Creative writing tutor talking about the summative assignment “this isn’t about handing in something you wrote last year”
*side-eyes-self*
“I’m sure nobody would do that”
Oops should I? Shouldn’t I? Or I suppose the real question – will I get caught?
Why is it so hard to get started on tasks? Like I waste so much time doing nothing, thinking I need to get on with something /headdesk
Also I’ve become slightly obsessed with my rubix cube…
why self?
Hehe 🙂
This most recent gifset on my dash is from the Season 7 episode Heroes from Stargate SG-1. The guest star is the documentary filmmaker. When I first watched this episode back in 2014, I don’t believe I’d seen him in anything else.
Subsequently I watched Leverage and I don’t believe I connected him with Victor Dubenich, so the actor was just Dubenich in my mind
and then I watched Warehouse 13 – and of course he’s Artie.
So now I’m just sitting here sniggering like a five-year-old because some part of my brain thinks this is funny and I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s because one of my things when watching stuff is ‘name that guest star’ – I’m not good at remembering actors names but I can list what else I’ve seen them in. Which for a fan of Canadian sci-fi is pretty much every other actor sometimes heh.
So yeah Artie, Dubenich, now Stargate documentary man – cool 🙂
#what even is my brain
Excuse me while I have a minor tantrum.
I did a foundation year pre-degree because they weren’t certain I could hack it at degree level without some preparation. I hadn’t done English at A level (and that was too long ago to count anyway). They said it would “put me on par with my fellow students” etc.
So I paid attention. I already knew how to write an essay but I dutifully made sure to use their designated referencing style, and I formatted it how they liked etc. Not all my essays were good, some were, but a couple did bomb a little as I missed the point of the question BUT the mechanics were solid.
PLEASE TELL ME WHY THE ESSAYS ARE COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT THIS YEAR??????
Reference style – changed.
Formatting – changed.
^^ this I could deal with without the minor tantrum BUT they are also completely different forms of essay. Last year we did research ones. This year I was panicking like crazy because I couldn’t work out what I was supposed to research only to learn it’s textual analysis – reference the text itself and no research required outside of it – aka totally different methodology and not anything I have ever done before.
They said I had to do a foundation as otherwise it would be like throwing me in at the deep end.
I’m thinking they just wanted another 9 thousand pounds out of me. As if they cared at all about throwing us in at the deep end, they would have covered these utterly different essay structures last year.
Not happy! Gah!
#genuinely pissed off to be honest#I mean with the amount of student loan debt I’m carrying an extra year really makes no difference but still I feel scammed#they should have covered this last year as otherwise what was the point in last year? please somebody tell me
“Measure your worth by the dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic.
Heya everyone
It’s Day Twelve, so coming up on the end of week two and the mid-point of NaNo madness, and I figured now was as good a time as any for me to pontificate on the magic of NaNo.
What NaNo is is that magical time of year where we get to be proud of being writers, we get to immerse ourselves in a supportive community and be part of something bigger. I don’t know about you but I just love how it promotes the written word and helps people fall in love with storytelling.
What NaNo isn’t is a stick to beat yourself with. Pulling out my trusty copy of No Plot? No Problem! Chris Baty says that the 50,000 word target is arbitrary. He picked up the shortest book on his shelf, thumbed through it and guesstimated. The 50k has merit, it’s long enough to be a challenge, short enough not to be intimidating but it’s a guideline only.
NaNo is a self-challenge, it is a fantastic tool, one which can walk with you no matter what stage of the journey you are on. At this point of the month we all have different word counts, and it’s possible that you aren’t where you want to be. There’s still over half the challenge to go and that’s kinda my point – the journey isn’t over yet!
“There’s always another chance, there’s always another trick, there’s always something more to learn.” – Flynn Carsen, The Librarians
If you are on pace – fantastic! If you are steaming on ahead – brilliant! If you are a little behind – don’t worry! NaNo is a self-challenge and what matters most is that you don’t give up. If you reach 50k early then go for the stars and write more. If you aren’t going to reach the 50k then keep writing anyway. No matter what you are going to end the month with more words than you started with. You will have faced the dragon of resistance and you will have won.
#had to work a Librarians quote in there somewhere it makes me happy#wrote this for my region and figured might as well share with my friends
“Do you have the grappler?”
“That’s not standard warehouse equipment.”
“It was in 1890”
Can I just say how much I LOVE that Myka is using HG’s grappler 🙂
“You can owe me one”
Putting together one of the Lego 3-1 sets, the surf RV/coastguard hut + dune buggy/sport roadster one. Made this:
I thought that the selling point for these was you could make 3 things out of the same set of bricks. Look how many I have left!!
I’m going to see if I can make something extra myself…
Ok I don’t know what it is. Maybe a catamaran boat type thing? Anyway I have a lot less pieces left:
Honestly *roll eyes* use more pieces Lego! It’s like half a job.
Anyway 🙂 not what I was supposed to do today but it has cheered me up no end. My mood is 100x improved from this morning and this wasn’t even a set I wanted! I just really needed to build something.
I decided yesterday that today would be a day for writing but I had a really bad nightmare and kinda just want a duvet day to banish the world instead.
Seriously I’ve been awake 3 hours and I’m still freaked out.
Just watched the season 3 episode Past Imperfect of Warehouse 13.
Now I know the Sam stuff was there from the very beginning in season one. It always made me uncomfortable, calling Myka bunny? I mean come on just no. But this episode – the flashbacks – could she have been anymore breathless airhead?
You know I finally get the frustration when it feels like the TV people just threw a guy in there like a “this is fine” sort of frantic rearguard action to cover the gay. I’ve never really felt that before.
If they had made Sam less objectionable then I would be more accepting but it makes me cringe everytime. I think that’s the problem. I can’t buy the relationship as it makes Myka OOC, therefore it doesn’t seem real.
In other news I really wish they would give Jinks more stuff to do. He’s kinda just there and hasn’t made an impact which is a shame (he’s Johnny on Killjoys). Him role playing at the re-enactment was good, let him have fun.
Spent the bulk of the day on uni work, doing all the prep for my Reading Texts module on Monday. I was determined to do some writing though because *drum roll* yup it’s that 4thewords thing. There’s a streak element – 444 words a day – and I want to do it!
Having blown a few cobwebs away with fanfic yesterday I decided to dust off my original novel that has been lingering for two years. I finished off a scene that had been laying unfinished since the beginning of the year but didn’t do anything else. It was painful and it took me an hour to get started because with every fiber of my being I wanted to run away.
It’s a WIP, it’s a third in a series, I’m very invested in it and consequently I’m utterly choked by fear. Pulling teeth is an understatement. I kept repeating like a litany to myself that it’s a first draft, that I just have to finish it so I have a complete draft to work with for revision – that this isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning. It’s still damn hard though. There’s so much baggage with this book; so much hope, so much failure, so much need.
Rather than make my catchup total lower, I’ve increased it by failing to reach the daily target but /shrug some days are like that. I wrote something, I broke the ice, and I’m plodding along. There’s a quote pinned to my wall which I think is appropriate here:
“Measure your worth by the dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
I really want my 50k because I’ve been doing this NaNo thing a decade and somewhere along the way my sense of identity got wrapped up in it. It’s important to me but at the end of the day it’s the stories which matter most. I might not get them written as fast as I’d like, and I may never be satisfied with the end result, but I will still get them done.
This isn’t a joyride. It’s the rest of my life. I’m in this writing business for the long haul, wherever the journey takes me.
Words written: 736
Total count: 5,841