The Silent Blog

Yes my blog has been silent.

No particular reason. Or perhaps many not-very-good-excuses reasons. It's been both reassuring and unsettling getting back into regular domesticity since the Scotland trip. Routines, more routines and falling behind routines. Ferrying kids hither and thither. Picking over fluff on sofas. You know, same old same old.

I've started my Diploma Course in 'Creative writing' (God how I hate that phrase!). The weekly sessions are intense; the workload is - er - heavy. We're not talking essays and the like, more, well I suppose it's more that there are high expectations. I am surrounded by people who I assume (and have some evidence that they) are good, experienced writers, which ups the pressure. We are expected to read widely, understand fully, and write weekly.

This is the second week we've been expected to write a short story within certain parameters in a week. Finding the headspace, let alone the writing space, is a challenge. If words don't come when they are supposed to, no matter how hard you try and make them, how are you meant to write something to a deadline? It's not writers' block, it's simply a blank page.

Added to dealines there is the problem of understanding. This is only an introduction, but already we are onto theories of narratology and other adventures into Big Word land... It feels like I'm doing an English Literature degree as well as a creative writing course. My head hurts.

The tutor says 'I'll illustrate this with an example that you will all know, Pride and Prejudice.' I look around at the class and I wonder, am I the only person who has never read this book?