Still life

This was an interesting exercise I never write this literally which is what made this such a challenge. The first of the Exercises is to describe something right in front of you with facts of its description and as little creative embellishment as possible. you are only allowed to say what it looks like you're not allowed to use any more senses like touch, smell or feel (no fun). Ever the rebel I had to find a way around it or its just no fun so I wrote about an object that isn’t actually there but I imagined and got my inspiration from a toy.

 Gun

Metal gun ridged slide, textured grip. Worn end and trigger black ejection port and sights standing out against the cold brushed steel. Black magazine sitting beside it golden bullets reflecting sunlight, glinting.  

This still wasn’t a lot of fun to write about and I think I got more creativity in there then I was supposed to. If I do label myself however then I would say I’m definitely a fiction writer so I’m cheered by that and I allowed myself some artistic space.

 

 Bed

Creases running across the sheets forming shapes, rippling from islands of paper. Books glossy and new others creased, like the covers, bent, worn on the edges, pages folded from interest. Colours colliding, red book against the blue chequers black watch, red hands, white papers, honey bleach bed, dark knots punctuating the wood. The abrupt moving hands of the watch the only moving thing against the back drop of still isolation.

The bed was much more fun I chose to go fairly abstract with plenty of over the top literary description. What I was supposed to achieve was again a description but I could go as bizarre and random with phrases as I wanted and unlike the first exercise I could do more than a single object so I did. 

All of the coursework I’ve done is first draft and is therefore until said otherwise pretty rubbish but this is part of my course and is viewed more as a learning experience than anything even remotely saleable. A creative writing way of saying don’t judge me.  

Free writing

The next part of the course is in free writing to loosen the writing muscles and let the words flow like a cliched river from your creative mind. Or some other conceited words like that. anyway freewriting is very

difficult to get my head around and always has been. My free writes often look like a disjointed mess of nearly related words and small bits of different stories normally ending in a longer story at the end. I think that's why free writing is so difficult because its unlike anything your trying to achieve.

What you normally want to achieve is a completed redrafted and reredrafted masterpiece. If you have a look at the inserts to the left you will see the difference. First not that the finished product boasts all the threads being linked to themselves thus completed and all the thread work together to create a whole. The free write on the other hand is literally all over the place. This is why its difficult but then if everything I ever wrote came out of my head looking finished then i would be published by now.

However difficulties aside I did my first bit of research for the Blog today. I looked up the word chakra which amused me enormously because its said that its part of the body but can't be discovered by autopsy. The other first is adding a picture, admittedly it is a rather abstract but simple picture but it still counts. I also found another amusing fact, this program has a spell check and it doesn't recognise the word Blog oh the irony I love it.





Is writing like riding a bike?

No riding a bike is physical exercise and writing is mental exercise literally speaking. However I didn't mean the question to be in a literal sense I was referring to it in the way of the much used cliche for something you never forget how to do. But again my answer is no. After almost two years of sitting on my hands and humming tunelessly to avoid things like the OCA and the countless writing competitions that have been and gone I am not finding regular writing easy. Also reading through my old notes and stories I see that what I assumed once was top notch amazing final draft actually looks more like the untidy scrawl in my writers journal. This could be one of two things one I'm finally grown to realise garbage when I see it which means I'm learning to tell the difference between first draft ideas and a finished product and the other is the stuff I'm writing now will look like hammered crap when I read it a year down the line and that all I have is an over inflated ego about the rubbish I'm writing now. I like to think I've learned a thing or two like writing this, I cleverly used an ironic cliche which unless I missed wouldn't be in there at all at the begining. Also throwing american words like garbage in just because i like the word is something that again i would have thought about in case I'm critisized by the English language police, aliens or Spetsnaz special forces operatives. As has been said writing is a dangerous game especially when the English language police, aliens and Spetsnaz special forces are so interested in literature these days. Of course why any of them would be monitering my blog posts who knows, but irrational fears are named that way for a reason.

Basket case

After my recent reinstatement as an OCA student I restarted my course and continued on my writing path. I'm not sure this was an entirely good idea bearing in mind I found out I'm insane. After doing the first exercise of logging a dream into my writers journal i discovered how crazy my life is even when I am asleep. The second part of the exercise was to choose the important phrases and list them and mine looked like this:

Minecraft roller coaster
Bus shed
Fist bump, high five, poke in the eye
Snowy rock outcrops
Jungle desert
Stabbed
Jet ski
Rock pool and water fall
How long is this stair case?

I am a basket case it's official.

senior resident?

firstly i would like to say im not going to bother with punctuation bearing in mind that it is 01:21 just after my first shift as senior resident at college. its been a good week and a bit, but it hasnt been easy. this place was so much better before the kids came back. at least the first week i stopped working at or around 17:00. wow im so tired by now but i know i wont be able to fall asleep. today started at 07:30 so i could get a shower in before breakfast. bus duty was next which is kind of like throwing scrambled egg, its a frenzied and chaotic experience. after that there wasnt much to do so i ended up doing my washing (before everybody has to do theirs). i had a little kip after lunch to help me stay awake later worked quite well considering im still up and its now 01:30. my god im hungry i might have a bowl of cereal. anyway about 18:00 came and i started my rounds feeling a bit full of myself with a radio on my hip and smiley face drawn on my arm in green marker pen (in fact i would go as far as to say i was cocky). things went smoothly for a while i made it my job to get people enthuisiatic about the party they were running at the bar, this had mixed results but i was happy. it was about two hours later that i was some what deflated. the radio had run out of battery and was charging in the office. the smiley face was covered by my coat. my feet hurt. i had a headache and the game and wildlife lads were tormenting the other student. but despite all this i still went and got the wardens instead of killing everybody with my bare hands. so i call the night a raging success, mostly because i handed out a level two displinary to one of the game lads that has been giving me hassle since he got here. anyway its now 01:39 and i should be in bed by now so im off and next time i will actually be practicing my spelling and grammer not rambling like an old man on crack cocaine. Kez out   

Old harry's game, cars and cramps

So many hours in the car, five to be exact. Car cramps developed bigtime in my knees but that will go. enjoyed five hours of old harry's game while we endured five hours of car. College tomorrow and to say I'm not at least slightly nervous would be a lie, I don't think that watching my cousins game is helping at all. No writing today at all but I have some pretty nifty idea's for some poems...

Getting started

First blog, first OCA course and not my first time at college. Lots to do today admittedly i should be packing but i seem to be more enthusiastic about it all than normal (except packing maybe). Three cheers for the OCA still being awesome even when the open university goes to pot (cliche (first writing joke on the blog)) I'm doing a level one forty point course in creative writing. poetry is more my thing but you don't know you can't swing cats in enclosed spaces until you try. Turns out swinging cats isn't that hard i got some decent marks from the OU on my previous writing course so I'm hoping for some this time round. Of course last time i had nothing better to do and i still left it to the last minute this time I'm living at college full time and working there while i do this course. Should be interesting. I'm not certain who will read this blog i think my mother will and my OCA tutor has too, for this i apologize but then maybe they can both turn my random drifting monologues into concise and entertaining ones. Another thing is how to sign off i suppose since I,m on a public service course at college i shall sign off with Kez out