Personal Blogs

It's hard to think of anything positive to say about Block Two of A802, MA Creative Writing. It's the only Block using our Secondary Option.

The arrangements for review and comment are almost non-existent. I can post Activities in my Tutor Group forum, but I don't think any others in my group are doing Film Scripts as a Secondary option. The Workshop, which won't take affect until after Christmas will allow some comment from others doing Scripts as Secondary option. There is no guarantee that those in my Workshop will be doing Films. And the Genre forums don't open until next year. I have no contact with people doing Films as their Primary option.

The TMA Review Forum is still there but will be useless in a group with no one else doing Films.

My aim is to concentrate on TMA 02, which I have already posted into the Workshop. [[But why am I not allowed to post the full TMA? It's limited to about 2/3 of it,]]

I can't see any point on the rest of the block, which is going over things like Character and Setting again - but concentrating on Drama. (Not Films!)

Meanwhile I have a mark for TMA 01, about what I expected. The feedback comments tell me to put in more of the things I deliberately left out - because I can't squeeze everything into 2500 words. 

I have written my fourth version of TMA 03 draft and may put that into a Block Two workshop.

Alan

A quiet mixed week, as I suddenly find myself nearer to 90 than 65.

It's Week 6 officially, but Week 7 is the concluding week of Block One, with Week 8 allocated to TMA 01.

I've been doing several things, including looking at the start of Block Two. 

I decided a few days ago that there is nothing in my latest novel worth keeping for this course. So I have finished it, doing all the complicated checks. 'Fatal Accident,' by Stella Scarlatti, my Romance pen-name, is available on Kindle from 1 December.

Mostly, I have been working on the draft for TMA 02, which will be my first Screenplay. It will be an interplanetary Science Fiction story. I have several queries about the process:

• How different can I make my Aliens on a different planet, without straying into Animation?
• How much do I have to leave to the Director?
• Do the descriptions of my Alien species go into the Cast List at the beginning, or when they appear in the script?
• Should scenes be labelled and/or numbered?
• Can I use Voiceover or Subtitles for Alien speech?
• How do I convince the Tutor about running time? Can I time each scene?

This is the scariest part of the course. The TMAs are becoming serious. I can only see this course as having two strands.

Reading the course with its associating readings; doing the Activities; posting on Forums. This is useful learning but, in all honesty it can be considered as optional.

Doing the TMAs (including the EMA) is the important part because it's how we get assessed.

I have been working on all four assignments, from before the official start. I had TMA 01, TMA 03 and the EMA more or less done in draft, with TMA 02 half done. This is how I feel now.

• TMA 01 - I am happy with what I have written. I have converted it to the appropriate format and done the Commentary and Bibliography. I have posted the Creative writing part on to the Tutor Group for this. So far no feedback.
• TMA 02 - This is a real problem. I'm doing Screenwriting (Films). I want to do Science Fiction. It has to be stand alone. I did have some ideas but they have been rejected as Animation, which is not allowed. I have to rethink everything. I am going to concentrate on this next.
• TMA 03 - I have a draft but I am starting to doubt how good it is. It's Chapter 1 of a novel where all the excitement comes from Chapter 2. I am thinking about completely rewriting, but will use my current draft if I can't think of anything else..
• EMA - I'm very happy with my draft but I have nothing significant yet for the Commentary.

Alan

I think I have a good Tutor Group. Still three have not even said hello and two more have not contributed to the Activities.

But at least half of the Group are almost through Week 2. The Activities have been useful.

I keep writing on the side. Already I have draft versions of what may be two TMAs and the EMA, and I'm working on a longer story, Scriptwriting will be more of a problem. I still need to do a lot of work on possibilities for TMA 2.

I am desperately trying not to get too far ahead because it won't work with this course. I'm also trying to get into the habit of taking Saturday and Sunday off.

Alan

The course has officially started ... slowly.

After 24 hours, nine people have identified themselves as students. I'm expecting another four or five. Most of them didn't announce themselves in the Introductory Forum. So there must be a lot more than 70 students on the course.

Some first impressions. I know I shouldn't generalize ...

• I am outnumbered by women. Not a surprise.
• Most are nearer to retirement than school age.
• Most are just as unqualified in Creative Writing as I am. But some are not.
• As far as I can see, Non-fiction is as popular as Scriptwriting, but most have not volunteered this information. No evidence of Poetry. I'm assuming that arrangements in Block 2 will be different.
• I'm slightly apprehensive that other students read modern romance and crime. Not the Science Fiction that will drive most my comments.

I have started the first Activity. I'm ready with another five but I am suppressing my urge to move quickly.

Good so far.

Alan

I feel that I ought to celebrate this event. But it has not been overwhelmingly exciting. Since the website opened, I have been looking forward to finding out about my Tutor.

Now, I have the name of my Tutor, but I realise that this is not he event that I was anticipating. i was looking forward to finding about others in my Tutor Group; accessing the Tutor Group Forum; and finding out details of Tutorial dates. For all of these I will have to wait until 5 October, the official course starting date.

I have reinforced one of the most important things that I have learned so far about this course. It is going to be tied closely to the week-by-week calendar. i won't be able to do everything two or three weeks in advance. 

I am also happier, after re-doing the activities of weeks one to three, with the course structure. I have found it much easier to write about topics that come just from a small prompt. And I am more confident about writing short stories  rather than novels. i wouldn't say that all my apprehension has gone. I am already thinking about problems I will find in TMA 02, which will be Screenwriting, my secondary topic.

I am almost resigned to doing nothing for ten days - until the official start date.

But I keep hearing Tess and Claudia, ' Keeeeeeeeep Writing.'

Alan

I have been putting this off because it's going to be very negative.

I was seriously considering the Open University Creative Writing course and the FutureLearn course was advised as preparatory work. So I paid £100 and did the course.

I learned a few things and felt a bit more confident. But it's not really a proper course. The only assessment comes from other students and the general standard was abysmal. There is only one significant assignment near the end of the course. It's a single piece of writing, severely hampered by a very low word limit. But there is no assessment other than other students being able to comment.

I could have passed the course, with a nice Certificate of Completion, just by saying that I had done everything. But I submitted an assignment, modified from a tiny part of one of my novels.

Most of my comments come from assessments of this final assignment, and also from general chat coming from students along the way.

• Possible as many as hundreds of people started the course. Most seemed to drop pout after week 1
• Significant numbers either spoke in foreign languages or very poor English
• Over several months, only 24 submitted a final assignment
• Most of these couldn't write good English sentences. Probably half of them were not native English speakers. Others had no idea of paragraphs or creative writing
• I think only four produced an assignment with any potential. Everone else was wasting their time
• Only four continued as far as commenting on my assignment. Their main criticisms were about problems I had in cutting down the word count 

When I say that my Creative Writing is better than the others, i am not claiming to be good. But most others on the course were much, much worse.

I am hoping for more professional feedback from A802

Alan

Pleased to announce that my course entry has been confirmed. More about this later.

I am not sure what started my creative writing journey. I was always interested in writing and the English language. Most of my final years at work were very technical writing, about IT Security. I retired at the end of 2006 and wrote a blog about cruising round the world, mostly in pictures.

2011. Another cruise. Another blog.

Then another proper full blog. This time it was about growing up in the Fifties and Sixties. This took a couple of years, With over 100 entries it was my first 200 000 words of proper writing. I still get hundreds of visitors every month. You can find it at: 

https://alan001946.wordpress.com/

After that I did three more blog series. The last one had 365 entries, one for every day, each one describing a species of life found in the UK - plants, insects, mammals, fungi and others - some native, some introduced or cultivated. Here it is:

https://speciesofbritain.wordpress.com/

I love writing. I do it a lot. More to come ...

Alan

I started learning with the Open University when it was in its infancy. That's why my OU number starts with C. It was in its third year. There was no Internet, and there were no mobile phones. Distance learning meant a course workbook through the post and watching programmes on BBC2 . TMAs were done on a typewriter, with carbon paper, and sent in by post!

It was before the complicated Degree structure we now see. Almost all the students just took an unspecified BA. It may have been the only option.

I started a few years after starting work and I was lucky to have en employer who paid for my fees. But student finance was simpler in those days. There were no student loans. Most University students were given grants to pay for their living expenses. The grants also covered University fees. (When I took my BA in Mathematics at Cambridge in 1969 I didn't know anything about fees. The grant just paid them.)

So my first OU Degree, from 1973 to 1981, was very mixed, starting with D100: Understanding Society. I did courses on Psychology; Language; Soviet Government (The USSR still existed then;) Space and Time; And Music.

Why did I do it? because I always want to keep learning. In the words of Rudyard Kipling, "I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who."

Alan