Bladdy Stoodents

I'm a student! Bloody hell!

The Young Ones. Image c/o BBC

I've been toying with the idea of doing a degree in Creative Writing for years, but it would have to be distance learning and the ones that were available didn't really grab my interest. The Open University, for example, is a mish mash of modules from their humanities box with only a couple of modules dedicated to Creative Writing. What I was after was something more like a Fine Art degree, but in writing, something focused on personal development rather than simply studying others.

In the summer, I found it.

The degree is with Falmouth University and fits my wish list like a glove. It's more like a Fine Art degree in it seems to be all about personal development and practical tasks to help you become a better writer, and not just for novel writing. It covers everything from identity and society to creative imagery, blog posting and SEO. I barely paused to take breath and applied the same day. 

It's week 5 and so far, it's really delivering. As online courses go, it's very demanding - minimum 27 hours study per week and a LOT of reading, but I've still got time to read for pleasure and write my own stuff, which is also part of the course. Win win! 

Pulp fiction

The the harsh reality of traditional publishing is this: if books don't sell, they get pulped. In the case of Buttercup, the publisher is moving distribution companies, which means the pulping decision is pushed on them a little earlier than they'd like. They sent me an email saying they were sorry that things hadn't gone better and that publishing is a bit of a gamble at the best of times, however, for the price of postage, I can have the remaining stock. Well, if nothing else, I'd have loved a full class set, or even just a group set for my low ability readers. Unfortunately, the publisher hadn't updated my email address, so the warning sat unnoticed in an old account. I only found it by chance the other day. By then, of course, it was too late.

It's not necessarily the end of the road though, as they have reverted the rights which means I could take the title somewhere else. I doubt that another publisher would consider it, but I could do it myself - I'd just need a new cover and internal layouts. That's easy enough as the artwork is based on my own illustrations. As for the series, I originally planned it as four books, three of which were written, the fourth was planned out in note form to bring the whole thing to a suitable end.

However, times move on, and right now, I'm writing a different kind of fiction. Buttercup helped to get me through a difficult time. It was fun to write and I really enjoyed the opportunity to illustrate it (which ended up more work that I realised!) but for now, the whole episode is being filed under the Downside of Traditional Publishing.