A215 Guinea Pig

I submitted my ECA with plenty of time. For all the TMAs I have been writing competently. My commentaries aren’t as good as my “creative writing” but still managed to pass all. I can’t critique very well – I remember having to refer to York Notes 20 years ago for English Literature. What is “this” trying to say, why has “that” been written in a particular format? I read books, I like Terry Pratchett, science fiction and horror genres. I don’t like literary fiction. I bought one of Margaret Atwood’s books from a charity shop and couldn’t get passed the second page.

I don’t really know what I expected to get from this course. I knew I wasn’t going to be a fiction writer for a profession. I write poetry but I do not write for an audience – only me is going to read them; they are my private thoughts and feelings that I don’t want just anyone to see. Life writing, especially if based on close friends and family, can be very therapeutic. I wrote in my ECA about my father. I was going to send in a piece about my friend who committed suicide – I felt that this was so flat and could get me rather emotional.

Maybe another problem was that I can be just so lazy. I write things down, come back to them and just only change a little bit here or there. I don’t do “drafting”. I aim to write the story down properly – perfect first time. I still have a couple of stories going round my head that I can’t seem to write down – unsure which viewpoint I should tell it in. I don’t want to write anything down that is no-where near perfection. This strive for perfection has held me back before – I was afraid of making mistakes so didn’t try things, quite sad really – I could have learnt a lot.

I had meant to post more to this blog, but I wasn’t quite sure what to write. Perhaps post some of the activities or other creative writings?

TG – we had a nice group of people in the TG, though only a few took part. I was at fault in that I didn’t partake in the online tutorials which were during particular weeks and only a week in length – weeks that I was behind.  Less than half the group posted more than just a “hello” message. It’s a shame that we are spread across a wide geographical area or we could have met up. I did meet 2 others outside of dayschools. I have posted a message in my TG to see if anyone wants to meet up to celebrate end of course! Had one person interested. The Open University is a distance learning establishment – distance that some students want from other students as well.

Now that remains for me to do is await the results. I expect it would be a competent pass!  I have already bagged up the BRB and course materials. Next post to be near Christmas when results are out. Thankyou for reading.