Generated Love Poem

Well all A215ers who are worried about poetry like me then this is my effort using the love poem generator. where you enter key words. Better than I can do at the moment. In fact the result has made me even more concerned about writing poetry! Off to have a hysterical giggle!

My Love - Your skin glows like the strawberry, blossoms burgundy as the lily in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your saxophone voice and leaps like a cat at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great parrot wing.
I am comforted by your sock that I carry into the twilight of tablebeams and hold next to my arm.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of water.
As my navel falls from my shirt, it reminds me of your floor.
In the quiet, I listen for the last bang of the day.
My heated toe leaps to my sock.
I wait in the moonlight for your secret sky so that we may wave as one, toe to toe, in search of the magnificient blue and mystical door of love.

The Red Shoe

The A215 Conferences have settled down now so no excuse for me not getting on with actual studying rather than clearing every red flag in view. Seem to be managing a Haiku a day now so decided to get on to the poetry guidance in the Creative Writing course book. My photo of the red shoe is my starting point as the image grabs my imagination as I ask 'Who was she?' 'Did she know she was going to die the day she wore her red shoes and got on the train?' I still want poetry to rhyme. If it doesn't then it's prose?

Going to Cuba at the end of March so shall take some Hemingway to read. One of the TMA questions is about a journey so maybe I'll write it fuelled with dark rum, Havanna cigars and dancing the Salsa? If I do I shall suggest to my tutor that they take the same as it'll probably read better that way.

Cafe's Open

An exciting day and I've done nothing but hang around our new A215 Cafe. Hundreds of students finding the Cafe icon on their OU Desktops this morning and introducing themselves to each other. Brilliant!

First year OU courses are always an event but this one seems to have an edge to it. Really well organised and things happening when they are supposed to happen. Doesn't seem to be any booze around in there at the moment so if you find your way here please share mine.

Happy A215 studying to everyone.

Literary Links

A very interesting Blog linked from Topsydurvydom's Blog - thanks for this Rob, and the other links as well. Scarecow is an online forum for book reviews, literary comment and short fiction focusing on the unheard, unconventional and eccentric. You'll able to read submissions of short stories and poetry, and submit your own work if you want to. There a warning given meaning some contain strong language (csl). I haven't read any of those yet because the stories without the warning contain language that may be too strong for some.

I am doubtful that our tutors on A215 would appreciate us getting heavy with that sort of language. I enjoyed reading the stories. They were different from the norm. Scarecrow condemn the "three for two dross" offered in high street bookshops. I always buy books on offer like this at airports for my holiday reading, so now I feel bad about doing this.

Have a look and see what you think.

Thoughts

I have this uncomfortable feeling that I'm being lulled into a false sense of security with my new Creative Writing course. I sense there will be more criteria than I first imagined. OK- so it is free writing but it must have structure, originality and be readable and enjoyable. Now I'm thinking that with Social Science essays there are obvious rules to follow but the rules are sort of hidden with Creative Writing - but they are there. Simply do my best, listen well to my tutor comments and advice and follow them if I can.

I am impressed by the number of tutors on A215 that are published playrights, authors and scriptwriters. I've looked several up in Amazon and they have books for sale. One author is a current chicklit author with impressive reviews from readers and newspaper literary critics. Unfortunately, my tutor doesn't even have a Resume let alone a Blog or personal website.

I feel I may be past the chicklit stage -even though I still have a certain element of Bridget Jones in me - and considering writing about HRT and pre/post menopausal women. Maybe I could call it 'The Patch Club' Copyright Morning 2006!

Poetry Workshop

Yet another poetry link posted into the A215 Conference. I read every single poem that has been submitted and the reviews by that month's resident poet. It's the Guardian Poetry Workshop website. I was delighted to have been captured by the same lines that the writer of the month highlighted in their comments. But as for being capable of writing anything similar myself........

Sylvia Plath

Making a start on reading poetry out loud I found something quite thrilling on the web. I had been reading Sylvia Plath's poem 'Lady Lazarus' and wondering if it is the fact I know a lot about her that made the poem so moving. Would I have been as moved if it had been written by a person I knew nothing about? Then I heard this! A recording of Lady Lazarus read by Sylvia Plath.

Four Things

The writing course must have triggered me off as I can't stop doing it now! Thanks for suggesting this Nogsbad.

Four jobs you've had in your life: Serving wet fish and fish and chips as a Saturday job. I smelt really bad! A hairdresser, a restaurateur, managing property.

Four places you've lived: Balham (Yes! Gateway to the South) Bletchingley (Couldn't afford to live there now) Beaminster and now Bridport. I only live in places that begin with a 'B' so watch out Bristol, Bath and Brighton!

Four TV shows you love to watch: Strictly Come Dancing wanting James the cookie to win. Gordon Ramsey and the F-Word Surely the 'F' stands for food? Eastenders as I have plebby tastes. Later with Jools Holland (Told you Nog!)

Four places you'd rather be: In Jordan at Wadi Rum in the desert sipping Bedouin mint tea watching the sunset. At Aswan in Egypt on Elephantine Island gazing at the Nile. At an airport waiting for a flight to somewhere. Where I am now.

Four albums you can't live without: 'O' by Damien Rice. 'You Inspire Me' by Curtis Stigers. 'A Swinging Affair' by Frank Sinatra. 'Fiddler on the Roof'

Four of your favourite foods: Prawns, strawberries, avocados, fresh figs.

Four movies you could watch over and over: 'The Godfather Trilogy' 'Cape Fear' 'The Shawshank Redemption' 'Crash'

Four places you've been on holiday: Russia to find my paternal Grandfather. Poland to find my paternal Grandmother. China and the Yangstze River and the Great Wall. Egypt twice - and I shall return.

Four websites you visit daily: The Open University WeightWatchers Online BBC Radio 4 and my bank -but that's personal!

Phew! That took longer than I thought it would to do!

On Characters

As A215 hasn't begun for real yet I'm dipping into the book and having a sort of play around with some of the activities. Last night I went to sleep thinking about characters and building them up with identities and descriptions. Woke up this morning with my head full of them and began to create my first character for my notebook.

Oh dear! My first 'victim' is based on somebody I know (make note to self not to give them this Blog address) and talk about freeflowing thoughts! They'd sue me if they ever read it. I'm making sure I don't let the name slip out. Nevertheless, it's made a very funny, multi-layered person and has begun to sound like the two characters played by Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge in the Radio 4 programme 'Ladies of Letters'. Yes - it's a female 'victim'.

Just done half an hour of 'Pump' with Davina on my exercise DVD and now I want chocolate! Although I have to use three handsets to get the DVD to play - so many buttons to click and for the second day running I couldn't get the sound so had to do them to a background of Desert Island Discs. I've got the sequences for the buttons on the three handsets written on a sheet of A4 paper but still couldn't get the upbeat music to play. Morty showed me again last night and got the music to play straight away so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Coffee with my daughter and then a bit of time spent on the computer writing my character up in Word. I giggle every time I look at it but it all feels very cathartic - like they are things I would love to say to this person in real-life but wouldn't dare to. Not unless I was very drunk on a vat or two of white wine and then I'd have to apologise!

On Poetry

I bravely posted into the A215 Creative Writing conference confessing that I don't like poetry probably because as a schoolgirl I had to learn by heart and then recite 'How They Brought The Good News From Ghent to Aix' by Browning for an English exam. I was shocked when I re-read this poem for the first time for years as the words and rythm came flooding back to me - and I still hate it.

A fellow student replied, telling me that I did better than Browning himself and posted a link to an actual historic recording of Browning reading his own poem and having to keep beginning again as he'd forgotten it. This made me laugh muchly.

I moved on in the Creative Writing book to the poetry section as I need to get a grip and did the first activity. This was a timed activity of fifteen minutes and writing in lines about a photo - what happened before the photo was taken, what happened next, being a character in the photo and imagining writing a postcard to somebody based on the photo. A strange experience indeed. By the time I stopped writing I had something resembling a sort of poem! I impressed myself.

I am facing my demons?

It gets Better

My last two Open University courses have only had the OUSA Student conference for online communication. I've been very grateful for this as it has been my only point of contact with other students doing the same courses - I don't go to tutorials as they are mostly more than a two hundred miles return journey. On Saturdays? In a very busy tourist area in the South West of England? Not for me.

So A215 gets better because we have the OUSA Conference, plus an OU A215 Cafe for social chat as opposed to course related discussions, plus official online Tutor Groups led by our regional tutor. And then, we get to submit our TMAs and ECA electronically through the OU system and they are to be elelctronically returned by our tutors, marked and commented on.

A215 is completely different to anything I've studied before. It seems that everyone in the OUSA Conference is as motivated as I am. There are some very experienced writers contributing in there who already know what a Haiku is and how to compose one. Poetry in any form scares me as I don't enjoy reading it and the furthest I can go with a poem is a dodgy Limerick. Big confession here too - I don't like Shakespeare, can't stand the Brontes and prefer a bit of Julie Birchell (sp?) and Ian Rankin.

Thankfully there are options in the TMA questions so I shall carefully choose the ones that suit me the best. So far so good.

So Excited

I'm so excited now I've got all the course materials from the Open University for A215 Creative Writing. It's a brand new presentation and although the course doesn't officially start until February it's the sort of course I can get going with before I've even been allocated a tutor. I have no dreams of becoming a published writer but simply want to write better and enjoy the freedom I sense this course will give me to express myself rather than have to stick to 4000 word essays based on course readings. Heavenly! No arguing points, comparisons, evidence and as I'm always being told by my tutors to 'Stick to the script'

There is no script in creative writing. I've begun by keeping a daily journal and as soon as I've put the kettle on for tea in the morning I write down how I feel and what I think before the routine of the day kicks in and my mind gets cluttered. This is supposed to free our minds and maybe provide ideas for future writings. There is some talk of our journals being shown to tutors! I don't think so - not without some heavy editing.

I'm always excited when I begin a new OU course but this one has me salivating.