Skip to main content

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! 



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Writing on a Chromebook

I've been playing with a budget Chromebook for the past few months and have to say, a Chromebook is a pretty good choice for writing. I'm using an Acer CB314-1H which cost me a whopping £79 (thanks to a £100 cashback deal). It has a bright, crystal clear FHD screen, a fantastic keyboard (much better than my HP laptop) and it is super lightweight. As far as the keyboard goes, on first impressions, it seems that the keyboard has no delete key or CAPS lock, but both are available with help from the ALT key. It also seems that there is no way to turn the Trackpad off. This takes about ten seconds on Google to enable debug shortcuts, but to be honest, even with the option available, I rarely use. I catch my laptop trackpad all of the time, but hardly ever on the Chromebook. The next thing to consider is software. There's Google docs. You can waste time searching the internet for alternatives, but this means enabling Linux and playing about and it's really not worth it. I man...

Rock Music, Stage Diving and a Fire Crew - It's the Clash Launch Party

Thursday 3rd March was one of the craziest nights of my life. Rather than launch the book in a shop or library, I booked a theatre and got local teen rock band, Hell's Marauders , to play. There were a few surprises during the night. The first was the cake Paula had made, with the full clash cover printed on the icing. The second was the fire engine in the car park.The third was being dragged up on stage to sing Anarchy in the UK with the band. I think I might be the first author to do a stage dive at a launch party. The fire crew were there thanks to Nev. Nev gave me some help on a few technical details in the novel. He was on call on Thursday night but wanted to come along, so he turned up in a fire engine with the whole crew. Catnip editor Non Pratt got up to do a truly wonderful introduction, then I jumped up, grabbed the mike and screamed out, "HELLO FATFIELD!" - proper rockstar style! I calmed down enough to do a short talk about YA fiction and a read...

New Romcom out on submission

The End? That's the easy bit. Finished. My manuscript is complete and ready to go.  But it's not the Folk Horror I planned back in January. Quick recap: at the start of the year, I had a plan to write a Folk Horror in January, polish it in Feb and submit in March.  That didn't happen. So what went wrong? I think part of the problem is that I had an idea for a Romcom bouncing around at the same time. The idea was sparked by a short story I wrote about a year go. It was only 300 words, but there was something about the voice of the narrator that I liked. Sometimes, if you find the right voice, the words just flow.  I did try putting that same voice into the Folk Horror. The results were hilarious, but in a really terrible way. And so, despite having a full plan for the Folk Horror, I kept coming back to the silly stuff. And it really is silly. A guy comes up, all geared up to propose, only to find his girlfriend holding a pair of lace knickers found hidden behind the headbo...