Personal Blogs

After a speedy and efficient response from my Tutor, there is good news and bad news. The good news is - a better than expected mark for TMA 01, with some positive criticism. The bad news is feedback that asks for more detail - detail that I left out, mostly by choice, because the 2000 word limit is even harsher than A802. The assignment was a possible opening Chapter for a novel, but the review suggested that perhaps I could have done half a Chapter. I will, of course, reconsider TMA 02, TMA 04, and my final EMA.

The course itself feels lonely. With virtually no activity in any of the forums, I don't even know how many of my Tutor Group have submitted satisfactory TMAs. To be honest, I don't know how many people are in the Tutor Group.

Most of my activity continues to be devoted to the EMA, while simultaneously looking at all the remaining TMAs. My draft TMA 02 is another opening Chapter, recently revised from half a Chapter to give it a meaningful ending. This is, of course, the opposite of what the feedback from TMA 01 suggests. The Workshop process is amazingly slow, taking six weeks this time. 

I miss being able to work on longer novels. I don't think I will ever be a writer of short stories.

Alan

It's Week Four, Chapter Three.

So far I have seen little in the Activities Forum - from me or anyone else. To be honest, the Activities seem to be a bit woolly and useless. I think Chapter 2 said, 'Look at endings - the ending of the story, chapter endings, and scene endings. You may have to work backwards from endings.' Chapter 3 says, 'Research.'

My Tutor Group is small. It may have nine or more members, as was rumoured by the Tutor. So far six (including me) have identified themselves, and two others have posted in Tutor Group Forums. Only two or three look as if they will be active. I have put my draft TMA 01 into a forum. More about that later. (It's been ready for a couple of months.)

What has surprised me is the pieces submitted into Workshop 1 for me to assess. They are partial drafts for TMA 01 but they are far from complete. For a 2000 word TMA, I have pieces of 1350, 1300 and 850 words. None of them have any plot yet. One will be Chapter 3 of a novel - very difficult to assess. I can only give provisional assessments: 'May be good when finished.'

It's unfortunate that I have to wait another ten days to get the assessments of my Workshop piece. Meanwhile, I'm working on revising it from forum comments; doing the dreaded Commentary; TMA 03; the EMA; and vaguely looking at the course materials.

I suppose I should mention the first online Tutorial, the only one with my Tutor. It was easy to do in the middle of my holiday in Portugal, and it was nice to meet the other students. But I can't say it was useful. An hour of Power Point going through the course structure and the requirements for TMA 01, all of which I read easily from the website before the course started.

Alan

The website for A803 opens tomorrow, so it's time for some more comments.

I passed A802 with a surprisingly good score, better than my average for TMAs. Assessment details have been moved and navigating the site has become impossible. I could get some feedback but I have given up trying to find how the mark was split between Creative Writing and Commentary.

I want to know how many others passed, or even how many started. Such statistics seem to be secret. 

I haven't got much further with reading - I tried and gave up some more. I've been looking at the Silo trilogy by Hugh Howey. I liked Book 1, 'Wool,' with reservations. But I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to read Book 2, which is a prequel. I found the plot summary on Wikipedia and I didn't like it at all.

I've been preparing for the writing for A803. I have almost draft versions of three 2000 word pieces, but 15000 words is difficult. I've been battling with three pieces that I can't make fit, so I'm doing another one - a slow journey to Proxima Centauri, with some intrigue before departure. I'm not convinced it's going to work.

One other moan. Forums. The Bridging forum has about 100 posts but no one understands starting new discussions. They all comment on the introductory post. Forums for A802 were just as bad, but I was hoping A803 would be better,

I have been very surprised to find two comments on earlier blogs. I wasn't notified about the comments and there doesn't seem to be a way to reply.

I will be busy from tonight, copying details of the course into my own spreadsheet diary, and printing out the full assignment details.

Alan

The second half of this course has been disappointing.

I put much more work into TMA 03 than TMA 01, and I had positive comments from the Workshop and the forums. I felt that it was much better. But the mark was considerably lower. At least I have a clear Pass mark for the combined TMA assessment. 

Some comments within the forums suggest that others are in the same situation. As a result of this, some in my Tutor Group have suggested that they will no longer go on to do A803. I don't know of any others who will sign up for it.

I am apprehensive about A803 because I think I will need to do more critical analysis of other students and modern writers. I still haven't found any modern fiction that keeps me wanting to read to the end. Perhaps my writing style does not match what others want to read. 

Of course, I also have doubts about my EMA. I wrote it six months ago and have reviewed it almost daily. The first half went into the Block 3 Workshop and the second half has gone into Workshop 4a.

I can't say that Block Four has been useful. About all it has included is the editing process, something I have done almost continuously over the last three years. I do feel that I am now a little better at  reviewing my work after this course. I am more concerned about believable characters and well-structured chapter sections. Maybe 5% of the course has been useful.

I am finding it hard to keep blogging because there is so little happening. The Tutor Group forums were down to about four people for Block Three. There has been almost no activity for Block Four.

Alan

I feel that the time has come to vent my disappointment about Block Two.

Block One was managed for those doing their Primary option. It was mostly revision of material in the BA (Creative Writing,) using the same text books as one of their sources. We were in Tutor Groups allocated by Primary option, with three special Forums for the Tutor Group:

·       A Forum for review of Activities

·       A separate Forum for TMA review

·       And even another, almost completely useless Forum just for the Tutor Group

That was for people who had chosen their Primary option and were familiar with it.

Then we came to Block Two. I thought this would be a gentler introduction, aimed at students with less knowledge and interest in their second subject. But, no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t aimed at Secondary option students. It was EXACTLY the same as Block One for those who had taken a different Primary choice.

But in Block Two, we don’t have an Activities Forum. For most of Block Two, we struggle on with Tutor Group forums that are useless. We don’t get the TMA review Forum either. And TMA 02, in the Secondary genre, will be marked by an expert in our Primary genre.

The so-called Genre Forum comes two thirds of the way through the block and is so confusing that students don’t understand it. It mixes up Primary and Secondary genres and is of uncertain use. Is it for Activities? It’s too late for half the Block. Is it for the draft TMA?

Yes, we have Workshops, Just as confusing and just as late. We are left with a Forum section; a Genre Forum – not in the Forum Section; and a Workshop – somewhere else.

What would Block One have been like with no Forums for the first few weeks and a TMA marked by someone chosen for a different Genre? That’s how Block Two has been treated.

My initial plan was to concentrate on TMA 02, and fit it what I could of Block Two. So far, I feel as if I am just waiting for Block Three.

Alan

More inactivity as I wait to get myself aligned with Block Two.

Some worries about TMA 01 as my Tutor seems not to accept the Amendment in the News about using Arial font. I think we have come to an agreement.

Here's a link for my novel coming out on 1 December.

Alan

I know it's early but I have submitted TMA 01.

I still need to decide about TMA 02, and I'm working an another version of TMA 03.

I am moving from confidence about Block 1 towards apprehension about Block 2.

I may have a day or two off.

Alan

A lot has happened in two weeks. First, some unfortunate incidents outside A802.

Nine days ago, I tripped while walking along the pavement. Entirely my fault. I was busy looking something up on my phone to make a facetious comment for a Forum entry. Flat on my face, hitting my head on the pavements, but, fortunately, no broken wrists. I won't give you the gory details. My black eye is slowly disappearing. I think I have cracked ribs, which still hurt at night, but otherwise recovery is almost complete.

That's not all. On Saturday I went to London to see friends, with my wife. She did the driving and we had a nice day, visiting a museum and seeing a brilliant performance of Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre by Tower Bridge. I won't give details of the nightmare that followed - but my wife spent two days in A & E, and neither of us slept much. She was discharged on Monday and I drove home. It was a rare complication of COVID, from which she is now fully recovered. I have a minor infection which I probably caught from her. It may be COVID.

Meanwhile, I am so glad that I have kept ahead of things with the course. I was never worried about getting behind. I will do a separate blog about the course ...

Alan

It's getting better. So far 13 out of 17 Tutor Group members have emerged. Most, but not all of them, have been involved in Week One Activities.

I'm keeping two weeks ahead and saving my queries until later. Most of them will be about Scriptwriting. Everything in the Script area seems to be about theatre plays, radio plays and television. i will want to do films, stressing some very clever special effects that I will leave to the Director - tens of thousands of alien creatures!

Being tied to weeks is going to get worse - especially the Workshops. But they don't come until Block 2.

But so far - so good.

Alan

Tomorrow it starts formally.

I've been round and round the site, through Chapters 1-3 several times.

I keep thinking that what I have written is too good for course Activities. So I pull it out of the notebook and start again. So far I have almost complete drafts for TMA 01, TMA 03 and the EMA, all just from these activities. I may change my mind later.

Much more difficult is understanding the idea of a Commentary.

I write in the way I have already written several novels. Do I have to pretend that First Person, Present Tense, starting in the middle ... are all inspired by Creative Writing textbooks with full references? They are familiar to me from experience.

The initial Introductory Forum has been very useful. So far, just over 60 people have emerged. Probably one group for Poetry, one for Film and Drama, one for Non-fiction and three or four for Fiction.  

All will be revealed tomorrow. Well, almost all ...

Worried ... No.

Apprehensive ... Yes, definitely

Alan

After ten days, I am slightly more confident finding my way round the website.

There are several places that look like Home - StudentHome, Study, Postgraduate Arts and Humanities. But the important one is the A802 Home site. It has a system of tabs that think I almost understand now - not helped by different versions on the laptop and phone.

It's like swimming through jelly but I have done a few things.

• Weeks 1 to 3 as far as I can, with bits of writing ready for assessment via the Tutor Group Forum.
• Looking at TMAs and the dozens of pages of guidelines and advice.
• A first attempt at a short story that may become TMA 01.
• Battling, unsuccessfully, with the Library facilities. 
• Trying to get Adobe Connect to work after years of using a laptop with disabled camera and microphone.

 I know that all will become clearer when Tutors are assigned. At least, I hope so ...

Alan

I want to get through my reasons for starting this course, so here's a brief review of my novel writing career.

It started with NaNoWriMo, when I wrote a short novel about life on Earth during and after the eruption of the super-volcano underneath  Yellowstone. This was heavily base on autobiography.

But my real first novel, in 2013 was Science Fiction, firmly based in Mathematics. It was about an intelligent species, looking like a cross between giant ants, spiders and Mantises. Their physiology is unlike the humans who landed on their planet, but so is their psychology. They are emotionless clones of each other. The story is about their life and the lives of a small group of interplanetary visitors from Earth. It's called Transitions and you can find it by following the link to my Author Page as Jason Fredericks, my pen-name. 

That was it until ten years later I went back to writing. In just over a year, I have written another five Science Fiction Novels, one of which is a sequel to the first book, almost completed in draft ten years ago. You can find them via the same author page. The books are all in Kindle format, available from Amazon.

I began to widen my horizons and turned to Romance in more or less the present day. For this I took on another pen-name, Stella Scarlatti, with a younger, female, Italian image. Only one so far, Parliamo Italiano. But the sequel is almost complete.

Almost up-to-date ...

Alan

Moving on to 1993, I had another opportunity to study, again funded generously by my employers.

My work has centred around what used to be called Programming Computers back in the Seventies. It became Information Systems (IS) and then Information Technology (IT) as it is now known.

So, in the Nineties, I studied Object Oriented Programming Languages, Project Management, and Intelligent Systems Analysis and Design, followed by M801, a Research project. My dissertation was entitled, 'Staff Scheduling for Maternity Services: A Practical Design and Implementation.'

In 1998, I was awarded a Master of Science degree in Computing for Commerce and Industry, to add to my two Bachelor of Arts degrees.

More to come about my writing. I still have more than a month before the course starts, but I have done some preliminary reading.

... 

Alan