Of Lingering Lunacy May 21, 2009
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Journal , 22 commentsBlimey. That was a funny few weeks. I can reliably inform you that I just about survived my OU course. Discovering by chance that the final ECA doodah had to be submitted not tomorrow at midnight by over-excited and last-minute email but the rotten bloomin thing had to be posted and the actual words, on paper, nestled neatly in Milton Keynes ready for assassination. Hell. Utter. Hell.
But, as always, it was done. Madness, as always, took over. Yes, this blog may have been quiet but, believe me, Twitter was teasing out my tantrums. ‘If I had a live crow sellotaped to my bedside table, I’d be polishing its feathers right now,’ read one early-morning tweet. The story itself was more sensible. No mention of Paul McKenna, bongos or the philosophical fabness that “life’s like Tapas”. Erm… oh dear. At least I don’t need to hold my breath until October in the hope of a distinction. Gawd. I swear I will never write again. Not even a blog post. Ah. Bugger. Caught out again. Maybe I will write again then. Once the 9pm nod-offery has abated.
At least I can relax now. Almost. There is just the small matter of moving house next week. And Saturday’s impending joy of the Heathfield Agricultural Show which will find me, for many hours, clambering on and off a clapped out double decker bus with cups of manky instant coffee for the thronging masses. I hope they don’t want me to smile too. Multi-tasking is not something I undertake lightly. Not on a Saturday. Not now that I’m 40. Just ask the crow…
Of Residual Randomness March 26, 2009
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Journal , 20 commentsAh, yes, don’t you just love the way tumbleweeds blow across a neglected blog? Hello. I’ve been a bit quiet, haven’t I? I was going to post up a ‘normal service will resume shortly’ type thing but didn’t think anyone would believe me. Normal? What is this normal of which you speak? See? I knew what you were thinking. Or would have been thinking if I’d done it. Which I didn’t, obviously. Good, glad we cleared that up then.
So what have I been up to? Erm… writing, actually. Thinking Things. Learning Things too. Learning that I cannot think about more than one thing at a time, mainly. Having used up a large quota of my Brian’s writing department thinking about Novel 2, I found that its gear-change doodah was stuck and could not get into the right mode for a short story. Now that the story has been sent off to meet its fate, I am unable to get back into novel-writing mode. Instead, Fred Fowle the Funeral Director and his murderous urges are teasing me, unable to release me from his gruesome grip. I fear for my sanity. I used to write nice stories, cheery stuff, you know? But somehow Fred Fowle grabbed me, lured me in with his rheumy eyes, daring me to abandon him as he puffed away on ciggies soaked in embalming fluid and coveted a leading role in a Gilbert & Sullivan AmDram romp. Oh dear. I swear I am not connected to the contents of my Brian at all.
In more cheery news, when I went to the other extreme and cried over a crazy story loosely based on a memory of Rentaghost, I thought I had lost the plot, as it were. But now it is to be published in First Edition Magazine. With my name on, just like a proper person. And you will be able to read it, with your eyes. So that’s good then. Unfortunately, I also had to submit a mini-biography. At least in only 50 words, I wouldn’t make myself sound mental. Well not much. I didn’t mention red wine or rainbows. Not in 50 words. Well I might have. Oh. Bugger.
So. In a bid to make the most of this week which I’ve taken off unpaid to write, I am now going to learn to play the guitar so that I can strum in a house which I do not own but comes with its own sunset which I would, of course, catch in a butterfly net and share with you all.
But first, I’m going to have a little lie-down. Ok?
Wasting Away in Many Ways February 4, 2009
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Domestic Doings , 24 commentsThey say, don’t they, that you have to use your creativity muscles. Use it or lose it. That sort of thing. I think I’ve lost it. Hmmmm. The trouble is that, while doing this OU course, I’m so busy and behind with the learning, I don’t have time to actually write anything. While I lay in the dark at 4am this morning I considered that, if I were training to be a chef, it would be like having all the ingredients and know-how but never actually cooking anything. I could have a bit of a lick at other people’s spoons and that would be that. Tantalisingly tasty but not all that satisfying. And I still wouldn’t know if I could cook. By 5am, once I was on the twilight train of lucid streams of consciousness, I also considered that all those thoughts of spoon-snorfling had made me rather hungry.
The cupboards are bare. I did go shopping but we have had The Weather, you see, which means everyone had to engage in Serious Panic Shopping. “PANIC! PANIC!! It will snow for years; we need to buy all the food in the world! Imagine being snowed in without mushrooms! And cucumber. And other perishable foodstuffs.” Honestly, the greedy buggers had bought everything. EVERYTHING! Except squashy stuff in tins. But I’m not really a squashy-stuff-in-tins kind of girl. Today, hopefully, the world will finish melting. This is a relief as I am currently nibbling the last Dairylea triangle within a 50-mile radius. And, also, I cannot drive in the slidey-white. Nor stand up. I am so clumsy that I can fall over an ant’s eyelash, without the shame of tottering about on an ice-rink in my slippers.
But The Weather has been a pleasantly dramatic distraction from the dreariness of domestic life. I just wish I had time to write about it…
Monday Mish-Mash (very nice with sausages) December 15, 2008
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Journal , 24 commentsAs you will see from this blog post, being the clever sort you are, I have no time to write a blog post.
It’s Monday – MONDAY! Oh, my sainted aunt’s pyjamas, as that Stephen Fry would say. I don’t know why he’d say it because it’s sort of nonsense but if The Fry would say it then I’m ruddy well going to say it too. Ok?
Monday then. Not just any old Monday. This Monday. The very Monday before the Friday on which I have to have concocted and written a play. Gadzooks. And eeeeeek. And other swear words that rhyme with ruck and frolics.
And there have been Christmassy things to attend to (i.e. practicing drinking blue sherry). And I have been very busy at work doing things I do not like to do, namely Agricultural Stocktakings. I cannot count and get in a pickle and then go home and have to drink more blue sherry which makes me have terrible, terrible dreams about the extra cows chasing me up the office stairs, their horrible slobbery Jamie Oliver tongues taunting and mocking me in a way only spare cows can do.
And I can’t decide whether one of the three characters should be a medieval prankster or an irritating Bradley Walsh sort of comedian. And I have my Christmas work party on Thursday evening, the very evening, before this play must be submitted. I have sneaky and quite, some might say, sinister plans to make my four colleagues act out the play once they have had their quota of fun. I’m not sure which one to ask to grow a beard though.
So yes, there’s no time to write a blog post. I bet you’re relieved about that.
All together now… ♪♪♪ 3 crossbred heifers, 2 suckler cows and a partridge in a pear treeeeeee… ♪♪♪
Of Dastardly Dictation November 12, 2008
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University , 23 commentsAhem. Studying, as I am, play-writing (the writing of plays, for those unfamiliar with such wizardly technical terms) the lesson has turned to speech. Dialect and accents. Now, I’m finding this a bit tricky. Any characters I write with an accent sound like halfwits. And to add to the wordy woe, apparently – when speaking colloquially – we’re all tripping our tongues tightly over iambic pentameter*. Erm… I’m not. I’ve checked: I’m mostly spouting crap. Oh dear. So far, so bad. And, spending all day as I do typing words that my boss has said with his mouth, I’m quite sure he isn’t talking iambically pentameter-ish either. I wonder whether I should point this out to him? I’m sure he’d want to know about such dictatorial shortcomings. No, maybe not then.
I have, of course, tried listening to lovely bf but he is from the North and therefore unable to speak properly anyway. Hmmmmmm. The course book suggests eavesdropping adventures. But, with all the studying and obsessing about play-writing, I am looking rather scruffier than usual which, combined with my lack of stealth-like stealth, means I am quite likely to be arrested for looking suspiciously sinister. But in prison, at least, I will learn some good lingo. And I will fit in well, the lack of time also producing what lovely bf lovingly refers to as ‘prison legs’. This play-writing lark is becoming more hazardous than I could have imagined. I bet Big Willy Shakespeare never had this trouble.
But (and don’t tell anyone) I am utterly bloody hooked on the idea of dramatization. It’s never occurred to me before that it’s something I could do. And at my A363 tutorial on Saturday, as I sat huddled up with 2 strangers and the motley collection of characters we’d just invented in our Brians, we wrote a play. And laughed and laughed and laughed… I am addicted. Obsessed with teasing tiny nuances out of simple sentences. Even when I sleep, my characters are cartwheeling and clattering about in my mind.
I think this lark will make me slightly mental. (Iambic pentameter, that. Hope you noticed.) Gawd. Pass the posh characters. I feel a touch of the luvvies coming on.
* Lovely bf is insisting upon referring endlessly to pant-ometers, i.e. the measuring of knickers. I, on the ther hand, am mindful of panto-meter which could be useful in working out whether there’s room for that fully dressed horse after all.
Of Existential Excitement (and the lack thereof) November 6, 2008
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Journal , 28 commentsYoo hoo, my little pumpkin pies, here I am. Not that I’ve actually been anywhere. I had a week off work, didn’t go to Gozo or anywhere else, but spent it tippy-tapping away at my OU assignment. My writing meltdown now seems slightly less overwhelming (thanks to B for feedbacking and to everyone who left jollifying comments. Aw, you guys…) and I’m waiting to see what that crisis will be replaced with.
Actually, I don’t think I am having a writing crisis – it’s more of a life crisis. Mid-life, perhaps. Or too-much life. I don’t know. There’s always time for the things one’s passionate about but what happens when you’re passionate about everything? Of course, there are things I’m not so in love with… housework, being slightly lardy and spending 8 hours a day typing stuff about bits of grass. But sadly, it seems to be the non-hurrah bits that take up all the time. Hmmmmm.
The idea of toiling through an OU degree has been, for the past 10 years or so, to train as a primary school teacher. But I’m beginning to think that not liking children very much might make this a slightly dodgy career choice. And, yes, while I dream of earning my pennies as a writer, chances are I’m gonna have to do something lucrative too. But what could I be when I grow up? Any suggestions?
In the meantime, I’m studying dramatization. Play-writing. I will not let my stomach churn at the thought of trying to write words meant for real people to say with their mouths. And, if a real person would like to be in my unwritten play, please do let me know. There are only two criteria: you must have a beard and be proficient at cartwheels. Or knitting. Form an orderly queue, if you please…
Of Sneaky Subconsciousness October 24, 2008
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Journal , 37 commentsDeary me. And *sigh*. You get the drift. Somewhere along the way recently, I’ve fallen into a big, black hole. I didn’t see it coming at all and must assume that someone had covered it over with a leaf or something to trick me good ‘n’ proper.
It hasn’t been much fun inside the hole – in fact, the (w)hole thing has been rather crapsome. Crapulous. To the power of 67 with poo on top. *Sigh*
My writing and course oomph has not broken down so much as been machine gunned against a wall until slumped hopelessly, beyond resuscitation. I just don’t know if I’m up to the job. The forum where we post up bits of writing/assignments is full of top-notch stuff. Needless to say, there are no dripping wounds of mine up there. People’s TMAs are sitting proudly, being polished and buffed before submission next week.
Me? I still have my limping Rentaghost wotsit rumbling away. Yesterday, I could see some glimmers of light sneaking into the hole. I bailed out of yet another rehearsal with The Orchestra of the Undead, stuck my head in my books and tried to have some thoughts. I would study, be vino-free and go to bed with Alan Ayckbourn and wake up to an epiphany of the highest order.
And, I swear, despite almost being of the age now where I have to defend my old-fogey music as timeless classics that this is not something that should be in my Brian for any reason.
The hole is taunting me; the 2am epiphany that woke me with my heart thumping was this. *Sigh*
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The Will to Witter (Witlessly) October 9, 2008
Posted by Jen in : A363 Open University, Journal , 32 commentsOn this cloudless, motionless morning in East Sussex, I ask of you this, dear reader: do you perchance have a torch about your person?
I seem to have lost my words. Usually, I have too many words. They’re bursting out of me all the time, a fevered frenzy of communicative clamour. Real life seems a little unreal right now and this is feeding through to the writing I am doing for A363. I have wondered whether this slight madness has anything to do with my NHS-approved* self-medication of VodkaLemsip cocktails. When not slurping these up through a straw and alarming the neighbours with my impressive phlegm-expulsion techniques, I am writing crazy-fool stuff about Northern stand-up comedians who accidentally become vicars in tiny Spanish towns. And I have been thinking about Jesus a lot. Our Saviour. Riding up and down Heathfield High Street on a bicycle whilst wearing an orange beret. And what his mother would say about the whole thing. And I’m going to write about it and post it on the workshop forum and then regret it and have a little cry.
So. If you have seen my sensible words anywhere, do let me know as soon as possible. If not sooner. Ta very much.
* not quite true, actually
