Experiments.

Over the last few days I have been experimenting with Haiku. I'm not sure if the experiment is working well or not. In other words, I'm not quite sure if I am grasping the straws correctly. Here are a couple of the Haiku I have scribbled:

Day the first:

Sleek, black, prowling cat;
Graymalkin - do you come?
Magical Moll-cat.

Day the second:

LCD screen.
Giggles and shrieks of delight;
computer literate.

Day the third:

1.
Glistening white weight;
curvature of lifeless bough
magical winter.

2.
The angry sun
gold and red in cloudless skies.
Beauty - a statement.

I think I like the last two. Oh, but would number 1 work better as:

Magical winter;
dormant boughs bow beneath
glistening white snow.

Oh, maybe that one! Yeah, I think that one sounds much better. Wow, blogging helps me edit. Didn't think that'd happen!

Anxiety.

My course materials finally appeared today. Argh! I am stressing out. The onset of A215 is a reality now, not just an electronic anomaly on the hard drive. Eeps! Currently in the process of copying the audio discs to iTunes.

With the closing of A103, A215 begins. A103, however, has left its mark. Before studying the introductory humanities course I am ashamed to say I had never heard of Rachel Carson. The first essay I had to write was based around an extract of Silent Spring. I enjoyed that essay, but still I haven't got around to buying the book. Then, in the final essay, I once again used the reactions towards Silent Spring and Rachel Carson as part of my argument as to how women's actions began to change science in the 1960s. So, when Elizabeth Bear mentioned the name Rachel Carson in her blog yesterday, I had some sort of inkling as to the reference. This made me happy.

As long as I have knowledge, I will always be happy.

Bleurgh.

Didn't get anything done yesterday. My poor Principessa was very poorly.

Yesterday morning she woke up screaming "I have red in my mouth!" I thought she had had a nightmare, so I gave her a cuddle and she went back to sleep again. She woke up again complaining of the same thing, and then throughout the morning she complained intermittently about the red in her mouth. I gave her a colds and coughs pastille, and for a little while she was okay and happily went to the swing park. But when she came home she complained about a headache, had a cuddle and then went upstairs to sit with Nanny. The next thing I knew she was panic crying, and Nanny was calling that she had been sick. Oh, my poor little munchkin. Being sick frightens her so much. She was so ill all last night, but by this morning she was back to her normal demanding self. Well, not so normal. She has been very bossy this morning, making up for yesterday. Little monster! But I'd rather have her like that than the sickly Principessa. It's really weird though, as it is around this time every year she has a one day illness that always includes a puke fest. Very strange.

At the moment, she is making interesting Jackson Pollock type pictures on the computer, so I am going to read some more of the Big Red Book PDF, and do some freewriting. I am letting the clusters sleep in today.

If I had but the talent or the inkling...

This is fantastic! Batman meets Jane Austen, one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

And speaking of films, holy heck was I disappointed. I watched Be Kind, Rewind last night. Now, while the film was good, not excellent by any stretch of the imagination, I enjoyed it. I loved the use of pizza bloodsplats, and tinsel ghost tazers, but the ending was... not exactly an ending. One thing I like in a film, if it is not part of a series, is for it to have some closure. BKR had no closure. It seemed like they got to that point in the film and just said "Ah, stuff it. That'll do. It's a wrap." Pah! Such a pity, because it was a good idea.

As for the clustering. It seems to be coming along a little. The brain is slowly opening, like a Predataor's maw with lockjaw! I'm not used to thinking in spidergraphs, it almost seems forced. I'm finding it difficult to generate ideas when prompted with something that is likely to be far from the actual story subject. Hopefully, once I've worked through my skepticism, this technique will turn on some lights. At the moment it just feels wrong forcing my brain to make leaps that it wouldn't normally, it usually takes tenacious leaps of its own accord and slaps me accordingly!

Anyway. Back to it.

And so it starts...

(Pic from http://www.prog99.com/Hillwalking%20in%20Scotland/2006/Ben%20Lomond%20-%20September%202006/index.html)

The self-doubt has made a fine log cabin in my head.

With acres of untamed fields and woodland of niggling questions and mountainous arguments. Wood for the trees? That's me. And each tree feels like a whomping willow, forcibly thwacking me with branches of self-deprecation, cutting deep rivulets in already low confidence. No tyre swings or fairy godmothers in sight. The sun is shining with a darkness, lining silver clouds and locking in the goodness. The fog refuses to give up its Brochen spectres, leaving me cold and lonely, warm in the knowledge of impending failure.

Yep. I am already writing myself off. (No pun intended there.) Do they do insurance deals for confidence? You know, in the case of serious self-doubt they provide you with a hire-ego while taking yours away to massage it back into self-belief?

Argh!

What he said.

Mr McCullough has been at it again, netspeaking with that common sense type stuff when it comes to writing, or not writing for writing as the case may be. (And no, I'm not becoming an internet name-invoking stalker!)

Well, that's all. Need to get back to exploring clusters. (And no, that's not star clusters or crunch nut clusters, but wordly type clusters. So far, not having much luck finding anything interesting. Bummer! Though there was one thing... *toddles off thinking clustery thoughts*)

Intent to write weirdness.

Despite buzzing televisions, tons of washing and a demanding Principessa, I actually managed to do one of the writing exercises. Yay me! I had a go at the freewrite exercise, though I don't know if what I scribbled could be counted as a freewrite. You see, I can't write without putting in some form of punctuation, like I think in commas and apostrophes. I can't help it. But writing a freewrite, you are supposed to just write stream of consciousness stuff, so punctuation is superfluous to requirements. I just can't do it! Even if the punctuation might be a bit off - comma diarrhoea and the like - I have to put it in. Not only that, but the stuff I did write was a bit like sinister, surrealist fiction with environmental (as in noises around me) influences structuring the sentences. Anyway, enough of that. This is what I came up with (as written and unedited) for the "One summer's day" prompt:

One summer's day the world ended. Well. Not ended as such, but it stopped. Just for a split second. The washing machine trundled away on its own merry business, spinning the children like one of those rides in the fairground. They giggled and gurgled as the machine sprayed them with luke-warm water. After all, health and safety is rife now and using cold water can get you sued.

My mind piled up with all these strange, stringy thoughts. They tumbled out like so many hankies from a magician's sleeve. Red, angry thoughts. Purple, peaceful thoughts. Blue, cold revenge thoughts. But it was the yellow, summery thought that caught my attention, bouncing like tennis balls off freshly cut grass. That green, verdant smell was in my nostrils, the hazy summer sun buzzing with the intent of an angry wasp in the front of my head. Migraine, nausea and hayfever struck with one single, violent exploding jerk of my body.

Some of it I really like, but some of it seems just a bit too twisted! Eeps, I think my mind is slightly strange. And does it count as a freewrite, as that is exactly how it seeped from my brain?

And it is done.

Finished and sent off, good riddance to TMA08. I would say I hated every minute of it, but some of it I quite enjoyed writing. Saying that, I feel about 08 the same way I felt about 06, that it's a big pile of poo! As much as I want a funky high mark for it, I will be happy just to pass it.

And with the finishing of TMA08, it is also the end of A103. So what do I think I have learned? Well, I think I understand poetry now, though I will never again have the ignorance of writing poetry without thinking of the mechanics ever again. That I will miss. I've realised that I might want to pursue an English language and literature degree, rather than just the language degree. I have a new appreciation for classical music now that I can deconstruct it and mostly understand the techniques used to compose it. I was terrified of the art history sections, but once I started on them I fell into them, and enjoyed it more that I thought I would. I also now have some passing knowledge of philosophy, though I don't feel I could call myself adept at philosophising. All in all, apart from struggling a little through demotivation during the middle-ish of the course, I have enjoyed my time on A103.

I think I shall give myself the weekend to relax (and damn the weather, as I can't go and see La Machine) and play games with Principessa before starting with A215. Yay! Finally I am there!

With aptness to the new writing cause...

Okay, so I am blatantly pinching this from Kelly McCullough's post on Wyrdsmiths today, but I thought it very apt for those of us about to embark on A215.

Once more unto the book, dear friends, once more;
Now mark the page up with our English words.
In lulls there's nothing becomes a writer
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the novel call blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd ink;
Then lend the pen a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the word o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth bad metaphor
O'erhang and shadow its intended thought,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful word.
Now set the start and stretch the keyboard wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every writer
To their full plot. On, on, noblest novelist.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of literature!
Fathers that, like so many Asimovs,
Have in these parts from morn till even writ
Then sheathed their pens for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your keyboards; now attest
That those whom you took as models did beget you.
Be example now to those of grosser blood,
And teach them how to write. And you, good yeoman,
Whose pens were dipped in ink, show us here
The mettle of your writing; let us swear
That you are worth your paper; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not vital story in your heart.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for story, pen, and written word!'

If I knew Mr McCullough I would thank him for this Shakespeare distortion, as it kind of gets the blood boiling again when it comes to writing for pleasure - of a sort! (Yes, I know, I will still be writing with the aim of finishing a piece for a new set of TMAs, but at the same time other things I will write for pleasure will be better for it.)

Ooooooohhhhh

Wandering around the OU forums (or should that be fora? After all, it's of Latin origin...) this afternoon I stumbled across a post about not scaring the newbies. Interest piqued, I nervously clicked on the post. It was nothing to be scared about, just something to be anxiously excited about. So, now I am about to have a look through the course materials for A215! Yay! But still anxiously! It's a reality now, not just something that's happening in the near future, not just a whispering thought.

Dagnamit! I still have TMA08 to do before I start playing!

*Slinks off to read the religion section*

Hovering on the submit button...

(Image 'Myo - Illumination, Enlightenment' from www.theartofcalligraphy.com)

So, I am done. I am (though not exactly) happy with the essay. I just can't find the courage to hit 'Send'. I don't want my confidence dashed again before taking on the last two assignments. Hmph.

Speaking of the last two... I've got to get motivated to start some revision for TMA09. I really want that done by next weekend, just so I can concentrate fully on TMA08. I am hoping to have the course done and dusted by the submission date for TMA08. That way I can get started with some of the reading for A215. I don't know if I'm looking forward to, or actually quite daunted by, the prospect of starting the writing course. But I'm signed up to it now, so I will strive to do my best.

I might take a day out to have a go at Japanese calligraphy. My cousin got a set of brushes and an inkpad, so I've bought a book in order to have a go at it. I didn't want a pressie to go to waste! And besides, it might get me started on learning Japanese again. It's been such a long time since I've done any study for Japanese, but I'd like to get back to it at some point. Which reminds me, I'll have to get around to reading the Haruki Murakami books I bought a while back.

Dum de dum...