loss in the morning.
Don't even get me started about the internet connection. It took me two hours to get a telephone number.
Yeah, technology pisses me off.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Characters, why are you doing this to me?
This time next week, I hope to have handed in my dissertation. Isn't that a scary thought?
It isn't due in until the 30th but, ever since I found out the date, I said I wanted to get it in before my birthday, the 27th. Then various things got organised for the weekend before that - birthday meal with friends, a hen party etc - and I figured I wouldn't be getting any work done over those days. So I concluded that I ought to get it done before that... which leads us to the dreaded date of the 22nd.
I've been working on the latest draft of the creative part today, going all the way through it three times in order to make various alterations. I've sent it back to my supervisor but I really don't know whether I've managed to accomplish what I aimed for.
Characterisation has been a big problem for me during this project, though I never noticed while actually writing it. It's only when I get feedback from my supervisor that I realise it's somewhat lacking. Even when I tried to talk about it in my rationale I didn't get it right!
It makes me wonder whether I've always had a problem with it or whether it's just an issue with this novel in particular. It's certainly never been mentioned to me before, so I'm leaning towards the latter. I'm hoping that the editing I've done today has helped some but I'm not feeling too confident. The fact that I didn't even spot the issues in the first place makes the problem harder to see, even when I'm looking for it.
I wrote a diary from the point of view of my main character. It's not ever going to be included in the novel but I was trying to get into her head. I found it fairly easy, in a way, her motivations and thought processes coming quite naturally. It made me feel like I knew her, that she wasn't just an empty shell for me. So why can't I show this in the novel itself?
Maybe I should have written Hide and See in the first person. The third-person-limited perspective still makes it from Rhonda's perspective, but there are times when it feels too detached.
Bit late for that now, though - and there must have been a reason why I didn't do that in the first place, even if I can't remember why now!
On the reading front, I got through Alex Bell's The Ninth Circle at the beginning of the week. It was a little bit of a struggle, not because the writing was bad - in fact, it was quite good, especially in drawing the reader into the emotion of the story - but because the subject turned out to be much heavier than I was expecting. Angels, demons, God... it all got a little much. I certainly didn't expect it from the blurb. I think I might not have chosen it if I'd known how disturbing it was going to be. Or maybe I'm just too over-sensitive when it comes to religious stuff?
Now I'm on to Ann Aguirre's Blue Diablo. I'm only about a hundred pages in but it's going well so far. I probably won't get to read much more until the weekend - I'm drowning myself in rationale-editing-gloom tomorrow - but I'm hoping it'll prove to be one of the better primary world fictions. Fingers crossed, because it feels like I've read an awful lot of drivel.
It isn't due in until the 30th but, ever since I found out the date, I said I wanted to get it in before my birthday, the 27th. Then various things got organised for the weekend before that - birthday meal with friends, a hen party etc - and I figured I wouldn't be getting any work done over those days. So I concluded that I ought to get it done before that... which leads us to the dreaded date of the 22nd.
I've been working on the latest draft of the creative part today, going all the way through it three times in order to make various alterations. I've sent it back to my supervisor but I really don't know whether I've managed to accomplish what I aimed for.
Characterisation has been a big problem for me during this project, though I never noticed while actually writing it. It's only when I get feedback from my supervisor that I realise it's somewhat lacking. Even when I tried to talk about it in my rationale I didn't get it right!
It makes me wonder whether I've always had a problem with it or whether it's just an issue with this novel in particular. It's certainly never been mentioned to me before, so I'm leaning towards the latter. I'm hoping that the editing I've done today has helped some but I'm not feeling too confident. The fact that I didn't even spot the issues in the first place makes the problem harder to see, even when I'm looking for it.
I wrote a diary from the point of view of my main character. It's not ever going to be included in the novel but I was trying to get into her head. I found it fairly easy, in a way, her motivations and thought processes coming quite naturally. It made me feel like I knew her, that she wasn't just an empty shell for me. So why can't I show this in the novel itself?
Maybe I should have written Hide and See in the first person. The third-person-limited perspective still makes it from Rhonda's perspective, but there are times when it feels too detached.
Bit late for that now, though - and there must have been a reason why I didn't do that in the first place, even if I can't remember why now!
On the reading front, I got through Alex Bell's The Ninth Circle at the beginning of the week. It was a little bit of a struggle, not because the writing was bad - in fact, it was quite good, especially in drawing the reader into the emotion of the story - but because the subject turned out to be much heavier than I was expecting. Angels, demons, God... it all got a little much. I certainly didn't expect it from the blurb. I think I might not have chosen it if I'd known how disturbing it was going to be. Or maybe I'm just too over-sensitive when it comes to religious stuff?
Now I'm on to Ann Aguirre's Blue Diablo. I'm only about a hundred pages in but it's going well so far. I probably won't get to read much more until the weekend - I'm drowning myself in rationale-editing-gloom tomorrow - but I'm hoping it'll prove to be one of the better primary world fictions. Fingers crossed, because it feels like I've read an awful lot of drivel.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Writerly meetings
I had a meeting with my dissertation supervisor today. All in all, I think it went quite well. I don't have an urge to sit in a corner and weep, so it's definitely an improvement on the last one. (Okay, this might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point)
I came away with a bit of a sore throat, though. This shows two things:
1) I did at least have some input, whether useful or otherwise, as opposed to sitting and nodding at random intervals as I think I have a habit of doing
and
2) I really am too much of a hermit if talking for less than two measly hours is enough to wear my throat out.
And said sore throat must be from the meeting, and the chat afterwards with Boz, because I engaged in surprising few obscenity-screaming sessions on the motorway on the way home. It wasn't too bad today: a couple of people even flashed to let me in. It's the small things that make me feel all warm and fuzzy about mankind. How easily pleased I am.
Anyway, back to the point (yes, there is one floating around here somewhere) - the meeting with my supervisor helped make me feel slightly more confident about the academic worth of my piece. I also now have a vague idea about how I'm going to approach the accompanying essay. Note the vague part: let's not go crazy, after all.
I'm still carrying on with the writing of the story beyond where I reached for the dissertation, though my writing splurge has slowed to more of a trickle. Oh well, at least the river hasn't dried up completely. And now I'm going to stop with the metaphor.
Chapter 26 has been started and I ought to try and finish it tonight, which will probably end up being tomorrow. I don't really have a valid reason for this prophesised laziness/incompetence, apart from the fact that my latest Lovefilm disc has been sat on my desk for too many days now and I should probably send it back fairly soon.
I've managed to finish Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. It was quite good: not fantastic but certainly not awful. I really got into the last sixty pages or so - in that must-read-it-don't-care-about-dinner kind of way - but I don't have any desire to go hunting out the sequels.
Right, time to stop waffling. Wish me luck.
I came away with a bit of a sore throat, though. This shows two things:
1) I did at least have some input, whether useful or otherwise, as opposed to sitting and nodding at random intervals as I think I have a habit of doing
and
2) I really am too much of a hermit if talking for less than two measly hours is enough to wear my throat out.
And said sore throat must be from the meeting, and the chat afterwards with Boz, because I engaged in surprising few obscenity-screaming sessions on the motorway on the way home. It wasn't too bad today: a couple of people even flashed to let me in. It's the small things that make me feel all warm and fuzzy about mankind. How easily pleased I am.
Anyway, back to the point (yes, there is one floating around here somewhere) - the meeting with my supervisor helped make me feel slightly more confident about the academic worth of my piece. I also now have a vague idea about how I'm going to approach the accompanying essay. Note the vague part: let's not go crazy, after all.
I'm still carrying on with the writing of the story beyond where I reached for the dissertation, though my writing splurge has slowed to more of a trickle. Oh well, at least the river hasn't dried up completely. And now I'm going to stop with the metaphor.
Chapter 26 has been started and I ought to try and finish it tonight, which will probably end up being tomorrow. I don't really have a valid reason for this prophesised laziness/incompetence, apart from the fact that my latest Lovefilm disc has been sat on my desk for too many days now and I should probably send it back fairly soon.
I've managed to finish Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. It was quite good: not fantastic but certainly not awful. I really got into the last sixty pages or so - in that must-read-it-don't-care-about-dinner kind of way - but I don't have any desire to go hunting out the sequels.
Right, time to stop waffling. Wish me luck.
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Chapters Galore
The writing splurge continued beyond last week's blog post, allowing me to reach the new designated end-point for the second version of my dissertation. This end-point came after rather more chapters than I'd originally intended, meaning that it's quite possible that my dissertation will be made up entirely of material written this month.
And so all the chapters I wrote back in June/July are feeling all gloomy and neglected because I'm all excited about my shiny new chapters from this past week or so. This will presumably be the state of affairs until my dissertation supervisor emails back to say 'no, I'm afraid this is all complete bollocks' (in a much politer, non-British kind of way).
Yes, shiny new chapters have been sent flying over the interwebs to my unsuspecting supervisor who will probably be unimpressed by my presenting her with almost twenty-thousand words of new material, almost completely out of the blue. Surprise! *Balloons*
Since sending off new-and-shiny dissertation chapters, I have written two more. These result from the pleasant delusion that it might actually be publishable one day.
I also took a trip into uni today to use the library. Critical research ensued, to the distant sound of some occasional but very loud burping from a different area of the library. Quite impressive, really. The burp volume, that is, not the research. My research remains less than impressive because I'm not entirely sure I'm getting the right material. My Publishing Project rationale was rather woeful and, given that it's on the same novel, I really think I ought not to use it as basis for the dissertation's essay.
Therefore, until I can get some advice from my supervisor, I shall be wading through as many texts as I can find with the word 'fantasy' in the title. Sounds like a winner to me.
On the fiction-reading front, I have for now abandoned Andrew Neiderman's boob book and started on Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. It comes highly recommended by Stephanie Meyer, but I'll try not to hold that against it. Madam Meyer does, after all, like Jane Austen, so I can't utterly condemn her taste in reading.
Two chapters in and we're doing okay. It's not quite enough to grip me but I haven't had the urge to throw it out the window. There have been several snippets of unique and quite lovely description so I'm keeping positive - though a real determination to read it might have to wait until the writing splurge fizzles out.
And so all the chapters I wrote back in June/July are feeling all gloomy and neglected because I'm all excited about my shiny new chapters from this past week or so. This will presumably be the state of affairs until my dissertation supervisor emails back to say 'no, I'm afraid this is all complete bollocks' (in a much politer, non-British kind of way).
Yes, shiny new chapters have been sent flying over the interwebs to my unsuspecting supervisor who will probably be unimpressed by my presenting her with almost twenty-thousand words of new material, almost completely out of the blue. Surprise! *Balloons*
Since sending off new-and-shiny dissertation chapters, I have written two more. These result from the pleasant delusion that it might actually be publishable one day.
I also took a trip into uni today to use the library. Critical research ensued, to the distant sound of some occasional but very loud burping from a different area of the library. Quite impressive, really. The burp volume, that is, not the research. My research remains less than impressive because I'm not entirely sure I'm getting the right material. My Publishing Project rationale was rather woeful and, given that it's on the same novel, I really think I ought not to use it as basis for the dissertation's essay.
Therefore, until I can get some advice from my supervisor, I shall be wading through as many texts as I can find with the word 'fantasy' in the title. Sounds like a winner to me.
On the fiction-reading front, I have for now abandoned Andrew Neiderman's boob book and started on Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. It comes highly recommended by Stephanie Meyer, but I'll try not to hold that against it. Madam Meyer does, after all, like Jane Austen, so I can't utterly condemn her taste in reading.
Two chapters in and we're doing okay. It's not quite enough to grip me but I haven't had the urge to throw it out the window. There have been several snippets of unique and quite lovely description so I'm keeping positive - though a real determination to read it might have to wait until the writing splurge fizzles out.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
All Aboard the Writing Train
Since my last post, I've managed to write five new chapters of Hide and See, my dissertation novel. I can't help feeling a little proud of this, regardless of whether or not the chapters are actually any good. I've managed to do something, which is more than I did the week before. Progress! Woo!
I'm finally getting into the story too. I'm having that need to write. I've missed that - the feeling of getting a sliver of conversation in your head and just having to get it down before it disappears.
This of course does have the unfortunate side-effect of being furious if someone interrupts my thought process, as my poor father can attest to after asking for some tissues while I was mid-sentence.
With only a month to go until the dissertation due I have thought that perhaps this is a little late in the day to be writing new material but I'm just not happy with a lot of the earlier chapters. I mean they're alright, but they're not good. I want to feel proud of my work, even if I can't get the grade I want. I've obviously given up on the whole wanting-a-distinction-thing - that evaporated at the end of the first semester and was difficult for little over-achiever me to get over at first.
So I'm going for (not-quite-a-)job-satisfaction. If I like it, maybe that will make me more inclined to work on it and improve it in the long run. I've certainly had a productive few days and I only hope it will last, at least until I get to the point in the story I plan to use as the end of my dissertation.
All this writing has meant that my reading for the dissertation has taken a back seat. Good news for my word count, bad news for Totton Library, who must be tired of me renewing books so often. I read another chapter and a half of Curse by Andrew 'Boobs' Neiderman, but after having to read through another needless description of nipples I gave up. I might go back to it at some point but I'm starting to think it's unlikely.
When this sudden writing splurge peters out I'll probably move on to a fresh book - hopefully one where the female characters wear bras.
I'm finally getting into the story too. I'm having that need to write. I've missed that - the feeling of getting a sliver of conversation in your head and just having to get it down before it disappears.
This of course does have the unfortunate side-effect of being furious if someone interrupts my thought process, as my poor father can attest to after asking for some tissues while I was mid-sentence.
With only a month to go until the dissertation due I have thought that perhaps this is a little late in the day to be writing new material but I'm just not happy with a lot of the earlier chapters. I mean they're alright, but they're not good. I want to feel proud of my work, even if I can't get the grade I want. I've obviously given up on the whole wanting-a-distinction-thing - that evaporated at the end of the first semester and was difficult for little over-achiever me to get over at first.
So I'm going for (not-quite-a-)job-satisfaction. If I like it, maybe that will make me more inclined to work on it and improve it in the long run. I've certainly had a productive few days and I only hope it will last, at least until I get to the point in the story I plan to use as the end of my dissertation.
All this writing has meant that my reading for the dissertation has taken a back seat. Good news for my word count, bad news for Totton Library, who must be tired of me renewing books so often. I read another chapter and a half of Curse by Andrew 'Boobs' Neiderman, but after having to read through another needless description of nipples I gave up. I might go back to it at some point but I'm starting to think it's unlikely.
When this sudden writing splurge peters out I'll probably move on to a fresh book - hopefully one where the female characters wear bras.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Aiming for better
It was on a dark and stormy night... that I finally got round to updating my blog again.
Okay, 'stormy' might be a bit of an exaggeration. Apparently we had one instance of lightning and thunder this morning but I was in the Asda car park at the time, doing my best impression of a drowned rat, and thus missed it. But it has been frickin' miserable all day. I'm hoping for a better weekend (Bournemouth Air Show! Whoop whoop!!)
As you can see, I am celebrating my first blog post since coming back from France by doing the British Thing and talking about the weather. I have also, since Sunday, been eating a ridiculous amount of marmite.
In my previous post I ranted about my reading options for the holiday. In the end I didn't take The Curse with me, which is fortunate as I didn't actually get round to finishing The Magician's Apprentice until this past Monday. This isn't to say that the book wasn't good - far from it - but it is a bit of a brick. Seven-hundred pages of brick to be exact. And I was reading for pleasure this time so there was none of that speed-reading Middlemarch-in-three-days kind of shenanigans going on.
I'm very happy that I bought The Magician's Apprentice from the nice fellow at the car boot all those months ago. I haven't been so impressed with a book in a fair while. It made me realise that all of the primary world books I read so far for my dissertation have been alright, but nothing special, and often with gaping plot holes or character inconsistencies that I've just sort of ignored.
It's difficult to get out of the workshopping mind-set, I think, especially with those novels which could do with improving. I often found myself making alternative suggestions in my head, rephrasing sentences so that they flowed better. This is all very well in a student's work but in published novels? Maybe I'm just not reading the right books. Anyone have any suggestions?
By contrast, the biggest criticism I had for Trudi Canavan was that her characters smiled 'crookedly' a little too much. Or maybe this only bothered me because it reminded me of Edward 'Twishite' Cullen?
I'm back to writing now. My first draft of the dissertation is still making me unhappy so I'm continuing on, hoping that the following chapters will be better. I've been thinking about them a lot and even had that real urge to get some dialogue down (sat on the footbridge at Ashurst train station, forcing the commuters to squeeze round me) - this, I'm choosing to believe, is a positive sign.
Okay, 'stormy' might be a bit of an exaggeration. Apparently we had one instance of lightning and thunder this morning but I was in the Asda car park at the time, doing my best impression of a drowned rat, and thus missed it. But it has been frickin' miserable all day. I'm hoping for a better weekend (Bournemouth Air Show! Whoop whoop!!)
As you can see, I am celebrating my first blog post since coming back from France by doing the British Thing and talking about the weather. I have also, since Sunday, been eating a ridiculous amount of marmite.
In my previous post I ranted about my reading options for the holiday. In the end I didn't take The Curse with me, which is fortunate as I didn't actually get round to finishing The Magician's Apprentice until this past Monday. This isn't to say that the book wasn't good - far from it - but it is a bit of a brick. Seven-hundred pages of brick to be exact. And I was reading for pleasure this time so there was none of that speed-reading Middlemarch-in-three-days kind of shenanigans going on.
I'm very happy that I bought The Magician's Apprentice from the nice fellow at the car boot all those months ago. I haven't been so impressed with a book in a fair while. It made me realise that all of the primary world books I read so far for my dissertation have been alright, but nothing special, and often with gaping plot holes or character inconsistencies that I've just sort of ignored.
It's difficult to get out of the workshopping mind-set, I think, especially with those novels which could do with improving. I often found myself making alternative suggestions in my head, rephrasing sentences so that they flowed better. This is all very well in a student's work but in published novels? Maybe I'm just not reading the right books. Anyone have any suggestions?
By contrast, the biggest criticism I had for Trudi Canavan was that her characters smiled 'crookedly' a little too much. Or maybe this only bothered me because it reminded me of Edward 'Twishite' Cullen?
I'm back to writing now. My first draft of the dissertation is still making me unhappy so I'm continuing on, hoping that the following chapters will be better. I've been thinking about them a lot and even had that real urge to get some dialogue down (sat on the footbridge at Ashurst train station, forcing the commuters to squeeze round me) - this, I'm choosing to believe, is a positive sign.
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