Muted happiness.

The mintball train is chuffing again, but it’s not chuffing at full speed. It’s been about ten days now since the results were returned for the MA… While I’m happy that I passed with a grade good enough to merit a merit, I’m definitely kicking myself for not taking the time to read through the origins and development essay and simply write it better. I had the time so it’s all my own stupid fault, but I was so frazzled by the time I’d finished both essays that I only gave it a cursory glance over. Stupid, stupid me. Oh, the tortoise would be laughing his socks off at this stupid hare. Hmph.

 

Anyway. I passed! Yay! So I get to continue with the course. Good fun… Except I’m now crawling deep inside my impenetrable shell in anxious anticipation of the creative writing module. Argh! The evil cur known as the inner critic has already returned while the muse has definitely gone on a bender in the fantastical realms of the unreachable (therefore making them unwritable). Thankfully, I have the summer to massage the stress from my creativity – so out have come all of the creative writing books, writing prompts, and other ‘kickstart your brain into wondrous leaps of imagination’ paraphernalia. I must, I must, I must improve my… muse. One thing, though. I have company on this writing jaunt – Princi has also jumped onto the creative writing wagon and has joined her writing club at school. I am hoping that I can encourage her to continue with it once school breaks for summer. And I am also hoping she manages to retain her innate sense of irony (I will explain this to her one day), as she has already made me laugh with her most recent short story:

Once there was a small, little Veedramon. He was strong but not very special. He went on a short walk but thought “Why am I not special?” After he thought that, he went home and watched TV.

 

I know she won’t understand what she has done here, but it made me giggle somewhat when I read it this morning. I hope she can learn how to use this purposefully in her writing as she gets older.

 

So I’m worried about the writing. But I am looking forward to the second half of the next academic year as that’s when I’ll be studying picture books. I love, love, loved the picture book block of the OU children’s lit course, so to delve deeper here will be a joy *fingers crossed*. I can’t wait to dissect picture book codes again, to re-investigate endpapers, to draw meanings from different fonts and their associations to the images in the texts. I am planning to get completely lost in the module and try to absorb as much as I can. And I want to redeem my essay writing and rectify the embarrassment I felt when reading the feedback for these latest essays. And on that note, I’m off to give my muse a workout by doing another writing exercise.